separation, a land which the Lord would show him. He obeyed the call,
and this typifies conversion. He went out not knowing whither he went,
but only knowing that the Lord was leading him. At his first move, he
was accompanied by his father. And he came out of his native land, it
is true, but not yet into the promised land. "He came to Haran and
dwelt there," or to give the record in full, "And Terah took Abraham,
his son, and Lot, the son of Haran, his son's son, and Sarai, his
daughter-in-law, his son Abram's wife, and they went forth with them
from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan; and they came
unto Haran and dwelt there."

Continuing the account in his dying oration, the martyr Stephen says,
"And from thence when his father was dead, he removed him into this
land, wherein ye now dwell," but in Genesis the statement is, "And
Abram took Sarai, his wife, and Lot, his brother's son, and all their
substance that they had gathered, and the souls that they had gotten in
Haran, and they went forth to go into the land of Canaan, and into the
land of Canaan they came." The last tie of nature was sundered when the
old man died, and then Abram took the second step, which brought him
into the promised land. There are two distinct stages in his experience
before he reached the place, which God designed him to occupy. And
these we may as well regard as typical, if nothing more, of the first
experience under the gospel--that of regeneration--and of the second
experience as well, which is entire sanctification.

In the history of Abraham, a very beautiful and mysterious episode
occurs, and that is the story of his transient but highly important
meeting with Melchizedek, after his successful expedition against the
kings, who had despoiled Sodom and carried away his nephew, Lot. The
sacred narrative is as follows, viz.: "And Melchizedek, king of Salem,