X. NAME GENERAL.

WE read of Joseph (when advanced in the court of Pharaoh), that he called his eldest son, Gen. xli. 51, Manasseh; for God, said he, hath made me forget all my toil, and my father’s house.

Forget his father’s house! the more unnatural and undutiful son he (may some say) for his ungodly oblivion.

O no! Joseph never historically forgot his father’s house, nor lost the affection he hare thereunto, only he forgot it both to the sad and to the vindictive part of his memory; he kept no grudge against his brethren for their cruel usage of him.

If God should be pleased to settle a general peace betwixt all parties in our land, let us all name our next-born child (it will fit both sexes) Manasseh. That is, forgetting; let us forget all our plunderings, sequestrations, injuries offered unto us, or suffered by us; the best oil is said to have no taste, that is, no tang. Though we carry a simple and single remembrance of our losses unto the grave, it being impossible to do otherwise, (except we rase the faculty of memory, root and branch, out of our mind,) yet let us not keep any record of them with the least reflection of revenge.