LIT3RARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. GIF^T OK Mrs. SARAH P. WALSWORTH. Received October, 1894. Accessions M>J- Class No. THE YOUNG MAI ADYISED: OB, ILLUSTRATIONS AND CONFIRMATION* OF SOME OF THE CHIEF HISTORICAL FACTS OF THE BIBLE. BY E. O. HAVEN, D. D., PROFESSOR OF HISTORY AND ENGLISH LITERATURE IN THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN. tJlTIVBESITT PUBLISHED BY CARLTOJST & PHILLIPS, 200 MULBERRY-STREET. 1855. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1865, BY CARLTON & PHIELIPS, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Southern District of New-York. [UFI7BKSITT] EVERY age demands its own books every age of the world, every age of an individual man. This book was written for the present age of the world, and for the young. There are old treat- ises on the Bible without number, of every class, profound and light, dull and even witty; but very many of them, from the style both of lan- guage and of thought, are not exactly fitted' to the present time, and therefore are found chiefly, periodically dusted, in the libraries of antiquari- ans and of theologians, who, for personal con- viction, do not need them. There is an age of curiosity in man, an age of independence and buoyancy, when, in the case of the religiously-educated, traditional faith is weakened, even the good example of a pious parent is feeble, and childhood's habits of devo- 4 PBEFAOB. tion loosen their grasp ; and in the case of those who unfortunately have not received an early religious training, there is an increased disincli- nation to admit the restraints of a sound faith in the Bible. Now if, just at that time, a youth is plied with all the dangerous arts of scepticism, if he finds in books and newspapers, and hears in lectures and conversation, a thousand aslant and insinu- ating sneers against the creed of the Christian, he occupies perhaps the most perilous position in the whole of life's pathway: he is near a crisis a few months may decide his temporal and eternal destiny. Happy is he, if then some kind and judicious and strong friend stands ready to offer the coun- sels of maturity, sweetened and tempered by sympathy ! Happy he, if a book falls in his way that shall give a right direction to the thoughts of his heart ! Now precisely such is the condition, such the demands of the young in these our times. It is for such that this book is now committed to the press. Will any young reader, who, perchance, has read thus far, not yet throw aside the volume, but " see the preface through ?" PREFACE. 5 The book consists of successive chapters, in which the greatest leading facts of the Bible are presented and confirmed by other evidence, historical and philosophical, with a design to show the superhuman, the divine origin of what we call "The Word of God." Not all the facts are thus treated, otherwise this book would have been a huge quarto, or folio, or series of folios, and of course had proportionately few readers ; for, with few exceptions, it is a fact that the larger the book the fewer the readers. The writer has tried to practice the art of stopping when he has finished, and of leaving something to be said, and more to be thought, by posterity. One of his greatest difficulties has been, to make the book small enough. The reader will find here no unfair and inten- tionally sophistical method of reasoning. It is an old maxim, "All is fair in war ;" and many Christian authors even seem to write on the principle that " the end justifies the means," and do not hesitate to advance what is feeble and irrelevant and false to sustain a true position. If some writers do not act on this principle, they certainly are incapable of distinguishing between what is feeble and what is strong; what is true as evidence, and what is false. 6 PEEFACE. In this book you will find nothing which the author does not himself believe ; and every fact stated, and every quotation made, and every au- thority referred to, is, according to the author's best information, strictly correct. The chapter upon Creation does not afford a fair specimen of the book, because, except in reference to the mere act of creation, the subject does not admit of the kind of evidence which it is the object of the book to adduce. With this salutation, the book is before you. If you choose to admit it to your home, your parlour, or study, or work-shop, or family circle, remember it comes not as a principal, but an agent; its sole business is to recommend an- other, even the Book of books. Perhaps it has blunt honesty, and energy, and persuasiveness enough about it, if you treat it respectfully, to increase your reverence for its Master, the Bible; if so, certainly the author will have nothing to regret, and the reader no complaint to make. CHAPTER I. THE CREATION OF THE WORLD AS DESCRIBED BY MOSES. Much Dogmatism displayed upon this Subject Has there been a Creation Opinion of the Greeks Of the Earlier Philosophers Impossible to prove either the Negative or Affirmative Com- mon Arguments on both Sides Abundant Evidence that Man was created Proof of his Late Origin The Order of Creation In this Book we receive no Theory Views of Modern Geologists Views of their Opposers The Mosaic Account Artless, and Truthful, and Credible Its Reception must depend upon the other Scriptures Page 13 CHAPTER II. THE DELUGE. Probable Population of the World at this Time Fancy Pictures No Evidence that Antediluvian Families were larger than Post- diluvian Reasons to believe that the Population was small The Extent of the Deluge Fancy Pictures again God never exhibits Superfluous Power Strictly Universal Deluge not necessary Scripture Statements Why Animals were taken into the Ark Local Deluges not uncommon, but why this mi- raculous Evidence of this great Event apart from the Bible Assyrians Persians Hindoos Chinese Egyptians Greeks South Sea Islanders North American Indians Heathen Wor- ship bears Commemorations of it The Ark Triads of Gods re- ferring to Sons of Noah Evidence of Bible cumulative Curious Evidence that Man originated where the Ark is said to have rested No Objection to strict Universality of Deluge, if any choosit 31 CONTENTS. CHAPTER HI. EAELT TRADITIONS CONFIRMATORY OF THE FIRST CHAP- TERS OF GENESIS. Traditions founded upon Truth Assyrians Sanchoniathon Be- rosus Jatnblichus Views of Early Egyptians Institutes of Menu Other Traditions Page 54 CHAPTER IV. THE TOWER OF BABEL, AND THE CONFUSION OF TONGUES. Indistinctness of Ancient History The most Valuable Facts only related in the Earliest History Building of Babel the only Event recorded for a Thousand Years Were all Men engaged in it. Why it was a Crime How it was defeated Confirmatory Evi- dence of the Fact Ancient Writers The Temple Birs Nimroud still standing Explanation of Confusion of Tongues 61 CHAPTER V. . THE COMMON ORIGIN OF MAN. The Doctrine of the Bible Foundation of Opposition to it Con- firmations Some Variety presupposed Actual Differences su- perficial, not radical In Essential Features all Races identical Present Variety may be accounted for Instances of Late Varieties Different Species cannot permanently unite Argu- ments drawn from Mind Government Agriculture Lan- guage Religion Practical Bearings of the Subject 70 CHAPTER VI. THE CALL OF ABRAHAM. Condition of the World without Revelation Instincts demand it Failure of Infidel Schemes to benefit Man First Universal Re- formersVoltaire's Picture of the World The Watch without a Mainspring Antecedent Probability of the Bible How it should be examined Man incompetent to criticise it Designs CONTENTS. 9 of God developed by Time Nothing Trivial in the Bible Occasion of the Call of Abraham His Character Traditional Evidence Page 97 CHAPTER VII. THE DESTRUCTION OF SODOM AND GOMORRAH. Character of the Inhabitants Their Doom Date of this Event Geological Confirmations Probable Nature of the Phenomenon Exploration by Captain Lynch His Testimony Lot's Wife "Why are not Similar Judgments now inflicted. Divine Provi- dence involves a Great Plan Must be studied Lessons from this Event Christianity demands Action 112 CHAPTER VIII. BIBLICAL REFERENCES TO EGYPT CONFIRMED BY MODERN RESEARCHES. Egypt : Situation, and Early Civilization Obliteration of its History Monuments and Pictorial Descriptions recovered References to it in the Bible Harmony of tiie two Historical Coinci- dences Customs referred to in the Bible elucidated Condition of Women Baskets of the Baker Magicians Shaving Linen Garment and Necklace Ownership of Land Embalm- ing Bricks with Straw Departure of the Israelites Various Coincidences Historical Basis of the Bible 132 CHAPTER IX. EARLY SCRIPTURE PROPHECIES, AND THEIR FULFILMENT. Prophecy must be Superhuman Origin of Prophecy False Prophets naturally arise The Israelitish Prophets widely known Testimony of Cicero Evidence of Early Prophecies not mentioned in the Bible General Expectation of the Messiah Remarkable Heathen Prophecy Character of Heathen Oracles Persecution of Jewish Prophets Prophecy concerning the Arabs Testimony of Gibbon Of Sir William Jones Concern- ing the Twelve Tribes in Order 145 10 CONTENTS. CHAPTER X. THE MIRACLES OF THE EXODUS. Great Plan of Jehovah in the Old Testament Folly of the Notion that Man was originally a Savage His True Condition Tend- ency to Deterioration Religious by Nature Evils of Idolatry Necessity of Miracles Miracles of the Exodus necessary Of no Benefit to the Egyptians Why and how did the Magicians succeed. The Miracles in Order Traditions ............ Page 172 CHAPTER XI. BEAUTY AND SCOPE OF THE LAWS OF MOSES. The Israelites a Nation of Pupils, and afterward Teachers Their First Lesson is Holiness Communicated by Symbol Washings Clean and Unclean Beasts The Decalogue Whence learned Sacrifices Types The Theocracy Originality and Object of their Laws Some Specific Enactments Summary of the Chapter ....................................................................... 193 THE GREAT COMMISSION AND HISTORY OF THE ISRAELITES. The Divine Command to destroy the Canaanites Reasons for it The Destruction not designed to be Universal Miracles Standing still of Sun and Moon Prodigies of Elijah and Elisha Why so much of the Bible is Historical Number and Har- mony of the Writers Apparent Contradictions Language mod- ified by History Doctrines and History indissolubly connected Personal Application ................................................... 208 CHAPTER THE PROPHECIES OF MOSES. Character of these Prophecies Universal Attention was to be given to the Israelites Testimony of Volney Character of the People who should conquer them Particulars of coming Sieges- CONTENTS. 11 Destruction of Jerusalem, as related by Josephus Captives to be carried into Egypt by Ships The Land smitten with Barren- ness Its Ancient Fertility To be scattered among all Nations Reflections Page 225 CHAPTER XIV. BABYLON AND NINEVEH. Situation of Babylon Its Magnificence Birs Nimroud Other Ruins Nebuchadnezzar Condition when Jeremiah lived His Predictions Particularity of them Fulfilment Isaiah's Predictions Compared with Damascus Nineveh Layard's Discoveries Hezekiah Solomon Divine Providence 243 CHAPTER XV. SPECIFIC PKEDICTIONS FULFILLED IN JESUS CHRIST. Christ the great Subject of the Bible Reasons for mingling the Prophecies relating to Christ with other Instruction The Forerunner Time of his coming Place of his coming Man- ner of his Birth His Humanity and Divinity His Death Mi- nuteness of these Predictions Sir William Jones's Testimony Recapitulation of Previous Chapters Value of the Old Testa- ment 258 CHAPTER XVI. PERSONAL CHARACTER OF CHRIST. The Jews subsequent to Malachi John the Baptist History of Jesus fully related and attested The Evangelists Their Un- affected Simplicity They never praise Christ Apparent Con- tradictions Relate what appears Unfavourable They are Mild and . Dispassionate The Gospels unparalleled Christ was Faultless, though tried He exhibited every Virtue His one great Object to bless the World Effect of obeying him His Death voluntary His Life considered alone an Insoluble Mys- tery Folly of considering any Subject alone The Bible as a Whole.... 274 12 CONTENTS. CHAPTER XVII. THE OPENNESS OP THE FACTS OF CHEISTIANITY ILLUS- TRATED BY THE LIFE OF. ST. PAUL. Paul before Festus and Agrippa The Koran, Shasters, and the Mormon Book Contrast between them and the Bible Only Reward of the Writers No Pretensions to Secrecy Lyttleton's Life of Paul Comparison of the Apostle with Lafayette Paul's Conversion Did he seek Fame. Did he seek Posthu- mous Glory. Was he a Hypocrite. Was he insane. A Com- mon Charge The Facts This no Isolated Instance Trophies of Christianity Its Triumph certain Page 289 CHAPTER XVIII. GRAND PRACTICAL BENEFITS OF THE BIBLE. Two Ways of examining a Subject, theoretical and practical The Problem submitted to an Angel Fact below Theory, yet valua- ble Influence of the Bible on Morality On Social Habits and Enjoyments On Government and Laws These Influences silent The Garden without Sunlight The Bible chiefly valua- ble as teaching us how and whom to worship The inevitable- ness of Idolatry without the Bible, and why. The great Topic a Mediator, and the great Want of Man a Mediator Chief Ad- vantages of the Bible unseen and indescribable Advantages of a Written over a Traditional Revelation ,.. 310 UFI7BESITT THE YOTJNG MAN ADVISED. CHAPTEK L THE CEEATION OP THE WORLD AS DESCRIBED BY MOSES. THE first subject presented in the Bible is one of the most incomprehensible, and consequently it is one upon which much has been written, and much dogmatism exhibited ; for on no sub- jects are men so presumptuous, and intolerant toward difference of opinion, as upon those which cannot be brought to the test of actual experience. Humility and a confession of hu- man ignorance are certainly graceful when con- sidering the subject of creation. Has there ever been a creation ? This is the first question answered in the Bible. Without a revelation it would be impossible for man to prove either the negative or affirmative; yet 14 THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. I believe that the great preponderance of evi- dence, aside from revelation, is in favour of the affirmative ; and as it is the object of this book to exhibit the confirmatory evidence of the facts related in the Bible, this chapter will present the confirmations, first, of the fact of creation, and then of its order, as described in the first chapter of Genesis. By the term creation is meant the actual making of a substance that did not exist in any form before. This idea is commonly expressed by the words created out of nothing. The power of creation must have existed in the Creator; whether or not the substance of the thing created was in any sense existent in him, the Bible does not answer, and it may not be wise for us to urge. "Was there ever a creation? The Greek philosophers replied, generally, No. Their views, discordant as they were upon other par- ticulars, were unanimous upon this. They uni- versally received the thought expressed by the Latin maxim, "ex nihilo nihil fit,"* as an axiom. While, however, their views harmo- nized upon this general principle, their opinions Out of nothing, nothing comes ; or no thing can be made out of nothing. CREATION OF THE WORLD. 15 upon the organization of the world were very various. Some fancied that the world, as a system, in its present state, had no beginning ; but nearly all believed that, though the sub- stance of matter was eternal, the world, as such, had a beginning. The same view has been entertained by some professed Christians. The various fancies of the ancient philoso- phers of Greece upon the origin of things, all were based upon the assumption of the eternity of some substance, apart from the Deity. Thus Thales considered water the primordial element ; Anaximenes, the air ; Pythagoras, fire and har- mony ; Empedocles, earth, air, fire, and water ; and the later philosophers, both Greek and Koman, did little else than refine upon these conceptions. Earlier writers had far more Scriptural views, as we shall soon show. The conflicting opinions of philosophers upon this point demonstrate one fact, namely, that the human reason is incompetent to decide the question. If answered at all, it must be by revelation. It certainly would be absurd to argue that creation is impossible to God. The old maxim, " Out of nothing nothing comes," is a pure assumption; and instead of being a primary truth, is merely a result of defective, 16 THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. inductive reasoning. Philosophers have never seen matter created, therefore they conclude it cannot be done, a most hasty conclusion, since it would not be demanded but once, and must be entirely beyond the grasp of human observa- tion. On the other hand, some have attempted to show, from reason, that matter cannot be eternal. The most favourite arguments upon this side of the question have been as follows : The present material universe is unstable, and bears within itself unless it be continually sup- ported by a power from without the elements of destruction. Thus it has been attempted to show that the resistance of the medium of light alone, to the planets, must inevitably destroy the solar system.* Now, whatever must be destroyed cannot be eternal. The fallacy in this argument is, that it does not reach the question. If it proves anything, it is simply that the solar system is not eternal, but has no bearing upon the existence of the matter out of which the planets are made. It has been urged, also, that present mate- rial existences are compound ; but compounds presuppose the creation of elements. Sharon Edinburgh Review, October, 1831. CREATION OF THE WORLD. 17 Turner gives a homely illustration of this view :* "The school-boy perceives at once that his plum- cake cannot have been eternal. The plums, the flour, the butter, the eggs, and the sugar, of which it is composed, must have been in some other places and states before they were brought together to make the substance which gratifies him." We grant this, but it does not prove the creation of the materials of which the cake was made. All physical and metaphysical arguments to prove either a creation or the eternity of matter are failures. There is no other safe ground to take than this human reason can throw no light upon the question of creation. It is utterly and forever beyond the reach of a finite mind. We must examine the Bible to ascertain whether its other teachings, within the reach of human reason, are confirmed; and whether it bears satisfactory evidence of being the word of God. If so, what it teaches upon the subject of creation we are to receive with docility, thank- ful that God has answered a problem that our reason could not solve. But there is satisfactory evidence that man was created. Indeed he must have been created. 9 Sacred History of the World. 2 18 THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. The idea of an infinite series of generations with- out a beginning is a simple absurdity. It is like an attempt to support a chain by itself, fastened only at one end. Of an infinite series of links, the last link ~but one certainly had a beginning. The next, or the first, must either have a beginning or not. If it has, the question is answered there was a creation. If the last link had no beginning, then it is infinitely long longer than all the rest beside, which is an absurdity. There must have been a first man, or a first generation of men. Either they had a beginning, or they were eternal, and conse- quently not men. The terms eternal creation and eternal generation are unintelligible and absurd. The originator of human existence was God. There is abundant evidence that the race of men has not existed more than the period al- lotted to them in the Bible, not far from six thousand years. The evidence of this is as satis- factory as of the facts, that the Declaration of the Independence of the United States was adopted July 4th, 1776 ; that Alfred was king of England in the ninth century of our Lord ; that Socrates taught philosophy in ancient Greece ; that Baby- lon was a populous city three thousand years CREATION OF THE WORLD. 19 ago; and that Egypt was a flourishing nation two thousand years before Christ. Indeed, the evidence of all these assertions is precisely of the same nature, historical testi* mony confirmed by existing facts, and not to be denied without absurdities ; showing in him who persists in a denial a weakness of reason and in competency of judgment, which must be pro- nounced either stupidity or insanity.* There is no authentic history of man, extend- ing more than about three thousand years before Christ, except what is found in the Bible ; and the scanty records of that early age show that then the human family was young and few, all of which confirms the Scriptural account of the creation. Indeed, that the human family had a beginning, and that, too, when and where the Bible places it, we believe confirmed by as satis- factory historical evidence as any reasonable person could demand. This point will recur in an examination of the doctrine of the Deluge. We would here remark, that in these pages the chronology of the Septuagiut is received as the most reasonable and cor- rect. Satisfactory reasons for this may be found in Smith's Patriarchal Age, and in the works of all historians who have accurately investigated the early history of Assyria, India, Egypt, and China. This system of chronology alone intro- duces harmony, where, according to Usher's computations, all is confusion, and discord, and even absurdity. 20 THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. But while it may be considered a moral demonstration that the race of man began its existence at the date designated by the Bible, yet no Scriptural subject has been more severely criticised and warmly opposed than the order of creation, as described in the first chapter of Genesis. Volumes have been written upon it; philology, natural science, metaphysics, and the imagination have been tasked to their utmost capability to solve the riddle, and to show just how the world was created, and just how the order, as described in Genesis, can be made to correspond with the traces of its own creation, supposed to exist in the earth itself and its inhabitants. Now, manifestly, it would not accord with the plan of this book to adopt any one of the numerous recondite theories which Biblical geologists have invented to solve this mystery. "We do not propose to write a commentary on the whole Bible, but only to select those grand incidents recorded in the sacred Scriptures which cure strikingly confirmed by parallel his- tory and by philosophy, and to present those confirmations. If there be mysteries yet un- solved, or facts related which never can be verified except by the general truthfulness of CREATION OF THE WORLD. 21 the whole, we ought to be willing to acknowl- edge it. We therefore boldly assume this posi- tion in the outset, that if the first chapter of Genesis is an insoluble enigma, if indeed the ap pearances of the earth's texture cannot be made by human ingenuity to harmonize with it, or that to harmonize with the appearances ; still, so strikingly is the Bible m general confirmed 'by history, by testimony, by its adaptation to man, and by its effects, that it demands the assent of every rational man, and must and will have it in spite, of that and even other enigmas. Men seem to forget that the creation of the world has occurred but once j that it cannot be tested by human observation ; that we have but one account of it purporting to be revealed from heaven, and that exceedingly brief, written in a language long since given up as a spoken lan- guage ; and that all men ought to be willing to acknowledge their great liability to error, when they attempt to fill out from human fancy the brief outline thus presented. That outline is, however,' amply sufficient to accomplish the pur- pose for which it was given, to show that the LORD GOD created the universe, and is the SU- PREME ONE worthy of the homage of all man- kind. 22 THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. Indeed, we would not write a line upon this subject, did we not fear that some might suppose that we deemed the Scriptural account utterly indefensible if we passed it by in silence ; since it is not our object to theorize, but to present acknowledged facts. It is asserted by geologists that the earth bears in itself indisputable evidence of an an- tiquity utterly incalculable, and far more than ten thousand or than ten million of years. This many profound believers in the inspiration of Moses also believe; and, moreover, assert that there is no want of harmony between that view and the historical account given in the first chap- ter of Genesis. These commentators may be divided into three classes. The first class affirm that between the time specified in the first verse, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth," and the time specified in the second verse, subsequently termed the jurat day, an indefinite period elapsed, during which the earth underwent all those changes traced out by geologists. This class believe that the first chapter of Genesis, subsequent to the first verse, describes not a primitive creation, but only a new creation, or a special arrangement of the long previously OKEATION OF THE WOKLD. 23 created, earth, for the especial accommodation of man. The second class of commentators, allowing the indefinite antiquity of the earth, maintain that the term translated " day," throughout this chapter, means an undetermined period of time ; and that " evening and morning" simply denote the beginning and close of this long period. Profound philological arguments have been adduced, and numerous parallel instances of such a use of language, to confirm this hypothesis. And it has been shown that some Jewish and Christian commentators entertained this view before any geological theories were invented. The third class of these commentators adopt both of the above views, and thus arrive at the same practical result. It is not becoming in any man, at least with- out equal scientific attainments and research, to pronounce those views altogether fanciful or absurd, entertained as they have been by some of the ripest scholars, and most intelligent men, and most faithful Christians, in this or any other age. And it is worthy of notice that these geologists claim to have ascertained, according to their own theories, that ma/n cannot have been on the earth longer than the Bible allows, v TJHJ7BS THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. and that their researches do in this respect perfectly harmonize with the Scriptural his- tory.* There are, however, commentators who adhere rigidly to the most literal construction of the language of this chapter, according to its ordi- nary and popular signification. These com- mentators may be divided into two classes. Class first are those who utterly pass by and contemn all geological theory and study what- ever, not allowing it even a place in the contro- versy. Happily this class is small, and daily becoming smaller, if not in numbers, at least in influence. Truth is one, and can never con- tradict itself. We view truth in fragments; if they do not coincide, let us not throw away the smallest portion, but seek the connecting parts. The second class are those who profess to ex- amine patiently and thoroughly all the facts and teachings of geology ; and yet insist that time enough has elapsed since the Mosaic date of creation, according to the literal sense of the language, for all the phenomena, evidence of which is found in the texture of the surface- This is disputed by some, but on very unsatisfactory evidence. CREATION OF THE WOELD. 25 strata of the globe. This class acknowledge all the facts of geology, not blinking one of them, and profess to believe that the theories of modern geologists are untenable and hypothetical, and mutually contradictory, and even uncalled-for; and that geologists have in fact made the mis- take, common among the ancient philosophers, of constructing theories too rashly, and without due deference to a general survey of facts; while it is the part of a true philosophy to gather facts first, and at least partially hold the mind in suspense till the observations have become mature and abundant. Many, moreover, main- tain that, according to principles allowed by the most eminent geologists, all the changes known to have taken place in the earth's substance may have occurred as easily in four thousand as in four millions of years, and that some of the ob- servations seem to verify this view rather than the other. !Now we have a definite opinion upon this subject, but we do not wish in this volume to express it. Sufficient, we think, has been written to show that there is nothing in the first chapter of Genesis known to be false. If we do not ad- duce it as confirmed by observation and history, that does not weaken the other conformations* 26 THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. which we shall proceed to present. Certainly if the great majority of the facts affirmed in the Scriptures are attested, and the others cannot be proved unreasonable, it is not too much to ask that they be received upon the authority of the others. No description of a process of creation could be imagined to which the fertile fancy of man could not object, since observation could not confirm it, and from the nature of the case it must be miraculous and stand alone in history ; and it is only " by faith " that " we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of G-od, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear." One fact strikes our attention in the examina- tion of this chapter, and it is one often suggested when reading the Bible ; and that is, the utter recklessness exhibited by the writers of any at- tempt to make their descriptions command belief by any appeal to popular sentiment, or to what many would call common sense. They often use expressions which show a complete want of that art which a writer employs who desires his repre- sentations to appear truthful ; and it can only be accounted for by the fact that "they were under the guidance of a higher power, who compelled CREATION OF THE WORLD. 27 them to write the truth, however unlike the truth some of their representations might appear. A good illustration of this may be seen in the evangelists, who relate some of the same facts in their Four Gospels with such a difference of phraseology and of circumstances, that they seem at first utterly irreconcilable, thus showing that they made no effort to make them mutually consistent. But we find that by bringing them together, and supplying omissions each from the other, they harmonize, and their very appearance of contradiction confirms the whole. Similar is the effect of collating the work of the fourth day of creation with that of the pre- ceding days. We are informed that light was created on the first day, and there were three successive evenings, and mornings, and days, and then God said, " Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven, to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and for years." And then we are told that "God made two great lights, the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night." The simplest critic, even a child, would exclaim, How is this ? The sun made after there had been already three days! What caused the previous days and 28 THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. nights ? And many a childish critic has made the narrative the butt of ridicule. Upon this we would simply inquire, Had not Moses common sense? Can it be supposed that the writer of this sublime chapter, if left to himself, would not have seen this apparent inconsistency, which the most superficial reader now detects ? We believe that Moses would not have thus written without a reason; and that reason, we believe, was because it was a fact. The event described as occurring on the fourth day did then occur, just as it is written, though perhaps Moses at the time did not himself un- derstand it. The explanations suggested have been various, according to the exposition of the chapter adopt- ed. Those who suppose that during the six days the earth was not created, but reconstructed and fitted for the abode of man, believe that on the fourth day the mists and darkness which had previously enshrouded the earth were dispelled ; and that the command, " Let there be light," is equivalent to, Let the lights appear, and com- mence their office-work of regulating the sea- sons and the years. But those who adhere to the literal interpretation of the language maintain, that though the sun and moon and the stars of this CREATION OF THE WORLD. 29 great family* were previously in existence, yet on the fourth day the position of the earth's axis was adjusted in its present inclination, and the proper motions given to the .heavenly bodies and the earth, by which the sun and moon were first appointed for signs and seasons. This would, indeed, be a work sublime enough to occupy one of the days of creation. Modern natural philosophers have observed the correctness of the phraseology of Moses in speaking of light as distinct from the sun. Light was the first thing created " Offspring of heaven, first-born ; w but the sun did not appear at least till the fourth day. For thousands of years men believed that the sun was the great source of light ; but it is now shown that light, and heat, and electricity, and magnetism are but different movements in a substance or elastic medium that pervades all material things, and perhaps all space ; and it is by no means unphilosophical to speak of light The revelations of the telescope prove that there are sepa- rate families or systems of stars, mutually acting upon each other, and connected together; and that between these im- mense clusters of stars are large, vacant places in space, in which no material existence can be detected. What is called the " Milky Way," with all the larger stars, constitutes the cluster to which our world belongs. 30 THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. as created apart from the sun. How could Moses have understood this ? And yet now how consistent his representation appears ! We leave this subject, then, with this observa- tion, that probably the first act of God, connected with this earth, will be the last understood by man. "We are not competent to criticise the Almighty's method of creating ; but so far as we can understand the nature of material things, when 'closely examined, it confirms the Mosaic account. THE DELUGE. 31 CHAPTEK H. THE DELUGE. THE moral lessons of the Deluge are what should give it the greatest interest, and these alone gave its history a claim to a place in the word of God. But the stupendousness of the event as a natural phenomenon, its assumed violation of the laws which ordinarily govern material things, and its apparent impossibility, have diverted many minds from its deep religious teachings to learned disquisitions upon the ocean, the land, rain, and all the particulars of the science of meteorology. Gladly would we confine our at- tention to the strictly religious aspects of the subject; but the object which we have proposed compels us to consider the theme in the light of evidence, and to show that the account of it in Scripture is a truthful record of the miraculous acts of our Creator. Our first effort should be to obtain as clear and as accurate views as possible of the event. It has been so often fancifully and eloquently 32 THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. described, that very many additional particulars have been foisted in upon the Biblical narrative, and perhaps multitudes owe more of their con- ceptions of the deluge to the fertile fancy of men than to its only truthful history. When we are really ignorant, it is wise to acknowledge it ; and we protest against the right of any uninspired man to append any particulars to the original narrative of this event. Let us first consider the probable number of human beings living when the flood came on the earth. Upon this subject the fancy of commen- tators has performed wondrous exploits, and we have been bidden to look upon a world teeming with population, covered with cities, its rivers and oceans checkered with the sails of commerce, its valleys and hill-sides cultivated all submerged by the rising waters, and swept into one com- mon grave. But what are the facts upon which this immense superstructure is built ? Simply these : 1. The antediluvian history extended over six- teen hundred and fifty-six years; or, accord- ing to the Septuagint, twenty-two hundred and sixty-two years. 2. God had said to man, Be fruitful, multiply, and replenish the earth. THE DELUGE. 33 3. Cain is said to have built a city. Gen. iv, 17. 4. The patriarchs successively mentioned are said to have had sons and daughters. Beyond these simple statements there are no facts mentioned bearing upon the populonsness of the earth ; and truly they are a very slight basis for such a towering edifice. Let us examine them in order. The antediluvian history was about two thou- sand years, and God had said unto man, "Be fruitful." True, but it by no means follows that we have a right to transfer to that time and that world the rates of increase in population that have been observed in the most favoured coun- tries in the postdiluvian world. We travel quite beyond the record in so doing. Nothing is more evident than that the condition of man and the nature of man were vastly different then from the present. One thing must strike every observer, that Noah was in the tenth generation only from Adam, and that there had been, therefore, actually only ten generations in hu- man history. Again, it is observable that the average age of the persons mentioned, at the birth of their eldest son, was about one hundred and sixty, or, according to the Septuagint, two hundred and sixty years ; and that we have no 3 34: THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. intimation that the families of men were larger then than in postdiluvian times ; and that death then must have interfered with the increase of population as well as now. From all that I can gather from the history, I conclude that we have no just reason to conjecture that the popu- lation of the antediluvian world was greater at the end of 1656, or, according to the Septuagint, 2262 years from Adam, than the lineal descend- ants of one family, kept by itself, would be now, under ordinary circumstances, at the end of ten generations, or in about three hundred years. Allowing that the population should double eleven times, which is a liberal estimate, the number of human beings on the earth at the time of the deluge could not have been more than six thousand, less than three thousand of whom would have been in the last generation ; and the whole number would constitute only a respectable settlement. With reference to the statement that Cain built a city, certainly it affords no intimation that he himself founded a metropolis, like the present great cities of the earth. That he form- ed a settlement by himself is all we have any right to infer; living in comparative seclusion, but gathering about him a few friends. THE DELUGE. 35 The opinion that the population of the world was, as we might naturally expect, for the first thousand years very small, though constantly increasing, and thus preparing soon for a very rapid increase, is confirmed by the opening of the sixth chapter of Genesis : " And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth." What is the meaning of that phrase, " men began to multiply ?" Every one who has made the arithmetical calculation of a regular increase, by the constant doubling of a number, has observed that for a certain time the in- crease appears trivial; but that after it has reached a certain progress, the advancement becomes exceedingly rapid. Thus, allowing that the population doubles in what is called one generation, which in postdiluvian times is far more rapid than the average, at the end of one hundred and sixty years from the creation there would have been four human beings on the earth ; at the year 320 there would have been eight; at the year 480 there would have been sixteen; and at 960 there would have been thirty-two. But by the time you reached the year of the world 1440 the whole population might be over a thousand ; and now the increase would begin to be very rapid. 36 THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. Now, in the beginning of the sixth chapter, -we read that "men began to multiply /" and when God saw that this multiplication would be a curse, because the little body of human beings were exceedingly sinful, and, so to speak, the human family had started wrong, he said, " My Spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be a hun- dred and twenty years." Now this is universally understood to mean that God then revealed to Noah, and perhaps to others, that man, being flesh or mortal, should not live on the earth more than one hundred and twenty years from the time when that decision was made: and before that one hundred and twenty years was past the ark must be prepared. And, conse- quently, we infer that so small was the human family, that they could not, in ordinary lan- guage, be said to have begun to multiply till one hundred and twenty years before the flood came. Now just for a moment suppose, as many commentators most preposterously assert, that the population of the world, one hundred and twenty years before the deluge, amounted to one thousand millions, how could they be sjnM just then to have begun to multiply? Begun to THE DELUGE. 37 multiply ', when their numbers already surpassed the present population of the world! Accord- ing to that view, the human family has but just now " begun to multiply " since the deluge ! We would not so strongly insist upon this view, opposed as we know to the general senti- ment, did we not firmly believe it to be correct, and did we not believe, too, that it relieves the subject from much difficulty and darkness. How, on the supposition that the world was immensely populous then, could Noah have warned them all of a coming deluge in one hundred and twenty years? But we read of no other one commissioned to do this work. And how preposterous it would have been to warn a whole world, teeming with population, of a coming flood ; and that the only provision against it was the building of one ark, in a northern country of Central Asia. It would require more than one hundred and twenty years even for twelve apostles to travel over the whole earth, and, by any imaginable system of conveying information, allow twelve hundred millions of people to hear only once the startling announcement. We have had hundreds of missionaries for the past one hun- dred and twenty years, but they have not yet 38 THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. succeeded in preaching the gospel, nor, even by aid of the printing-press, in giving one Bible to every man, woman, and child in the world. All those highly-wrought pictures, to which you have often perhaps listened, of a world of millions overtaken by a flood of waters, are simply figments of the imagination, like many representations of Scripture scenes on canvass, very sublime and creditable to the artists, but verily not worthy of a place in sober history. This is not the only instance in which we shall find it very profitable to search the Scriptures ourselves, and not accept for truth the fancyings of men. I look upon the deluge as the next great event after the creation, taking place in the infancy of the world; and though some two thousand years had passed away according to the method of reckoning time employed for its estimation, whatever it was, yet the human race must have been very scanty, as it was only one hundred and twenty years after God saw that " men began to multiply" on the face of the earth. The supposition that a single woman would become the mother of three or four hundred children successively is preposterous in the ab- stract, unparalleled in nature, and not supported THE DELUGE. 39 by a single sentence of tradition, profane or Scriptural ; and yet such is the supposition of all who maintain that -the earth was thickly populated before the deluge. Having thus considered the probable popula- tion of the world at that time, the next point of interest is the extent of the deluge. And here, too, we are met with a mass of theories and descriptions that would appal us by their multi- tude and contradictions, were we not assured that they are human fancies, wholly unfounded in the Scriptural narrative. It has been taken for granted by many that the surface of the earth was then similar to the present ; that the two great continents now ex- isting, and all the islands, were then in existence, with the present great mountain ranges; and that all were immersed, to the very summit of the Alps, the Andes, and the Himalayas ; and careful calculations have been instituted upon the amount of water requisite to enlarge the globe of the earth out to these summits on all sides. Various fancied sources of these waters have been invented, some looking to the bowels of the earth, some to a foreign body in space, some supposing that it was miraculously created at the time, and afterward annihilated, and some 40 THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. that it was liberated from various solid bodies that held it imprisoned, and afterward absorbed ; while no reasonable explanation of the supposi- tion can be given that it should rain upon all sides of the earth at once, a phenomenon per- fectly contradictory to the ordinary laws of nature. Others have supposed that the configuration of the continents was then entirely destroyed, the dry land previous to the deluge being where the ocean is now, and the ocean previously occupying the place of the present land ; and that the bed of the ocean was raised into con- tinents, ,and the old continents depressed into seas. No glimpse of such tremendous phenom- ena, however, is given in the sacred record. Now a law of universal application may be inferred from the acts of God, namely, that he never exhibits a superfluity of power, never resorts to a miracle where ordinary laws of nature will bring about his design, and never displays a miracle more stupendous than suffi- cient to accomplish the intended purpose. If, then, our views upon the populousness of the world at that time are correct, no such ex- travagant theories are necessary. The object of the flood is clearly stated to have been to THE DELUGE. 41 sweep off the wicked race of men universally. But if that race were few in numbers, and con- fined to a small section of the earth, then a deluge covering that entire section of earth, and sweeping away the entire world of men, would be universal to them ; and any excess of water above that requisite amount would have been superfluous, and therefore contrary to the gen- eral plan according to which the Almighty always acts. Nor is it a valid objection to this view that terms expressive of universality are employed in the brief description of the deluge. The deluge was universal if it destroyed all of mankind, and "everything under the whole heaven" perished. Language must always be interpreted according to the general view given in the context, or whole description of which it forms a part ; and especially the language in the historical parts of the Bible, where it is always employed in what may be called a popular sense, and not with that accuracy sought in scientific and legal writings. In Genesis xli, 56, we read, " And the famine was over all the face of the earth." Could a more general term be employed than this, " over all the face of the earth?" But who supposes that this is to be literally 0-sr 4:2 THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. understood, that there was famine in all parts of Europe, and of Africa, and of America, if America then existed, as well as in the parts of Asia immediately described ? " All the face of the earth" evidently means there, that part of the earth in which Jacob and his sons dwelt, and the regions about Egypt. In Deuteronomy ii, 25, we read this ex- pression: "This day will I begin to put the dread of thee and the fear of thee upon the nations that are under the whole heaven, who shall hear report of thee, and shall tremble, and be in an- guish because of thee." This was the word of the Lord to Moses, when he was about to attack the Canaanites ; but who supposes that, literally, that attack would excite terror in the minds of all nations, or "the nations under the whole heaven ?" Did it terrify the Hindoos and Chi- nese, and other nations then existing, who have never heard of it even to this day? "Who does not perceive that "the nations that are under the whole heaven," is a phrase used to denote the very general consternation that would be excited among all the Canaanites and other people immediately concerned ? Nor is such a use of language confined to the Old Testament. In Luke ii, 1, we read, "And THE DEL.UQE. 43 it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed." Certainly all the world in this decree could mean only the whole Roman empire, which was less than half the world, while, in fact, it seems only to have meant Palestine. In Acts ii, 5, it is said, "And there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven" which, of course, simply means from many nations; perhaps from all the nations with which the Jews were then conversant. It is unnecessary to multiply instances upon so plain a point. The terms of universality em- ployed in the description of the deluge, without doing violence to any rule, artd in strict accord- ance with the ordinary method of interpreting language, may be supposed to signify all the world then inhabited by the descendants of Adam. A deluge destroying them was to man, strictly speaking, a universal deluge. The most universal terms were not improper, since it was the total destruction of all men ; and so far as they could see, or had even conjectured, "un- der the whole heaven." But, it may be asked, Why was Noah com- 44 THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. manded to take into the ark with, him animals of various kinds, if the deluge was not strictly universal ? We reply, There were probably then, as now, many animals domesticated and sup- ported by man, and these, too, the most valua- ble for man, living nowhere else ; besides various other species that may not have wandered far from what seems to have been the birth-place of men, and of the most, if not of all animals, which would have been exterminated by the deluge but for this provision. These Noah was com- manded to save. This view seems to us plausi- ble and natural, and at the same time completely to remove the strongest objections to the more common view, growing out of the immense number of species, and the apparent mathemat- ical impossibility <3f crowding them into a vessel of the given dimensions of the ark.* Again, the earth's surface bears marks of re- peated local deluges, which are brought about by the regular action of the laws of nature, any one of which would have been amply sufficient to sweep away an entire race equal to that in- habiting the antediluvian world. The number of distinct species of animals incapable of mixing, breathing only in the air, is at least five thousand. (See Agassiz and Gnold's Zoology, p. 3.) THE DELUGE. 4:5 Do any object that this view seems to strip the account of its miraculous character? I an- swer, We are bound to understand all Scriptural narratives in the simplest manner possible ; and this event was truly miraculous, in its time, in its purpose, in the prophetic revelation of it given to Noah, and in its stupendous effects, sweep- ing, as it did, the world of its guilty progeny, and preparing the earth for a new commence- ment of human history ; after which the nature of man was surprisingly changed, his term of life greatly diminished, and the temptations to sin, and the severity of man's trial, probably, greatly lessened. Such is the view of the deluge which we are compelled to take ; if others entertain different views, we cannot object to it; but these views have not been selected by us to accommodate any particular theory, but are forced upon our minds by a careful examination of the Bible itself. Having determined what the deluge was, and what was its object, it is our purpose now to inquire into the evidence of this historical fact now existing among men, apart from the sacred record. This evidence we shall find abundant 46 THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. and satisfactory, and such as to force conviction upon every candid mind. Observe the many obstacles standing in the way of a clear traditional account of this event. Letters were not invented, perhaps, till centuries after the deluge : they certainly were not in common use for many hundred years ; and all history that was preserved was transmitted by word of mouth. When writing was first em- ployed, the deluge was a subject of no more immediate interest than it is now. Those who then lived had not seen its waves. Still, the tremendousness of the event did preserve it in the minds of men till language was written ; and one of the earliest efforts of writing was to make an imperishable record of this history. The Assyrians had a very exact account of the deluge,* in which they state that the tenth man in descent from the first was saved in an ark, which rested finally at Armenia. Berosus preserves the name Noah, and of his sons Shem, Ham, and Japhet. The ancient Persians have a similar tradition. Zoroaster is said to have affirmed that the deluge was occasioned by the wickedness of a person Berosus, as quoted by Eusebius, in Praep. Evangel., lib. iz, c. xii. THE DELUGE. 4:7 called Malsus ; and the Persians now pretend to designate a place where the waters gushed from the earth.* A poem, called Bagavat, written in the language of Hindostan, centuries before Christ, has a similar account. The description of it is strikingly similar to that given by Moses, f There is also a Chinese tradition to the same effect. "They believe the earth to have been wholly covered with water, flowing abundantly, tjien subsiding, and separating the higher from the lower age of mankind.;): The ancient Egyptians do not seem to have overlooked the stupendous fact. Their Osiris, who seems to have been Noah, according to Plutarch, entered an ark on the seventeenth of the month Athyr, corresponding exactly with the Hebrew account. The story of Deucalion's deluge is familiar to every classical scholar. Of him, Philo, an Alexandrian Jew, well states: "The Grecians call him Deucalion, but the Chaldeans style him Noah, in whose time the great deluge occurred." Edinburgh Encyc., article, Deluge, f Asiatic Researches, vol. ii., p. 118. J Ibid., p. 376. See Edinburgh Encyc., article, Deluge ; and Plutarch de Isid. and Osir., p. 356, &c. 4:8 THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. Plutarch, a Grecian writer after Christ, men- tions a tradition, that Deucalion sent out a dove from the vessel, to explore the waste of waters. It is very remarkable that many nations that have been shut off, till lately, from intercourse with others from time immemorial, have pre- served such traditions. The natives of the Sandwich Islands, and the New-Zealand ers, both, when visited, had such traditions. The Peruvians, Mexicans, and North American In- dians had similar traditions. It has been attempted to account for these traditions by supposing many local deluges in ancient times ; but this is very unphilosophical, begging the question, and multiplying difficul- ties. No candid mind can resist the influence of these traditions, nor deny that on the suppo- sition of a universal deluge, like that described in the Bible, in the infancy of the world, these distorted and yet agreeing traditions are what might have been anticipated. "We do not ad- duce them as a demonstration, but as valuable subsidiary evidence. Still other evidence of the universal deluge is extant. A remembrance of it is perpetuated in the most ancient systems of heathen worship. These systems of idolatry were of gradual growth, THE DELt%E. 49 and many of them had originally some historical basis. Any other supposition is not only gratu- itous, but absurd. Those who have studied the gradual encroachment of idolatry upon Chris- tianity, in the history of the Komish Church, are at no loss to account for heathen idolatry. Now it is a striking fact that an ark has been held in great veneration in some of the most wide-spread systems of worship. This was true in the worship of Osiris in Egypt, of Adonis in various countries, of Bacchus and Ceres in Home ; and, to the astonishment of scholars, this same mysterious veneration of the ark has been detected among the Mexicans, North American Indians, and South Sea islanders. Is not this strange attesting evidence of the fact, that all men were once under great obliga- tion to the ark ?* It would seem also that the triads of gods, in various systems of prevalent heathen worship, have arisen from the deification of Noah's three sons, who, confounded with Adam's three sons, came to be looked upon as the three great tute- The critical reader will find this subject elaborated in Bryant's Ancient Mythology, a prodigy of diligence and re- search ; and also in Faber's Dissertation on the Mysteries of the Cabiri. 4 50 THE YOuKrG MAN ADVISED. lar divinities of men. The one, Cain or Ham, was regarded as an unpropitious or gloomy god. "Hence we have in all pagan mythologies a triad of principal gods. In the Greek, Jupiter, Neptune, and Pluto; in the Hindoo, Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva ; in the Egyptian, Osiris, Horus, and Typhon, one of whom, in each case, is a divinity of a dark nature, like Cain or Ham. The Persians had their Ormuzd, Mithrad, and Ahriman; the Syrians their Merinnus, Azis, and Ares; the Canaanites their Baal-Shelisha, or self-triplicated Baal; the Goths their Odin, Yilo, and Ye, who are described as the three sons of the mysterious cow, a symbol of the ark ; the Jakutha Tartars their Artagon, Schugo-ten- gon, and Tanguru the last, even in name, the Tangu-tangu of the Peruvians : for this singular fact stops not with the great primitive nations ; it extends itself to all others, even to those dis- covered in modern times. Like China and Japan, the Peruvians were found, on the dis- covery of America, to have their triads, Apem- iti, Churunti, and. Intiquoque, or the father- sun, brother sun, and son-sun. The Mexicans had also their Mexilli, Haloc, and Tercallipuca, the last the god of repentance. The New-Zeal- anders believe that three gods made the first THE DELUGE. 51 man and the first woman from the man's rib ; and their general term for love is Eve. The Otaheitans had a similar idea."* Thus traditions and customs combine to con- firm this Biblical account. It should never be forgotten that the evidence of the divine origin and the truth of the Bible is cumulative, and consists of almost innumerable parts, all har- moniously cohering. "Well has it been said that " the moral certainty iof the Mosaic history of the flood is established on a basis sufficiently firm to bid defiance to the cavils of scepticism." It follows from this great fact, that the human family had its second origin where the ark rested, on the mountainous region of Ararat, which was probably Armenia, in 'Western Asia, perhaps the most beautiful region of the earth. A German historian f has remarked that there seems to be no better way of determining this, than to seek where wheat, rye, oats, and barley grains which civilized men have always with them grow spontaneously ; and where the horse, and ox, and other domestic animals, always at- tendant upon men, run wild : for we may with propriety suppose that the first emigrants car- Hewitt's Priestcraft, pp. 19, 20. t Miiller's Universal History, vol. i, p. 43. 52 THE YOUNG- MAN ADVISED. ried with them the vegetables and animals which they had at home, just as emigrants now carry with them the utensils and vegetables of their fatherland. Now barley grows wild behind the Caspian Sea. Other grains there grow spon- taneously, and there our household animals roam without owners. There are found, in- digenous with the soil, the vine, the olive, rice, legumina, and other plants on which man has depended in all ages for sustenance ; and all of those animals which he has tamed and led with him over the whole earth, there run wild upon the mountains, as the ox, the horse, the ass, the sheep, the goat, the camel, the hog, the dog, the cat, and even the gentle reindeer, which ac- companies him to the icy polar tract. As far as this strange evidence goes, how beautifully and singularly does it authenticate Holy Writ! The unity of the human race is a fact directly flowing from the doctrine of a universal deluge, and will be considered in a following chapter. We cannot conclude this chapter without the remark, that if any are not convinced by the above arguments that the great deluge was local, extending only so far as man extended, still all the other facts and reasonings adduced THE DELUGE. 53 are applicable. We have no objection to a belief in the positive universality of the deluge, if any choose ; to us the Bible itself and on that alone we depend does not seem to teach it, and this, too, is the belief of very many, we think a majority, of learned commentators on the Holy Scriptures. 54 THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. CHAPTEK HI. EARLY TRADITIONS CONFIRMATORY OF THE FIRST CHAPTERS OF GENESIS. THE traditions of ancient nations cannot be ac- counted for, or understood, except by the key that is presented in the Book of Genesis. The nations that claim an ancient history are very few, and are confined to Asia and Africa. The Persians, Chinese, Hindus, Tartars, and Assyr- ians, are the oldest Asiatic nations; and the Egyptians and Ethiopians are the oldest in Africa. There is no people in Europe that ever claimed an antiquity as high as the commonly received date of the deluge, or for whom it was ever claimed ; and about the origin of the early in- habitants of America nothing certainly is known. Some of the most curious traditions of the ancient nations, bearing upon the antediluvian world, are worthy of brief notice. The most ancient heathen writer, any of whose produc- tions are extant, was perhaps Sanchoniathon, who lived in Phoenicia, within the limits of what is EAELY TRADITIONS. 55 now called Palestine. The precise date of his life is not known, and all of his writings now extant are found as quotations, translated into Greek, in a book entitled, "The Preparation and Defence of the Gospel,"* by Eusebius, a bishop of Caesarea, in Palestine, who lived in the fourth century after Christ. How he obtained Sanchoniathon's writings is not known ; and as his quotations are introduced without a speci- fication of their nature, or a statement of their authority, they are of but little intrinsic value. It is, however, clear that though this extract is loaded with heathen superstitions, the Mosaic account of the creation, and of the antediluvian world, are confirmed by it.f Historians gener- ally have attributed great value to the few extracts we have from Sanchoniathon, and regard him as a sober historian. His representation of the creation is, " That the beginning of all things was a dark, con- densed wind, turbid and black, and, for a long series of ages, destitute of form." This was chaos. " But finally, through its own love, ]" or " Prseparatio Evangelica," lib. i, cap. x, and lib. iv, cap. xvii. t See also Cory's Ancient Fragments. London : Pickering. 1832. Page 3, &c., where a literal translation into English is given. 56 THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. [attraction,] a union was formed, and this was the beginning of the creation of things." " First, animals without sensation were formed : but when the air began to send forth light, winds were produced; thunders and lightnings fol- lowed ; intelligent animals sprung up ; and, finally, two men were created, Eon and Proto- gonus ; and Eon discovered food from trees. Their descendants were Genus [perhaps Cain] and Genea." This account is fanciful, but is it a perversion of the truth, or a mere imagination? The reader can judge as well as the learned men who have affected to decide. Another ancient writer is Berosus, who is said to have been a priest of the worship of Belus, in Babylon, a contemporary of Alex- ander the Great, and for some years a resident in Athens, Greece. He lived more than half a century after the last Hebrew prophet, whose writings form a part of the Old Testament ; and in confirmation of the Mosaic history his account would not be of the slightest worth, did he not pretend to have access to the ancient looks of the Babylonians, and to draw his information from them. EARLY TRADITIONS. 57 A fragment of Berosus's writings is preserved by Alexander Polyhistor, who lived in Phrygia, in the second century of our Lord. He was a heathen writer, and celebrated for his varied and abundant learning. According to him, Berosus says, "In the first year [or earliest times] there appeared a superior being, Oan- nes, who gave the following account of the creation: 'There was a time when nothing existed but darkness and an abyss of waters, wherein existed hideous beings, which were produced of a twofold principle." 3 Then fol- lows a lively allegorical picture of chaos. " Finally, Belus [or the Divinity] divided the darkness, and separated the heavens from the earth, and reduced the universe to order." Then follows a fanciful account of the creation of man. This information Berosus claims to have found written and delineated on the walls of the temple of Belus, in Babylon, of which he was one of the priests. No traditional view of the creation among the Egyptians, worthy of notice, has been pre- served; though it is plainly stated by Jam- blichus, a great friend of the apostate emperor 58 THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. Julian, and the strongest defender of Paganism, in the fourth century after Christ, that the ancient Egyptians believed in one God, the Creator of all things. Plutarch, a Grecian, who lived in the second century after Christ, says that he read the fol- lowing inscription in an Egyptian temple : " I AM ALL THAT HAS BEEN, IS, AND EVER SHALL BE ;" which strongly reminds us of the fourteenth verse of the third chapter of Exodus : " And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM : and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you." That the earliest Egyptians believed in one God, the Creator, is affirmed by modern investi- gators of their monuments and writings. They believed also in the immortality of the soul, in a resurrection of the body, and in future rewards and punishments.* Tli at the ancient Hindoos had a clear tradition of the creation, corresponding in its general features with the statement in Genesis, though mixed up with many strange conceits, is unani- mously asserted by all who have investigated See Egypt : her Monuments, Hieroglyphics, &c. By George R. Gliddon, late United States Consul at Cairo. Phila- delphia: T. B. Peterson. 1844, EAKLY TRADITIONS. 59 their strange books. Sir William Jones, the celebrated linguist, and founder of the Asiatic Society for inquiring into the histories and anti- quities of that continent, has given this testi- mony, which is corroborated by others. It would be of but little advantage to examine the exceedingly scanty and unsatisfactory frag- ments of the earliest writings of the Chinese, Persians, Scythians, and others ; but we should find in all traces dim though they are of a belief in the creation of this world, from nothing, by the Almighty God. In the Manava Sastra, or Institutes of Menu, a work of great authority and remote antiquity among the Hindoos, the origin of the universe is thus unfolded: "It existed only in the first divine idea, yet unexpanded, as if involved in darkness, imperceptible, undefinable, undiscover- able by reason, and undiscovered by revelation, as if it were wholly immersed in sleep. Then the sole, self-existing power, who had existed from eternity, shone forth in person, expanding his idea, and dispelling the gloom. "With a thought, he first created the waters, and placed in them a productive seed : this seed became an egg, [or globe,] in which he was himself born, 60 THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. [or manifested,] in the form of Brahma, the great forefather of all spirits."* In all the ancient descriptions of the creation we can trace a resemblance, in some cases very close, to the Mosaic account ; but in no case is the relation complete or consistent, but bears marks of perversion through human ignorance and superstition. There are found also, in the earliest writings extant, various traditions confirmatory of other relations given in the first part of the Book of Genesis, such as the first sin of man, the myste- rious agency of the serpent in. introducing evil into this world, and the expulsion from Eden. But as the evidence is in this case remote, and open to many objections, it does not comport with the object and size of this book to adduce it at length. Facts bearing upon the subject may be found in Dean's "Worship of the Serpent, Pigott's Manual of Scandinavian Mythology, Smith's Patriarchal Age, &c., and are familiar to every student of ancient history. Cory's Inquiries, Metaphysical, Mythological, &o. Lon- don : Pickering. 1833. Vol. ii, p. 14. THE TOWER OF BABEL. 61 CHAPTEE IY. THE TOWER OF BABEL, AND THE CONFUSION OF TONGUES. HISTORY becomes faint and indistinct as you trace it upward toward the beginning of the world. It consists of fragments of the skeleton of the ages, just sufficient to enable some his- torical Cuvier to decide the nature of the race, or the empire to which they belong; but the muscles and sinews, and above all the hecvrt, the spirit of those past times, where are they ? The light of divine revelation shines brightly on the apex of the pyramid of human history. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth that is, the top-stone of the structure, clear as crystal, and reflecting heaven's own light; but, as we descend the slowly- widening structure toward our own time, clouds and dark- ness rest upon it, here and there slightly rent and dissipated, till, toward the bottom, cleared away, we have what is called the light of the present day. 62 THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. All the history we have of the first three thousand years of the world is not equal in amount to a common modern biography of a single person. How evident is it, therefore, that it must be fragmentary, disjointed, and easily perverted and misunderstood ! Is it strange that it should often perplex by its conciseness and mysteriousness ? One thing may, however, grat- ify us ; it is only the, most prominent and strong- est parts, only the most valuable facts that will survive the wreck of ages. The creation is a sublime fact, standing alone amid facts ; the fall of man is a terrible truth, giving colour to all history; the deluge is so tremendous a subject that it could not be overlooked ; and the next great fact in human history, worthy of the notice of the inspired penman, is the theme of this chapter. The building of Babel, and the dispersion of its builders, is the only fact recorded of a thou- sand years. Let us inquire into its significance. Whether all men then living on the earth participated in this enterprise, which seems to have been displeasing to God, it is impossible to determine. The unsophisticated reader of the Bible, not noticing the fragmentary character of these early annals, would suppose that all were THE TOWER OF BABEL. engaged in the work. It is probable that the population of the world at the building of Babel was much larger than at the time of the deluge ; and indeed, previous to the relation of this event, the sacred historian informs us that the name Peleg (or Division) was given to a child, because a in his days was the earth divided." It is therefore the opinion of Augustine, (who lived in the fourth century of our Lord,) and of Luther and Calvin, Patrick, Dr. S. Clarke, and many others, that men already had scattered themselves widely before a certain portion of them, under a leader, projected the building of this tower, which was designed to arrest the further dispersion of man, and to be the centre of a great hierarchy. Not deciding, then, whether a part or all of mankind were concerned, another question arises. "Why was it considered a crime ? The design to build a tower or city has no necessary depravity connected with it. 'Nor are we to understand that they wished to climb into heaven. It was wrong, because it was in direct contradiction to God's expressed will, which was that the families should separate for the purpose of populating the whole earth. It was wrong also, probably, because it was 64 THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. designed to foster the ambition of a few, and give strength to tyranny, and, we have reason to believe, to support a false religion. How was the project defeated? Not by Jehovah's personally coming down from heaven. Such language is evidently highly figurative, and simply designed to show us that it was the act of God. But God acted, then as now, by human instrumentali- ties, by the agencies of the elements, and by all of the operations of nature. The speech of men was confounded, by which we may un- derstand their language was made various, and their plans were frustrated. They quar- relled, in fact, and left off their project, which was to build a high tower and city, and they dispersed. Now it is our present object to inquire whether we have any evidence from profane history, or from philosophy, to authenticate and confirm this singular account. Abydenus, a Chaldean historian, who lived about three hundred years before the Christian era as quoted by Eusebius, who lived about three hundred years after the Christian era states: "The first men, relying on their size and strength, raised a tower, reaching toward heaven, in the place where Babylon afterward THE TOWER OF BABEL. 65 stood; but that the winds, assisting the gods, brought the building down on the heads of the builders, out of the ruins of which Babylon itself was built. Before this event men had spoken the same language; but afterward, by the act of the gods, they were made to differ in their speech."* Plato also reports a tradi- tion, "that in the golden age men and animals used one common language ; but too ambi- tiously aspiring after immortality, as a punish- ment, their language was confounded by their Maker." " The Sibyl," says Josephus, " also makes men- tion of the confusion of language when she says thus: ' When men were of one language, some of them built a high tower ; but God sent storms of wind and overthrew the tower, and gave every one his peculiar language : hence the place was called Babylon.' "f There is no traditionary evidence of the event. Notwithstanding the revolutions of so many centuries, it is the opinion of many that the ruins of this Tower of Babel still exist. It is thought that the famous Temple of Belus, described by the father of Grecian history, Eusebius, Praep. Evangel., lib. i, cap. 14. f Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, book i, chap. 4. 5 66 THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. Herodotus, was the same ; and that the materials of which it was made still are seen in the re- mains called Birs Nimroud. This temple was accurately described by He- rodotus, as he says, from personal observation. The description makes it equal to any edifice now in the world far superior to any on the continent of America. It had, however, then been improved by successive generations. For though at first its builders were scattered, after- ward, by a few, it was doubtless rebuilt, though not on the original plan, nor for the original purpose. The amount of wealth said to have been ex- pended in decorating this edifice was more than equal to all employed in commerce in one of our largest cities. " Even now the appearance of the tower is deeply impressive, rising suddenly as it does out of a wide desert plain, with its rent, fragmentary, and fire-blasted pile, masses of vitrified matter lying around, and the whole hill on which it stands caked and hardened out of the materials with which the temple had been built. It is called Nebuchadnezzar's prison, from a tradition that Nebuchadnezzar was tjjere con- fined during a part of his insanity, when he ate grass like oxen. THE TOWER OF BABEL. 67 " The tower-like ruin on the summit is a solid mass, twenty-eight feet broad. It is rent from top nearly half-way to bottom. At its base lie several immense unshapen masses of fine brick work, some changed to a state of the hardest vitrification, thus affording evidence of the action of fire, which seems to have been the lightning of heaven."* If this be the Tower of Babel, and there seems to be reason to believe it, what a venerable monu- ment is it ! Bricks bearing the impress of the hands of the first generation after the deluge. The storms of four thousand years have not been able to efface the works of these first men ; and their monument, begun without -the divine blessing, and continued in idolatry, may per- haps stand through all time, a record of the power and folly of man. The confusion of tongues, by which the build- ing was interrupted, and in its first great object thwarted, is a great mystery, upon which it can- not be expected that men will now agree. Dr. Mason Good, and many others, understand it in the popular sense : that previous to that time all men spoke one language, perhaps the Hebrew, or one similar to it ; but that then miraculously Kitto, Article, Tower of Babel. 68 THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. and abruptly numerous dialects and new lan- guages were introduced. Many ingenious arguments have been adduced to sustain this proposition. The beauty, copious- ness, and artistic excellence of some languages spoken by barbaric tribes, whose highest excel- lence in the arts is the construction of an arrow or the tattooing of the body, is appealed to as evidence of a primitive language, spoken by original and civilized man. The unity of prin- ciple and design, traceable in all languages, so that the grammar of one language by simple translation becomes the grammar of another, is also adduced as proof of the same propo- sition. It- has also been asserted that the many common terms in languages spoken by nations widely divergent, and between whom there has been no intercourse for many ages, is evidence of the same fact. Notwithstanding these arguments, strong as they are, to prove the unity of the human race, we do not deem it necessary so to understand the narrative which we are now considering. The confusion of tongues was probably a con- fusion of plan, a quarrel among the projectors and builders, so that they would no longer "lis- ten to each other ;" a simple defeat of their un- THE TOWER OF BABEL. 69 holy purpose, which was probably to centralize power beyond what was right, and perhaps to establish a national or universal system of wor- ship which was idolatrous, or in some way dis- pleasing to God. Shallow indeed must be our knowledge of history, if we do not perceive that such an institution would have been full of mis- chief, and ruinous to the welfare of man. The power of the Almighty, therefore, frustrated the design. 70 THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. CHAPTEK Y. THE COMMON ORIGIN OF MAN. FROM the ninth, tenth, and eleventh chapters of Genesis, it is evidently the doctrine of the Bible that all men are the descendants of one family, and belong to one stock. We assume this to be the doctrine of the Bible, and one fundamentally connected with all its grand teachings. Like every great truth, it has been called in question by men who have depended upon reason alone ; but, though it should not be considered debatable, but definitely decided, by all who re- ceive the Holy Scriptures as tbe word of God, yet it can be successfully demonstrated by in- vestigation. It has been asserted that there are in the human family several distinct species, or, as they are sometimes loosely termed, races, each of which must have had a separate origin, dis- tinct from the others in time and place. The foundation of this theory is the acknowledged variety that does exist among men. The most obvious peculiarities are in size, ranging from THE COMMON ORIGIN OF MAN. 71 seven feet in height to perhaps four feet; in colour, presenting many shades from jet black to pearly white ; in the quantity and quality of the hair and beard ; in the size and shape of the cranium, and in the consequent amount and position of the brain ; and also in some of the bones and muscles of the body, imparting pecu- liarities to the gait and the features; and in mental tastes, and passions, and intellect. Notwithstanding the above acknowledged va- rieties, and also others less obvious, reasons satisfactory and abundant exist, even apart from the Bible, for the firm belief that all human beings are absolutely of one species, and sprung from one stock. The several facts, or classes of facts, which lead to the firm conclusion that all men are of one species, may be thrown into the form of reasons, which we shall proceed successively to state. First reason. If we assume for a moment that all men belong to one species, it does not follow that all must be precisely identical in size, shape, complexion, mental disposition, or ability. A certain amount of dissimilarity must be considered possible, even in the same race. 72 THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. Members of the same family, having the same parents, and educated as far as possible under the same regimen, are still various, and some- times widely and strangely so. A forest, sprung from the acorns of a single oak, shall present some trees tall and straight, others dwarfed and twisted; some smooth and others rough, some spreading and others narrow ; and in the whole grove there shall not be found two precisely identical in any of twenty particulars. And if we suppose a part of those trees to be trans- planted, some to a sandy, others to a marshy soil; some placed on a limestone foundation, others on clay; some in a cold climate, others in a warm; the variety will become more marked, and, to some, more surprising. In like manner a certain degree of variety can exist among the men of a single race, sprung from a single stock; and, that being allowed, it becomes a matter of great difficulty (indeed we think it an impossibility) to decide just how far that variety can extend. Let us suppose that all the variety in the human family was no greater than that which does exist among the class of men commonly called the Anglo-Saxon race: let us suppose that the darkest complexion on earth was no THE COMMON ORIGIN OF MAN. 73 darker than the darkest Anglo-Saxon, the short- est men no shorter, the tallest men no taller, and the men with the straightest or most curly hair with hair no more straight or curly than the same extreme in the Anglo-Saxon race, there would still be a variety'; and a variety, too, which it would be impossible to account for, just as it is impossible to show why the apple- trees, sprung from the seeds of a single apple, shall all bear different kinds of fruit, and not one of them just like its mother, and yet all of them so nearly alike as at once to be known as apples. Now this fact, that some variety could and would exist in one species, predisposes us to believe that all the present actual variety does exist in one race ; and this view is confirmed by the obvious reflection, that however little that variety might be, if it was the greatest existing, it would astonish observers, and be, in the present stage of physiological knowledge, unac- countable. The amount of this reason is, that there is no antecedent improbability in the view that all men are sprung from one race; but that, on the other hand, that tendency of mind which leads us to select out of two supposed causes 74: THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. the simpler, would lead us to believe in the common origin of man. Second reason. The second reason for our view is this : Great as the existing differences between what may be termed the races of men are, they may all be regarded as superficial and not radical distinctions. By a superficial distinction we mean one in development and appearance, rather than in fact, a difference in the strength and size of the parts of the body, or in the activity of the faculties of the mind, rather than an absolute deficiency or excess in either. By a radical difference we mean a possession by one party of a bodily organ, or mental faculty, absolutely absent from the other. If, for instance, a race of men should be found without arms, or with only one arm, or with three distinct arms, the third being joined to a particular part of the body with its own joints and muscles, we should call that a radical distinction. We should in such a case be inclined to suppose that this peculiar race might have had a separate origin ; though, even then, before deciding, we should ask for further teats, which will be mentioned hereafter. But no such radical difference exists. THE COMMON ORIGIN OF MAN. 75 The most opposite extremes in the human family- have precisely the same bodily organs and func- tions, and the same mental faculties and powers. All the race, for instance, are coloured. The skin of every human being is threefold, consist- ing of the cuticle and the dermis, and the middle or colouring matter, which in the negro, and Moor, and others, is thick, and in the Europeans thin; in the latter almost trans- parent, in the former black ; but it exists in both. Precisely so is it with the hair. In the one "race" it is short and curly, in the other long and straight; but it is hair in both, with precisely the same properties and uses, and generally developed on the same parts of the body. Indeed, we do not forget that there is a com- mon type, according to which all animals, and especially all mammalia, seem to be formed; that all have nearly, if not quite, the same organs, in some largely, in others little devel- oped ; and that in some only traces or useless marks of an organ can be found ; still there are radical distinctions between the animals of any two species, by which they could be positively and unerringly designated, without referring to colour or size. The long tibia of the orang- 76 JHE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. outang, for instance, and the total destitution of the vocal apparatus, or inability in this animal to form articulate sounds, the shape and size of its head, and the peculiar formation of its hands, distinctly separate it from the family of man. But no such radical distinctions are found among the " races " or individuals of men. All the differences are slight, such as the weakness of the lower part of the leg of the African, and the prominence of the muscles forming the heel, compared with the other races. Such also as the prominence of the cheek bones, and the flat- ness of the nose and roundness of the eyes, which appear in different races. Perhaps, however, the most singular and im- portant peculiarity of all is the smallness and flatness of the skull, which are affirmed to char- acterize the African, and many of the darker races of men. This, however, may be regarded as a super- ficial distinction, and may easily be accounted for. There is a difference between the average size of the brain and of the cranium of the sav- age tribes of man and man in a more civilized state, as has been successfully shown ; but tho difference is no more marked, nor even greater ' THE COMMON ORIGIN OF MAN. 77 than between individuals and classes confessedly of the same race, and even of the same nation. There are as many as fifteen anatomical differ- ences between the brain of an ape and that of a human being ; but not one of these peculiarities is absent in the lowest specimens of humanity. Third reason. Our third reason for the firm belief that all men are of one species is strong and unanswerable, viz. : In all the great and ob- vious and radical features of body and mind, all men are identical. "We shall consider this first physically. In the study of anatomy it would be impossible for the surgeon to acquire a correct knowledge of all the parts, bones, muscles, nerves, and blood-ves- sels of the body by dissecting oxen, or dogs, or baboons, or any class whatever of beasts. He must dissect the human body. In former times, from a prejudice against the minute examination of the human body, physicians confined their attention to the dissection of brutes, and the consequence was an imperfect knowledge of the science, and many erroneous opinions. The ob- vious reason is, because that, though in some respects there is a wondrous similarity between the bodily organs of many beasts and man, there 78 THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. are in others radical differences. But no such differences exist among the various classes of men. The body of a negro or an Indian is found in all respects like the body of a white man. The same small differences are found between members confessedly of the same race, and sometimes of the same parentage, as exist be- tween the different races of men. It would not be strange to find a white man, with no Indian blood in his veins, who should have all those peculiarities attributed to the Indian in a greater degree than even the majority of Indians them- selves. Fourth reason. All the variety that does ex- ist among men may be satisfactorily accounted for. Whether the first human being was white, black, or red, it may be impossible to determine ; but that all the present varieties may have descended from one is not unreasonable. We do not attribute this to climate alone, nor food, nor habits, nor any one cause ; but in all com- bined is found sufficient influence. Still it can- not justly be demanded that we account for all this variety : like many other acknowledged facts, it may remain forever an inscrutable mystery. THE COMMON ORIGIN OF MAN. 79 But let it be observed, first, that some variety, even in the members of one race, is presupposed, and must exist. Secondly. Any peculiarity, however caused, has a tendency to become permanent, and to descend from parent to child. Thirdly. A family thus peculiarly marked, if separated from other families, and allow.ed to form a tribe, would impart its peculiarity to all its descendants. In the earliest ages of the world men did not mingle as extensively as now. In many in- stances a few families wandered away from the central body and formed a nation, between whom and others nearly all communication ceased; and they thus had time in successive generations to render permanent their separate type or development of human nature. Why should it be thought strange that Ham, or one of his sons, through causes not understood, may have been of dark complexion and curly hair, and have enstamped upon his progeny his peculiar marks? Would it have been more strange than the varieties now introduced into plants by cultivation, and into animals by breeding and by accident ? Not many years ago there appeared in Eng- 80 THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. land a native called " the porcupine man." A part of his body was covered with a sort of feathers or quills. But what is equally strange, his children had the same peculiarity. Now would it have been incredible if that family, isolated from all others, had introduced into the world a new division of human beings, "the porcupine men ?" Would such a result astonish a practised gardener, or a scientific breeder of stock ? Is not nature alone, in everything that has generations, continually producing varieties, deviations from the common type, and stamping them with permanency f Occasionally a human being is found with six fingers on each hand, and the peculiarity has been known to be trans- mitted : if efforts had been made, would it be strange if a twelve-fingered nation of human be- ings had been formed ? Perhaps it is not historically known that all dogs are of one species or race, yet it is abun- dantly probable. It is historically known, that greater permanent varieties than exist among human beings have been brought about among domestic animals. This is true of the horse, the ox, the sheep, and the hog. Not longer ago than A. D. 1791, on the farm of one Seth Wright, in Massachusetts, one lamb THE COMMON ORIGIN OF MAN. 81 of a large flock, without any known cause, had a larger body and shorter legs than the average, with the fore-legs crooked. He called it the otter sheep, from its resemblance to the otter. By separation and care a new breed of sheep have thus been introduced into the market. Instances no less remarkable and definite are very numerous, though even one would be suffi- cient to decide a question of fact. Fifth reason. In spite of the attempts of philosophers occupying the other extreme of this question, and maintaining that not only are all men descended from one stock, but that even apes, orang-outangs, and perhaps other animals, share with them the same honour all animals having descended from one a very strong and conclusive fact, decisive of the ques- tion, is, that no two different species of animals can mingle and form a third that is capable of an independent existence. There is not a single known instance of this on record. Hybrids are incapable of a perma- nent pi*opagation of their species, generally in- capable of any propagation. The bearing of this argument and its conclusiveness are so evident as to need no elaboration or enforcement. 6 82 THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. These arguments are unanswerable, and must induce, in candid minds at least, an equipoise of judgment, an acknowledgment that the doctrine may be and probably is true, and that it never ca/n be proved untrue. But we have still more to urge in favour of the Biblical statement. It seems to have escaped the notice of philos- ophers, that there is an argument of a higher and nobler character, an argument which, if it is not capable of as mathematical and rigidly exact delineation, is yet as instructive and con- vincing, and more sublime. Man has not only a body, but a soul, a soul distinct in kind from the spirit or mind of a beast. If any deny it, with them argument would be useless, and controversy folly. It is a proposition resting only upon naked observation, needing no proof, and which cannot be denied without a subversion of the very elements of knowledge. That man is not the same as an ox, we believe, not merely because their bodies are different, but because the one has a soul not belonging to the other. Souls have their distinctive properties and characteristics as well as bodies ; and we propose to consider all those groups or classes of living creatures, properly THE COMMON ORIGIN OF MAN. 83 and commonly called human, and examine the lineaments of their spirits, and inquire if we cannot find in them not only traces, but proofs of a community of nature and ori- gin. In this inquiry we must of course reject all that mental development which other animals share in common with man. Nor will this be deemed unfair by any candid person ; for this degree of mental development is possessed by many races or species of animals known to be distinct : and this degree of mental development is not supposed to prove anything. Certainly those claiming to believe that the man of Asia and the man of America are distinct and independent species, will not contend that the sheep and the ox are one, simply because the mind of one is nearly the same as of the other. And at the same time we do not believe any one so obtuse or absurd as to deny that a mental power may be as marked a characteristic of a race as any bodily feature. They ought not, therefore, to complain if in the argument we rej ect as unworthy of con- sideration that degree of mental development which seems necessary to the perpetuation of the species and the prolongation of life, for this .proves nothing. We shall not consider the pos- 84 THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. session of the five senses, the power of loco- motion, the mental action necessary for obtaining food and providing suitable shelter, nor even of forming attachments for each other, as having any bearing whatever upon the subject. The range of mind which we propose to examine is higher in a word, it is human. There are in- deed sometimes strange exhibitions of mental power in beasts ; strange because exhibited by them, and its very strangeness proves the evi- dent and infinite difference between them and man, for the wisest brute never approximated the wisdom of human beings; and when ex- amined, all its wisdom will be found to belong to what may be called a low department of mind, though ofttimes sufficient to distinguish it from other brutes ; while, universally, men exhibit a kind of soul entirely above and distinct from the mind of brutes. The argument is simply this : that all the so termed races of men now existing on the earth possess and exhibit mental action and power peculiar to them as men, and common to all. In considering this argument we are not to notice idiots or insane persons, any more than in con- ducting the physiological argument we should consider lusus naturce, or monstrosities, oc- THE COMMON ORIGIN OF MAN. 85 casioned by some known or unknown infraction of the laws of nature. In examining the common mind of man we scarcely know where to commence; nor is it an important point, provided only that a few prominent features be presented. It may be well, also, to observe, that in some few instances a mental feature may, through ignorance or vice, be imperfectly developed or strangely distorted. The laws which govern mind, though inflexible as those which govern matter, are capable of a much more varied application and effect. The latitude of their action is wider, and the diversity of their product greater. This fact renders meta- physics a more complicated study than physics, and should warn us to observe closely lest fancy be substituted for fact ; but it cannot be denied that law prevails in mental action, and that only to the ignorant is it a maze without a plan. That mental character which leads to the establishment of government, and which, largely developed, produces the organization of nations and the ready submission of the multitude to existing authorities, is common to all races of human beings. All mankind are governed by patriarchs, chiefs, sachems, presidents, or kings. There is not a language or dialect in this babel of 86 THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. earth that has not a term synonymous with ruler or king. We have never yet heard of a tribe so degraded as to be entirely destitute of govern- ment ; indeed, the very word tribe presupposes it. And where have human beings been found existing in a motley, incoherent mass ? Should such be found, they would be so small a minority, and so evidently dehumanized by some particu- lar circumstance, as to be no more worthy of affecting our opinion on the unity of the human race than the occupants of our insane asylum. If it be said that the bee, and the beaver, and some other animals, have an organized government, we acknowledge it, but reply that in this respect only they resemble man, and not in others, while animals generally do not thus resemble him ; and in the few species that do exhibit this peculiarity, it is the result of instinct and not of reason. The difference between the two is well known. In- stinct is a blind undeviating result of an incom- prehensible impulse, entirely different from the varied effects flowing from the exercise of the reason of man. Is not this fact, then, that men universally have a government, indicative of a common nature in man ? Another fact of a similar character, is the universal practice among men of assisting or THE COMMON OKIGIN OF MAN. 87 regulating nature in the production of food, by the cultivation of the soil. If this is not uni- versal, it is practiced by a vast majority of the human family, including the most diverse in appearances and customs. We are not per- mitted in this argument to state that agricul- ture was the employment of the first man, for the subject is to be examined wholly in- dependently of any information communicated by the Bible. But it is a fact patent to the observation of all, that both in torrid, tropical and frigid zones, both among the most de- graded and enlightened men, the culture of the earth is a characteristic of man. And as every fact embodies a thought, this great fact must be an exponent of a mental feature com- mon to the whole human family. Such, also, is the practice of taming many of the lower ani- mals, and subjecting them to his service. The reindeer of the Siberian, the elephant of the Asiatic and African, the camel of the desert, the horse and ox of the European, and the dog of every clime, by their service, exhibit a common tendency in man. to seek his own convenience and pleasure through them. These and other similar practices, such as the wearing of clothing for the concealment and 88 THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. protection of the body, prove the existence of a common reason in all human beings, which en- ables them to exercise a voluntary sovereignty over nature for their own support and happi- ness, and thus betokens a common nature and origin. The mental aspect of the argument from lan- guage is often strangely overlooked. Waiving for the present the argument deduced from the common character of languages, and the universal prevalence of some important terms, we urge that the la/re fact that all human be- ings can articulate, and do convey to each other thoughts and emotions by words, is no trivial evidence of a common nature and origin. Man is a talking animal, and he alone can claim that appellation. Now, to be able to converse, as every tribe of human beings can, implies not only the possession of a peculiar physical ap- paratus for the utterance of sounds, but also of mental ability, enjoyed alone by man on earth. The grammatical structure of the meanest and feeblest dialect requires the power of general- ization and abstraction involving a noble exer- cise of the pure reason, and this power is possessed by all men. Still further, each is capable of learning the language of the other. THE COMMON ORIGIN OF MAN. 89 The Chinese can change his stinted, jerking dialect for the more copious and exact language of the English ; the mellifluous Italian can learn the harsh guttural of the Ojibway. The ex- periment has been tried on an extended scale, and we know that any man can acquire the dialect of any other, even as we know that iron is magnetic or that water will freeze. Who can fail to see in this an evidence of the common nature of man? The common nature of man may be seen, also, from the univeral possession of what may be termed the mathematic talent. But few, if any, tribes of men have been found that were not accustomed to enumerate, at least to a limited extent; and by far the majority have names for the numbers up to ten, and by tens to hundreds and thousands; and all, without exception, are capable of learning the art. All these practices prove the possession of reason, and the facts still further to prove this are almost innumerable. Besides this, we might refer to the almost if not quite universal preva- lence of certain passions, such as the love of approbation or vanity, evinced by the gaudy dress of the savage and the princely palace of the civilized, the heroism of him who fights 90 THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. with the tomahawk, and of him who wields the sword, a fondness for amusement, attested by the war-dances of the barbarian, the athletic games of the half-civilized, the festivals and shows of the enlightened ; but we hasten on to what we consider by far the highest and most convincing proof of the spiritual unity of the human race. And this is the universal preva- lence of the religious element of character in man. No brute ever yet felt a religious emo- tion ; no sane man ever lived incapable of feeling it. Asiatic, African, European, and American agree in this. What sadder description of the degradation of a tribe of human beings can be given than this : they appear to be destitute of a religion. Wholly destitute of some faint traces of religious worship, none have been found. The African worships his fetish, the Hottentot a snail ; while the Chinese bows before the image of his ancestors, and the Indian before the god of the hunter and of war; and all alike are capable of learning the sublime doctrines of the Bible, and the simple story of the cross. This we regard as the crowning proof of the spiritual unity of the human race. The Bible has already been printed in scores of languages, and in each has found intelligent readers and listeners, who THE COMMON ORIGIN OF MAN. 91 have bowed before God and believed in Jesus Christ. Missionaries have visited every clime, and many if not all races of men ; and though besotted by error, and clouded by superstition, in all souls is found a nature responsive to its grand promises and its authoritative claims. "Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia and in Judea and Cappadocia, in Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, in Egypt, and in the parts of Lybia about Gyrene, and strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes, Cretes and Arabians, do hear " and understand when they hear "them speak in their own tongues the wonderful works of God." The highest exercise of the soul is the religious exercise, and of this all are capable ; and of this all nations that have not the true, have a counterfeit. This proves the unity of the human race. Their souls exhibit every degree of development, but in spirit they are one. The difference between the greatest ex- tremes is scarcely greater than between the greatest extremes in those acknowledged to be of one race, and we therefore feel confirmed in the Scriptural doctrine, that "God hath made of one blood all nations of men, for to dwell on all the face of the earth." 92 THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. If it be asked why, then, any have doubted this doctrine, the answer must be that they have studied the physical rather than the men- tal and spiritual character of man. The variety in complexion, height, features, and form has puzzled them, though it is easy to find persons in any one race, according to their own classifi- cation, differing from each other nearly or quite as- much as the average types of the different races as classified by them. Therefore we find that the untenable dogma of a variety of races is entertained principally by men who study merely nature and not mind, matter and not spirit, the body and not the soul. No metaphy- sician or philosopher, truly so called, has ever inculcated or indulged the notion. To the views we have presented, one plausible objection may be made. It may be acknowl- edged that all men have a common spiritual nature, but it may be affirmed that nevertheless their origin is diverse. In other words, God has created at different times different races, of the same mental and spiritual character and capabilities. To this we reply, it is a mere un- tenable hypothesis, the anti-scriptural nature of which should condemn it. But besides being anti-scriptural, it is also unphilosophical. It is THE COMMON ORIGIN OF MAN. 93 an acknowledged principle of philosophy, that when two causes equally satisfactory of any phenomenon are suggested, we must always choose the simpler. It would be superfluous on the part of the Almighty to have created five or five hundred races and if there is more than one there may be five hundred of men, all alike in nature, when one race alone, by migration and increase, would answer the purpose. Indeed, the notion of a multiplex origin of man is a hasty conclusion from narrow observation, a figment of fancy, which rears towering structures on very narrow foundations. Behold, therefore, the absurdities into which this view must lead. We are gravely inform- ed by a theorist* that the modern inhabitants of Europe consist of five or six why not fifty ? races, utterly incapable of permanent mixture or consolidation; that the condition of Asia is no better ; and that America, where, alas ! men of all races are congregated together, as in some heterogeneous menagerie of strange animals, the present inhabitants are doomed by an unnatural combination of races to utter destruction ; while the handful of savages remaining, originally be- gotten on and. from the soil, shall yet arise in the P The Races of Men, by Robert Knox. 94: THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. majesty of their nature, and roam again with their buffaloes over the debris of its present in- truders ! And to support this strange theory, history must step aside, facts must be ignored, philosophy must be despised, and common sense forgotten. We are not unaware of the physical objections to the unity of the human race, nor of the plau- sible arguments which are adduced against it ; we have surveyed them carefully, and believe that the opposite view introduces ten difficulties without removing one, and demands a belief in enormous and purposeless miracles, not only opposed to universal experience, but utterly be- yond the credulity of a well-trained reason and philosophic mind. It is the same hasty deduc- tion which led the ancient heathen to believe in " gods many " instead of the one God ; T;hat leads equally hasty thinkers to believe in races many and many creations, instead of one human family, the individuals of which have been sub- jected for ages to various influences, which have left permanent and inherited traces, the origin and classification of which are yet to be attained by true philosophical inquiry and research. The notion of diversity is a plunge backward in sci- ence, and is directly opposed to that c^nprehen- THE COMMON ORIGIN OF MAN. 95 sive generalization which leads the true philoso- pher to seek unity instead of complexity of laws and causes, and to anticipate from a simplicity of means an endless diversity of effects. The bearing of this subject on the great enter- prise of reform, the perfection of man or of Christianity, the conversion of the world, all can see. As an immortal agent on probation, every man is our brother, every woman our sister. Marked differences there may be, both in physi- cal, mental, and moral development indeed, the true theory demands these differences, and at- tributes them all to the effects of education and circumstance but as moral beings, accounta- ble to God and bound to the bar of Christ, all are equal. In Adam all fell ; Jesus Christ died for all. The Bible is designed for all, and all may by the Holy Spirit be rendered holy, and meet for everlasting communion with God. Already individuals in many races have been truly humanized and exalted by the blessed in- fluence of the true religion. The first disciples of Christ were Jews, Greeks, and Komans. Africans and Goths, Saxons and Celts, have been humbled by its strict exposure of their de- pravity, and converted by its sovereign efficacy. In later times, through the instruction of mis- yb THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. sionaries, Ethiopians, the aborigines of America, Orientalists, Greenlanders, Chinese, and Hotten- tots, have learned the name of Jesus, and been cheered by the " good tidings of great joy." There is no bar to the admission of the gospel in any race, for with Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, male nor female, bond nor free! Even now prayers are ascending to God and his Son in many languages, and will yet, we trust, in all ; and in the sublime vision of heaven de- scribed by the E-evelator, we see " a great mul- titude which no man could number, of all na- tions, and kingdoms, and people, and tongues," standing before the throne and giving praise to God and the Lamb. The Lord hasten the time when the whole earth shall be an ante-chamber of heaven! .For this consummation, all Chris- tians should earnestly labour and devoutly pray. THE CALL OF ABRAHAM. 97 CHAPTEE YI. THE CALL OF ABRAHAM. THE opening act of the grand scheme of the world's regeneration, according to the Bible, was the call of Abraham. Before we examine it, a few preliminary considerations may be prof- itable. What would be the condition of man without any revelation from his Creator? Is human in- fancy itself more helpless and hopeless than the race would be, destitute of divine instruction ? The infant has instincts which, met by the care of the mother, enable it to live ; so man as a race has instincts, which, met, and confirmed, and guided by revelation, elevate and ennoble him ; an instinct to acknowledge God, an instinct to worship, to love right and hate wrong, to long for an immortality, and to provide for the unending future. These are instincts character- istic of man, peculiar to him, sometimes feeble, sometimes unnaturally active ; always useless, generally injurious, unless responded to and 7 98 THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. guided by a pure system of religious belief, such a system as the Bible contains, such a system as man could not invent, still less authenticate; such a system, in fine, as God alone could give. Now, has God left the world without a reve- lation ? Is it not a want of man ? Is it not an essential to human perfection ? Is not the world an incomplete machine without it? the very gov- erning power wanting, and, consequently, the more rapid its motion, the higher its develop- ment, so much the more evident and dangerous its imperfection. The Utopian schemes of infidelity, to harmon- ize and* bless the world by the reign of reason, have, over and over again, even to the satisfac- tion of their enthusiastic votaries, been proved more delusive than a sick man's dreams. The ambition of these votaries was good; but that even they stole from the Bible. You may search the history of the world downward from its be- ginning, and previous to Christ and his apostles, you will not find the name of one who either laboured for, or expressed a desire for blessing the whole world. Reformers there were, on a small scale, like Confucius, Zoroaster, Solon, and others ; but they never extended their vision be- THE CALL OF ABRAHAM. 99 yond the confines of the nation that gave them birth. Even the Hebrew prophets, who foretold the redemption of the world, could not explain the method, and gave no exhortations to be act- ive in bringing it about. It was reserved for the Nazarene and his fishermen-apostles first to give body to the thought, and to burn with the enterprise. False reformers since have stolen the thought, perverted the emotion, insanely at- tempted to accomplish the enterprise, and gene- rally ended in despair for themselves, and an in- crease of the evils of others. Yoltaire was one of these ardent pseudo- reformers; but hear the wail of agony which, in his matured experience, he deliberately pub- lished to the world : " Who can without horror consider the whole earth as the empire of destruction ? It abounds in wonders ; it abounds also in victims : it is a vast field of carnage and contagion! In man there is more wretchedness than in all other animals put together. He smarts continually under two scourges, which other animals never feel, anxiety and listlessness in appetence, which make him weary of himself. He loves life, and yet he knows that he must die. If he enjoy some transient good, for .which he is 100 THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. thankful to Heaven, he suffers various evils, and is at last devoured by worms. This knowledge is his fatal prerogative; other animals have it not. He feels it every moment rankling and corroding in his breast ; yet he spends the tran- sient moment of his existence in diffusing the misery that he suffers; in cutting the throats of his fellow-creatures for pay ; in cheating and being cheated ; in robbing and being robbed ; in serving that he may command; and in re- penting of all that he does. The bulk of man- kind are nothing more than a crowd of wretches, equally criminal and unfortunate ; and the globe contains carcasses rather than men. I tremble, upon a review of this dreadful picture, to find that it implies a complaint against Providence ; and I wish that I had never been born." Such is the wise conclusion of the rejecter of the Bible ; such must be the conclusion of every reasonable man, not destitute of heart, who rejects the word of God. Without a Bible, good were it for the world if it had never been made ! Take the main-spring out of a watch, and hand the watch to a man who had never seen such an instrument before, and ask him the use of it, and what would he reply ? He takes it, examines it, and answers: "So far as I can THE CALL OF ABRAHAM. 101 see, it is of no value. There is beauty about it, skill exhibited in its structure, but it will answer no purpose. You cannot make the machinery move, or, if you succeed, it moves fitfully, ir- regularly, and, so far as I can see, it is a useless expenditure of wisdom ; probably the work of some idle person, designed merely to gratify curiosity, or to while away the time." But restore the main-spring, and it is an excellent, useful thing. What the watch is without its governing part, this world would be without a revelation from God. Remove a knowledge of Christ from the world, and it becomes a grand, sublime, vain, and purposeless structure, a huge monument of the folly of God ! Restore Christ, and it becomes a glorious, harmonious exhibition of the justice, and goodness, and wisdom of God. Believe it who can, that God hath not spoken to man ! There is, therefore, an antecedent probability that a revelation would be given to man ! Man naturally seeks it, looks around for it; if he does not find it, pitches upon some counterfeit, and is only induced to reject the true one, or pervert it, by an insane attachment to vice which it condemns, or an unwillingness to prac- tise the virtue which it enjoins. 102 THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. If, then, a revelation is an essential part of this universe, and therefore must exist, what should be our feelings when examining the only system which can, to an intelligent person, urge any claims to be the true one ? It should not surprise us if the method pur- sued by God, in the government of the world, should not immediately commend itself to our approval. " What can we reason but from what we know ?" The power of reason is limited to certain sub- jects, and even upon them needs practice. The child is puzzled by a simple proposition, and when he reaches manhood remains finite ; and though keen and discriminating upon some sub- jects then, is still infantile on others. Who withholds the praise of genius from the poet who writes the -songs of a nation, or from the statesman who guides its government? But are the poet and orator necessarily able to act as skilful engineers to lead an army into battle, to paint a portrait, to erect a temple ? A man may be a prodigy on a few branches of thought, but feeble upon others ; and if he would study them he must begin where other children be- gin, at the elements, and proceed by regular THE CALL OF ABRAHAM. 103 advance to the end. How sage and dogmatic were the objections to steam navigation when first proposed ! Did not one of the leaders in science demonstrate to his satisfaction, that the crossing of the Atlantic Ocean by a steamship is an absolute and eternal impossibility ? Every great truth and great project is met by the strongest and strangest objections from those who do not understand it. Is it strange, then, that men "dressed in a little brief authority " of science should criticise what must have been forever beyond their im- agination, and is beyond their imitation, God's plan of governing the world? What would be the condition of the physical universe if sub- jected to the control of our natural philoso- phers? Would earthquakes be banished, or be perpetual? Would the aurora borealis, of which men can see no use, and meteoric showers and epidemics be continued? And would the government of the intellectual and religious universe be any better if committed to our moral philosophers? The simple fact is, that man is not competent to criticise either nature or revelation. His objections are the crudities of infancy, and must make the angels, as they do good men, either laugh or weep. .: THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. The simple question is, Is the Bible a revela- tion ? If so, study and obey it. Again ; many of the designs of God are long concealed, or developed only in a way and place which seem to man remote, and some are not yet developed. That little property of water, once deemed miraculous, and still as wonderful, though called natural, its expansion during freezing, may have lain dormant and unexercised, and there- fore useless, for millions of ages, as it is now in many parts of the world. An angel witnessing the process of creation, if such a fancy is justi- fiable, might have wondered that the Creator should endow it with this useless attribute ; but when the earth became cooled, and water began to freeze, then it would appear that the property was essential to render the earth inhabitable. If we have a correct idea of the Bible, no act recorded in it is trivial. It may appear so, but in ages to come it may show itself to be a master- stroke of Omnipotence to shape the character of the ages. The early religion of the world was genuine, not an invention of man, and therefore it was pure. Sabianism the worship of the celestial bodies, and the worship of fire, and, in time, of THE CALL OF ABRAHAM. 105 images gradually took the place of true relig- ion. Idolatry puts no restraint upon evil passions, and fast becomes wedded to immorality. At this juncture God interposed to save the world from a second universal deluge of vice, which would have demanded a second universal deluge of water. He called Abraham to be the "father of the faithful," the defender of true worship and morality. He was commanded, supernaturally, to leave his native land and countrymen, and enter Canaan, which was to be his and his descendants' forever. In obedience to this call, Abraham, with his family, left Ur probably a place now called Urfan, or Edessa, in Assyria and travelled a few miles toward Haran or Charran,* where he tarried fourteen years. Then, agreeably to another call, he left his brother ISTahor, and departed again with his wife, and his nephew Lot. When he started, he knew not whither he was tending, nor where he should stop. The Spirit of the Lord was his guide, and he determined to travel by day, and feed his flock by night, until he was informed, " This is the place that the Lord hath given to Haran is on a flat and sandy plain, on a small river by the same name, running into the Euphrates, in the north- west of Mesopotamia. It still bears its old name. 106 THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. you and your posterity forever." After travel- ling four hundred miles he was permitted to stop, when he found himself in a beautiful country, already partly occupied by a degraded, half-savage, and exceedingly wicked people. From these he was to keep separate, and the promise was given him : " I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great ; and thou shalt be a blessing : and I will bless them that bless thee, and curse them that curse thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed." Behold the reward of holiness! Is there a more remarkable passage in the Bible than that? Language cannot convey a greater promise than that : all that a man can imagine of good is in it. And how improbable it was that this should be accomplished ! Look at the scene as it was three thousand years ago. The old man (for he was at least seventy years of age) had been worshipping God, with his wife and servants ; he was in a strange land, unable to protect himself should enemies attack him, with no son to bear his name, or to inherit his property, or to per- petuate his family ; and yet the Lord says : " I will make of thee a great nation, and I will THE CALL OF ABRAHAM. 107 bless thee, and make thy name great ; and thou shalt be a blessing : and I will bless them that bless thee, and curse them that curse thee : and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed." In process of time all these predictions were strangely fulfilled. A son of his old age, Isaac, was the one through whom he was to become the father of a great nation. At least three million two hundred thousand of his descendants are now in the world, many of them in our own continent, leaving entirely out of view the great nation of Arabians, who are descendants of Abraham. His name too is great; his his- tory is known in many lands. Though a simple farmer and shepherd, millions of people are ac- quainted with his character; and his name is perhaps repeated more frequently than that of any other human being. The Jew, the Christian, and Mohammedan join in giving him praise, and delight to be called his children. There is abundant traditional evidence of his character, and his name is often mentioned in ancient profane history.. Berosus was an historian-, a Babylonian, and a priest. He lived about three hundred years be- fore Christ, and his history bears every mark of 108 THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. truth. In one of the fragments of his writings still extant is found this testimony concerning Abraham: "After the deluge, in the tenth generation, was a certain man among the Chal- deans, renowned for his justice and great ex- ploits, and for his skill in the celestial sciences."* Many other ancient writers have also men- tioned Abraham ; but their information seems chiefly to have been built upon what is found in the Bible. The events which happened to Abraham when in Egypt, and their striking confirmation by the late discoveries of the ancient history of that pe- culiar people, we shall refer to in a subsequent chapter. Suffice it to say, that the brief sketch of the call of Abraham in the word of God is one of its most interesting portions, since with him began that series of special revelations which together constitute the word of God, the foundation of our holy religion. There are, in- deed, incidentally mentioned, some great relig- ious truths in the history preceding his time; and there is abundant evidence that the early world was in the possession of a genuine and The Ancient Fragments, containing what remains of the writings of Sanchoniathon, Berosus, Abydenus, Megasthenee, and Manetho. Translated by J. P. Gary. Lond., 1828, p. 36. THE CALL OF ABRAHAM. 109 complete theory of true religion from the very beginning. The last prediction given to Abraham, " In thee shall all the families of the earth be bless- ed," has been accomplished by the redemption through Christ, by which we may be made par- takers of everlasting life. It would be interesting to portray at some length the character of this good man, but it does not comport with our design. A few ob- servations will not be inappropriate. His great characteristic was faith. He never doubted a promise of God. He exhibited this in his emi- gration. He exhibited this especially in the of- fering of his son Isaac. According to Scripture, God designed to test Abraham's faith, and there- fore commanded him to offer up his son Isaac as a sacrifice. "Whether or not Abraham had ever witnessed such a truly horrid sight as a human being put to death by his companions as a sacrifice, we cannot tell. On either suppo- sition, it must have required strong confidence in God to obey him ; but he faltered not. Though the journey was continued three days before he reached the required spot, and while travelling on with his beloved son his meditations must have been constantly upon this one subject, he 110 THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. turned not back. He piled up the wood to con- sume the offering, and took the knife in his hand to slay his son. " By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac ; and he that had re- ceived the promises offered up his only-begotten son, of whom it was said, That in Isaac shall thy seed be called : accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead."* According to Sanchoniathon, as quoted by Eusebius in his Praep. Evang., lib. i, cap. x, p. 40, and lib. iv, cap. xvi, p. 156, a mysterious ceremony was common among the early Phceni- cians, which he describes as follows : " It was an established custom among the ancients, [mean- ing the Phoenicians,] on any calamitous emergency, for the ruler of the state to offer up, to prevent the ruin, the most dearly beloved of his children, as a ransom to avert the di- vine vengeance. And they who were devoted for this pur- pose were offered mystically. For Kronus, truly, whom the Phoenicians call //, and who after his death was translated with divine honours to the star which bears his name, having, while he ruled over that people, begotten by a nymph of that country, named Jlnobret, an only son, thence entitled Jeud, (it being to this day usual with the Phoenicians so to denom- inate an only son,) had, when the nation was endangered from a most perilous war, after dressing up his son in the emblems of royalty, offered him as a sacrifice on an altar specially prepared for the purpose." Now it is highly probable that the above is an ornamented or poetical account of the very offering of Isaac by his father Abraham. The grounds of this opinion are as follows : 1. 11, the Phrcnician name of the father, may be a contrac- tion of Israel, which might well be put for Abraham. This is the opinion of Stillingfleet, Scaliger, and others. THE CALL OF ABRAHAM. Ill 2. The title of the only son, Jeud, is the very title given in Hebrew to Isaac, when God issues his order to Abraham, Take now thy son, "pTP, thy Jehid, (thine only son.) 3. Anobret, the name of the mother, may signify ex gratia concipiens, and therefore applies to Sarah. 4. Abraham might justly be styled a king, and was vene- rated widely. From all these circumstances, the probabilities that this is a heathen account of the facts related in Scripture are strong. As, however, this opinion is not unquestionable, we have in- troduced it in a note. Those who may wish to examine this singular statement further, can consult Magee on Atonement, Appendix, No. xli; or Stillingfleet on Phoenician Theogony, derived from Sanchoniathon, 112 THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. CHAPTER VII. THE DESTRUCTION OF SODOM AND GOMORRAH. IN the ninteenth chapter of the Book of Genesis is found one of the most astonishing relations re- corded in the Bible, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. According to the simple Scrip- tural account, the inhabitants of a tract of country called " the plain," including the cities Sodom and Gomorrah, and also Admah and Zeboim, were excessively wicked. From the single instance of their wickedness related, it is evident that they were universally as aban- doned to sensuality and as degraded as it seems possible for human beings to be. They had no respect for sacred things, and thought of nothing but to gratify their unholy lusts. God therefore determined to destroy them and their country together, and leave the spot where they lived as a perpetual monument of his indignation. Lot, a foreigner, who dwelt among them, was comparatively a good man, and unaffected by the corrupt manners of those around him. He, SODOM AND GOMOERAII. 113 therefore, received warning of the impending destruction, and was urged to fly for his life, with his family, to the surrounding mountains. He obeyed, but could not induce any of his family to start with him but his wife and two daughters. Having escaped from the city, " the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven." This completely destroyed the cities, and all their inhabitants, and even the wife of Lot, looking back, was changed into a pillar of salt. The next morning, Abraham, rising early, and looking toward the cities and the land of the plain, " beheld, and lo, the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace." Now we maintain that this strange account, forming a part of the Bible, so well authenti- cated as a whole, should be implicitly believed, even though no other evidence of its truth ex- isted ; but if subsidiary evidence can be found, it will serve to add confirmation to sacred writ. We purpose, then, to examine this history faithfully. According to the chronology which we adopt, this event took place about two thousand years before Christ, in an age of which we have but few historical traces, and these faint and imper- fect, except what are found in the Bible. The 114 THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. authentic history of China, according to Con- fucius himself, their most noted author, does not reach this period by nine hundred years.* The history of Hindostan begins to be authentic about at the date of the event we are contem- plating, according to the Septuagint.f Of the nations that dwelt in the immediate vicinity of the place where this catastrophe is said to have happened, no ancient history is ex- tant from which we could reasonably expect a mention of this event. But there is another source whence we might look for confirmation, and that is the geological character of the coun- try, or the appearance of the spot where the cities are said to have been burned with fire from heaven. Examining this, we shall not be disappointed. The tempests of nearly four thou- sand years have not been sufficient to remove the evident traces of that conflagration, the scar of that wound that was then made on the surface of the earth. The River Jordan runs through Palestine, Asiatic Researches, vol. ii, p. 370. Subsequent researches have indeed led to the conclusion that the early history of the Chinese, commencing even two thousand nine hundred and fifty-three years before Christ, may be regarded as semi-au- thentic ; but it is brief and imperfect, and confined to its own emperors or dynasties. (Squiers's Chinese as they Are, p. 8.) t Ibid., vol. ii, p. 143. SODOM AND GOMOBBAH. 115 from north to south, and empties into an inland lake, called the Dead Sea. It has been the general opinion that before the de- struction of Sodom and Gomorrah it passed on beyond its present termination into the Red Sea. At any rate, the Dead Sea now lies where Sodom and Gomorrah formerly were. If there were any sea there before the destruction of those cities, it was but small, compared with its present size. Now, in the fourteenth chapter of Genesis, it is incidentally mentioned that the Yale of Siddim, which was near Sodom, was full of slime-pits, or abounded in bitumen. This was probably the geological character of the whole plain. The soil itself was semi-combustible. 1 * Its destruction was doubtless accomplished either by volcanic action, producing electricity and storms, or primarily by lightning from heaven, which, setting on fire the bitumen in several places, produced a destruction so rapid that the guilty inhabitants could not escape. Earth- quakes, volcanic action, .and lightning often attend each other, and all together, doubtless, accomplished the ruin of these cities. The Dead Sea and surrounding country bear There is a similar bituminous combustible tract of country now in the island of Trinidad. (Lyell's Prin. of Geol., ch. xvii.) 116 THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. evident traces of this great conflagration. The asphaltum or bitumen is not all consumed, but masses of it still exist in the bottom of the lake, and are often detached, and float to the surface. Sulphur abounds in the vicinity of the lake, which is a sure sign of previous volcanic action, masses of sulphur never having been produced by nature in any other way. A black, shining stone is also found, which is combustible ; and the water of the sea is so impregnated with various salts that fishes will not live in it, and even trav- ellers upon its surface are often covered with a greasy, bitter substance, deposited from the spray. It is thought that "the plain" of Sodom and Gomorrah was where the southern portion of the Dead Sea now is ; and by the volcanic action at the time of their destruction, the soil was con- sumed or sunken, and the waters of the Jordan running in formed the sea, under which are buried the monuments and wealth, if any escaped the flames, and the bodies of the de- graded and wretched inhabitants. The late United States expedition for explor- ing the -Jordan and the Dead Sea has thrown much light on this subject, and, like all other careful investigations, serves but to confirm the Bible. Captain Lynch, the commander of the SODOM AND GOMORRAH. 117 expedition, has written a faithful account of all the investigations by the company. They spent twenty-two days upon this gloomy sea, encoun- tering many dangers, and suffering excessively from the briny spray, which in time of storm settled upon them, conveying a prickly sensation wherever it touched the skin, and exceedingly painful to the eyes. Indeed, the health of all the men was unfavourably affected, and nothing but a strong determination to accomplish their task induceM them to persevere. They sounded every part of the sea, examined its bottom and its shores, and this is their conclusion, in the words of Captain Lynch : " The inference from the Bible, that this entire chasm was a plain, sunk and < overwhelmed' by the wrath of God, seems to be sustained by the extraordinary character of the soundings. The bottom of this sea consists of two submerged plains, an elevated and a depressed one; the first averaging thirteen and the last thirteen hundred feet below the surface. Through the northern, the largest and deepest one, in a line corresponding with the bed of the Jordan, is a ravine, which again seems to correspond with the Wady el Jeib, or ravine within a ravine, at the south end of the sea. 118 THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. "Between the Jabbok and the sea we unex- pectedly found a sudden break-down in the bed of the Jordan. If there be a similar break in the water-courses to the south of the sea, accom- panied with like volcanic characters,* there can scarce be a doubt that the whole Ghar has sunk from some extraordinary convulsion, preceded, most probably, by an eruption of fire, and a general conflagration of the bitumen which abounded in the plain. I shall ever regret that we were not authorized to explore the southern Ghar to the Ked Sea. " But it is for the learned to comment on the facts we have laboriously collected. Upon our- selves the result is a decided one. We entered upon this sea with conflicting opinions. One of the party was sceptical, and another, I think, a professed unbeliever of the Mosaic account. After twenty-two days of close investigation, if I am not mistaken, we are unanimous in the con- viction of the truth of the Scriptural account of the destruction of the cities of the plain."f There is such a break, from a hundred to a hundred nni-ro to do all his commandments and his statutes, which I command thee this day : that all these curses shall come upon thee, and overtake thee : and they shall be upon thee for a sign and for a wonder, and upon thy seed forever." Then follows an enumeration of curses, from the forty-ninth verse tb the sixty- third. The same subject is presented in Leviticus xxvi, 33-39. Now, to doubt respecting the accurate and complete fulfilment of this long train of prophe- cies, is impossible to any one conversant with the history and present condition of the people ad- dressed. The verification of the prophecy must bo acknowledged, and must be convincing, ex- THE PKOPIIECIES OF MOSES. 227 cept to those who will not believe. Let us now closely examine it. 1. It is expressly foretold that the Israelites shall suffer so conspicuously and strangely that the attention of other nations will be arrested, and men shall inquire into the origin of those sufferings, " and they shall be for a sign and a wonder, upon thy seed forever." That this is true no man can deny. Whatever the religious tenets of any historian, or traveller, who has become acquainted with this nation, he has acknowledged that their condition is won- derful, and cannot be accounted for upon the principles of nature ; and every man who ac- knowledges the direct agency of the Almighty in any event, recognises that agency here. " Good God," exclaims Yolney,* a man, alas ! who would not acknowledge the truth when looking upon Judea, over which he travelled, " from whence proceed such melancholy revolu- tions ? For what cause is the fortune of these countries so strikingly changed? why are so many cities destroyed ? why is not that ancient population reproduced and perpetuated? " I wandered over the country, I traversed the provinces, I enumerated the kingdoms of Volney's Ruins, chap, ii, p. 8. 228 THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. Damascus and Idumea, of Jerusalem and Sa- maria. 'This Syria,' said I to myself, 'now almost depopulated, then contained a hundred flourishing cities, and abounded with towns, vil- lages, and hamlets. What has become of so many productions of the hands of man ? What has become of those ages of abundance and life?'" 2. The second prediction of Moses was a striking description of the nation which was to overthrow the Jewish empire, and produce this destruction. What nation was it? Every stu- dent of history can reply, It was Rome that subjugated Palestine: it was the fourth and last universal empire that dethroned her monarch, sacked her cities, and slaughtered her people. Behold now the prophet's description of this people, many centuries before Romulus and Remus had established their asylum for banditti at Rome, which afterward became mistress of the western world: "The Lord shall bring against thee a nation from far, from the end of the earth." Rome was far from Palestine; it was a region which none of them who listened to Moses had ever visited, a region of whose existence they were as ignorant as they were of America ; a nation, adds the prophet, " as swift THE PROPHECIES OF MOSES. as the eagle flieth." Every one is aware of the unparalleled celerity with which a Roman army moved and conquered. They marched .with astonishing speed, and always surprised their enemies : "I came, I saw, I conquered !" was the boastful and characteristic letter of their greatest general, after his greatest triumph. Moreover, what an aptness there is in the proph- et's similitude, "as swift as the eagle flieth," when we consider that the eagle was the stand- ard of the Roman nation, as it is now of ours, the eagle, emblematic of swiftness and of power. But, continues the prophet, it shall be " a nation whose tongue thou shalt not understand." A strange prediction that! It should be a nation of whose language they were utterly ignorant : not the Egyptian, for many of them could speak Egyptian ; not Persia, nor Babylon, nor Arabia, nor in fact any nation speaking a language simi- lar to their own. The event proves the correct- ness of the prediction, for no languages are more dissimilar than the Hebrew and the Latin. " A nation," too, says the prophet, " of fierce countenance, which shall not regard the person of the old, nor show favour to the young." Fierceness of countenance was a well-known characteristic of the Roman soldiers ; and their 230 THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. merciless severity, their impartial cruelty in time of action, the unhesitating ferocity with which they slaughtered indiscriminately all who opposed them, are proverbial, and. were espe- cially exhibited in the destruction of the Jews. Now, could Moses, as a man, have foreseen and described this nation so accurately, before as yet it had an existence, before even its founder was born, before their city had been redeemed from the primitive forest, or perhaps had even been trodden by the foot of man? And could he foresee that that nation would conquer Judea ? If any man thinks so, will not that same wise man inform us what singular na- tion will spring up, in some remote part of the earth, one thousand years hence; and in what way, some five hundred years afterward, that singular people will become connected with us ? 3. But this does not exhaust the predictions of Moses. In the third place, he describes the particulars of the siege of their cities, and the overthrow of their nation. Verses 51-56. Now, was this terrible prediction verified? O, war has many a sad story to tell ! Its history is written in blood! For the honour of in an, would that it might be forgotten I May it never be repeated ! But perhaps its bloodiest page is THE PROPHECIES OF MOSES. 231 the destruction of Jerusalem and slaughter of the Jews, by the Romans. It took place in the year of our Lord TO, fifteen hundred and twenty- one years after Moses repeated this prophecy. Titus, the Roman commander, was esteemed a mild and benevolent man; but so determined were the Jews in their opposition, they per- formed such prodigies of valour, they so exas- perated the Roman soldiery, that even his severe discipline could not control their rage. At last he lost his own clemency, and yielded to passion ; and the merciless destruction that ensued is per- haps without parallel. Children and the aged, maidens and mothers, were slaughtered and even crucified alive, with undistinguishable and de- moniac barbarity. But why should I attempt to describe what has been so well related by a Jew, who wrote an account of what he himself saw ? I refer to Josephus, the famous Jewish historian. In the sixth book of his wars of the Jews, and eighth chapter, he says, mark with what cool, his- torical language he relates these bloody deeds, " So the Romans being now become masters of the walls, they placed their engines upon the towers, and made joyful acclamations for the victory they had gained, as having found the 232 THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. end of this war much lighter than its beginning. But when they went, in numbers, into the lanes of the city, with their swords drawn, they slew those whom they overtook without mercy, and set fire to the houses whither the Jews were fled, and burnt every soul in them, and laid waste a great many of the rest ; and when they came to the houses to plunder them, they found in them entire families of dead men, and the upper rooms full of dead corpses, that is, of such as died by the famine : they then stood in a horror at this sight, and went out without touching anything. But although they had this com- miseration for such as were destroyed in that manner, yet had they not the same for those that were still alive, but they ran every one through whom they met with, and obstructed even the very lanes with their dead bodies; and made the whole city run down with blood, to such a degree, indeed, that the fire of many of the houses was quenched with these men's blood !" Thus wrote Josephus, who himself was taken by the Romans out of a pit, into which he had jumped to save his life, at the destruction of Jotopata, a few years before Jerusalem was thus destroyed. As if no particular feature should be wanting THE PROPHECIES OF MOSES. in the history to verify the prophecy, Josephus relates an occurrence at which he shudders, and which he states he would not write, but that it was well known and attested. A woman, he says, of high rank, just such a one as Moses de- scribes, actually slew her own child for food! It is probable that this which he saw was but one of many instances. What a verifica- tion of the fifty- sixth and fifty-seventh verses of the twenty-eighth chapter of Deuteronomy! What a destruction was that in which more than eleven hundred thousand Jews were slain within a few months ; besides many thousands more that perished within a few years ! 4. The fourth particular prediction of Moses, in this prophecy, now claims your attention; and this is indeed, in some respects, as remark- able as any : " And the Lord shall bring thee into Egypt again, with ships; and there ye shall be sold unto your enemies for bond-men and bond-women, and no man shall buy you." Now it had been foretold that their destroyers should be a strange nation from afar, and speak- ing a strange language. Who then, uninspired, could have anticipated that this strange, distant nation would have any commerce with Egypt ? Who could have foretold that, fifteen hundred 234 THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. years after his time, Egypt would be a nation, or that Egypt would hold slaves ? Yet Moses does foretell it; and what is more, he specifies the mode of conveyance that would be resorted to ; not by land, though the distance was short, but by ships, a method by which they could not have been conveyed when Moses spoke. He also foretells that the slave-market should at last be glutted, and no man would buy them. Now observe the fulfilment. At the time of this war the Romans had a fleet on the Mediter- ranean, by which, without doubt, the captive Jews were transported, as that for them was the more expeditious way. Josephus says : " Titus grew negligent, and his soldiers grew weary of killing them, and sold the rest of the multitude, with their wives and children, at a very low price, because such as were sold were very many, and the buyers were few ; and the number of those that were sold was immense."* Afterward he states, "As for the rest of the multitude, he [Fronto, a general under Titus] put them into bonds, and sent them to the Egyptian mines :"f How striking this accomplishment ! 5. Yet another specific prediction was uttered Wars of the Jews, book vi, chap, viii, sec. 2. f Ibid., book vi, chap, ix, sec. 2. THE PROPHECIES OF MOSES. 235 at this time by Moses, and this also is in itself wonderful. Their land should be smitten with barrenness. A radical change in the character of the soil of a country, or in the seasons, is a prodigy that no man could anticipate ; and that it should occur not till after the nation dwelling on the spot was destroyed for their sins, is, indeed, beyond expression marvellous. But Moses says : " The generation to come of your children shall say, when they come from a far land, when they see the plagues of the land, that it is not sown, nor beareth, Wherefore hath the Lord done this?" The ancient fertility of Palestine was remark- able. Its area was only about eleven thousand square miles, not quite one-fourth as large as the State of New- York, and yet the population, in its palmiest days, must have been more than five millions.* This population was immense, and alone shows that the soil must have been fertile and highly cultivated. Of this fact there is abundant evi- dence in the ruins of cities, and in the still exist- ing traces of artificial and skilful cultivation. The mountains were terraced, and where it was needed soil was carried ; the plains and valleys were all occupied, and the whole country divided * 2 Sam. xxiv, 9. 236 THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. into small estates, occupied by their real owners, each of whom literally sat under his own vine and fig-tree. Josephus describes Galilee as " full of planta- tions of trees of all sorts, insomuch that it in- vites the most slothful to take pains in its cultiva- tion, by its fruitfulness ; accordingly it is all cul- tivated by its inhabitants, and no part of it lies idle. Moreover the cities lie here very thick, and the very many villages that are here are everywhere so full of people, by the richness of their soil, that the very least of them contain above fifteen thousand inhabitants."* The whole of Palestine is described by him as equally as fertile as Galilee. Tacitus, the Roman historian, says : " The soil [of Palestine] was fertile, and their fruits such as are common with us, besides balsam and dates. "f L. Annseus Florus gives similar testimony. Ammianus Marcellinus, a later historian, writes that Palestine abounded in cultivated and beautiful lands, and had many noble cities, none yielding to the others, but each as it were emu- lous of perfection.^ Q Wars of the Jews, book iii, chap, iii, sec. 2. t Tacit. Hist., lib. v, cap. vi, 8. J Am. Mar., lib. xiv, cap. viii, sec. 11. THE PROPHECIES OF MOSES. 237 And Pliny, the elder, states that Syria was very wealthy in gardens, and gives a glow- ing description of its various natural produc- tions.* But what is the state of Palestine now ? Traces of its former wealth are indeed extant, but its mountains are now, except in a few spots, bleak ; its plains, uncultivated ; its valleys, wild. Thorns and thistles abound, its forests and shade-trees are prostrated, and even in many places no grass or flowers can be seen, and the whole country is dry and dusty. All this has been brought about by the devastation of enemies, and by the intol- erance and oppression of its present semi-barba- rous inhabitants. It is proper, however, that we should state that to this picture there are some redeeming features. The land still shows its ca- pability of improvement. Pasturage, in many places, is abundant, the palm and the grape still thrive, and the few inhabitants, not more than one-tenth of its former population, are well sup- plied with all the necessaries of life. Still the population is even now diminishing on account of their oppression, the uncertainty of enjoying the fruit of their labour, high taxation, military conscription, and the ravages of the plague. The * Plin. Nat. Hist., lib. xii. 238 THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. very soil, then, is a perpetual monument to attest the inspiration of Moses. 6. One specific prediction of the prophetic legislator yet remains to be considered ; and though nothing could be more convincing and clear than what we have already examined, yet this challenges our notice, and triumphantly si lences all opposition, and dispels all doubt ; since the fulfilment is witnessed by all nations, in every part of the world, and is in itself a mirac- ulous event : " And the Lord shall scatter thee among all people, from the one end of the earth even unto the other ; and among these nations shalt thou find no ease, neither shall the sole of thy foot have rest." Before we exhibit the accomplishment of this prophecy let us inquire, Could this be predicated of any other people under heaven ? The Egyp- tian nation has been overthrown ; but are the Egyptians scattered all over the world? The Carthaginians, Grecians, and even Romans have been conquered : are they, or any one of them, dispersed to the corners of the earth ? The Jews, in this respect, stand alone, a solitary spectacle, for which the historian and the philosopher can- not account. While prosperous they were pro- THE PROPHECIES OF MOSES. 239 verbially unfaithful to their law ; but as soon as troubles came upon them they began pertina- ciously to adhere to some of the external require- ments of their legislator, by which their identity as a people has been preserved, and now their number is as great as when they were first up- rooted from their own soil. The lapse of ages cannot soften their peculiarities or wear away their national stamp. They are exposed to all influences, and all are alike inoperative. Other people with a change of climate have degener- ated or improved, with a change of government have been thoroughly transformed ; but climate, commerce, art, and education must beat in vain against the rocky prejudices of the Jew. And where are they ? Rather let us ask, Where are they ^ 2 They are in the new world and in the old, ana ; n everv p ar t o f each. Not only are they in every c^ ntry o f Europe ; but visit the cheerless plains of os^a, the Russian prison, and the descendants of Jaeo* are there ! Penetrate into the Chinese empire from \v\nch you were excluded till within a few years and you will find that, for centuries, the descendants of Jacob have been there. They have there as here their synagogues, and their congregations, and their Bible, corresponding with ours, though - - J1U7BRSIT7 24:0 THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. when and how they entered the region, no histo- rian can tell. Even go to Africa ; visit the bor- ders of those regions in which it is said no Eu- ropean can live ; pierce them as far as white men ever pierced them and returned, and you will see and hear of this self-same people around and beyond you ! Wonder of wonders ! who can account for it ? "Were they all over Europe alone, still it would be strange ! Were they all over America only, still it would be strange ! Were they all over Asia alone, their native con- tinent, still it would be strange ! But in Europe, Africa, Asia, and America are they dwelling ; and even on many of the isles of the deep. Observe, too, there is not a people on earth that have so strong attachments to their own land, and so jip- tense a desire to dwell in it. They wo^^P to- ward Jerusalem, and the holy Ian * co tnem is as it were the stepping-sto^ to paradise. More strongly bound to ^eir religion than any other people, yp* d&at religion is on account of their dispersion mutilated ; and they have not, and as we believe never can have, till they embrace Christ, either temple, or priest, or altar, or sa- crifice. And among these nations they have "not found rest for the sole of their feet." In some THE PROPHECIES OF MOSES. 241 portions of the world they have now peace, but not in all ; and till of late, perhaps preparatory to their conversion, they have found none. Their persecutions have been unceasing, intolerant. That Christians in the darker ages should have persecuted them as the crucifiers of Christ is not strange; but even the Mohammedan, and what is still more surprising the pagan, know- ing nothing of their history, have given them no rest. Actuated by the mild spirit and the sublime teachings of their Founder, whom the Jews put to death, without cause, the Christians have been the first to extend tolerance and friendship to the wandering children of Abraham ; and may we not hope that soon the veil which is on their hearts will be removed, and they, " looking on Him whom they have pierced," may find for- giveness and peace, and once more return to Palestine, the joy of the whole earth, the con- verters of the world ? The scroll of the future was unrolled by Moses, and what most astonishes us as history was by him related as prophecy. Has any sane man a right to deny his divine inspiration ? But if that be acknowledged, it can be easily shown 16 242 THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. that a unity of design, and spirit, and origin, pervades the holy book : it must all be received as the word of God ; and to bring this thought prominently out before you is the object of this book. Perhaps no reader questions the inspiration and divinity of the Bible ; but, alas ! our faith is too traditional, and consequently too feeble. Too many of us believe just because our fathers did, and taught us so ; and we are inclined to think that if we do as well as our fathers did, all will be right. Now this depends altogether upon two things whether our fathers did right, and whether we have no more light than they Go back far enough, and our ancestors were in the dark ages; and I doubt not some of them obeyed all the instruction they had, and were saved; but, thank God, we have more light. What saved them will not save us. We must come to the light, and learn as much as we can ; but knowledge alone will not benefit us. It is not enough that we acknowledge the truth of the Bible we must make it our sole depend- ence and guide. BABYLON AND NINEVEH. 243 CHAPTEE XIV. BABYLON AND NINEYEH. THIS volume would be incomplete without a brief view of the proof of the divine origin of the Bible, in the remarkable fulfilment of prophecy, in the history of the two great cities of Babylon and Nineveh, and in the verifica- tion of the Scriptural references to these cities, by the late and wonderful explorations of their long-concealed ruins. Babylon was an immense city, situated on both sides of the River Euphrates, the metropo- lis of the Babylonio-Chaldean empire. Its foundation was laid, undoubtedly, by the build- ing of the tower of Babel. Begun thus in iniquity, its history was a perpetuation of idolatry, vio- lence, sensuality, and vice ; and finally its name became a synonyme of corruption and rebellion against God. Many of the heathen descriptions of it are so magnificent as to be considered by some exag- gerated and fabulous; and yet it is doubtful 244 THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. whether all of them, properly understood, were not within the limits of truth. Herodotus states that the city was square, and the walls sixty miles in circumference, which would make each side fifteen miles long. These walls were said to be immensely thick, so that even four chariots could pass each other upon them. All traces of these outer walls have disappeared. The land enclosed by the walls was not all covered with buildings, but embraced large parks and or- chards, and many cultivated gardens and farms. Its canals, palaces, temples, hanging gardens, and other works of strength and art, equalled any works of man, ancient or modern. Among its ruins, still existing, may be men- tioned the Birs Nimroud, believed by many to be the remnant of the Tower of Babel, after- ward converted into a temple, for the worship of the idol, Baal or Bel. This being now two hundred and thirty-five feet in height was built of burned bricks ; and many inscriptions have been found, none of which are of a more ancient date than of Nebuchadnezzar, who lived about six hundred years before Christ. It is the opinion of some that this structure was rebuilt by him.* Layard's Dis. of Nin. and Bab., 2d Exp. Abridg. New- York : Putnam and Co. 1853. Page BABYLON AND NINEVEH. 245 Besides the Birs Nimroud, other irregular mounds still exist, though Babylon is mostly " pools of water." These have all been ex- plored with some care ; and confused heaps of ruins, burned and unburned bricks, walls of standing masonry, jugs, and other implements have been discovered, but as yet nothing that sheds any clear light upon history, but simply confirming the traditions of its former wealth and magnificence. Babylon, though founded shortly after the deluge, and though mentioned on Egyptian monuments as early as the exodus of the Israel- ites,* seems not to have become a city of the first magnitude and power till the time of Neb- uchadnezzar. He had greatly extended the boundaries of the empire, conquering Syria and Palestine, and a part of Egypt. The rich, level country between the Rivers Tigris and Euphrates was highly cultivated, the mechanical arts and commerce flourished, and Babylon was rolling in wealth. Then, when his heart was lifted up, the king exclaimed, " Is not this great Babylon that I have built for the house of the kingdom, by the might of my power, and for the honour of my majesty?" Layard's Second Expedition, abridged, page 426. 24:6 THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. It was precisely at this time that Jeremiah lived. He had witnessed the triumphs of Neb- uchadnezzar : his heart had bled at the over- throw of Jerusalem and his native country. His patriotism and his religion were both severely tried ; and his words seem to have been wrung from an agonized soul every breath was a sigh, and his eyes were a fountain of tears. But even then he dared to foretell the destruc- tion of Babylon: while he advised the ready submission of his countrymen, and for that received their hatred and contempt, and was charged with being in league with his country's foe, bitterest ingredient in the cup of the weep- ing prophet, yet he predicted the utter and eternal devastation of the then most magnificent city on the round earth: "For lo, I will raise [saith the Lord] and cause to come up against Babylon an assembly of great nations, from the north: and she shall be taken; and Chaldea shall be a spoil. Cut off the sower from Baby- lon, and him that handleth the sickle in the time of harvest. How is the hammer of the whole earth cut asunder and broken ! How is Babylon become a desolation among the nations! A drought is upon her waters, and they shall bo dried up. Wild beasts of the desert, with the BABYLON AND NINEVEH. 247 wild beasts of the islands, shall dwell there, and the owls shall dwell therein : it shall no more be inhabited forever. O thou that dwellest upon many waters, abundant in treasures, thine end is come, and the measure of thy covetousness. I will make thee a burnt mountain. And they shall not take of thee a stone for a corner, nor a stone for foundations ; but thou shalt be desolate forever, saith the Lord." How astonishing are these predictions ! How exactly have they been fulfilled ! When Jere- miah lived, Babylon had not shown one symptom of decay ; it was in the very zenith of its glory. Like London and Paris, it was adding to its pal- aces, its temples, its adornments, its fortifications, its commerce, and its population annually, and was the leading city of the world, the emporium of fashion and of power. Observe, too, these predictions of Jeremiah were no random-shots of a fanatic, no disjointed imaginings of a dreamer : at least six distinct predictions, three of which would be applicable to no other city destroyed in ancient or modern times, and two others, which no human sagacity could have anticipated. The enemies were to come " from the north." Who could have anticipated it? How different 248 THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. from the destruction of Israel predicted "by Moses, which was to be brought about by a " people from a far country, whose language they could not understand !" Had Jeremiah made such a prediction of Babylon, it would have been false. It was the Medes, from the " north country," that centuries afterward began her destruction. Her " waters were to be dried up." It is even so. Where are her canals, her artificial lakes, her fountains ? And yet " wild beasts of the islands " were to dwell there. It is even so. The river seems to have changed its course, and the most of ancient Babylon is an uninhabitable marsh, where " wild beasts of the desert, and wild beasts of the islands do dwell." " I will make thee a burnt mountain." What a striking description of the lightning-blasted, fire-scathed mountain, Birs Nimroud ! "It shall no more be inhabited forever." Yerily it is so. It seems beyond the power of man to redeem the artificial desert, where wild beasts unmolested dwell ! " And they shall not take of thee a stone for a corner, nor a stone for foundations." Strange indeed ! but it is even so. Had this been said of any other city, it would have been false. BABYLON AND NINEVEH. 249 Many cities have been built partially out of the ruins of Nineveh, and of Damascus, and of others that have fallen; not a palace, perhaps not a hut, out of the ruins of Babylon. Says Layard : " Scarcely a detached figure in stone, or a solitary tablet has been dug out of the vast heaps of rubbish. 'Babylon is fallen, is fallen : and all the graven images of her gods he hath broken unto the ground.' "* Isaiah had lived a hundred years before Nebuchadnezzar, and consequently long before Babylon had reached its zenith. It was yet a vigorous and youthful city, like New- York ; and yet his predictions of the fall and ruin yet to come are as exact, and accurate, and wonderful as those of Jeremiah. The reader can consult the thirteenth, four- teenth, and forty-fourth chapters of Isaiah. The appositeness and accuracy of these pre- dictions become more evident when we compare them with the predictions made by the Scripture prophets with reference to other cities. There is in the seventeenth chapter of Isaiah a " burden of Damascus," a woe, which the prophet as a load bore, and was commanded to publish against that great city. Does the prophet Layard's Second Expedition, abridged, page 420. 250 THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. speak of the coming onset against it of " nations from the north ?" Does he speak of " owls in- habiting it," or "jackals," or "wild beasts of the desert," or " of the islands ?" Does he say that its " stones shall not be used for rebuilding other structures?" Does he say, "It shall never be inhabited ?" Far from it ; but simply this : The " kingdom shall be taken away from Da- mascus," and " it shall be a ruinous heap." Damascus has to-day a large population ; but long ago it ceased to be an independent city and centre of a kingdom ; and the " ruins of Damas- cus" are known to all; a great part of it is one " ruinous heap." Suppose that the prophet had said of Damascus what he said of Babylon, would it not have demonstrated the falsity of prophecy? But what shall we say of these various prophecies, all different, and each accu- rately fulfilled ? These prophecies, too, are minute. A brilliant English writer expresses a startling fancy, that the time may come when some wandering artist may seat himself on a broken arch of London bridge, and sketch the ruins of St. Paul's ; and this conceit is considered wild ! and he, too, has the example before him of the destruction of other great cities previously written. But the old BABYLON AND NINEVEH. 251 Hebrew prophets, who had never heard of the de- struction of a large city, and who had no human evidence that such a thing was possible, did not merely conjecture it in general terms, but men- tioned cities, the largest on earth, predicted their overthrow, the manner of their overthrow, the consequences of it, and gave their reasons, and prefaced and concluded the whole with a " Thus saith Jehovah !" Ah, Babylon, Tyre, Damascus, Edom ye all stand on the record of the world's history perpetual pictures, stamped indelibly upon the canvass of time, monuments alike of the folly of sin, and of the vengeance and truth of God, and of the un- impeachable veracity and superhuman and in- spired wisdom of the Hebrew prophets ! Nineveh has acquired new attractiveness in the eye not only of the antiquarian and bibliolo- gist, but in all interested in the ever-increasing accumulation of evidence that "holy men of old," writers of the sacred Scriptures, "spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." The researches of Layard have opened a new page in what may be called the paleontology of human history. According to Genesis x, 11, it was originally a colony of Babylon, from which it was less than 252 THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. three hundred miles distant, founded by Ashur, probably about three thousand years before Christ. By many its origin is attributed to Nimrod, the " mighty hunter," in the third gen- eration from Noah. Its magnificence was equal, perhaps superior, to that of Babylon. It was sacked and much injured as early as the time of Isaiah, by the Babylonians and Medes ; but was not completely destroyed till the year 601 before Christ, under Cyaxares, a Mede, which was one hundred years after the fearful predic- tions of its overthrow by the Prophet Nahum. We shall not dwell particularly upon these and other prophecies of its destruction ; because, though as minute and as accurately accomplished as in the case of the other cities already de- scribed, the predictions are not as remarkable, for one reason Nineveh was Already a waning city when these prophets lived. The chief matter of interest is the remarkable attestations lately reached to the fidelity of the descriptions of Nineveh, given by the prophets, and some exact confirmations of historical state- ments in the word of God. So perfectly was Nineveh obliterated from human view that Xenophon, the Greek military commander and historian, passed over its site BABYLON AND NINEVEH. 253 four hundred years before Christ, and saw no traces of its former existence. He simply gath- ered the traditions of the people that this " was a deserted city, which in olden times the Medes inhabited." There was no reliable history of it, except the incidental allusions to it in the Bible. So completely was it lost to the world that the fool- ish sceptics of the eighteenth century in whom one knows not which most to deplore, their want of honesty or of common sense actually ridi- culed the Biblical statements of its grandeur and power.* This city, whose constant population for many generations must have been a million souls, was " devoured with fire,"f and destroyed. At least two thousand five hundred years after " The pretended empire of Assyria was not even in exist- ence in the days of Jonah ; for it is said that he prophesied under the petty Jewish king, Joash." Philosophy of History, Translated from the French of M. L'Abbe Bazin, by H. W. Gandell. London. P. 58. Again : the same sapient simpleton says, on the next page : " It is said in the Book of Jonah that there were one hundred and twenty thousand new-born infants (!) ; this would require a population of five millions. Now five millions of inhabitants in a city not yet built is a circumstance rather strange and uncommon." Shade of Aristotle, what logic ! How can facts and the Bible resist such infidel battering-rams? f Nahum iii, 15. 254: THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. her destruction, her blackened and charred mon- uments, and some that the flames had not in- jured, were unearthed by the adventurous Layard, and men are permitted again to enter the lion-guarded palaces of Sennacherib, and walk the streets trod by the captive Jews. It would be impossible to condense into a few sentences the substance of these wonderful discoveries. Slabs of stone, forming parts of huge edifices, have been removed, covered with alphabetical inscriptions in an ancient cunei- form character, which have been satisfacto- rily deciphered, and can be read. These are mostly historical statements, chronicles of the doings of the kings; and a few striking confirmations of Scriptural history have been made. While opening the grand palace of Kouyun- jik,* a facade, forming the grand entrance, ex- hibited ten colossal bulls, with six human figures, of gigantic proportions, and the length of the whole was one hundred and eighty feet. Here was found an inscription, containing one hundred and fifty-two lines, all of which has been translated. It is a description of a campaign of Sennache- rib against the surrounding nations ; a part of Layard's Second Expedition, abridged, page 113. BABYLON AND NINEVEH. 255 which is as follows : " Hezekiah, Icing of Judah, who had not submitted to my authority r , forty- six of his principal cities, and fortresses and villages depending upon them, of which I took no account, I captured, and carried away tJieir spoil" " The next passage," says Layard, " is some- what defaced ; but the substance of it appears to be, that he took from Hezekiah the treasure he had collected in Jerusalem, thirty talents of gold and eight hundred talents of silver, the treasures of his palace, besides his sons and daughters, and his male and female servants or slaves, and brought them all to Nineveh." Now turn to Second Kings xviii, 13, 14, and see the same history recorded by the Jewish his- torian. It is true that the money then stolen by Sennacherib is stated to be less than the robber himself makes it : but that is not the only in- stance in which a hero has magnified his own exploits. How strange that underneath a burned palace of an old city should have been preserved this duplicate history of the Bible statement twenty-five hundred years ! Have we any reason to doubt any statement made in the Book of Kings ? But indissolubly blended with that history is" the truth of that religion which the Bible inculcates. 256 THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. Another parallelism, equally remarkable, is the following : " Solomon," says the inscription at Nimroud, "reigned over the kingdoms from the river unto the land of the Philistines, and unto the border of Egypt: they brought presents, and served Solomon all the days of his life. He had dominion over all the region on this side of the river, from Tipsah even unto the Azzah, over all the kings on this side the river."* Compare with this First Kings iv, 21-24 : " He reigned over all the kings from the river even unto the land of the Philistines, and to the border of Egypt." And also Second Chronicles ix, 21-24 : And the kings " brought him every man his present, vessels of silver, and vessels of gold, and raiment, harness, and spices, horses, and mules, a rate year by year." Inscriptions have been found in the ruins of Nineveh, bearing the names and making some characteristic mention of Jehu, Omri, and Men- ahem, kings of Israel; of Hazael, Sargon, Sen- nacherib, Esarhaddon, kings of Syria, mentioned in the Bible ; of the gods Merodach, !N"ebo, and Dagon, the description of which corresponds with that of the Bible ; of Judea, Samaria, Ash- Layard's Second Expedition, page 610. BABYLON AND NINEVEH. 257 dod, the Hittites, and forty other places and nations, mentioned in the word of God. Who will dare to say, that it was not by the direct providence of God that these abundant and in- valuable testimonials were thus entombed and preserved three thousand years, and finally al- lowed to be discovered at an appropriate time, just when they could be obtained by an adven- turous traveller from a Christian land, and not suffered to be broken in pieces and forever de- stroyed? Thankful should we be that the history of the Bible is so confirmed that nothing short of insanity, or of that " incredulity " which Sir Walter Ealeigh has aptly called "the wit of fools," can doubt it. 17 258 THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. CHAPTEE XY. SPECIFIC PREDICTIONS FULFILLED IN JESUS CHRIST. A FULL presentation of the prominent evidences of Christianity would require an examination of the prophecies that relate to various nations, whose history was connected with that of the Israelites. The future desolation of Ammon, Moab, Philistia, and the complete destruction of Edom or Idumea, were foretold, and have been accomplished, and will repay careful study. In this chapter we propose to examine the most important subject of antiquity, the pro- phetic promises and descriptions of the Messiah. From the foundation of the world the great plan of Jehovah was, in due time, to exhibit his glory in the Messiah among men ; and the one prominent character in all the Bible is Christ. Before presenting particular predictions, one observation is necessary. The prophecies relat- ing to Christ are not found separate and distinct in the Bible, but mingled with other instruction. PREDICTIONS CONCERNING CHRIST. 259 This has excited the surprise of some ; but ma- ture examination will show the reasonableness and necessity of this course. The character of the Messiah was to be so astonishing, that had it been drawn out connect- edly beforehand, it would not have been cred- ited. Divine and human, God and a servant, " without beginning of days," and " born of a virgin,' ; the establisher of a kingdom, and put to death by wicked men: these, and other seeming contradictions in his character, were too astonishing to be presented prophetically in one connected picture; and yet, by collecting all that was said of him by the ancient prophets, we find such a character foretold. Again: it was necessary that the prophetic character of the Messiah should be somewhat veiled among the Jews, since they themselves were to be his crucifiers ; they were to reject him, and as a nation they were to be rejected. And yet the mingling of the prophecies con- cerning Christ with other matter did not wholly conceal them ; for the ancient Jews supposed that all the scriptures, not otherwise fully ex- plained, invariably referred to the coming of Christ. The scattering of the Messianic predic- tions then all along through the inspired record, 260 THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. from the first promise to Adam down to the clearer statements of Malachi, is reasonable, and was demanded by the nature of the divine plan. The ancient Jews, in taking a complete survey of what the prophets had written concerning Christ, supposed that there must be two Mes- siahs, for such contradictory statements could not be true of one individual ; but in the person of Jesus Christ all harmonize. We will group these predictions under proper appellations. THE FORERUNNER. In examining these pre- dictions we find, first, a messenger, to announce Christ, promised and described. Malachi de- scribes this prophet in the following words : " Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me : and the Lord whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his tem- ple ; even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in : -behold, he shall come, saith the Lord of hosts. But who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he ap- peareth ? for he is like a refiner's fire and like fullers soap. And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver ; and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that PREDICTIONS CONCERNING CHRIST. 261 they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness." Malachi iii, 1-3. There is also a passage in Isaiah, which was supposed to describe the forerunner of Christ: " The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God." Isa. xl, 3.* These prophecies were fulfilled four hundred years after the last was given, in John the Bap- tist, the forerunner of Christ. John the Baptist bore all" the marks of a prophet. Like Elijah, by whose name he was prophetically called, was he dressed ;f like him he boldly reproved those in authority, and like him he was a bold advocate for religion in the most perilous times. This John the Baptist, the forerunner of Christ, was thus promised centuries before he appeared ; and when he came, so effective was his preach- ing, so extensive his influence, so undoubted his piety, and so evident his prophetic character, that vast multitudes listened to him, and were baptized by him ; and he was finally imprisoned and martyred by the monarch, under a pretence Allix states that Abenezra, a Jewish writer, who lived in the twelfth century, understood this of the forerunner of Christ. t Compare 2 Kings i, 8, with Matthew iii, 4. 262 THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. of anger at John's plain reproof of his sin, though doubtless from envy at his popularity and fear of his rivalry.* In all this we see a fulfilment of prophecy. TIME OF HIS COMING. The very date of the coming of the Messiah was specifically pointed out by the ancient prophets. The remarkable prophecy of dying Jacob to his son Judah has been already explained ; but this is not alone in the word of God. Haggai prophesied when the Jews were rebuilding their temple,f which had been destroyed by Nebu- chadnezzar. The second temple did not equal the former in splendour, and the aged people therefore, perceiving the contrast, wept; when Haggai uttered this prediction : " Thus saith the Lord of hosts, Yet once, it is a little while, and I will shake the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land ; and I will shake all na- tions, and the Desire of all nations shall come: and I will fill this house with glory, saith the Lord of hosts. The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former, saith' the Lord of hosts; and in this place will I give peace.*' Haggai ii, 6-9. Josephus's Antiq., bk. xriil, oh. T, 2. f B. 0. 520. PREDICTIONS CONCERNING CHRIST. 263 Now here is a definite promise that the second temple should surpass the former, and that the superiority should consist in this particular, " the Desire of all nations," in other words, the Messiah, should come into that temple. But that temple was utterly destroyed less than forty years after the crucifixion of Christ.* Christ then was " the Desire of all nations." The prophecy of Daniel is still more minute in pointing out the time when Christ should come. This prophecy may be found in the Book of Daniel ix, 24-27. Here the Messiah is spoken of by name, and his character is pointed out. He is to "make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in ever- lasting righteousness.'' He is to be "cut off, but not for himself," and to " confirm the covenant with many." E"ow it is said "that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and build Jerusalem unto Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks. And after the threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off ; but not for himself." That these are weeks of years, and not of days, is evident, and ac- knowledged by all. Weeks of years were a A. D. 70. 264: THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. common mode of reckoning time among the Jews.* The final decree to restore and build Jerusa- lem was given by Artaxerxes to Nehemiah, in the twentieth year of his reign, f which was just four hundred and forty-four years before Christ. Daniel said that from that time to the Messiah should be sixty- nine weeks, (of years ;) in other words, four hundred and eighty-three years, of three hundred and sixty days each, which would be four hundred and seventy-six real years, the precise time when Jesus Christ was crucified. So clear and undeniable is this prophecy, that it is impossible for any careful reader not to understand it : indeed, it is said that many of the Jews believe that the true Messiah must have been born about this time, and has kept himself hid ever since.J PLACE OF HIS COMING. But not only the time, but the very place in which the Messiah should first appear was prophetically designated : " But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be Ruler Leviticus xxv, 8. f Nehemiah ii, 1. | Allix's Reflections, part ii, chap. xiiL PREDICTIONS CONCERNING CHRIST. 265 in Israel ; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting." Micah v, 2. This Bethlehem Ephratah was the birthplace of David, and the place of his residence when he was poor and obscure ; and it was therefore fit- ting that it should be selected as the birthplace of Christ, who, after the flesh, was to be the Son of David, and who, nevertheless, was to be for a time poor and obscure. The promises given to David that his throne was to be perpetual,* all received their accomplishment in Christ,f whose kingdom is everlasting. The evangelists teach us that Jesus Christ was actually born in Beth- lehem of Judah. THE MANNER OF HIS BIRTH. It was also ex- pressly foretold that Christ should be " born of a virgin of the house of David." Isaiah vii, 10-17. This prophecy was not fully understood, and could not be, till its remarkable fulfilment in the birth of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Thus also was the first promise literally verified : "The seed of the womcm shall bruise the ser- pent's head." Connected with this subject is the character given to Christ by the prophets. The prophets * Psalm cxxxii, 11-18. t Daniel ii, 44. 266 THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. did indeed describe the coming Messiah as a man. He was to be a prophet like Moses ;* he was not to have earthly dignity ;f he was to en- dure trials and want, andexhibit all the elements of man. His DIVINITY. And yet, paradoxical as it may appear, the prophets described the coming Mes- siah as God: "His name shall be called Im- manuel." Isaiah vii, 14. Christ is therefore " God with us." Again : " For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given : and the govern- ment shall be upon his shoulder : and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace." To prove that this prophecy was fulfilled is perhaps impossible ; but that Christ professed to fulfil it is undoubted. He "forgave sins;" he was supposed by the Jews to " make . himself equal with God," and he denied not the charge ; he stated that "he and the Father were one," and whoever " had seen him, had seen the Father;" and, finally, he was crucified upon the charge of blasphemy, justly, unless he was indeed divine. Deut. xviii, 18. f Isaiah liii ; Zeoh. Ix, 9. PREDICTIONS CONCERNING CHRIST. 267 His COVENANT WITH MAN. It was also foretold that he should promulgate a new religion, or at least establish a new relation between God and man. This covenant is foretold by Isaiah xlix, 8, 9; Iv, 3, 4; Ixi, 8, 9: also by Jeremiah xxxi, 31-36. The prophets expressly foretold that this covenant was to be spiritual, that priesthood and sacrifices were to be done away, and that the Gentiles were to be admitted on equal terms with the children of Israel.* The fulfilment of these predictions is seen in the impartiality of the Gospel of Christ, which is "good news unto all men;" and extending the boon of religious hope, and joy, and eternal life to all who will receive it ; and in the deeper devotion and higher spiritual insight it offers to its votaries. His DEATH. It was also foretold that he would be put to death. The twenty-second and sixty- ninth Psalms have ever been considered as prophetic of the trials of the Messiah. The fifty-third chapter of Isaiah is the most wonder- ful prophetic composition in the world! The prophet, seven hundred years before the Messiah See Isaiah xi, 10; Ix, 3-6: Zeph. ii, 11 ; iii, 9, 10, &c. : MalacM i, 10, 11. 268 THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. came, describes him with a minuteness, and an exactness, and an energy, which are seldom equalled even in a historian; and his descrip- tion every unprejudiced person must perceive could apply to but one character in the universe, namely, Jesus Christ. In this prophetic descrip- tion, brief as it is, we distinctly perceive Christy his humility and meekness; the fewness of his adherents at first, their multitude afterward ; his shame, and reproach, and rejection, and violent death; his atonement or suffering for others, and his burial with the rich ; his subsequent triumph, which can only be understood on the principle of his resurrection, and his everlasting glory. Indeed, in the prophecies of Isaiah may be found a complete portrayal of the character of Jesus Christ, the true Messiah. We do verily believe that it is impossible for a person candidly to read them comparing them with the rela- tions of the four evangelists without astonish- ment, and an acknowledgment of a superhuman vision in their writer. It was these that caused Sir William Jones, that scholar perhaps never surpassed in a critical knowledge of languages, and a man also of sound judgment, to exclaim, "I, who cannot help believing the divinity of the Messiah, from the undisputed antiquity and PREDICTIONS CONCERNING CHRIST. 269 manifest completion of many prophecies, espec- ially of those of Isaiah, in the only person re- corded by history to whom they are applicable, am obliged of course to believe the sanctity of the venerable books to which that sacred person refers, as genuine."* These prophecies have proved the sheet-anchor of the Bible to many other minds. They lie open for constant examination, and he who ex- plores them will bid farewell to doubt. In the ancient Scriptures we find all the par- ticulars of Christ's death pointed out in various passages, which, from their connexions, must refer to Christ, and were so understood by the most ancient commentators among the Jews. We have not exhausted the subject; but simply directed the attention to some of the most prominent predictions in holy writ. As the spiritual sight is strengthened, many new and, at first, occult references to Christ appear ; and indeed there is nothing that more astonishes and delights the advancing and maturing Chris- tian than to see how all the Scriptures depend upon, and exhibit, and glorify Christ. He is really the subject of every writer, the object of. every type, the substance of every shadow, the Asiatic Researches, vol. i, p. 225. 270 THE YOTJNG MAN ADVISED. great Redeemer by all prefigured. The man but little acquainted is astonished when he meets with a few palpable predictions of Christ ; but if, through faith in that Saviour, he becomes his follower, and learns of him, he will find, as often as he peruses the sacred record, new gleams of light, marks of prescience and adapta- tion, to point out the Messiah, and confirm faith in him, which he had overlooked before, and which escape the notice of all but the experi- enced and the careful. "We have now brought our brief survey of the Old Testament to a close, and would invite your attention to a brief recapitulation of the thoughts presented. We first examined the Mosaic account of the creation, and pronounced it reasonable, and yet above the reach of reason ; and found it amply confirmed by human investigation, so far as that investigation has extended. The Scriptural account of the deluge is so fully attested that it requires a fool-hardy in- credulity to deny it ; and the common origin of man is a subject upon which the deductions of reason, researches into language, and the con- clusions of natural philosophy, all coincide with PREDICTIONS CONCERNING CHRIST. 271 the word of God. The dispersion of tongues at Babel next claimed our attention ; and the de- struction of Sodom and Gomorrah we find writ- ten upon the very earth where they once stood, as well as preserved in the memory of men. The call of Abraham we found instructive, rea- sonable, and well attested, together with the ac- count of his life, and that of his descendants, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. The remarkable au- thentications of their history, lately deciphered from Egyptian hieroglyphics, cannot soon be for- gotten. The prophecies of dying Jacob furnish a bright picture which throws its light down through two thousand years. The mission of Moses, and the wonderful miracles of Egypt, the Mosaic law and ceremonies, and his remark- able prophecies about the Israelites, which have been gradually exhibiting their fulfilment for three thousand years, do most triumphantly attest that Moses revealed only the will of God. We then examined the commission of Moses to destroy the Canaanites, and lastly presented a brief view of the grand object of the Bible. This we pronounced to be to reveal his own character, the true condition of man, and the appointed way of salvation through Jesus Christ. 272 THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. "We have now shown the prophetic character of Christ : the part that remains for us is more pleasant, and, we hope, will be more profitable. The darkness which had so long been deepening, was about to be dispelled ; and hereafter it will be our privilege to present the revelation of gospel day, the light which lighteneth every man. But we cannot close our remarks upon the Old Testament without an expression of grati- tude to God for such a collection of sacred writings; that ever he raised up such a long line of messengers to declare his will, and to transmit by writing to the world information that could not be spared without incalculable loss ; and that the Bible was preserved through such long and tumultuous ages. Dynasties have perished, but these words, as though written on the sky, remain. The monuments of stone which they speak of have disappeared even many of the mighty cities they describe are utterly lost ; but copies of these frail parchments survive, and are printed in nearly every tongue, and dis- tributed by thousands in all parts of the world. The Ten Commandments which Moses received, stamped upon the stone, shall yet be repeated in every tongue, and exhibited in writing to every PREDICTIONS CONCERNING CHRIST. 273 eye. The internal evidence of the divine origin of these holy books, the Old Testament, together with the external evidence, written upon the whole world and upon all ages, now demands the hearty thanksgiving of every worshipper of the true God. 18 274 THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. CHAPTEK XVI. PERSONAL CHARACTER OF CHRIST. AFTER the prophecies of Malachi, the last of the Hebrew prophets of the Old Testament, the Jews continued to preserve their distinct national cus- toms and religion, and to foster their long-cher- ished hope -of a coming Messiah. They scrupu- lously adhered to the letter of their law in several instances yielding to their enemies rather than to fight on the Sabbath. Successively they paid tribute to the Persians, Egyptians, Syrians, and Romans, though for more than a century nominally independent. They were widely scat- tered among the nations ; thus imbuing the world with their own hope of a Messiah. In these days came a remarkable religious teacher, called John the Baptist. There were rumours among the people of some supernatural demonstrations attendant upon his birth ; and showing himself in the garb of the old prophets, and being a man of unblemished character, his preaching attracted great attention. The sub- PERSONAL CHARACTER OF CHRIST. 275 stance of his doctrine was, that the Messiah was near at hand, that his kingdom would be of a spiritual character, and that a genuine and radi- cal reform was necessary to prepare for his coming kingdom. The nation would not have been so aroused, had they not been prepared for excitement they were universally expecting the Christ. Multitudes were baptized, profess- ing their confidence in John, and their determin- ation to be ready for the Christ. Then arose Jesus, openly and freely acknowledged to be the Messiah by John the Baptist. "We propose now to examine briefly the his- tory of Jesus Christ, as given by the evangelists. The history of no personage that has ever been seen among men, is better attested than that of Jesus. We have four separate lives of the Saviour, embracing descriptions of his teachings and of his death. We have references made to these books by writers who immediately fol- lowed them, and by their successors, down to the present time. We have millions of human beings and there has been no time within a century of the date of the death. of Christ when there were not thus millions of human beings professing to trust in Jesus Christ for their sal- vation. We have historical monuments without 276 THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. number, and we have customs and usages, especially baptism in the name of Jesus, and the so-called sacrament of the Lord's supper, which could have had their origin only in the history of Jesus, who was called the Christ. It will aid our purpose to examine briefly the character of the four men who narrated the life of Jesus. Matthew, from his own authority, seems to have been a tax-collector in Capernaum, till he was invited to become a personal attendant upon the Saviour. It is thought by many that he wrote originally in the Hebrew language, and that his book was subsequently translated into Greek. He evidently wrote for his own coun- trymen, the Jews, and from personal observa- tion. Mark had been an attendant upon one of the Saviour's immediate disciples, the apostle Peter ; and it is supposed wrote his Gospel from the re- lation of Peter. Luke was born at Antioch, and was probably a Grecian freedman, who had been emancipated from slavery, perhaps on account of some ex- traordinary talent; had applied himself to the study of medicine, was styled a physician, and- finally spent much of his time in travelling with PERSONAL CHARACTER OF CHRIST. 277 the apostle Paul. Whether he was a preacher is doubtful ; but he took especial pains to converse with all whom he met that had seen and heard Christ; and from their relations, and from various writings that had appeared he compiled, rather than composed, his Gospel. John was the beloved disciple of Jesus, his faithful attendant, and adoring friend. This will account for the minuteness of his history, es- pecially upon those parts slightly referred to, or wholly omitted by the others. Observe now, first, the unaffected simplicity of these four writers. There is no striving for effect, no bombast, no elegantly-rounded period, no striking antithesis, no ornament nor effort to gain applause. Compare these productions with any specimens of literature, ancient or modern, and observe the striking contrast in this respect. Observe, secondly, that these authors never praise Christ ; they use no commendatory terms. You see nothing of such exclamations as these : "What wondrous wisdom did he thus display!" "How he circumvented his enemies!" " What an astonishing miracle!" "How simple and severe !" Not a word of it. They simply relate what he did and said, and what was said and done to him, and leave the facts to make their 278 THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. own impression. There is not one other so sim- ple and passionless a record in the world. We have never read the life of a good man in which the writer did not laud, sometimes extravagantly, the subject of his memoirs. Observe, again, that these writers have left several apparent contradictions, one to another, in their narratives. We call them apparent contradictions, for they are not real. They arise from the omission of some circumstances, and the relation of others, as will always occur when a narrative, covering a long time, is given by independent witnesses. For instance, Matthew says, that when Jesus was crucified, the Jews had written over his head on the cross, This is Jesus, tJie King of the Jews. Mark says the writing was, The King' of the Jews. But Luke has it still different. This is the King of the Jews. And John has it different from all, Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews. This shows without question that the four writ- ers made no effort to hat*monize their different relations, for they certainly would not have over- looked so obvious a disagreement. But it does not show that either was wrong. The inscrip- tion was in three different languages, and the evangelists may have translated different inscrip- PERSONAL CHARACTER OF CHRIST. 279 tions, no two translating any sentence exactly alike ; and the original inscription undoubtedly contained all found in the four given to us. Yet this variation does intimate that they had no col- lusion with each other. Another similar instance is the following : Mark says that Jesus was crucified at the third hour in the morning, or about nine o'clock. John says it occurred at the sixth hour, that is, at twelve o'clock, at noon. How evident is the absence of all attempt to harmonize! The fact must be that the whole event of the crucifixion consumed hours. Neither one of the writers professes to be accurate in his reference to time, and it may have been the third hour when Jesus was suspended on the cross, and the sixth when he exclaimed, "It is finished !" and gave up th ghost. Observe, too, in the fourth place, that these writers take no pains to give a favourable colour- ing to the matters which they relate. "Whenever a disciple exhibits wrong passion, they relate it just as artlessly as though it was worthy of praise. That was a foolish dispute among the disciples, which should be the greatest. It ex- hibited a feeling, and betrayed an ignorance, of which afterward, but previous to the writing 280 THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. of the Gospel, they must have been heartily ashamed ; yet it seems never to have entered into their minds not to relate it. They had un- dertaken to write the life of Christ, and were bound to present all they could remember that seemed of importance. That sudden ebullition of anger that James and John manifested when they wished to call fire down from heaven to burn a poor Samaritan's house, because he would not hospitably entertain Jesus, was a similar in- stance. It would not, to a casual reader, seem credita- ble to Jesus, that for a long time many of his relatives did not acknowledge his Messiahship, yet we find his admirer, John, explicitly stating that fact. Again, observe what a mild and dispassionate spirit these evangelists exhibit, when describing what they evidently believe to be the most thrill- ing and stupendous ^vent that ever occurred in the universe of God. The Son of God was put to death, shamefully crucified by a mob ; and yet the writers exhibit no indignation. They do not even colour the narrative ; the story flows artlessly on. If an intimate friend of any man, left to express his feelings without supernatural, or, at least, extraordinary control, were seized PERSONAL CHARACTER OF CHRIST. 281 by a mob and murdered, he would -certainly express, in some suitable and violent terms, his indignation; but we look in vain for such an expression in either of the Gospels. And yet the simplicity, the artlessness, the truthfulness, the truth of the history of Jesus, no sane man can deny. There is no other book in the world so wonderful as either of the Gospels! Had there been but one, it were a prodigy ; but four such is a miracle ! God raised up the evangel- ists, and qualified them. He guided the pens that wrote the life of Jesus Christ. Let us examine now the character of the great Founder of Christianity. You seek in vain in these artless, candid records for one action, or word, or thought of Jesus, that, tested by the strictest standard of morality, even his own, was in any degree wrong. So remarkable is the portraiture of his character that we long for more. We are compelled to exclaim, "What a childhood must his have been! What a youth ! A youth that was never passionate ; a mechanic that laboured with others, but never yielded to evil example ; a prophet, a teacher of religion, the Messiah! And this immaculate purity, too, was put to the test. He was ridi- culed, persecuted, subjected to hunger, and 282 THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. thirst, and poverty; but never sinned. His disciples did not comprehend him ; the scribes and Pharisees purposely attacked him. He mingled with all classes ; he attended weddings, funerals, feastings, and religious celebrations: he ate with publicans and sinners ; he gave in- struction in a most authoritative manner; he rebuked the rich and the powerful ; he censured the vicious; he took himself away from a mob that wished to proclaim him a king, and again from another that wished to cast him headlong down a precipice : and under all these circum- stances he never uttered one hasty word, nor committed a single erroneous action. But not only was nothing evil found in this man, but every good trait of humanity was ex- hibited by him. He was industrious : his pub- lic life comprehended only three years, and of that time not a day could have been lost. He was benevolent: he soothed the afflicted; he wept with the bereaved ; he comforted the dis- consolate; he spoke kindly to all but the im- penitent wicked, and them he exhorted to repent. He often spent whole nights in prayer, and that too when none but his disciples knew it. He seems to have been bent on the accom- PERSONAL CHARACTER OF CHRIST. 283 plishrnent of one object to benefit the whole family of man. Judea was not the limit of his desires. National distinctions he disregarded ; he owned every man as a brother, every woman as a sister, and desired to promote the true wel- fare of all. It is also a most remarkable fact that he was never mistaken. He expressed his views on a great variety of subjects, time has not betrayed a single error. - He lived in an ignorant, super- stitious age, among a sordid, weak, wicked, cruel, and hypocritical people, who had over- loaded and destroyed the teachings of a wiser age by puerile ceremonies and vain traditions. Jesus never partook of their spirit, but uttered, with unparalleled simplicity and point, plain, practical instruction ; the wisdom of which could not have been gleaned from the whole world's philosophers, and the purity and truth of which all men, both friends and foes, acknowledge to be both faultless and sublime. Every moralist and statesman will confess that if the instructions of Jesus were truly and thoroughly obeyed by any nation, large or small, uninterrupted national prosperity would follow ; and it is the belief of the profoundest investigators and political econo- mists that universal, practical Christianity would 284 THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. solve the knottiest problems of state policy, remove those inveterate evils which seem to defy all human efforts to destroy them, and render, if anything can, this earth .an abode of purity and peace. Never would another gun be fired in war ; never another sword or bayonet sheathed in human flesh ; never another crimi- nal executed, or even imprisoned ; never another penitentiary or house of correction erected: " the lion would lie down by the side of the kid, and the little child play upon the hole of the asp." Let us consider now the circumstances of his death. Though crucified by a mob, he was pre- viously subjected to a kind of legal examination. He had in fact a formal trial. Now Jesus might have been liberated at that trial, had he chosen to be. Pilate, the judge, was strongly prepos- sessed in his favour. The word of a Roman judge, on all matters not expressly decided by statute or precedent, was law, from which there was no appeal. The soldiery was under the control of Pilate. Had he said, Jesus shall be freed, not a Jew, however furious a few moments before, would have dared to open his mouth. And Pilate wished to release the prisoner. And to add to his own inclination, Pilate's own wife PERSONAL CHARACTER OF CHRIST. 285 sent to him when on the judgment-seat, saying, "Have thou nothing to do with that just man; for I have suffered many things this day in a dream because of him." Why then was Jesus condemned, or rather consigned over to the fury of a mob ? It was because he Himself breathed not a syllable in his own defence. He would not even reply to Pilate's inquiries ; he had no wish to escape the fate of the cross. And this, too, observe, not from a species of human hardihood for the very night before he wept in the garden of Gethsemane, as seldom, perhaps never, man wept. That agony, what- ever else it shows, and whatever other deep spiritual import it has, does certainly show that Jesus had no desire for a crucifixion. But he was not liberated, simply because he did not choose to be. In consideration of these facts, what must we think of Christ ? Had we his life alone, without the Old Testament to prepare for it, without the New Testament to explain it, it would be a mystery unfathomable, insoluble, paralleled only by what would then be the other infinite mystery, a universe without an object, man without a religion, God without a revealer, and the sublimest human life a farce and a dream. THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. How absurd it is to consider any object in the universe, or any fact in history, alone! It is only a narrow-minded man that does it ; and this practice has been the source of more ex- travagance, and absurdity, and controversy, and feuds, as well as cold scepticism, and arrant infi- delity, than any other mental habit. There is not a fact in history which would not appear absurd, seen without its proper connexions ; there is not an object in nature which would ap- pear fit and beautiful, if seen alone. A single feature of the Apollo Belvidere would be but a lump of marble, and the self-devotion of a Leoni- das would be a silly suicide. A modern government has expended more than a million of dollars in erecting a small stone cottage, not capable of accommodating a dozen persons, on a little rocky island, almost inacces- sible. How absurd it seems ! But that little stone structure is a light-house ! to bear aloft the ever-burning signal of danger, or, rather, of safety, by which thousands of lives and many millions of dollars are annually saved. The object and effect render the otherwise absurd structure sublime. Thus should the life of Christ be studied, and thus his resurrection. And thus should the whole PERSONAL CHARACTER OF CHRIST. 287 Bible be studied. It is harmonious throughout, and it makes the universe harmonious, and every part becomes beautiful, when considered in its proper light. The creation of man, the great deluge, the early judgments of God upon the human race, the singular revelations through the prophets of the Israelites, the life of Christ, his doctrines, his resurrection from the dead, the success of the Church, and its great enterprise yet to be accomplished, should all be considered together, in one perfect, harmonious picture ; when it will be found that those difficulties which have ex- ercised the ingenuity of feeble minds, filled the world with controversy, and awakened the silly ridicule of sophistical sceptics, are like the granular defects in the marble of an exquisite statue pointed out by insect critics, utterly incapable of admiring or even grasping in one view the whole. It shall yet be seen that the ever-moving streams of history, like the streams of earth, are controlled by one power, more inexorable than gravitation, and shall meet at last in a deep, broad sea of beauty, when the banner of Chris- tianity shall wave over the world. Then history shall be seen to be a record of experiments a 288 THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. store-house of facts, a stupendous exhibition of God's wisdom, power, justice, and love. Then it shall be universally known that Christ made the world, redeemed the world, dignified it and consecrated it by his presence and death, and has finally judged it and pronounced upon it its eternal destiny. ST. PAUL. 289 CHAPTEK XVII. THE OPENNESS OF THE FACTS OF CHRISTIANITY ILLUS- TRATED BY THE LIFE OF ST. PAUL. ONE of the most remarkable facts in the early history of Christianity was the conversion of the great advocate of the faith, the apostle Paul. On one occasion, he himself defends Christianity by an argument which we wish to adduce : it is when put upon trial before Festus and Agrippa. After a pathetic reference to his early history, and to the violence of which he had been guilty against Christians, he relates in detail his own singular conversion, and then makes a home ap- peal to Agrippa for the truthfulness of his ac- count. He defies all denial or controversy; for, said he, "these things were not done in a corner." Now, this is a general and very strong argument, which might be greatly elaborated; but we must content ourselves with a brief illustration of it. The point claiming our atten- tion is the fact by which Paul knew that King Agrippa was or ought to have been convinced 19 290 THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. of the truth of Christianity, namely, that all the history confirming its truth was " not done in a corner." The subject of the chapter may thus be stated: The openness and publicity of the facts of Christianity prove it to be a divine work, claiming the belief and the obedience of all the world. The Bible was not written like the Koran, by one man ; it does not claim to have been con- cocted in secret, and intrusted to one person, assuming to relate facts that nobody saw, and presenting no evidence of divinity except the assertion of a single person, who by that assertion obtains great authority, and wealth, and power to himself ; but it is a book made up of facts, that in the clear, open sunlight stretch over the history of more than two thousand years, written by more than a score of writers, living in differ- ent lands, under different governments, subject to different influences, using different dialects ; and so far from obtaining influence and honour among men for their writings, they were hated, persecuted, imprisoned, scourged, stoned, tor- tured, crucified, and beheaded. The man who would refer to the Shasters of the Brahmins, or to the Koran of Mohammed, or to the Mormon novel of Joe Smith, as a rival to ST. PAUL. 291 the Bible, is either a knave or a simpleton. Such stupidity deserves no forbearance, and the language characterizing it is not severe. The Koran of Mohammed purports to have been presented complete and entire to him from heaven: the fact must be that either he wrote it, or some other one man wrote it, and presented it to him : it is uniform in style throughout ; it contains not the statement of one contemporary fact ; it has no prophecy fulfilled ; it is a mere collection of metaphysical and supernatural asser- tions that no one ever can bring to the test in this world, garnished by perverted quotations from the Bible ; and it must be received altogether upon the authority of one man, Mohammed, who SOA/S that it was given to him from heaven. But then, the suspicious circumstances about his tes- timony are, that nobody saw him receive it, that he is to be greatly honoured and benefitted by its reception, that he works no miracle to con- firm it, and does not appear any different from other men ; and still further, he promises all who receive it great sensual pleasures, both in this world and another; and that, just as soon as he gets followers enough, he puts a sword into every man's hand, makes himself a king, and says to all around: "Take your choice, the sword and 292 THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. perdition, or Mohammed and all the luxury you desire on earth and in heaven." Precisely so the Shasters of Brahminism con- tain no history that possibly can be tested or confirmed mere wild imaginations of what hap- pened millions of ages ago, on a scale entirely different from, and disconnected with, anything contemporary, or that any men now living ever saw. Just so the Mormon novel, a book which somebody wrote in a kind of Scriptural style, Joe Smith pretends to find under a flat rock in the earth : nobody saw him find it, and if he had, could not swear that Smith had not pre- viously put it there : it contains no history, no fact, no confirmation whatever; and silly men receive it on the testimony of one man, who by that testimony is made a rich man, a leader, and revels in the most vicious luxury and plenty. Verily it is impossible for a maniac to conceive of folly so base and unmanly as what we actually see among men. But now look at the Bible. Its very beginning is history. That very first chap- ter, which has puzzled geologists so much, will yet be astonishingly confirmed throughout, as it already is in parts, and will demonstrate itself to be divine. It states the unity of the human ST. PAUL. race, a doctrine which the soundest thought and widest research compel men to believe ; the del- uge, which certainly is confirmed by observation and tradition ; the history of Abraham and his travels ; and now, after four thousand years, late researches among the monuments and inscrip- tions of Egypt perfectly confirm all the repre- sentations of Egyptian manners which are given. It speaks of the system of sacrifice, and sacrifices are common among all men. It gives a strange history of the Jews, stretching over a thousand years : that history is confirmed by other history, by institutions and customs now existing ; and the Jews are among us, with all the traditions and peculiarities, the origin of which is here de- scribed. It speaks of the division of the human family into nations, and gives some account of their migrations and settlements ; and now the profoundest ethnographical researches of stu- dents exactly confirm these accounts. It gives a short and incidental description of other na- tions contiguous to the Jews Assyrians, Baby- lonians, Persians, and others and researches prove that they were just such people as the Bible describes: it foretells the destruction of these nations they are destroyed ! destroyed, too, in just such a manner as was predicted; and 294 THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. now, after three thousand years, the old tombs and ruins of Nineveh are opened, and lo ! in- scriptions and written history are found precisely corroborating the Bible. It foretells the coming of the Messiah, and behold! at the time, the world is astonished ; strange e.vents do happen. A man called Jesus does appear ; he acts openly ; his history is written by contemporaries, the most candid, unpretending, and inartificial of men. They evidently relate just exactly what they believe they saw and heard. They tell of miracles which happened in the sight of thou- sands, and these the most astonishing of events ; they tell of the crucifixion of their Master, of his resurrection and ascension, of the appointment of disciples, and the organization of the Church : and not one of these events was denied for hundreds of years no such denial is on record ; but, on the other hand, hundreds of confirmations. And we find all the institutions there mentioned still existing : we find Christ abrogating the ceremo- nial law, and we find that law neglected by his followers, though they are acquainted with its existence, and believe it was divine ; we find Christ establishing baptism, and we find his fol- lowers still baptized ; we find him giving wine and bread to his disciples as emblems of his cru- ST. PAUL. 295 cifixion, and commanding them to perpetuate the practice, and we find the practice perpetuated ; we find a history of the apostles' preaching in certain countries ; we find remnants of the effects now existing ; we find the history of the New Testament referring to contemporary history in more than a thousand instances, and though that contemporary history was the most compli- cated and changeful that the world ever saw, yet in no one instance did the writers make a mistake. And what is still more, we find all their teach- ings to be on the side of truth, and morality, and piety; and the only reward the writers and leaders obtained from their fellow-men was re- proaches, jeers, imprisonment, mobbings, scourg- ings, and violent death : and all this claims, and must have the belief of every candid man ; "for this thing was not done in a corner." Indeed, this one particular and noble characteristic of our holy religion challenges the admiration of the world, while, connected with the influence which Christianity has exerted, and the power it has assumed over the world, it amounts to a demonstration that it came from God. Secrecy is always suspicious; knavery loves darkness, and invariably clothes itself in a mist. Pretend- ers and impostors always claim to have some &I V 296 THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. power or possession that other men cannot enjoy nor understand. Not so with Christianity. It has no peculiar prerogatives which it does not offer to all men, and all are permitted to give unbiassed and voluntary testimony. The attest- ations of its divinity, which were given at its establishment were given openly, often free to the inspection of thousands. How openly, "for instance, did the Jews proclaim their expecta- tion of a Messiah eighteen hundred years ago ! How definitely had Daniel and other prophets written to the world that then he should come ! How clearly did the elders, whom Herod ap- pealed to for information, understand that he should be born in Bethlehem, and that from a prophecy five hundred years old, and understood all that time ! How openly did Christ afterward proclaim his character and object! How public were his miracles, such as feeding the five thousand, healing the deaf and the blind, and raising Lazarus from the dead ! How boldly did the evangelists declare, on the very spot, to men and women older than themselves, that the sun was darkened when Jesus was crucified, and that he rose from the dead, and hundreds had seen him ! And where is there the least intima- tion that anybody denied or doubted their testi- ST. PAUL. 297 mony ? but the only effort was to get around it, to escape its force, to attribute the wonders to some other source, or obstinately to disobey its commands, because they did not relish the na- ture and demands of Christianity! This, we say, challenges the admiration of the world, and there is but one way of accounting for it, and that is, by acknowledging and perceiving the exact and full truth of the Christian his- tory. This subject admits of forcible illustration from the life of Paul. It is well known that Lord Lyttleton, an English nobleman, was con- verted from infidelity to Christianity by an examination of the life of Paul. He had deter- mined to examine his life for the purpose of holding it up to ridicule, and, if possible, to show its absurdity ; but, like most infidels, he was profoundly ignorant of the subject; he resolved, therefore, to examine it. But he had not proceeded in his investigations far before he saw that the life of Paul was consistent and wonderful, and must have been real, and that this cannot be acknowledged without receiving at the same time the truth of the whole scheme of Christianity. He therefore, with a manly con- sistency, renounced his infidelity and became a 298 THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. Christian, and wrote a tract upon the Demon- stration of Christianity by the life of St. Paul. The life of Paul is a demonstration of Chris- tianity, just, for instance, as the life of the Mar- quis de Lafayette, properly related, is a demon- stration of the facts and nature of the American Revolution, in which he took a part. This is a feeble and imperfect illustration, far less forcible than the facts we wish to explain; yet it is an illustration, and may properly be employed. Any one reading the life of Lafayette would know that there must have been some good reason why he, a young man, should leave his own country, where his prospects were good, and, sword in hand, offer his services to a young people, three thousand miles away, and speak- ing another language. And any one acquainted with the subsequent life of Lafayette, his labours in the cause of constitutional freedom, his im- prisonment and sufferings, would be prepared to allow that the American cause must have been just, or, at least, appeared so to him. But how imperfect is this illustration compared with the life* of Paul: for Lafayette might have been stimulated by a love of glory, or by hatred to England, or by a love of adventure, while no other supposition but a profound conviction of ST. PAUL. 299 the truth of Christianity will explain the life of Paul. Look at it a minute. This man Paul (origi- nally called Saul, though we shall use the same name throughout to avoid confusion) was a native Jew, and a Pharisee, and a very strict and ardent partisan of his religion ; all of which no man will deny. He openly asserts it, and others assert it of him, and no man can deny it. He was well educated in a Jewish religious school by Gamaliel; no one can deny it, and his language and writings show it. He was a persecutor of the Christians, and was actually one of the chief instigators of the death of the first Christian martyr, Stephen. The wit- nesses laid down their garments at the feet of Paul, while they stoned him to death. "Who denies it? No one, for it was "not done in a corner;" it was in open daylight, and the whole mob saw it, and all the people knew it. After- ward he caused many to be put to death ; this he himself asserts,* and certainly he would not have asserted it if it was false, for it was no honour to him, and Agrippa was old enough to know whether it was true or not, and he tells Agrippa it was "not done in a corner." Acts xxyi, 10. THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. Now proceed a little further. This young man, violent and haughty, and on the high road to eminence and glory among his peo- ple, all at once becomes a Christian. It was one of the most sudden and wonderful tran- sitions of character on record. It was like a flash of lightning from . a clear sky : it was like making a dead statue into a living man ! There is no denying this. It certainly is a fact that the apostle Paul was a Christian. We challenge even a Yoltaire to deny that ! He did not ad- vocate Christianity "in a corner." He preached all through Judea, all through Asia Minor, in Greece and in Rome. A tract of country em- bracing some thousands of miles and millions of human beings is rather too large to be called "a corner!" And Paul travelled over it, and preached more than a score of years, and num- bered among his converts many Churches and thousands of human beings. Now, I ask, how will you account for this? how, except upon the supposition that all that he relates of his history is true ? Perhaps an objector might say, "He did this for glory, for earthly honour, to become the acknowledged head of a new sect." A strange glory was that, indeed, which awaited the apos- ST. PAUL. 301 tie Paul after his change of life. To be one of a despised and persecuted sect ; to be cast off by his own friends and blood relations ; to com- mence his public career by being let down in a basket outside of the walls of a city where, before, he was a great man, and to run for his life ; to deprive himself of all the comforts of a family and a home, and to live the life of a vagrant; to be whipped by a Roman scourge thrice to the very verge of death ; to be thrust into prisons and chained; to be beaten and stoned till actually supposed to be dead ; to " die daily," or live constantly in expectation of martyrdom ; to meet with " perils by sea and by land," from " wild beasts " and wilder men, and worse than all, "false brethren," and finally to lose his head by the executioner's knife: this was indeed a strange glory, speaking after the manner of men ! But says the objector, " It was for future glory among men that Paul thus suffered. He knew that Christianity would triumph, and that he would in future ages be greatly honoured." Did he know this ? Then he must have known that Christianity is true ; for on the supposition only that Christianity is true, could he suppose that it would triumph over its foes. This position can- 302 THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. not be controverted. Turn the wheels of time backward eighteen hundred years, and look up- on the world as Paul saw it, and no man of ordi- nary or extraordinary intelligence can prognos- ticate that this feeble body of Christians, scattered and persecuted, on principle opposed to resort- ing to " carnal weapons," with the Jews on the one side and the Romans on the other, with philosophers, and mobs, and all men of office and influence leagued against them, will ever gain respectability and power, so as to make their leaders glorious, unless he believes what Paul did believe that " Christ crucified is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth," and the right arm of Almighty God is stretched out for them, and against them the very gates of hell shall not prevail. This Paul did believe ; but I suppose he had no reference to earthly glory he could not condescend to give it a thought. Again, on the foolish supposition that the apostle Paul changed his life for earthly honour, he must have been a hypocrite, a vicious man. But does it look like vice for a man to advocate virtue all his life, and to die for it? to write to his friends, " Owe no man anything, but to love one another;" "Let him that stole steal no ST. PAUL. 303 more ;" " Let no evil communication proceed out of your mouth ;" " Lie not one to another ;" "Render evil to no man;" "Sin not;" "There be some who say that we do evil that good may come, whose damnation is just;" "Having, therefore, these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God ;" " Receive us : we have wronged no man, we have corrupted no man, we have defrauded no man." And then, when about to die, to exclaim, "1 have fought a yood fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith : henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness." Is any man so blind to virtue, in a word, so great a knave himself, as to charge the apostle Paul with knavery? For the honour of common reason, let us trust not ! How, then, can you account for this sudden change in the character of Paul, a change that did not take place " in a corner ?" There is one more false supposition, and perhaps only one, and that is, " Paul was mad : he was enthusiastic, he w r as beside himself." This was the foolish reason assigned, in the very lifetime of Paul, by his enemies. Even in the very interview to which reference has been made, Festus roared 304: THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. out, "Paul, thou art beside thyself; much learning doth make thee mad !" But I would be willing to leave the question to any reason- able man, Which was mad, Paul or Festus? Still, this was a common charge. Paul evidently alludes to it in one of his letters,- when he writes, "If we are beside ourselves, it is to God ; or whether we be sober, it is for your cause ;"* intimating that some called him "beside him- self," or crazy. This is a very common charge against truly wise men. Christians are often called enthusiastic; fanatical, absurd. Because they prefer heaven to earth, the approbation of their own consciences to temporary pleasure, the blessings of the Holy Spirit to the applause of men ; because they take God at his word, and prove his promises, therefore they are called mad by men who will not believe God, and have not therefore the experience which makes a Christian happy. This allegation I shall not attempt to remove. It is useless to reason with a madman ; and he must be mad who charges Paul with madness. What, then, is the only tenable and satis- factory solution of this wonderful conversion of Paul ? We answer, the solution which he him- 2 Corinthians v, 13. ST. PAUL. 305 self gives ; and no man could better understand it than the subject of it. The simple facts are, that he was on his way to Damascus, bent on deeds of blood. If there was not malice prepense in his heart, it was yet swelling with inquisitorial rage. Perhaps he thought he was "doing God service;" but he did not pause to reflect much on the foundation of that opinion. He had, in some way, obtained the notion that the Christians must be extermi- nated, and was determined it should be done. Perhaps his mind .was ill at ease ; perhaps he began to think, " They may be right, and I am wrong." Be that as it may, he says that at mid- day he saw a great light, and heard an articulate voice reproving him. He was the best judge of that himself. He says that as soon as the voice declared itself to be the Lord, whom he was per- secuting, he fell down, blind and speechless. This is not strange : it is just what might be expected. He then saw at once the wickedness of his course : he saw that he was a murderer of the deepest dye, he had slain the innocent chil- dren of God! He probably thought if he could think anything in such agony that his damnation was sure, and hell was opening for him. He was taken into a house, and there 20 306 THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. lay three days in all the agonies of contrition and remorse, and, I suppose, not without prayer. He undoubtedly found peace, just as other men since have professed to find peace, through self- renunciation, consecration to God, and true faith in Jesus Christ. Then, and not till then, ac- cording to his own faith, were his sins forgiven. Then, by the providence of God, Ananias, a Christian disciple, and probably a preacher, was directed to visit Saul. He feared to, at first; but he went, and, at his touch, Paul wa# miraculously restored to sight. Three days be- fore, had Paul seen Ananias, he would have had him thrust into jail, and have been glad to see him die : now Ananias said, "Brother Saul ;" and undoubtedly Paul replied, " My dear brother Ananias." They were no longer foes, but brothers. In the fulness of his heart, and of his first love to Jesus, he would have been glad to embrace the meanest disciple, and fold him to his heart. Then began the noble career of the peerless apostle. Then began his trials and his triumphs, his temptations and his victories, his controversies and his exhortations, his bold at- tacks of sin and his encouragement of the faith- ful ; nor did he cease till he had greeted tens of thousands of his converts, and seen hundreds of ST. PAUL. 307 them depart in a Christian's peace ; and, finally, amid the tears of all of the enlarged Church of Christ, he died as a martyr, and, what was far better than to live on earth, went to be with Christ. And all this was not done in a corner. The conversion of Paul is not an isolated, soli- tary instance in the practical demonstration of the divine power of Christianity. History is full of them ; the world abounds with them. The gospel carries its demonstration with it. In the magnificent structure of St. Paul's church in London is a small slab erected to the memory of Christopher Wren, the architect of the building, with this inscription : " If you would see his monument, look around you." Such is the language of Christianity. Would you see demonstration of its divinity, "look around you!" See the miserable, degraded victim of intemper- ance and vice raised from the gutter, clothed and in his right mind, a peaceful, happy, enter- prising, useful, noble man; see human nature elevated, glorified ; see the afflicted happy ; see the dying rejoice. " These are my jewels," said the Roman woman, pointing to her children; " Ye are my witnesses, says the prophet ; " Ye are our epistle," (our letter of recommendation,) says the apostle. 308 THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. Take the history of the world, such as we have it, and obliterate from its pages all the cheering records of the power of Christianity, all its noble, philanthropic enterprises, all its instances of sacrifice, all its superhuman efforts to do good, all of its happy lives, all of its martyrdoms, all of its influence on government and law, all of its biographies of such men as Peter, and Paul, and John, and Luther, and Wesley, and Howard, and Wilberforce, and Fletcher, and Asbury, and thousands of others, scarcely lesser lights, and what a dead level of corruption, what a dismal chaos of vice and rottenness would the world present ! Its deeds, its deeds declare it ; by them let it stand or fall! I appeal to you, then, ought the gospel to be to you as " a very lovely song of one that hath a pleasant voice ?" Ought you to listen to the demands of Christ, just as you listen to the murmuring of the wind in a grove, or the singing of birds on a pleasant summer's morn- ing? If stirred by anything, ought not your hearts to be aroused to most energetic resolve and immediate action, by the gospel ? The con- version of Paul is no more than is offered to all. All need it as much as he did. Without it, ac- cording to the Bible, we perish. He that is not ST. PAUL. 309 for Christ is against him ; he that gathereth not with him scattereth abroad. It is not a few men only that are called to be flames of fire ; every heart should burn, every soul glow with love to God. But, whether men receive it or reject it, Chris- tianity is of God, and will prevail. Its history is engraved on the adamantine walls of the past, and time cannot obliterate it. Its present is sunken deep into the institutions of earth, and upheld by the power of the Omnipotent. It rolls on, with more than the power of a planet, moved and guided by the unseen hand of Jeho- vah. It shakes off the puny advocates of infi- delity as the lion shakes the dew-drop from his mane. Its children are a procession of all ages and nations, and more than four thousand years long fall in, then, or you perish ! Already this immense multitude raise the jubilant shout, and soon the angels from heaven, and the saints on earth, together will sing, Hallelujah! the Lord God* Omnipotent reigneth 1 310 THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. CHAPTER XYHL GRAND PRACTICAL BENEFITS OF THE BIBLE. THERE are two ways of looking at every grand subj ect like the present the theoretical and the practical. We may inquire, What ought to be, or must be? and we may inquire, What is? Thus, for instance, if the question is proposed, What are the advantages of a republican form of government? one man might, by patient and long reflection, think out, as he supposed, all the effects that could possibly attend such a system. That would be theory. Another might appeal to facts, actual republics, ancient and modern. That would be practice. Thus we might examine the great question of the effects of the Bible. The problem theoreti- cally would be, Given, a book presented to "man by Jehovah, confirmed by miracles, verified by prophecy fulfilled, and being fulfilled, and by perfect adaptation to man, teaching him his im- mortality, future rewards and punishments, a"nd the way of eternal happiness what will be, what BENEFITS OF THE BIBLE. 311 must be its effect on man ? Let us suppose that the problem was submitted to an angel, who had never seen the earth, nor till then heard of man ; what would be his reply? Would he not say. " In spite of the most inveterate depravity which, you say, exists in man, and for which this is a remedy, he must yield to the solicitations of that book ? Self-interest will prompt him to avoid its threatenings and obtain its blessings, and the condescension of God will humble him. The Bible ! Why, every man, woman, and child will possess himself of one and prize it next to his soul ; they will consult it as their constant guide ; every family will esteem it as a sacred treasure ; all will live by its directions, and die with its promised comfort, and thank God for that im- mortalizing fruit of the tree of life !" Alas ! alas ! all this is a mistake, " The best-concerted schemes of men Go oft astray ;" and so do their theories, and perhaps the theo- ries of angels would fare no better. What ought to be, if right reason prevailed, is very different from what is. We must descend, then, from fancy to fact, from the golden clouds of the firmament to the rough and rugged surface of the earth. And yet this theoretical considera- 312 THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. tion of what the Bible ought to effect, is not without profit. I have not glanced at the sub- ject without object. I wish to intimate that great as has been the good influence of the Holy Scriptures hitherto, it has been but little compared with what it ought to have been, little compared with what it might have been, and, we trust, will yet be. But let us consider the actual advantages of the word of God as ocularly demonstrated be- fore us. Observe its effect upon the morality of man. The line between right and wrong where the Bible is not known is exceedingly movable and uncertain, and the inducements to a high order of morality are weak and inef- fective. After allowing full force to exceptions, which are only of individuals or of small peoples for a short time, certainly it will not be denied that the standard of morality in all heathen nations is far below that of Christianity. Falsehood, theft, and the violation of every law of our moral code are common among the heathen. It is true that crime and violence prevail in nominally Christian nations; but it is almost entirely among that class who either have not received Christian instruction and to whom the BENEFITS OF THE BIBLE. 313 Bible is as great a stranger as to the Hottentot, or it is among those who voluntarily throw off all restraint of the word of God. It is the mis- fortune of nominally Christian nations that they have a vast population of heathen and worse than heathen in their midst ; and, therefore, to learn the influence of the Bible, no general national comparison is fair. There is not a Christian nation on the face of the round earth. There have been some states, even large ones, which at certain times have approximated the true character, and the contrast between them and others has been marked. God has endowed all men with a faculty, the object of which is to discriminate between right and wrong ; but without some guide upon which to rely, its decisions are various, and its prompt- ings toward right are feeble ; and, what is still more deplorable, but few men will listen even to that. Passion usurps the place of conscience, which becomes dormant and almost dead. Mo- rality requires the promise of future reward and the threatening of future punishment to become commanding and strong. A survey of heathen nations will amply con- firm all I have said. With but a few partial exceptions, gross darkness covers the people, 314: THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. and wickedness is universal, where the Bible is unknown. Even philosophers, who have medi- tated and sagely written about morality, have practised debasing vice, " Greatest, wisest, meanest of mankind !" But in Christian lands there has ever been a large portion of the population who have pro- fessed to enjoy its spiritual blessings, all of whom are bound to strive, and do strive, to obey the strictest standard of morality, even a transcript of the will of God ; and a still larger class who, taught in childhood the principles of rectitude, have consciences accurate and tender, and whose morals are irreproachable. What is the consequence of all this? Not only pure morality on their part, but vice hides itself in shame. It skulks into corners and secret places; it covers itself with hypocrisy, and the general tone of morality is high and firm, in precise proportion with the influence of the word of God. Perhaps a dozen or more specimens of comparatively pure lives may be found in heathen history; but what multitudes of men and women, of the most sublime and heroic morality and piety, does Christianity present! BENEFITS OF THE BIBLE. 315 Observe now the influence of the Bible upon the social habits and enjoyments of man. Man is gregarious the world over; but where are social interviews productive of pure intellectual enjoyment, or conducted upon principles honour- able to man, but where the oracles of God are known ? Where else is domestic peace perfect ? Where else is the family relation understood, and rightly appreciated ? Where else is woman elevated above the condition of a servant? Brute force prevails where the Bible is un- known. The superior claims of intelligence are not recognised; and the claims of refinement and delicacy are wholly overlooked. Even in polished Greece and majestic Rome woman was a slave; and the few women who rose above the ordinary grade, and achieved a place in history, were still of a character that will not bear the inspection of a Christian gaze. These are facts that must force themselves upon the attention of all who think : and even now infi- delity, though its mouth is full of great, swelling words of philanthropy, a caricature of Christi- anity, having " Stolen the livery of heaven To serve the devil in," yet professes principles which, carried out, would 316 THE YOTJNG MAN ADVISED. lead to all the immorality of heathenism, and reduce woman to barbarian degradation. "We have room only to give a rapid view of the subject, and we therefore proceed to the in-, fluence of the Bible upon the government and laws of nations. Government perhaps is one of the last places upon which the full influence of Christianity is felt ; because it is only by indi- rect action, through public opinion, that the power of Christianity can be brought to bear upon it. The Bible does not specify any form of government as the only proper one, but contents itself with commanding magistrates to rule, and the people to obey, in the fear of God. It is only by raising the tone of morality in a people, and by diffusing correct principles of morality and religion, that the government and laws of nations can be improved by Christianity. We cannot enter at large into the subject of law modified by Christianity; but none can deny its elevating, humanizing effect. How have the terrors of war been mitigated would to God that it had been wholly destroyed by Chris- tianity! No longer are prisoners mercilessly butchered, nor consigned to hopeless slavery; but generously exchanged or released : and na- tions, instead of their former aspect as demons, BENEFITS OF THE BIBLE. 317 look upon each other with some mutual forbear- ance and love. The rights of habeas corpus and trial by jury, the abolishment of imprisonment for debt, and of barbarous punishments, and of the torture even of witnesses, have been brought about by Christianity. The laws of nations, technically speaking, or the partially unwritten regulations which na- tions observe in their treatment of each other, have been vastly changed by Christianity. The common law, decided by precedent, has been greatly elevated in moral tone; and no dis- criminating mind can read the statutes of any Christian state without detecting, on every page, the undercurrent influence of the word of God. The most of these influences act without revolu- tion, silently, gradually, to some minds imper- ceptibly, but yet act. The mightiest powers of nature are silent. You may plant a garden in the shade, and subject, perhaps, to poisonous in- fluences : the plants are all sickly and pale, the flowers are small and dull, the fruit scanty and innutritions. But remove the obstruction, ihe high walls, let the sunlight upon it, and the noxious pools are dried up, the grateful plants shoot up with unwonted vigour, the blossoms multiply and enlarge, and what was formerly 318 THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. sickly and drooping becomes beautiful and rich. Similar is the silent, fertilizing influence of the Bible on the nations and man. It is the light of the Sun of Righteousness, with healing on its wings. Let its light shine ; let the Bible be cir- culated, and its preachers follow it, and its in- stitutions arise ; and the barbarous Britons, clothed in skins, led by the Druids, making huge, gigantic, hollow images, filled with hu- man beings, set on fire from below, and thus roasting scores at once as holocausts to false gods, are, with the more ferocious worship- pers of Odin, changed into intellectual Anglo- Saxon Christians: the South Sea Islanders, amost naked, and absolutely, like fishes, eating each other, become clothed and in their right mind, and watch over each other with affec- tion ; and, in decent, happy congregations, wor- ship God : and the Hottentot and the Bush- man are elevated into men ! The Bible is the tree of life, and its " leaves are for the healing of the nations" Hjgtory, with a thousand voices, demonstrates the necessity of the oracles of God. I pass now to consider the more important features of the subject, and especially interesting to the most genuine Christians, who have a rich BENEFITS OF THE BIBLE. 319 experimental spiritual experience of the religion of the Bible. The Bible is an incomparable blessing, because it teaches men whom to wor- ship, and how to worship God. All over the round earth men do worship, men will worship, must worship something. But the worship of Brahma, the worship of idols of every description and name, is a curse, a positive curse to man. That which ought to be his greatest blessing is his greatest curse. If you could conceive it pos- sible for all the blood, which is the life, to be drawn out of a man's body, and then another fluid to be substituted, a rank poison, which yet should have the power of keeping the heart in motion, you would expect to see a miserable, per- haps furious, insane wretch. Now the worship of God is the only true life-blood of the soul. Let it flow through unadulterated and harmonious; perfect spiritual vitality is the result : all other worship as a substitute for that is constant death, demoralizing, dehumanizing, brutalizing, yes, demoiiizing man ; dethroning Jehovah, and en- throning the devil the greatest insult to God, the greatest evil to man ! Behold, therefore, God's indignation at idolatry! It is the concen- trated essence of sin. In its worst. form it is worse than atheism ; it not only denies God, but 320 THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. substitutes for him what is no God, a figment of the imagination, if not the work of the hand ! Now I hazard the assertion that, but for the Bible, idolatry would be universal. Indeed, this is evident from the condition of man where the influence of the Bible is not felt. Two important questions now suggest them- selves : How does idolatry arise ? and, How will the Bible prevent it? This is a subject worthy of much thought, and seldom, if ever, satisfac- torily presented. The one great subject of the Bible is Christ. Christ is its beginning, its body, its end. Christ is the subject of its first prophecy, and its last promise ; Christ was prefigured in the sacrifices, foretold by the prophets, sung by the bards, ex- pected by all the saints, manifested in due time in Judea, offered up for us all, raised from the dead, and has ascended on high, where he ever liveth, at the right hand of God, making inter- cession for us. Take Christ from the Bible, and there is but a little remnant of useless ruins left. Christ is the great want, too, of .man. A knowl- edge of Christ is necessary to our happiness and perfection. But what is Christ? A Mediator, an Intercessor, a Daysman between God and us. Now, inasmuch as such a Mediator is neces- BENEFITS OF THE BIBLE. 321 sary, and without him .none could be saved, and inasmuch as every man is created for Christ, God has implanted in every human soul an in- stinctive want of a Redeemer. All men, per- haps unconsciously, when they worship, sigh for a Redeemer. There is an instinctive fear of wor- shipping Jehovah without a Redeemer. There is an inclination to suppose that the Almighty will not listen to us unless we have some one to plead our cause. Therefore, where Christ is un- known, men in their worship seek other medi- ators. Observe, then, the tendency to idolatry. Idolaters have generally believed in the existence of GOD, a Supreme Being ; but they have been disinclined to worship him. They have sought out demi-gods or eminent deceased human be- ings, and prayed to them. These have been the false gods of the idolaters. These have been substituted for Christ. These have been counter- feit Christs -false redeemers. See how this view is confirmed by a reference to Roman Catholic nations. They neglect the Bible ; the people are totally ignorant of it ; in Rome, the residence of the pope, a Bible cannot be found in any bookstore, and even the great body of the priests are ignorant of it. Therefore with them Christ, the true Mediator, 21 322 THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. is in fact deposed, and idols take his place. A hundred prayers are offered to the Virgin Mary where one is offered to God or Christ. She was a woman her pictures are presented in every public place ; they are not afraid to present their wants to her ; and though not one instance of her worship is mentioned in the Bible> she has become their tutelar goddess. Besides this, prayers are offered to hundreds of saints, who together take the exact place occupied by false gods among the idolaters. Now, this want of the soul, this desire for a mediator, is met in the Bible, by the presentation of Jesus Christ. " We have not a high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities ; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin." Christ was careful, therefore, to instruct his disciples to offer their prayers "in his name." He assures us that where two or three are gathered together, he is in the midst. He is the only perfect Mediator God and man ; omniscient, and yet sympathizing with us ; omnipotent, and yet ready to stoop to aid the humblest in the most trifling want ; per- fectly holy, and yet has been tempted ; perfectly exalted, and yet has been humbled, and has even suffered and died for man ! The great want of BENEFITS OF THE BIBLE. 323 the soul is a Mediator; and the great object of the Bible is to produce a universal worship of God in Christ. It is for this reason that the great object of the apostles was to produce faith in Christ. A be- lief in the Messiahship, or, what is the same thing, in the divine mediatorial character of Christ, is the first condition of salvation to all who hear the gospel. Believe in me, and work righteousness, was the substance of all of Christ's preaching. Repent and believe in Christ, is the condensation of every apostolic discourse. It is not necessary to detail what must be the consequences of this faith. Men unconsciously imitate whom they worship. But Christ was the fulness of the Godhead bodily. He was de- vout and pure, affectionate and holy, and indig- nant at sin. None can read the Scriptures and be ignorant of the only perfect character ever seen or portrayed ; and no one can rashly pre- sume to obtain the favourable regard of such a Being, without an earnest effort to abandon sin and obey the demands of the moral law. The slightest flaw in the character of Christ would undermine and destroy the Bible : but there is no such flaw ; and the tendency of the worship of Christ is to produce a perfect world. 324 THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. Besides all this, we must not overlook the chief element of the power of the Bible, the effi- cacy of the Holy Ghost promised to all who be- lieve in Christ, and who strive to obey him. " The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul ; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple ; the statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart." The Holy Spirit is the author of the Bible ; he shines through it, and blesses those who study and obey it; and that in no common or ordinary sense, but actually transforms the nature, regenerates the heart, and prepares for a holy heaven. It follows from this that the chief advantages of the Bible are of an internal character, invisi- ble to the outward eye, inappreciable by the " natural man." The signs of health may be a brightness of the eye, a freshness of the com- plexion, an elasticity of tread, and an activity of the body ; but health itself is something more and deeper than these signs it is the harmo- nious performance of all the functions of all the organs of vitality, giving rise to buoyancy of feelings and fulness of life. So the outward in- fluence of the Bible is purity of morals, improve- ment of society, rectification of civil law, and a promotion of the worship of God in Christ ; but BENEFITS OF THE BIBLE. 325 its full effect is internal and spiritual. "The kingdom of God is within." It is a peace un- seen, but not unfelt ; it is a joy indescribable, but glorious; it is consolation in affliction, support in trials, forgiveness to the sinner, sanctifi cation to the polluted, happiness in death, and a pass- port to heaven. This, the chief advantage of the Bible, I cannot describe. I can only point to it, and say to the curious, Come, and see! A pencil dipped in the colours of a sunset sky could not depict it it must be felt to be known. But witnesses of this sublime fact are not want- ing. Go to that Christian widow, who, like the widow of ]STain, has lost her only earthly hope and support, and ask what it is that so strangely sustains her, and causes her heart to smile, even through her tears; and she will tell you, The religion of the Bible, the promises and the Sa- viour of the Bible. Go to that dying saint, and ask him what gives him his unearthly hope, and sublime trust and joy; and he will say, The re- ligion of the Bible. There are millions now on earth who would sooner sacrifice all their wealth yea, some of them have no wealth but that, and feel richer than though they had all the world besides they would surrender all their earthly comfort, and their lives even, rather 326 THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. than yield what they have gained from the Bible ! This is my own position, and, if you are Christians, this is yours. Which one of us cannot say, I would sooner die the most painful, ignominious death imagin- able, than yield what I gain from the Bible? To one who has felt the saving power of its spirit, and learned to trust in its promises, to give up the Bible would be like giving up his only protection on the wide ocean ; it would be like blotting out the sun from the heavens, and leave the earth rayless and cheerless a desolate globe in a firmament of night! Nor are we alone in this feeling. Millions have died in the same sentiment, and with their last breath ut- tered the same testimony take what you will besides, but leave us the Saviour of which we read in the oracles of God. Upon this subject it is impossible to be extrav- agant. Men often become violent in their feel- ings, hyperbolical in their language, upon many of the petty interests of earth ; but human vocab- ularies do not furnish terms strong enough, and the human heart is not capable of emotion ade- quate to describe or estimate the worth of the word of God. It is God's greatest gift, without which all other gifts would be nothing it is the BENEFITS OF THE BIBLE. 327 concentration of the wisdom and mercy of Je- hovah. There is another thought worthy of attention. There are many advantages growing out of the fact that the oracles of God are given in the form of a book. " Write the vision," said God to the prophet. Some believe in a traditional revelation, originally given to man, who trans- mitted it orally to the next generation, and they to others. The Jews believed in such a revela- tion in addition to their sacred books ; and what was the consequence? Even in the time of Christ this pretended revelation was in collision with the true one ; and Christ truly said, " Ye make void the law of God by your vain tradi- tions." We see the same thing in the present Popish Church. They believe in a revelation orally transmitted : and how absurd and impious are the dogmas of man, palmed off upon the credulity of others as the revelations of God! Who does not see that even if a revelation was given to man, and not committed to paper, it would be transformed, corrupted, and coloured by the impure mediums through which it would pass ? Wine would not be expected to retain its purity after passing through a thousand un- washed bottles; and who would believe in a 328 THE YOUNG MAN ADVISED. revelation conveyed by some of the greatest monsters that ever trod the earth, who were exposed also to the strongest temptations of avarice and ambition to substitute their own insane cravings for the will of God ? But God's revelation is a book. Some have even believed that God invented alphabetical writing for this express purpose ; and that never were letters employed till Moses received the ten commandments at Sinai. Be this as it may, we know that in the early ages God employed letters as a vehicle of his instruction to man. Multiplied copies, carefully studied, cannot be corrupted or changed. The best of men, when excited, colour and change the truth through their own intensity of feeling; but the printed page is passionless and true. The page that re- cords the crucifixion of Christ is no more excited than the one which relates his genealogy. Copies too may be multiplied, and men know when they receive it that they have the accurate word of God. Behold, then, an instance of the divine wis- dom beaming from all the works of Providence, that his revelation should have been in the form of a series of books. Not only is the revelation itself stamped with permanence more unyield- BENEFITS OF THE BIBLE. 329 ing than the Pyramids of Egypt, but the won- derful steam-press, which prints its thousands in an hour, is converted into a splendid assistant missionary, to aid in spreading the truth to the ends of the earth. Will it ever be thus widely known ? Will it ever be the guide of the world, the great controller of man ? History shall yet solve the problem. That it may govern our own hearts and conduct, and, as speedily as possible, all mankind, should be our prayer and labour. THE END. UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY BERKELEY Return to desk from which borrowed. This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. REC'D LD MAY IN STACKS SEP 2 7 1962 RECTO OCT 29 125Z ICLF (N) LD FEB12'68 5PM LDSl-lOOfl 7146816)476 YB 21674 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY