LIBRARY OF THE University of California. Mrs. SARAH P. WALSWORTH. Received October, i8g4. Accessions ^o.v^T^tLp ^ Class No. THE CEDECH BEFORE THE FLOOD I Digitized by tine Internet Arciiive in 2007 witii funding from lUicrosoft Corporation littp://www.arcliive.org/details/cliurclibeforeflooOOcummricli THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. BY THE REV. JOHN CUMIVIING, D. D. • c MDflSTEa OF THE SCOTCH NATIONAL CHURCH, CROWN COURT, COVENT QABDKN, LONDON. So shall her holy bounds increase. With walls of praise and gates of peace ; So shall the vine, which martyrs' tears And blood sustained in other years. With fresher life be clothed upon. And to the world in beauty show Like the rose-plant of Jericho, And glorious as Lebanon. BOSTON: PUBLISHED BY JOHN P. JEWETT AND COMPANY. CLEVELAND, OHIO: JEWETT, PROCTOR, AND WORTHINGTON^ 1854. ^^^-, _ _ [uiri7BRsiTy; Slt^H CAMBRIDGE: SN AND FASNHAM, BTEREOTYPERS AND PEINTEB8. :l PREFACE One loves to trace the stream upward to its fountain. Christianity was first preached in Para- dise. Adam and Eve were the first believers. A^el was the first Christian martyr. They lived and loved, and prayed and praised, in the grey and misty dawn. They looked forward and up- ward to the rising of the Sun of righteousness, and rejoiced in the increasing light. In their faith and hope, the " woman's seed " was all and in all. By faith Enoch and Noah walked with God. These ancient, saints did not live on bread alone, but by every word that proceeded from the mouth of God. The Church I ever regard, not as an ecclesiastical hierarchy — Episcopate or Presbyterate — however useful these features may be in their place, but as the company of faithful Christians, the congre- gation of all believers. On earth it has been sometimes hidden, often few, occasionally visited VI PREFACE. with exterminating persecution, yet never extin- guished. " Lo, I am with you always to the end of the world," is her inherited promise. " Where two or three are met together in my name, there am I in the midst of them," is her experience. " I give unto them eternal life, and none shall pluck them out of my hand," is her safety. All our visible churches are merely provisional or tem- porary arrangements, till that which is perfect comes ; that is, till " the manifestation of the sons of God." Then that which is provisional shall be done away, and that which is perfect will alone remain. It is in vain that we belong to the outer and visible, if we be strangers to the inner and true church. May we feel it personally important to edify the latter, and less and less our interest or duty to quarrel about the former. The author hopes to present in another volume The Church of the Patriarchs, as soon as he can spare time to arrange it. CONTENTS ¥ PAGE CHAPTER 1. THE BIBLE ... 1 CHAPTER II. GENESIS AND GEOLOGY . 27 CHAPTER III. CREATION 51 CHAPTER IV. THE FIKST MAN, ADAM, AND THE LAST .... 68 CHAPTER V. THE CURSE 85 CHAPTER VI. REDEMPTION . , TOO CHAPTER VII. MISSIONARY DUTY 119 CHAPTER VIII. THE PROTOMAKTYR 137 CHAPTER IX. THE HEART AS IT IS 156 VIU CONTENTS. CHAPTER X. BAPTISM DOTH SAVE 174 CHAPTER XL THE VICTOKY OF FAITH 195 CHAPTER XII. UIGII CIIURCHMANSHIP 211 CHAPTER Xin. ARARAT; OR, THE FIRST BIORNI^SG OF A NEW DAY . . 228 CHAPTER XIV. THE RAINBOW ." 246 CHAPTER XV. THE THREE FOREFATHERS 262 CHAPTER XVI. Enoch's PRoriiECY 278 CHAPTER XVII. Enoch's creed 299 CHAPTER XVIII. THE BABEL BUILDERS; OR, UNSANCTIFIED JUDGMENTS . 317 CHAPTER XIX. the EVERLASTING GOSPEL 334 CHAPTER XX. ' FAITH AND HOPE 355 CHAPTER XXI. FULL ASSURANCE 371 CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. CHAPTER I. THE BIBLE. " Hast thou ever heard Of such a book ? The Author, God himself; The subject, God and man, salvation, life. And death — eternal life — eternal death." "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God." — 1 Tim. iii. 15, 16. " Whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning." EoM. XV. 4. We have in the existing church what the Church before the Flood had not, a written rule of faith. This is an ines- timable privilege. " God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken to us by his Son." We have all that Adam, and Enoch, and Noah had, and very much more, far more clearly revealed. In this introductory chapter let me make some remarks on this precious Record. The Bible is not a disquisition on astronomy, or philoso- phy, or geology, or other science. Man can wait the slow process of discovery in science, but he cannot wait a single moment for an answer to the question, " What must I do to 1 2 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. be saved ? " because in that moment his soul may be re- quired of him. It is. therefore, wisely and beneficently- arranged, that the results of science shall be from slow discovery ; and it is no less beneficently arranged that the disclosure of the way of salvation shall be instant and complete. The Bible, therefore, leaves the Copernican and the Ptolemaic systems of astronomy to settle their disputes, and replies primarily to the anxious question, " What musi I do to be saved ? " The Bible is not a discovery ; it is a revelation. Between these two words there is a broad and important distinction. A discovery is that which man makes, and which man can enlarge ; a revelation is that which God gives, and which God alone can add to. When Columbus found America, he made a discovery; and sub- sequent voyagers have left mankind better acquainted with that continent than he himself was : it was a discovery that man could make, and that man can still mend. But the Bible is not a discovery which has been reached by the soaring wing, or by the sustained and persevering industry of man ; it is a revelation that comes down from heaven in all its beauty and in all its completeness, so much so, that he that attempts to add to it takes the place of God, and " shows himself as if he were God," professing to mend what is already perfect, and to add to that which God has pronounced complete. The Bible is an eminently popular book ; it is emphati- cally the book, not for the college, nor for the scientific hall, but for the people. The figures which it employs are drawn from the most familiar and every day expe- rience ; the coloring spread over it is, in the nineteenth century, fresh as it was when it w^as first given, and is still fitted to attract and arrest the multitude. Human works endure, and are pojiular, in proportion as they partake of this universality. The Bible has the great element of catho- THE BIBLE. 6 licity in its bosom ; it is a book not for a coterie, nor for a sect, nor for a party, but for all manivind. And while it speaks to all at once, it speaks to each separately, with no less distinctness and emphasis. The great congregation can listen to God's voice sounding in the Bible ; the solitary man in his closet can hear its sweet chimes in his soul also ; it provokes a resonant echo in the heart of the humblest listener. Like God's own omnipresence, the Bible reaches to the loftiest spirit, and prescribes the lavv's and the direction of his orbit ; and it descends to the humblest artisan, aitd tells him at once, in its own majestic and paternal tones, how to be happy and holy for ever. All history, all criticism, all hermeneutics, (if I. may use a long word,) all archasology, are not, and may not be, substitutes for the Bible, nor do they add to the Bible ; they are meant simply to show the Bible in its own exclusive and dominant jDosition. When the critic sits down to illustrate the Bible, he sim[)ly tries to put it beibre us just as it was put before the Corinthians, so that we may, from the standing point which the Corinthian Christian and the Roman Christian had, sec the same glory sweep by, and hear the same voice speak from the heavens to our listening and obedient heart. The Bible is composed of a great many books, and books that are cumulative (if I may use the expression) and progressive. Genesis gives the unity, the origin, the apostasy of our race, and the promise of a Saviour. Leviticus, Exodus, and Deuteronomy, are the outlines and shadows of the approaching Sun, seen by Levi, in some such way as the sun in the firmament is seen by the astronomer through a smoked lens : the eye of the one is not able to endure its intensity ; the minds of the others were not prepared for the full blaze, the meridian splendor, of the Sun of righteousness. Job is a specimen of the 4 TUE CnURCII BEFORE THE FLOOD. deep yearning and craving of the human heart, amid the waves and billows of sorrow and afiliction, for a comforter and redeemer. Solomon is a manifestation of human wisdom in its loftiest discoveries, but of its unsatisfactori- ness in them all. Ruth is for the genealogy of the Saviour — important, because it presents to us a beautiful link in that genealogy. Isaiah brings into the desolations of the Captivity the splendors of a glorious day. Ezekiel gives us visions of the future temple, the spread and triumphs of the kingdom of the Messiah. Haggai sees the temple lighted up with a glory to which the first temple was a stranger. Malachi, like an early morning star, heralds in the approaching rays of the Sun, saying, " Unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness rise ; " and, after four hundred years of silence, John the Baptist appears as if he were Malachi risen from the dead, responding to his prophecy, by saying, " Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sins of the world." The Gospels unfold the biography of the Son of God. The Acts of the Apostles carry into practical development the functions, the attributes, and powers with which they were invested ; and the Apocalypse is the close of all the glories of the past, the prophetic dawn of all the splendors of the future, telling us in words, sure as rising and setting suns, that as the world began with paradise, the world shall close with paradise again. In looking at the whole Bible we find the following data : It contains in all sixty-six books, by forty different writers. It presents history, biography, parable, letters, proverbs, poems, speeches. Some of them were written by kings, some by shepherds, some by herdsmen, some by vine-dressers, some by tent-makers, some by a physician. They were composed in different circumstances, in successive centuries, in various phases of joy, of sorrow, of afiliction, and of tribulation. THE BIBLE. O Between the first writer in Genesis, and the last writer in the Apocalypse, fifteen hundred years intervened. Now, must we not conclude, in the exercise of common sense, that in men of so varying professions, placed in so varying circumstances, subject each to his peculiar and idiosyncratic trials, there is evidence of special inspiration, when we find that without colhision there is perfect concord, without preconcert perfect harmony, that without design or adjust- ment their notes, not from nearness but relation, should constitute the varied harmonies of heaven ? Is it not evidence that there must have been struck, to guide and to develop them, one grand key-note, Christ, and him cruci- fied? In one part of this wondrous book the scholar is addressed in language so exquisitely beautiful, in thoughts so freshly drawn from the depths of our human experience, that he listens, and admires as he listens. In another part, the weary artisan who has returned from his day's work, bears the voice of his Father, and finds that voice his MoWest opiate and his sweetest lullaby. In one part the Bible speaks to babes ; in another part it speaks to grown men. It draws its ima2;ery from agriculture, from com- merce, from politics, from poetry, from nature, and from art ; so that there is not a human being, however strange and peculiar his taste, who shall not find in this wonderful book the common Christianity conveyed in those formulas and figures, and illustrated by those analogies which come home to his heart with the greatest emphasis, and convey most vividly the great truths that belong to his everlasting peace. If a shepherd wants to read his Bible, he will find allusions that will make it familiar to him as household words : if a king sits down on his throne to read the Bible, he will meet with illustrations there that are meet for the inmate of the largest and the most splendid palace ; if the^ artisan, or the sailor, or the soldier, read the Bible, 1* 6 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. he will see the same truths illustrated by imagery with which he is practically familiar, and so coming home to his heart, with a power so real and so decided, that he will feel that never book spake like this book, as it was said of old of its author, '' Never man spake like this man." But it is very remarkable, that, while there is all that is needed to edify, all that is fitted to charm and to instruct, there is not one word adapted merely to gratify an itching curiosity. If I had been writing a book that I wanted to be very popular, and if I had been desirous of using the most likely elements, I should have taken care to give responses to ^lie thousand and one curious questions that humanity ever asks and never comprehends. If I had been narrating, even as a human being, and wishing to speak sincerely, that Lazarus rose from the dead, I should have tried to throw in some expressions or sketches of his wonderful experience when separated from the body — not that it would have done man good, but it would have gratified his curiosity, and made my work acceptable. But upon that and kindted subjects the Bible is silent. " Lord, are there many that be saved ? " How often have we asked this question ! How fine was the answer — " Strive to enter in at the strait gate ! " Again, the question is asked, " What shall this man do?" Hear the answer — "What is that to thee? Follow thou me." The silence of Scripture is sometimes its most thrilling eloquence. The blanks and chasms in Scripture — the questions it leaves unanswered — the prob- lems it bequeathes unsettled — the perplexities it leaves unsolved, are to my mind some of the strongest and bright- est credentials that the Bible has God for its author, truth for its matter, everlasting joy and felicity for its happy issue. The Bible consists not merely of so many individual books, but of two great divisions. The Old and the New THE BIBLE. 7 Testament are the two great sections of the book called the Bible. What is the diiference between them? The Old Testament is a lock with wards and interstices, far more complicated than Chubb or Bramah could contrive ; and the New Testament is the exquisitely cut key, which, applied to the lock, completely unlocks it, and opens a door of entrance to the bright vision of light and immortality, clearly brought to view. The Old and New Testament are different por- traits of the same great and glorious original. The Old Testament is the portrait seen by moonlight ; the New Tes- tament is the same portrait seen by sunlight ; the one hazy and dim, but still real ; the other bright and illuminated, like a noonday landscape, on which the minutest and most majestic features may be read and understood by him that Tuns while he reads. We have these books in all their integrity.^ Oh! what a i^round of thankfulness to God is a Bible, — unmutilated, anshortened, uncorrupted 1 The Socinian has tried to ab- stract from it that which is Divine; the Romanist has added to it that which is human ; but we have this book still in its inspired integrity ; it is here that one can see a providence in our divisions. While our differences may be the evidences of human weakness, they have been overruled by God to be the means of the Bible's preservation. If a Church of England man had tried to put in a word in favor of Episcopacy, the Independent would have pounced upon him and shown the fraud; if the Scotch Churchman had tried to put in a word in favor of his Confession of Faith^ the English Churchman would have exposed him in the light of noonday; if the Baptist had interpolated a word about plunging, the Pasdobaptist would have instantly shown it should be sprinkling. Thus our little divisions, which are the evidences of our frailty, have been overruled, in the good providence of God, to be the means of keeping in its 8 THE CnURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. unmutilated integrity and perfection that blessed book which is the anchorage ground of us all. The very existence of the Bible has always appeared to me a perpetual miracle. This book, lying upon the pulpit, or upon the desk, or upon the table, is itself a glorious sign. Suppose there were to come into our presence a man who had lived eighteen hundred years — suppose he had been cast into the sea a dozen times, and was never drowned — suppose arsenic and prussic acid had been administered to him, according to the best prescriptions, and yet he was never poisoned — suppose he had been riddled with bullets, and yet is not numbered with the slain — if that man were to march into a room this day, and to present himself before us, what would be inferred? That God's omnipresence must have been his shield, and God's omnipotence his safety at every moment. This book, the Bible, has been cast into the flames, and it is not burned ; it has been thrown into the sea, and it is not drowned ; it has been buried in the pestilential notes of Douay, and it has been seized in the bearlike grasp of the Roman Catholic hierarchy, and yet it is not crushed. At this day it comes before us in primasval purity and majesty, and thus eighteen centuries demonstrate what Jesus uttered in the first century, " Thy word, O Lord, is truth." But more than this. There are certain books called the classics, written in Greek and Latin, some of them beautifully written, many of them with intermingling corruptions, and appeals to what is worst and most wicked in our common humanity. Now, it is remarkable that un- regenerate human nature would any day prefer a book written by man that will minister to its corruptions, to a book written by God that rebukes those corruptions. Yet the classics, those books that man tried to save, the books that he loved because they prophesied good about him, the books that he labored, and suifered, and expended to protect THE BIBLE. 9 and preserve, are all of them mutilated, and many of them totally lost ; while this book, which all men hated till they came under its supremacy, and which all men persecuted, because, like the prophet, it propliesied evil concerning them, remains in all its perfection and integrity to this day. Does not this prove that God has been with this book from the beginning until now ? The Church of Rome tells us, we got the Bible from her, and that we ought, therefore, to take her opinion of it, hei limits, restrictions, and counsel in the interpretation of it. 1 suspect, however, that we rather snatched it from her grasp, than got it as a present from her generosity ; but at all events, in whatever way we got it, we are certainly most thankful to God that so blind a woman kept in her hand for us so bright a light, and left it for our guidance ; and all our regret is, that she was so blind as not to see its light herself. But that same Church turns round and says, " As you got the Bible from us," or, to put it in a phraseology not uncommon, " As you are indebted to the Church for the Bible, you ought to take the Church's interpretation of it." I must demur, " The Apostles got the Old Testament from the Jews ; but if they had taken the Jews' interpretation of the Bible, they would have joined with them in crucifying the Lord of glory. We will take the Bible from you, but we will not take your interpretation of it." Suppose a will is brought into a court of justice, and that two persons who signed the will are brought forward as witnesses to the genuineness and authenticity of the document : the moment they have given their testimony, one of the witnesses, very communicative and obliging, says to the judge, " My lord, now that we have signed the will, and shown it to 'be gen- uine, and handed it to you in this court, an uncorrupted and authentic document, I beg to inform your lordship that the will leaves 500/. to my friend, 2oOL for myself, and 10J}0Z. 10 THE CJIURCn BEFOKE THE FLOOD. for somebody else." What would the judge say? "Gen- tlemen, you are excellent witnesses to the genuineness of the will, but the interpretation of the document you must leave to other parties altogether." If the Church of Rome insists that she did convey the document to us in all its integrity, we say, " We are exceedingly obliged to you ; but if you insist that you are therefore to interpret the docu- ment, we tell you at once that you come into court simply as witnesses to its genuineness ; we cannot accept you in any office in which you have not even presented yourselves, or, at least, in which you ought not to present yourselves." But if she will insist that we shall not have the Bible unless we take her opinion of it, we must tell her that we will dispense with all her services ; that we extremely regret it ; but that faithfulness to the Author of the Bible necessitates it. For it happens tliat the Church of Rome was not the only Church during the last eighteen centuries. There was the Greek Church that she separated from, or that she says separated from her, about the sixth century ; and there was an Anglo-Saxon Church in England, before a Popish monk came over. The Romish Church is not the old Church, she is quite mistaken, slie gets into the dotage of age, instead of asserting the evidence of age; there was a church here that protested against her novelties long before the days of Hildebrand, and even of Gregory the Great : there was also in Scotland the old Culdee Church, the Syriac Church, and other sections of the Church universal scattered throughout the whole world. I w^ill apply to one of these. Everybody is trying to find out new plans for supplying this great metropolis of ours with pure water; suppose one company came to me, and said, (I do not say they do say so ; I am only putting the case hypothetically,) " We will supply your family with water, but weliave been persuaded, by careful chemical investigation, that to cover THE BIBLE. 11 the interior of the conduit pipes with a solution of arsenic is one of the most wholesome practices that the ingenuity of man has ever devised. If you will have water from our company, you must take it in our pipes, use our ducts and our cisterns, or not one drop shall you get for breakfast, dinner, or tea." What would be our answer? "Gentle- men, you have a right to entertain your opinion about the excellency of arsenic, but I am convinced that it is very poisonous, and if you will not give me water without arsenic, I will apply to another company, that will give me clean water without any such chemical preparation as you have pi escribed." So with the Church of Rome. If she will not give us pure water, just as it wells from the fountain of living water, we will turn our backs, and have recourse to other springs that God has dug in his beneficence, and get living water from the ocean and fountain of life, not only without arsenic, but, what is nearly as good, without money and without price. It is a most interesting and precious fact, that the Bible is now written, or, if we prefer a more modern expression, printed. The commentaries of man vary; they change their form and their hues like the clouds that follow the setting sun ; but the great rock remains the same when the shadow is upon it, and after the shadow is gone. The sand drifts rise and float about the pyramids, but the pyramids remain. The comments and controversies of man, of divines, of ministers, of laymen, have raised the smoke, and stirred the dust; but they have been all outside the book, which still remains a stereotpye, a fixture, like the Rock on which it is spread for reading — the same yester- day, to-day, and for ever. If the truths of Christianity had been left till now to oral transmission, they had become a complete travesty by this time. Like a snowball starting from the mountain top, it f. 'X^ OF THE "^^ lUIIVBESITr 12 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. would have rolled downward, accumulating all sorts of rubbish, till it became one frozen and useless mass, lying in the valley below. But, blessed be God, whatever is changed, the Bible is the same ; whatever creeds have been mended, the Bible remains ; whatever new schools have been instituted, the Bible abides, it is still an accessible fixture ; " The grass withereth, and the flower fadeth, but the word of the Lord endureth for ever." The Bible is pronounced by an Apostle to ,be deoTtvEvarogj inspired, or breathed into, b^ God. We do not here enter upon the nature and the limits of inspiration. I am one of those who unfortunately differ from some very great men, to whom I am not fit to hold the candle, who do not believe that every word in this blessed book is the very best for the purpose that could have been selected — that the Bible is verbally inspired as a record by God ; so that when I listen to it I listen as if to the spoken word of God, sounding like a voice amid the gorges of the hills, rever- berated in a thousand repetitions, but every 'echo and rever- beration the voice of my God and of my Father. This holy book is the only image of himself that God has bequeathed to mankind. There is one exception, if I may use the expression, to a part of the second interdict of his law ; and it is the Bible, which is the very likeness of God. I could never bear to see pictures of our blessed Lord in churches ; I think they are not lawful. When pne sees a picture of Christ, what is it really ? A man upon the cross ; so was the thief at each side of him. I can see one bearing a tree, but not bearing my sins ; — I can see an agonized sufferer, but I cannot see the satisfying God; — I can see the outer man, which is the least important, but of the inner man, where the curse was felt, where the satisfac- tion was made, where the atonement lay, no picture (and I have seen the choicest and noblest on the continent of THE BIBLE. 13 Europe) can convey to me any just or adequate idea. But we have one true sketch of Christ in the fifty-third of Isaiah : this is the true crucifix. I wish we could break down all the wooden or priestly ones, and substitute Isaiah's in its stead. The whole Bible itself is the image of Christ, as he is the image of God. It is remarkable that the church which has worshipped images of wood, and stone, and brass, and silver, and gold, — images of men that were not, images of men that were not worthy to be, and images of men that ought not to have had images at all, — has never, in this rage for image-worship, thought of worshipping the likeliest image of God, the Bible ! Why ? Because if she had bowed down to adore it, its great voice would have said, " Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve." This blessed book, while it is thus the voice of God, is yet given in varied strains. If the Bible had been written as a large didactic essay, or a very eloquent oration, it would have been nothing like the book that it now is. The very fact that Paul's style is in it, and that Peter's style, and John's style, and Matthew's style, in all their varieties, are perfectly preserved, but all inspired by the same breath, makes the Bible come home to my bosom and business with far greater and richer eifect. We have all the variations of this harmony, but one key-note ; we have manifold in- struments to constitute the choir, but all the instruments are pervaded by the breath of the Almighty. The Bible has been translated. The translation of the- Bible is "a great fact," that Protestants glory in. It is one of our deepest convictions, that the Bible should be in a language understood by the people. It w^as translated by Tindale, in 1530 ; by Coverdale, in 1535 ; by Cranmer, in 1539; at Geneva, in 1560; by the bishops, in 1568; and by the celebrated authorized translators, as they are called, 2 14 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. the most accomplished scholars and eminent divines of their day, in the year 1611. With all its faults, our translation is matchless ; and (what is far better than any eulogium of mine) all the alterations that have taken place in its oppo- nent and rival the Douay version — I have followed them, and do not speak at random — are approximations to the authorized translation of 1611. It is very singular that, wherever there is a difference between the two versions, (ahhough I would engage to prove to any Roman Catholic that the creed of Pius IV. and the canons of the Council of Trent are wrong, out of his own version,) there is often seen not a little inclination in the Douay translation to help a very crotchety dogma, that had been established some hundred years before. We add one more remark, which we should never fail to do when s^jeaking of the defects of our translation, — that if all these defects in our own translation were adjusted, and the words literally and strictly rendered, it would only tell more markedly in favor of evangelical and Protestant Christianity. This blessed book is circulated the most extensively of all books. It is, by the blessing of God, the cheapest book ; it is, in the providence of God, the most widely circulated book. It is found in the soldier's knapsack on the field of battle ; it is discovered in the sailor's hammock as his vessel rolls upon the stormy sea; it is to be seen in the pedler's pack ; it is in the cabinet of princes, and in the coltage of peasants ; the sun never sets upon its glorious page. Its words have gone out into all the earth ; it has been translated into every tongue : its grand promises mingle w^ith the murmurs of the Black Sea, and with the chimes of the Mediterranean ; and increasing numbers are listening every day t© that great voice that tells them how to live and be holy, how to die and be happy. Like a stream that THE BIBLE. , 15 has risen from a distant spring, it pursues its course, some- times amid obstructions, sometimes under ground, sometimes above, but always making a belt of rich vegetation, flowers, and verdure beside it, until it sweeps on, reflecting the sheen of palaces and the smoke of cottages, and is lost only in that unsounded ocean towards which we are voyagers, and pilgrims, and travellers. There is not a child upon its mother's knee, or a queen upon her father's throne, that is not a happier child or a happier woman that this book was written, translated, and circulated. The Bible is perfectly sufficient for all the great purposes for which it was meant. Both the Protestant and the Roman Catholic admit that the Bible is siijfficient ; but both allow that it is not always efficient. A book may be sufficient for a great purpose, but it may fail to be efficient ; that is, it may be sufficient to make us wise unto salvation, but it may not always actually do so. But the two parties give different solutions : the Roman Catholic Church says the fiiult is in the book, and therefore she adds to it, in the hope of making it perfect ; the Protestant says the fault is in the reader of the book, and he should pray that God may make him capable of being enlightened by it. The Roman Catholic adds to this sufficient book, in order to make it an efficient one ; the Protestant prays to the Author of the book, that he would make the heart of the reader susceptible of the truth, and that thus the sufficient book may become an efficient book. The Protestant says, the way is to open the blind man's eyes ; the Roman Catholic says. No, it is to let him remain blind as he is, but to increase the light ten thousand fold. But all the light in the skies will not make a blind man see. He only that said " Ephphatha " to the ear, and " Be opened " to the ej^cs, can enable the blindest to see the tiniest light, and even that light will be a guide that will lead him to glory. 16 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. The Bible is a most intelligible book. It is the plainest of all books that were ever written. There are parts of it not so plain as others, because there are parts having diflferent purposes from others ; but yet if the humblest artisan, the poorest peasant, fail to find the way to heaven in his Bible, the fault is not in the book, but in his heart, his conscience, or his intellect, which the Author of the book should be appealed to instantly to remove. It is argued, if this be so, why do not all denominations of Christians agree? My answer is, they do agree in the most important things, and it is matter of fact that they differ only in what are called non-essentials, or subordinate things. There cannot be unity in the visible church until there be perfect hearts to read the perfect book : the reason therefore why we come to different conclusions upon matters of detail is, not that the perfect book has ceased to be perfect, but that the once holy heart has lost its polarity, and come to be corrupt and defiled. We have often heard this argument, "Is it not a fact that our laws require lawyers and judges, in order to expound them? and so, by parity of reasoning, the Bible should have a body of men, called priests or presbyters, councils or pope, or what- ever you like, who should have the monopoly of the expla,- nation of the book." If this be so, it is a very odd thing that this order of men is not laid down as invested with infallible functions. In the next place, there is one order of men, the Romish priesthood, the very order that makes this objection, that are the least competent of all to do it ; and for the plain reason, that they are not free to interpret honestly. If I submit a law of our most gracious queen to our judges, how do they interpret it? According to its plain and obvious meaning. But if I submit a verse to a Roman Catliolic priest, he does not interpret it according to its plain and obvious meaning, because he is bound by a THE BIBLE. 17 previous law ; lie is solemnly sworn that he will not interpret it otherwise than in that sense which the Church holds, and by the unanimous consent of the Fathers. If the judges were to say, " We undertake to interpret the laws, but we do so only according to the sense of the President of the French Republic, or according to the 'authorities published in Berlin or Vienna," I would beg to be excused from their interpretation altogether, and would rather interpret the law myself, according to its plain, grammatical, and obvious sense. The priest of Rome, or any one who takes his place, in using such a parallel as this for argument, should remember that he is bound to interpret Scripture by a previous interpretation, an analogy which I could show you, if time permitted, is not actually available. There is no order of men appointed in the Bible for this purpose, and therefore we need not expect to succeed in such a mode of understanding the Bible. But, I have said, the fault is in the imperfect heart, not in the perfect book ; and it is a wicked thing to lay the blame upon God, when man fails to understand the Bible. To show how completely this is the case, let me take what might be thought the most intelligible of all documents, an act of parliament. Take, for instance, the last act on the papal aggression. It was first laid before the law-officers of the crown ; they scrutinized it, and weighed every word and syllable according to the limit of their instructions, and drew up the bill. It was afterwards submitted to the House of Commons. After it had been cut and pared,- altered a.nd improved, it was pronounced, by the vast majority of six hundred men in the House of Commons, a complete document, — as complete as human skill could make it. It was carried to the House of Lords; they touched it up a little, improved it here, deducted there, added elsewhere ; and then they said it was com'plete. The 2* 18 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. document was submitted to her Majesty ; she appended her royal signature, and the act is the law of the land. Arch- bishop Wiseman will say of one clause, it means this ; and Dr. Pusey, it means that; and the Bishop of Exeter, it means something else ; and Dr. McNeile will assert that it means something different from all three, and Mr. Bennet will differ from all four. In this case, we have a document which, if any document can be pronounced to be so, should be perfect ; yet it is not twelve months in existence before the Cardinal drives a coach and four through its clauses. And why ? Not that the clause was bad or imperfect, but that some of its interpreters want to gratify their own pre- possessions, interests, or convictions, and so set to work to screw and twist and interpret the queen's English, justly or otherwise, into that meaning which chimes in best with their 'preferences. This is the case with the Bible. You read the Bible, and you take with you your prejudices; and instead of making it pass like a ploughshare through those prejudices, you sift and search and turn it over to get something that will sustain and back you in holding them. It has been argued against the Bible, that it contains great mysteries. It does contain many mysteries ; but there is a distinction between that which is above our comprehen- sion, and that which is against our comprehension. The doctrine of the Trinity is a doctrine above our comprehen- sion ; the dogma of transubstantiation is a dogma against our senses and our understanding. We reject the latter, and we accept upon authority the former. But if the Bible had no mysteries in it, it would be without one of the strongest proofs of its Divine origin ; for if it be a picture of the infinite, we must expect in it touches that the finite will not be able to grasp ; if it be a declaration of the incomprehen- sible, we must expect passages in it that finite being will not be able to comprehend. Objector to the mysteries in THE BIBLE. 19 the Bible, are there no mysteries about you ? Here is one of the greatest mysteries, how, by a thing called volition in my mind, I can move my hand up and down to the right or to the left ? How is it that my volition, that transcendental, airy, nndefinable, inappreciable thing, can act upon the muscles of the body? If you object to mysteries in the Bible, and admit the existence of a God, and admit that he is eternal, will you explain to me what eternity is ? Can any man explain to me what this means, — millions, and millions, and millions of years elapsing, and yet I am no nearer to the end and no further from the beginning than after one single year had elapsed ? Do you comprehend that ? Do you comprehend what omnipresence is, — a being here, there, every \\:here ; whose " centre is everywhere, and whose circumference is nowhere?" If mysteries in the Bible make you reject the Bible, equal mysteries in natural the- ology will make you reject the existence of a God, and you will be driven in self-defence to plunge into that vacuum in which man can neither swim, nor stand, nor fly, — that freezing vacuum called Atheism : so that, in my judgment, between accepting the evangeUcal Christianity of the Bible, and plunging into the vacuum of the Atheist, there is no resting spot for the sole of the foot of man. Mysteries are in the blades of grass ; mysteries are in grains of sand ; there is a mystery in every pulsation of the heart. Can you tell me why your heart beats ? You can give me no answer. I can answer you, but I must go to that book which you are rejecting because of its mystery. It is the rebound to the- touch of the finger of God. It is a most wretched notion that some entertain, that God wound up all these machines, called men, like watches, set them going, and left them to make the best of their way through the long and dusty road of life. I do not believe this. I believe that God is at every step of my movement, that he meets me at every 20 THE CHURCH before the flood. corner, that he speaks to me in every difficulty, and that he will never leave me nor forsake me ; that his providence is over me, as it is over the mightiest and noblest of his crea- tures. Mysteries ! We cannot know any thing without coming in contact with mysteries. I believe all heaven will be spent in traversing the known and plunging into the un- known. Eternity will be the unknown, evermore becoming the known as it passes by. I rise in knowledge as I ascend a mountain, the higher I climb the more -unseen pinnacles and crags appear. Every truth that comes within the hori- zon of man's knowledge, brings twenty mysteries in its train, till the more we know, the more we see remains to be known, and the highest scholar, like the highest Christian, becomes the very humblest and lowliest of mankind. Leslie has written a most admirable book, called "A Short and Easy Method with Deists ; " in which he lays down three or four useful general principles. With regard to miracles, the basis of evidence, he says: 1. That a miracle must be a matter of fact that the senses can judge of. 2. That a miracle must be done publicly in the face of the world. 3. There must be public monuments in remem- brance of it. 4. Such monuments must appear at the time of the events. No false miracle can stand these tests ; the miracles of the Bible can. Do you think that Moses could have per- suaded half a million of j)eople that they were fed by a powder from the clouds, and that they got water from the rending of a rock, if it had never been true ? Or could he have made them accept a book as a Divine record, which stated these things, when in their actual and personal expe- rience they had met with no such things whatever ? The credulity required to disbelieve the Pentateuch is ten times greater than all the supposed credulity required to accept it; and it may be proved that the most credulous of all men is THE BIBLE. 21 the man that believes that the Bible is not the book of God. But what is a miracle ? A miracle does not prove the book to be from God: it proves it to be supernatural; it is simply an arrest of the continuity or order of things, calling upon man to listen. The book itself may be from below, or it may be from above : it must be more than human if nature has been made to pause in order to hear W'hat is said. Its divinity depends on its interior contents. But there is another proof besides miracles ; I mean prophecy. The old deists used to say that prophecy was so obscure that they could not understand beginning or end of it ; modern deists say it is so plain that it must have been written after the events took place. How contradictory are these philo- sopliical sceptics, these freethinkers ! One has only to look at ancient prophecy and compare it with modern history, to see how interesting and conclusive the evidence is. We find the descendants of Shem, Ham, Japheth, Ishmael, Babylon, Tyre, and Kineveh, not generally, but minutely testifying to the truth of the prophecies of God. The Jews sifted through every land, like seeds through a sieve, but taking root in and incorporated with none; Nineveh re- cently dug from its grave, (and Nahum said that God would lay it in its grave,) Tyre awakening from its ruins, Babylon emerging from its mplten masses, the Seven Churches of Asia, the Arab in the desert, the Ishmaelite in the Avild, the African on his burning sands, — are all standing demonstra- tions of the inspiration of the writers of Holy Scripture, and the traveller can see for himself that " holy men of old spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." But of all arguments in flivor of the truth of the Bible, it seems to me that the experimental one is the best ; and he that reads it longest, studies it deepest, prays over it most earnestly, will have a conviction that the Bible is divine, that syllogisms will never shake, that sujperstition 22 THE cnuRcn before the flood. will never waste, and that infidelity will never laugh out of his mind. Let me show what I mean hj experimental evidence. Suppose I send out my servant for a bottle of ink ; the servant returns with a bottle of Morrell's best black ink. I ask, how do you know it is ink ? The servant answers, "I asked for ink, and the shopman handed a bottle over the counter as ink, and ' Ink ' is on the label outside." That would be external evidence. Not satisfied with this, I determine to have internal evidence ; and I send the ink to a chemist, who analyzes a part of it, and he says it contains so much gall, so much water, so much lamp- black, so much gum, so much vinegar, and other materials ; and he says, these are the component parts of ink. But not satisfied with this, I dip my pen, and write a letter to the friend that I love, and I find that it writes beautifully, and the ink stands jet black and true ; it remains days or years undestroyed, undiscolored in the least degree. This is experimental evidence. We have all these evidences i'ot the book of God. . You have historical or external evidence, in witnesses ; you have the internal evidence, in the most sifting, searching tests and analysis ; and you have the experimental evidence, that you never trusted a promise and that promise failed, you never sought for comfort and that comfort was withheld, you never asked for light and that light was not given yon. Ask the peasant on the hills, — and I have asked, amid the mountains of Braemar, and Dee-side, — how do you know that the book is Divine, and that the religion you profess is true ? You never read Paley? "No, I never heard of him." You have never read Butler ? " No, I have never heard of him." Nor Chalmers? "No, I do not know him." You have never read any books on evidence ? " No, I have read no such books." Then how do you know this book is true? "Know it! Tell me that the Dee, the Clunie, and the THE BIBLE. 2* Garawalt, the streams at my feet, do not run; that the Avinds do not sigh amid the gorges of these bhie hills ; that the sun does not kindle the peaks of Loch-na-Gar; tell me my heart does not beat, and I will believe you ; but do not tell me the Bible is not Divine. I have found its truth illuminating my footsteps; its consolations sustaining my heart. May my tongue cleave to my mouth's roof, and my right hand forget its cunning, if I ever deny what is my deepest inner experience, that this blessed book is the book of God." Let us cleave to the Bible, and suffer nothing to be a substitute for it, nothing to supersede it. The Church can- not be our Bible. The Fathers contradict each other, and they will not do. Let us cleave to our Bible, and hold it fast at all hazard ; it is the anchorage ground of the Church. That Church will ride out the storms of coming ages whose anchorage ground is the word of God, and the word of God alone. Let us read this book, in the full light of every other portion of the book. I like exceedingly Bagster's Bible, in which he gives such a mass of references. One diamond best cuts another, and one text best explains another. We shall get immense light from reading the Bible in its own light alone. For instance, if you read one text, " God tempted Abraham ; " do not stop there, but go and read another text, " No man is tempted of God ; " then you ascertain the former to mean, that God tried Abraham as an experiment, that God tempts no man to sin. You read, in one part, " God repented that he had made man ; " to understaTid that, read another text, " God is not man that he should repent ; " thus you understand that God changed his movement according to the prescriptions of his own wisdom, and not that he is moved with human passion. Read the verse, " Work out your salvation ; " but do not stop there, or you will become a mere legalist, but read on, 24 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. " for it is God that worketh in you to will and to do of his good pleasure." You will then rise to the standard of a real Christian. Read the Bible, in the next place, impartially. Some read the New Testament, and not the Old ; some read the promises and not the precepts ; some the precepts and not the promises. R-ead the whole book of God. Let us read it, in the next place, with special reference to our personal and practical improvement.. Let us read our Bible as sinners seeking to be saved in the name of the Lord Jesus, with constant reference to our personal improve- ment. When the Israelites were dying in the wilderness, they did not care to try what brass the serpent was made of; they looked at it, and were healed. When their chil- dren were fed by manna in the desert, they did not set their wits chemically to analyze it ; they ate it, and lived. And when we open our Bible, let us leave critics and commenta- tors behind us, and study God's blessed word in the spirit of impartial investigation and fervent prayer ; and He that wrote the book will lead us to the knowledge of the book, for, unlike the authors of other books, the Author of this is always near to explain himself. The Bible is a book for the times. It exposes all error as it emerges, and contains all seasonable truth. It finds the human race like a lost ship upon a stormy and unknown sea, it presents the light that leads them to heaven. Jt relights in the human bosom the lamp of truth, rekindles in the heart the love of God, restores to the individual the sabbath of the soul. It gives dignity to the meanest duty, and it tells us of forgiveness for the greatest sin. It sets obedience in the bosom of benedictions, and clothes its severest precepts in precious promises. To the grandeur of the man it adds the glory of the saint. It is a book not made by a people, but a book that made a people, and will THE BIBLE. 25 people heaven with its noblest and best inhabitants. The Bible is the fountain of our asylums, our charities, our hos- pitals, and the thousands and thousands of means of bene- fiting the poor, the needy, and the destitute. How much are we indebted to that book ! It consecrates our weddings, it furnishes names for our children, it hallows the green sod beneath which the ashes of our dead repose. Thousands U})on thousands declare that to the Bible, under God, they are indebted for their richest and their deepest joys. I have no fear of the Bible perishing. Sickness will not let it go ; sorrow will not let it go ; affliction will not part with it. Man's aching heart will cling to the Bible as the only comforter, in a world in which there are such miserable comforters besides. Other books are popular for a day, but they are outstripped by the discoveries of man ; but the Bible is as fresh to-day as it was when it was written. Time writes no wrinkles upon the brow of the word of God. In other books the discoveries of to-day render foolish the statements of yesterday. We are obliged to offer excuses for Shakspeare, and to say, it was the age that made him WM'ite so. We must offer apologies for Plato and for Cicero, arising from the circumstances in wdiich they were placed. The Bible disdains apologies; it asks for none, it needs none. The age is behind it — never yet has got before it. From Jerusalem, as from a distant capital of the world, has gone forth a book that has been the delight of the wise, the joy of the wretched, the salvation of the guilty, the hope of the dying ; the ornament, the dignity, the glory, of the human race. " Yon cottager who weaves at her own door, Pillow and bobbins all her little store, She, for her humble sphere by nature fit, Has little understanding, and no wit; Just knows, and knows no more, her Bible true, — A truth the brilliant Frenchman never knew ; 3 26 THE CnURCII BEFOUE THE FLOOD. And in that charter reads, with sparkling eyes, A title to a treasure in the skies. Oh, happy peasant ! Too unhappy bard ! His the mere tinsel, hers the sure reward : He, praised, perhaps, for ages yet to come; She, never heard of half a mile from home : He, lost in errors his vain heart prefers ; She, saved in the simplicity of hers." Cll AFTER 11. GENESIS AND GEOLOGY. " Sad error this, to take The light of nature rather than the light Of. Revelation for a guide. As well Prefer the borrowed light of earth's pale moon To the effulgance of the noonday sun." " Science falsely so called." — 1 Tim. vi. 20. " Hast thou entered into the sprfngs of the sea? — Job xxxviii. 16. The subject I am about to discuss in this chapter, is " Gen- esis and Geology." Genesis is the first book in the Bible ; called in the Septuagint version, BIBAION TENEZE^S^ or the book of tffe generation or creation of things ; called in the original in the words of the book itself, and by the Jews who adopted it, n'TiL'&illD, Bereshith, or, in the begin- ning. Geology is the science that deals with the contents of the earth on which we tread, the collocation and arrange- ment of these contents, and the facts they divulge and the lessons they teach. In speaking of Genesis and Geology, we start with this clear preliminary conviction : Genesis is absolutely true ; there is no room for scepticism as to its inspiration ; it is pronounced by infallibility to be part of the Scripture, given by inspiration of God. Genesis, therefore, must be true ; upon its own evidences if rests, and by facts and proofs hnd evidences peculiar to itself, it can be deqjipnstrated to be perfectly, eternally, infallibly true. 28 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. Genesis is a revelation from God ; Geology is a dis- covery of man. A revelation from God can be augmented by God only; a discovery by man may be improved, matured, advanced, ripened, progressively, till the end of the world. We therefore assume that Genesis Js perfect beyond the possibility of contradiction or improvement by us ; and we equally assume that Geology, because the 'dis- covery of man, and the subject of the investigation of man, may be improved by greater experience and more profound acquaintance with those phenomena, which lie concealed in the bosom of the earth, waiting for man to evoke, explain, and arrange them. I am sure, therefore, that Genesis, as God's word, is beyond the reach of the blow of the geolo- gist's hammer ; or the detection of a single flaw by micro- scope or telescope ; it will sttnd the crucible of the chemist ; and the severer the ordeal to which it is subjected, the more pure, resplendent, and beautiful it will emerge, indicating its origin to be from above, and its issue to be the glory of God, and the supreme happiness of mankind. Geology has before now retraced its steps. Genesis nelftr. Before now it has been discovered, that what were thought to be facts incontrovertible were fallacies. It is found that phenomena described and discussed as true, were mistakes and misap- prehensions, which maturer investigations have disposed of; and therefore I am not speaking dogmatically, and without reason, when I say, that while Genesis must be true. Geol- ogy, having already erred, may err again, and some of its very loudest assertions, made rashly by those who have least acquaintance with its data, may yet be proved to be wrong. But certain facts in it are now beyond all dispute. Let Geology and Genesis be alleged to clash, and the dis- covery from the depths of Ihe earth contradict the text from the page of the Bible ; in such a case, I would submit first these questions : Are you sure that there is a real con- GENESIS AND GEOLOGY. 29 tradlctioR between the fact of Geology and the text of the Bible, or is it only a contradiction between the fact dis- covered by science, and the interpretation that you put upon the text of the Bible ? In the next place, if there be in any instance contradiction between a clear text of the Bible and a supposed fact or discovery made by the geologist, my inference, and without hesitation, is, that the geologist must have made a mistake, that Moses has made none: and therefore the advice we give to the geologist, is, not to say God's work beneath contradicts God's word without, but just go back again, read more carefully the stony page, excavate more laboriously in the subterranean chambers of the earth, and a maturer acquaintmce with the facts of sci- ence may yet elicit the desirable result, that there is harmony where we Fliought discord, and perfect agreement where to us tiiere seemed only discrepancy and conflict. We have instances of the possibility of some deductions of science being wvong in other departments of it. Astronomy was once quoted as contradicting the express declarations of the word of God ; mg^turer acquaintance with it has proved its perfect coincidence. Again, the hieroglyphics on the banks of the Nile, as deciphered by Young and Champollion, were instanced to prove a far gpater age of the human race than that declared in the Bible ; but subsequent investigation showed that the hieroglyphics were wrongly interpreted, not that God's word was untrue. The traditions of the Chinese were viewed as upsetting the records of the Mosaic history, but subsequent investigations have proved that those were wrong, and that God's word is true. The Bible, whether we take it in Genesis or in the Gos- pels, contains no error ; it has not a single scientific error in it. Yet it was not designed to teach science ; but wherever it touches the province of science, it touches so delicately that we can see the main object is to teach men how to be 3* 30 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. saved, while its slight intimations of scientific principles or natural phenomena have in every instance been demon- strated to be exactly and strictly true. If the Bible said in any part of it, as the ancient philosopher alleged, that there were two suns, one for the upper hemisphere and the other for the lower, then science would prove that SSipture was wrong ; or if the Scripture said, as the Hindoos believe, that the earth is a vast plain, with concentric seas of milk, honey, and sugar, supported by an elephant, and that the earth- quakes and convulsions of the globe are the movements of that elephant as he bears it on his back, — then science would have proved that to be absurd ; and if Scripture had asserted it, such assertioj^ would be demonstrably untrue. But the striking fact is that you find no such assertion, nor any thing aj^proaching sucl^ assertions in the Bible. How comes it to pass, then, that Moses has spoken so purely and truly on science where he does speak, and has been silent where there was such a provocative to speak, his very silence being as significant as his utterance ? How happens it that Moses, with no greater education than the Hindoo or the ancient philoso^^her, has written his book, touching sci- ence at a thousand points, so accurately, that scientific research has discovered no flaws in it ; and has spoken on subjects the most delicate, the most difficult, the most in- volved; and yet in those investigations which have taken place in more recent centuries, it has not been shown that he has committed one single error, or made one solitary assertion which can be proved by maturest science or the most eagle-eyed philosopher to be incorrect, scientifically or historically ? The answer is, that Moses wrote by the inspiration of God, and therefore what he writes are the words of faithfulness, and of truth. It is an interesting fact, I may state at the outset, that as we grow in our acquaintance with the facts of Geology, we GENESIS AND GEOLOGY. 31 grow in our conviction of their perfect coincidence with the truths of Genesis. Genesis is God's tongue telling us what things are ; Geology is God's finger pointing out the por- traits of things that are : God's voice is audible in Genesis ; God's hand is visible in Geology. The first, that is, God's word, is perfect, uninjured by a flaw ; the second, or God's , work, is imperfect, tainted by sin, and injured by a thou- i sand incidents and occurrences, which make it not so clear and perspicuous as it was when it came from the hand of God, and was pronounced by him to be very good. The first great fa|f that I will deal with, and the one that really involves the whole subject, is the real or supposed antiquity of the earth. Is the earth six thousand years old and no more, or is it older ? The common interpretation of Genesis says, it is six thousand years old ; the discoveries of Geology prove to my mind incontestably, that the com- ponent material structure of this globe, and much that is under the outer crust of this globe, are, it may be, hundreds of thousands of years old. I believe that this earth is not merely six thousand years old ; the last collocation of it on its upper surface is of that age ; the last arrangement of its surface is so, but the materials of the globe, the strata that are below, of which I will give you satisfactory evidence, demonstrate that it is not thousands, but hundreds of thous- ands of years old : and yet I am abundantly satisfied there is no contradiction between these, the last discoveries of Geology, and the first text of Genesis, " In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." Supposing, then, we penetrate the surface of the globe, or the crust that surrounds it, like the skin of an orange or the shell of an egg, we find as we descend, successive strata, or, if I may use a more homely expre^ion, cakes of different formations composed of different substances, lying on each other for some nine miles in depth, by what geologists call 32 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. superposition ; the one regularlj and always (except as we account for it on other principles) lying above the other. You know what an onion is ; it is composed of successive coverings ; we take off one complete, then another, then .another; that onion, if each of its laminas were only of a different substance from the other, would be in structure almost>a complete picture of the exterior crust of the g^lobe. First of all, and lowest of all, we have the primitive rock, which we call granite, the stone of which Waterloo Bridge is built, found in Aberdeenshire and in parts of Cornwall ; then above the granite, the gneiss ; |[|ibove that, are the Silurian beds, called so from the ancient inhabitants of that part of our country, the Siluri. We have then the old red sandstone, the coal formation, and, as the last, the alluvial deposit, in wdiich remains of the human race are found. This order is always preserved except there be an inter- ruption, or an irruption, or break, by some great convulsion or slow process in some past history of the globe. Many of these specific formations you will notice above the granite, are composed of what geologists call lamiiKE, that is, successive leaves deposited one above the other, giving proof that the one cake was hardened by long lapse of years before the next cake, or lamina, was deposited on it, and became solidified by the same process. You will find, too, if you look at the lower lamina, or the lower cake, and upon its upper surface you will see, evidences of the ripple of the waves, washing it, wasting it, and rubbing it. You will find again upon the same upper surface, the foot prints of birds, the footsteps also of beasts, and the marks of leaves ; and these impressions upon the upper surface of the lower one, are exactly transferred to the loiver surface of the next higher, or upper cake, that must therefore have been deposited softly and slowly upon it, showing that the upper surface of the lower lamina, or ca^e, become hardened, GENESIS AND GEOLOGY. 83 had been the scene of long traffic, like a turnpike-road, and then tlie immense ocean above deposited its detritus, or its mud, (as you may call it,) very gently and gradually upon the upper surface of the said lower and long hardened stra- tum, and received the impression just as the printer's page receives the impression from the types, thereby proving that a long period intervened before the upper lamince fell, and were formed upon ike lower, and became hardened with time. That one fact indicates immense intervals, because it shows that the lower surface had been trodden by animals, washed by the waves*, hardened by the lapse of years, and only after it had been completely hardened did another stratum fall down upon it in a soft and plastic state, and assumed impressions on its lower side, from the hardened upper of the leaf below, and ultimately it also hardened, and became the basis again of other deposits. In the third pla«?, there are formations consisting of very different materials, some derived from the older rocks, o^liers from processes of very slow progress. To give an illustration, granite is, as I said, the primitive, the lowest rock ; and next above that is the gneiss. This is composed of exactly the very same materials as the granite. Upon your looking at the gi-anite you will see the felspar, mica, and quartz, composing it, are beautifully mingled, and blended, and crystallized, sparkling like diamonds ; but if you look at the gneiss, or, as it is called, the whinstone, you will see that the same materials — mica, felspar, and quartz — have in its case been reduced into a complete powder, which geologists in their technical language call detritus, and has afterAvard become consolidated. This gives evidence that the upper surface of the granite had been ground down by the washing of waters, or by some cease- less, restless process, and the detritus of the granite thus made has been mixed with the mighty ocean above, and 34 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. afterwards gradually deposited, and slowly hardened into what is called whinstone, or gneiss. This one fact is proof that a long period must have elapsed, before there was worn off so much dust or detritus from the hard granite, as could thus be deposited and formed into immense blocks of superposition gneiss, hundreds of feet in thickness ; irresisti- ble evidence, therefore, that long geological periods must have intervened between the granite formation and the next above it. Let us now turn to the Silurian formations, as they are called; these consist of coral. Everybody knows what coral is — the secretion of very minute insects. It has been actually ascertained, that the beds are formed by these small insects, at the rate of about six inches in a hundred years. Now if we find coral beds hundreds of feet in thickness, and as w^e know the rate at which the coral insect makes its formations, we can easily calculate it must have taken hundreds of thousands of years to form some of the vast strata that are beneath the crust on Avhich \^e tread, and that compose the substance and mass of this globe. It is absurd to say the coral was created, it is clearly the Avork of insects. Again, the coal formations were once gigantic forests, and the coal that we now burn in our fires was once pine, or oak, or beech, or some sort of wood, which has been, by some great convulsion, and by moisture, and heat, and age, turned into that carbonaceous or carboniferous substance, we commonly call coal. That coal must have occupied immense periods in its formation from wood into coal, is obvious from the nature of the process. One of the readiest proofs of tliis is, that a peat moss is a coal bed in its infancy. There is one peat moss near Stirling, which can be proved to be two thousand years since it was a forest, from certain Koman remains found in it. It is in the process of becoming GENESIS AND GEOLOGY. 35 carbonized, and would probably take ten thousand years more to be turned into coal. We, therefore, argue that these coal formations prove, incontestably, additional to all I have said, that the globe of which they form a part, has been filling up, and shaping itself, under the presidency of Him who made and governs it, for hundreds and thousands, aye, tens of thousands of years ! Another proof of the antiquity of the earth may be taken from the chalk cliffs. All, or many of us, have visited Ramsgate, Margate, and Dover. What do you think those chalk cliffs are ? Just vast masses of dead sea- insects and shells, turned into that alkaline powder, which we term chalk. The microscope of the philosopher has been turned upon it, and it is now matter of demonstration. It is absurd to say, that these vast masses were thus created. I was lately at Ramsgate, and spent a few hours minutely examining these .cliffs. You see a long line of flints, then a mass of white chalk, then flints again, then an immense mass of white chalk. Just think that these gigantic banks of chalk were all living, swarming creatures, that must have been deposited from water, and that you have them now in their petrified state ! The only thing that has puz- zled geologists are the layers of flint-stones. They cannot explain how it comes to pass, that in every chalk cliff we see successive parallel and horizontal lines of flint-stones, three or four feet from one another. How these nodules of flint came into that position, geologists have been unable to determine, and no conclusion has been arrived at, to give satisfaction to those who are competent to investigate that question.* Again, some of these formations, while in the fixed order * It has been conjectured lately, what perhaps we shall be able to prove, that these flints were originally sponges, and if so, ippftlSSfg^lfliett the evidence we are collecting. >^^< c>-'- - - . •^- UirrVEESITTi 36 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. of superposition I have mentioned, (as the gneiss lying above the granite, and the fossiliferous strata above it,) sometimes dip — that is to say, you find that the stratum does not lie always perfectly horizontal, but dips down, and sometimes you find an immense mass, by some great con- vulsion, thrown up as if it had shot up, and standing almost perpendicular. Now when you find a large mass of granite thus driven up, and when you perceive afterwards that the next stratum, evidently, was gradually deposited by the water upon it, till it has become entirely covered, you infer it must have taken an immense cycle of years to deposit so much sand, dust, or mud around it, while the whole gradu- ally solidifies, so as ultin5ately to cover this mass, and become solid rock. Suppose one of the pyramids of Egypt were in this situation, and the clouds were to shower down sand, you can conceive what a long time it would take till the whole pyramid was covered by it, and^ how much more to enable wet and heat to harden it. We find that very process to have taken place in cases of the under strata being driven upw^ards, and the upper strata lying horizon- tally deposited on them, thus indicating the vast periods which must have elapsed till the latter strata were complete and hard. In other words, to close this part of my subject by the interesting remarks of Professor Sedgwick, " Every thing indicates a very long and a very slow progression, one creation flourishing and performing its part, and gradually dying off as it has so performed it, and another actual creation of new beings, not derived as progeny from the former, gradually taking its place — again this new creation succeeded by a third; nothing -per saltiun; all according to law ; all bearing the impress of mind, of a great dominant will, at the bidding of which all parts have their peculiar movement, their periods of revolution, their rise and fall." On many of these strata, I may observe, are found rounded GENESIS AND GEOLOGY. 37 fragments, rounded by ceaseless attrition, and fragments invariably from the rock below. Having thus noticed these strata, from the granite up* through the fossiliferous strata, to what is called the allu- vium, I observe, that it is in this alluvium, or upper mud, that lies upon the surface of the earth, that we find the remains of man. But how interesting is this fact! no remains of man, or the dynasty of man, or of the tools, the possessions, or the occupations of man, are to be found in the strata to which I have turned your attention hitherto. They are confined wholly and entirely to the upper alluvial strata, only comparatively a very few feet in depth ; proving, in the most incontestable manner, this one fact, as it is asserted in Genesis, that while whole races of living crea- tures existed and were extinguished prior to man, man is of recent origin, or just about six thousand years old — the very age assigned in Genesis, — Geology thus calling from its depths, " O God, thy word is true ! " To touch more immediately upon the statement contained in the first chapter of Genesis, we read there these remark- able words: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." Now, in looking at this, just notice the fact, that all that this first verse does, is simply to reveal the fact that God created the heavens and the earth. It does not describe any antecedent dynasty, or any past or extinguished race ; because the Bible was written not to teach geology, for we can discover its phenomena by science ; it was written to teach us all that relates to ourselves, all that is fitted to enlighten us in the way that leads to happi- ness and to heaven, leaving for us, and for after ages, to learn more than the greatest philosophers have been able to discover in the ages that are past. The first verse of Genesis, in other words, has no reference to the chronology of creation, but simply to the fact of creation. All that 4 38 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. the first verse asserts is, that God made the heavens and the earth. It does not say, that he made it six thousand years ago, or ten thousand, or twenty thousand. It asserts the creatorship of God, and the creatureship of what we see, and nothing before. Then it proceeds to give the his- tory that succeeds. The word which is translated " created," is very remarkable ; it is the word bara. I know it is open to controversy and discussion, but you will find this to be almost invariably the case, that bara is employed where it is.i^lied that God created something out of nothing, and that aasah, another Hebrew \vord, is employed when he uses the instrumentality of others in producing any thing. For instance, " In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth ; " that is Bereshith bara Elohim, etc. But in that passage, " God made Joseph father," etc., it is aasah, and in the passage, " God made Jordan a border," it is aasah. The idea of constitute belongs to one verb, the idea of original creation is implied and involved in the other. And, very remarkably, both w^ords are used in refer- ence to man. It is said of him, God created (bara) man, and it is said also of him, God made (aasah) man. Why is this ? First, man was a new creation, and therefore bara is the proper word to describe him ; and whilst he was a new creation he was created out of the dust, and therefore aasah became also an appropriate word. But let us look at the passage itself, and it is, " In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." I have said this is the fact of creation, not the era or date of crea- tion. In the beginning, means eternity, for in the first chapter of John it is said, " In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." And it is said, " The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters." Naw most Chris- GENESIS AND GEOLOGY. 39 tians have taken the poet's commentary on that passage, instead of accepting it in its plain and unequivocal sense. They have supposed that the earth was one vast, surging, heaving chaos — that God first of all created a chaos, as the initial step, and then he made that chaos assume the beautiful shape of hill and dale, and river, and sea, and stream, that we now see upon it. But really this is not the meaning of the passage, for at the second verse ycu will find that the earth existed, that the sea existed, and that day and night existed. The language of it is, that " the earth was without form and void, and darkness," that is, night, or the absence of light, " was upon the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God moved upon the waters, and he said, Let there be light, and there was light. And he called the light day, and the darkness he called night." Now how are day and night produced ? Day is produced by one hemisphere being exposed to the sun, and night by the other half not being exposed to the sun ; and therefore the earth must have been revolving on its axis at the very time that poets described it in a state of chaotic confusion. But you say, " The words are, ' the earth was without form and void.' Does not that prove that chaos is the proper name for it ? " I answer. No ; for the very same language is applied by Jeremiah in reference to circumstances which took place long after, where he says, "I beheld the earth, and lo,'it was without form and void ; and the heavens, and they had no light. I beheld the mountains, that they trembled, and all the hills moved lightly. I beheld, and lo, there was no man, and all the birds of the heavens were fled. I beheld, and lo, the fruitful place was a wilderness, and all the cities thereof were broken down at the presence of the Lord, and by his fierce anger." Now here the Hebrew words, Thohu and Vohic, translated by us, " without form and void," are applied to a state superinduced by man ; and therefore you 4:0 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. may translate tliis second verse thus, " And the earth was emptiness and desolation." Then it is said, " The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the water ; " and that expres- sion, " moved," indicates a process, and it is very significant. It is said elsewhere, that the Spirit descended upon Jesus like a dove. This text alludes to the third person in the adorable Trinity. The phrase is that which is predicated of a dove, and might be translated fairly, without deviating from the text, " And the Spirit kept fluttering, after the manner of a dove, upon the face of the water." You have, then, in this passage, the earth revolving upon its axis ; you have day and night existing in it ; and then you have the sentence enunciated by God, " Let there be light." Now mark the difference. When he created, it is said, Bara Eloliim; but when it speaks of light introduced, it does not say, Bara, " and he created a light ; " but it says, Yeld Owr, " let light be seen." This is not the creation of light. I believe that light had existed thousands of years before ; but it is, " let the light, obscured by the vapors or evapora- tions of the moisture of the earth, or from any other expli- cable and reasonable cause — let that light, obscured and hidden, now emerge and appear." But for poets to sing as if God had created light at this moment, is to stretch poetic imagination till it occupies the place of an interpreter of the word of God, and so ceases to be of use. Again, God said, " Let there be a firmament." You ask what that is. The word here employed simply means, let there be expansion ; let there be a space dividing the water of the clouds (for a cloud is simply water in the shape of steam) from the water in the ocean and the river, and thus the land would instantly come under drainage, if you will allow the expression, and become fit for herb and flower and fruit, by the waters rushing from it, and forming the mighty ocean — " let it bring forth herb," that is, let it be fitted for GENESIS AND GEOLOGY. 41 it, " for man and for beast." Then it says, " God made two great lights." Now here the word is not Oicr^ which I told you signifies light ; nor is hara used, which means create, but aasah, to constitute ; he constituted two great lights : the word is not light, the Hebrew word for which is Owr ; but maowroth is the Hebrew used for the sun and moon ; and literally translated it is, " He constituted the sun and moon two torch-carriers, or light-bearers, to the earth and the human family." God no more made the sun and moon then, in the sense of creating them, than he created the rainbow when he appointed it as the symbol and sign to Noah that another deluge should never occur. It seems to me plainly evident, that the record of Genesis, when read fairly, and not in the light of our prejudices, — and, mind you, the essence of Popery is to read the Bible in the light of our opinions, instead of viewing our opinions in the light of the Bible, in its plain and obvious sense, — falls in per- fectly with the assertions of geologists, that the globe may be hundreds of thousands of years of age. All that is asserted, is God's* primal creation and his subsequent ar- rangement of its surface, or his furnishing of the house for the habitation and comfort of man, leaving all that existed long prior to that to be discovered by the labors of science, his word only undertaking and professing to teach things that belong to our everlasting peace. But there is one subject which I confess is a difficult one, and it is the only difficult one. Some geologists, I know, may smile at my proposed solution, and some of my hearers may be dissatisfied, but I cannot help it ; I only state my own belief, the result of my own reading. The difficulty is this : Geology proves that death existed in our globe long prior to six thousand years ago. I say the evidence to my mind, from reading — from careful and dispassionate read- ing upon this very point — conveys an irresistible impres- 4.* 42 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. sion that death existed in our globe hundreds of thousands of years ago, very long before the present surface, configura- tion, and arrangement of the earth on which we now live. Now, the question is, how to reconcile this with what seems to be plainly asserted in the word of God, that death is the result of sin, that man sinned, and therefore death has passed upon all. I assert this, that, explain it as you like, no honest man, reading the New Testament, or the Old Testament, can avoid concluding, that if there had been no sin, there never could have been any death. How then do we explain the fact that death did exist in the lower races prior to the creation of man ? For instance, in addition to millions of dead creatures, we find one of these Saurian monsters excavated from the depths of the earth with a smaller animal in its jaws, having crushed it just as it had seized its prey. We find others, with the remains of smaller creatures in their stomachs, eaten, but not fully digested when death seized upon them. We find, too, re- mains of animals furnished with what are called carnivorous teeth. The ox's teeth are called graminivorous, because fitted for the mastication of grain or grass ; the teeth of lions, of cats, and of dogs, are called carnivorous, because made to feed upon flesh, to tear and devour. . Now we find, I say, in these ancient remains, clear proofs of carnivorous races that lived upon flesh, and must have fed upon other animals. Anybody who will read carefully what has been stated, and the facts that prove it, must come to the same conclusion. Several theories have been invented to explain this. A distinguished minister — distinguished for his piety as well as for his scientific attainments — has alleged that man was originally desi^ied or made capable of dying, and meant to die, and Avould have died, but that his death would be contingent upon his eating, or non-eating of the forbidden tree ; that is, so constituted that he dies if he eats of that GENESIS AND GEOLOGY. 43 fruit, hui if he had not eaten of it, though still mortal, the sentence would have been suspended, and he would not have died. Another theory is that of Jeremy Taylor — that man and all animat-e creatures were meant to die, whether man had sinned or not, and that in case of his never having fallen, death would have been a beautiful transference, like the twilight, or, as they call it in the north of Scotland, gloaming ; where the twilight of evening blends almost imperceptibly with the twilight of the next morning — that man would have been gradually translated without the pang, the agony, and the shame of dying. But the third idea, which I really think is the right one, is that man was not meant constitutionally to die ; that wherever death is, there is the projected shadow of that great sin that crept into the world, and dragged down on us with it all our misery and all our woe. And I believe, at the same time, that the animals created after Adam, and constituting what geologists call our dynasty, were not originally designed to die, and that their carnivorous structure was an anticipa- tory arrangement, and that in every case sin and death are inseparably connected. That the lower animals are involved in man's sin, is plain in many instances of the Bible. At the flood, for instance, the animals were all punished and destroyed because man had sinned. We have repeated instances in the Bible, of the lower races suffering because of man's transgressions. I believe that is but the continu- ance of a law which began with man's fall, and that in con- sequence of man's fall it is literally true, as the Apostle asserts, that the whole creation groans and travails, waiting" to be delivered, and that a day of emancipation will come. I am one of those who believe that the brute creation are not in their normal state ; that the poor horse, overworked in the omnibus, is not where he w^as meant to be ; that the# poor bird, devoured by the hawk, is exposed to a contin- 44 THE CHURCH before the flood. gency superinduced by sin. 1 believe, no less surely, tbat when the lord of creation fell, the whole of his dynasty fell with him ; and that when creation's lord shall receive the reins of creation again into his hands, his whole dynasty will be elevated and redeemed with him. Still we fall back upon the question, " Plow happens it that death was before man fell ? " My humble solution is this : First, Geology does not show death to have occurred prior to the creation of man in the case of a single animal constituting the creation of the first six days' of the week ; secondly. Geology does not adduce one instance of the remains of man amidst the fossiliferous remains of previ- ously existing races ; thirdly, the amount of its disclosure is this, then, that death takes place amongst the peculiar race of animals that existed prior to the creation of man. But as the Bible asserts that death is the result of sin, we are thrown back upon this question, " Is there any record of any sin having occurred prior to man's creation ? " We find God speaking to Adam of sin, as if Adam knew what sin was, and also of death, as if he had some idea of what death meant ; and we find that the great representative and agent of sin, called " that old serpent," Satan, walked the world, had access to its fairest spots, and tempted man ; and we read in the Epistle of Jude of "the angels who kept not their first estate : " now, I do not assert that the angels' sin was the cause of the death that existed prior to Adam's creation, but I do assert that we have the fact that sin occurred prior to man's creation ; and it does not seem unreasonable, or contrary to analogy, to say, that the dis- organization of all animal being, prior to Adam's creation, may be the rebound and the result of the sin of those angels who kept not their first estate, and rebelled against ♦ God, whose residence may have been this very earth, prior to its fitting up for the dynasty of man. GENESIS AND GEOLOGY. 45 I have thus, briefly, looked at that difficulty, the existence of death prior to the creation of man. I will now draw such instructions as it seems to me the investigations we have been pursuing fairly teach. First, then, it appears, that all the discoveries of recent science, instead of contradicting the plain assertions of Scripture, either leave them untouched in their own inspired supremacy, or cast an indirect, but illustrative, light upon them. Secondly, we have the most irresistible proof of what is called the non-eternity of the globe. You will recollect, that when one of the great Christian naturalists affirmed that there were all the traces of design in our globe, and therefore the proofs of a Creator, infidels replied, " It has ever been so." By this they asserted the eternity of the globe, and therefore got rid, by one extravagant assertion, of a clear and impressive evidence of a designing, wise, and glorious Being. But now Geology has positively discovered whole races of animals were at once extin- guished, and forthwith there started a new race, totally unconnected with the previous ; then that new race was extinguished, and succeeded by another new race. In other words, we can just prove, as plainly as if we saw God making worlds, that God has interposed in the history of this globe some twenty times, and created at once, by a fiat of omnipotent power, successive races of dynasties of living beings. We have, therefore, in that fact, irresistible proof that the globe is not eternal, but, on the contrary, the scene of successive creations, and that God has interposed again and again with acts of creative power. We receive from Geology the most powerful evidence of the existence of God. I have shown that there are proofs of creative power interposing and starting new races ; and such creative acts are, of course, irresistible proofs of a Creator, ^^ho originated and produced them; nothing, to 46 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. ray mind, is more absurd or extravagant than the notion of that man who has the moral hardihood of heart, and the obscuration of intellect and common sense, to stand up and assert the monstrous paradox, the unscientific dogma, that there is no God and Governor of heaven and earth. I was amazed the other day, when an individual wrote to me, to find the very first announcement of his letter to be, " I am an atheist." That was to me a perfect key to all the con- tents of the document. Pie not only said that he was an atheist, but he gave me the advantages of his reasons for being so. I read them, and I wrote back that I had gener- ally found Atheism to be a fog, that originates in the heart a conviction for the mind, determining to get rid of the idea of God, because the deeds of the life are evil ; but I wrote that I could compliment my correspondent on the perfect absence of this, as, judging from his reasons, it was weak- ness of intellect on his part, and not badness of heart, that made him come to such conclusions. Another interesting lesson is taught us by Geology — ■ that God has taken an interest in this globe, the most con- tinuous, the most parental. The infidel's objective query has often been, that as God has thousands of orbs of the richest splendor, of which he is the Author, and on the riches of which he sits enthroned, how can God give such attention to this minute speck, which he could expunge from the orbs of the universe, and which would be no more missed than would a grain of sand from the sea-shore, as to send the Son of God to die for it? This argument has been well answered by the late Dr. Chalmers and others. There are a hundred globes or orbs, and there is one truant orb ; God will leave the ninety-nine orbs that need no resto- ration, and will come on the wings of love to restore this prodigal orb ; just as the mother who has one child a prodi- gal, and seven at home, happy, good, and obedient, when GENESIS AND GEOLOGY. 47 she hears the wind blow and the storms beat, will think far more, and far more deeply, of the prodigal upon the open ocean, than of her seven at her fireside, under the shelter of her roof at home. And if there were no analogy at all, Geology proves in the history of the globe, that God has interposed in this globe so often in the sovereign exercise of creative acts ; and the Bible records that he has crowned his interposition with the most glorious of them all, re- demption through Jesus Christ our Lord. The discoveries of Geology extinguish for ever the the- ory advocated in a well known book, called the " Vestiges of Creation." It is most remarkable how the writer of this book has been overwhelmed. The author of the " Vestiges of Creation " alleges that certain nebulas in the sky consist of a certain fire-mist, which has been gradually spinning itself into orbs, which gradually become logger and bigger. Lord Rosse turned his telescope to these nebulse, and found them to consist of clusters of orbs fully formed. Then again, the idea of the author of the " Vestiges " is, that man is the development of a monkey, that the monkey is the embryo man, so that if you keep a baboon long enough it will develop itself into a man. Hugh Miller states what geologists have discovered, that each successive dynasty (I use the technical geological phrase) was created at its max- imum of perfection, and that degradation, not elevation, has been the law of existence. We find no instances of trans- formation of races in Geology. How can you suppose, I ask, that an ourang-outang can ever develop itself into a man? The ankle of the ourang-outang, for instance, is rotatory ; man's ankle is a simple joint that moves forward and backward, and is meant for walking. Man's foot is a beautiful arch, and he is meant to support himself by it erect ; but the ourang-outang has a prehensile foot, that is, long fingers meant for clasping boughs of trees, and leaping 48 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. * from branch to branch — the evidence of a brute, not the basis of the development of a man. But suppose that the ourang-outang's hairy hand were to develop itself into the beautiful hand of a ladj, and its prehensile foot were ulti- mately to become the handsome arched foot, and its head to change into the fine countenance of man ; which part of the ourang-outang would develop itself into the grand imagination of Shakspeare, the great intellect of Sir Isaac Newton, the mighty genius of a Bacon ? Where are the elements of such a development as this? Echo must answer only, " Where ? " But Geology discovers no half monkey, half man, half one race, and half another, in any of the earth's archiyes, but distinctly defined and indepen- dent and distinct races. We have in the disclosures of Geology the most trium- phant evidence §f the possibility of a miracle. Hume, the celebrated atheistic philosopher, says that a miracle is im- possible, and on this account, that we have no evidence of a miracle. Dr. Newman says, on the contrary, that his church is so full of miracles that it is like an electric jar, charged, and only needing to be exposed to the outward world to explode with all sorts of brilliant prodigies. We take the moderate course, and we say, miracles have been when there was a necessity for them ; and we say, the pos- sibility of miracles is proved by the fact revealed on the stony page in the excavations of the gl^be, that God has stepped in again and again, and created races, and left evi- dences of that creation which are unmistakable upon the surface and contents of the globe. In the next place, we have in Geology the refutation of the theory asserted by men in St. Peter's days, and asserted by men in our day, that " all things continue as they were since the beginning." Thef do not continue as they were ; they have changed ; God has changed them again and GENESIS AND GEOLOGY. 49 again, and they will be changed one day, when what now is shall undergo its last baptism, and the earth shall emerge all beautiful, and end, as it began, with paradise. And, in the next place, every discovery we have in Geol- ogy refutes the idea that life can in any shape, by any chemicar combination of material elements, be originated. It shows that life is the gift of God, and that nothing else but God's power begat it. I notice also, that all the discoveries of Geology show, amid traces of judgment, evidences of death, and intima- tions of sin — that every step in the formation of the globe has, more or less, been beneficent and benevolent to man. For instance, the coal that took thousands of years to form — the lime, which is composed of dead sea-shells and insects — the ores of iron — the gold and the silver thrown out in veins and interstices in the roclft — these are all found to be necessary to man. If you had no lime, you would have no flux for melting the metal ; if you had no coal, you could have no fire to melt the metal ; and if you had no metal, you w^ould not require lime and coal ; and yet all three are generally contiguous. Lastly, Geology tells us very plainly, that all the ele- ments of that great catastrophe predicted by Peter in the third chapter of his Second Epistle, are at this moment ready. It is well ascertained, that Fahrenheit's thermome- ter rises one degree every forty-five feet we penetrate into the earth, and that if you were to descend sixty miles, the heat at that depth would be so intense that it would melt the hardest flints and the most solid rock; and that this globe is therefore a cooled crust, composed of the granite and the fossiliferous strata, and that underneath at the heart is one molten and surging sea of fire ; that the volcanoes are the safety-valves which prevent the earth's crust being riven into atoms, and all humanity perishing. A day will come 5 50 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. when God will remove the restrictions, when the elements shall " melt with fervent heat." Oh ! may we, seeing all these things must be dissolved, be found in the happy com- pany, and amid the blessed group, of them who, through Christ Jesus, are looking for a new heaven and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.* * In making these remarks I am greatly indebted to Hitchcock's work on "Keligion and Geology;" to Hugh Miller's able work, "Foot prints of the Creator;" to Dr. King's interesting " Manual ;" -Dr. Anderson's "Courses of Creation;" and to a valuable work on the "Earth's Anti- quity," by the Rev. J. Gray, rector of Dibden. CHAPTER III. CREATION. " My heart is awed within me, when I think Of the great miracle that still goes on In silence round me — the perpetual work Of thy creation finished, yet renewed For ever." ''In the beginning God created the heayen and the earth." — Gen. i. 1. The Bible begins its marvellous record with Genesis, or the account of the creation of all, and it closes with Revela- tion, or the regenesis, that is, the announcement of the regeneration of all things. It begins with God, and it ends with God. All came from him, and to him is given in the Bible the glory of all. The first verse of Genesis assumes the existence of God. This is a fact which the sacred penmen rarely attempt to prove. They assume it as almost a self-evident truth, an original and inherent part of the furniture of the human mind — an intuition more than an inference. A voice ever rises from within, and mingles with ten thousand without, declaring there is a God. His existence and rule are assumed as the basis of all — the great secret and solution of all. Exclude Deity from the universe in our reasonings, and calculations, and thoughts, and hopes, and trusts, and fears, and joys, and nature falls back to chaos, the human heart into despair, and all things become confusion worse confounded. 52 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. Nature reverberates in all her chambers, in her heights and depths, in all she was, in all she is, and still more from what she will be — God. We may rise from nature to the apprehension of nature's God ; but, however pleasing, this is only a discovery. The Bible tells us that God is, and this is a revelation. A discovery, we have seen, is some- thing that man makes, and for w^iich he is prone to take a tithe of glory and honor to himself, and which is therefore ever dangerous. But a revelation is something that Gt)d gives, in which man knows that he has no share, and from which he can extort no glory; Creation is full of Deity, and revelation resonant with his accents. The natural phi- losopher rises from what he finds in creation, until he reaches the staple fixed to the throne of God, from which the whole chain of being hangs. A Christian starts with God, who is announced to him in his Bible, and comes down to see what creation is, from what he has found God to be. Hence, the mere natural philosopher argues what God is, from the jarring and broken state in which he finds crea- tion ; but a Christian argues what creation is, was, and will be, from what he has first discovered God in his word to be. In this lies the superiority of the Christian's deductions, that he forms his conceptions of creation from a previous knowl- edge of God, and can explain it all ; whereas the natural man forms his conceptions of God from a very much marred, a broken, and a disjointed world, and therefore often errs. Hence, the mere theist's apprehension of God is not a per- fect one, because his evidence is not so ; the Christian's idea of the world is the only true one, because his idea of God is an inspired one. What a blessed thought now, if we could all at all times realize it, that we, and all about us, are the creatures of God ! When we have no sense of our adoption by grace, we may fall back upon the fact of our creation by power. CREATION. 53 If I cannot say, owing to the faltering of my faith, " O Lord, I am thy adopted son," I may yet say, because it is impossible to avoid it, " O Lord, I am thy creature." There is a collect in the English Prayer Book, "0 Lord, who hatest nothing that thou has made." I think that is very beautiful : God hates nothing that he has made ; and what- ever God hates is, come whence it may, an interpolation, an intrusion, which vitiates all it touches, and will be destroyed, but which he did not make. If God made us all, this brings before us the dead level on which all humanity is laid. We all occupy one common level, as the workmanship of one hand — the offspring of one Parent. Oar birth and our decay, our origin and our end, our immortality and our tears, our sorrows and our joys, should all lead us to sympathize \\4th each other, but never to hate and persecute each other. When we read the first chapter of Genesis, and think of the vastness of created things therein recorded, we may form, and God warrants us to do so, not as a substitute for our creed, but as an illustration of it, some idea of the greatness of Him who made all. When God created the world is of very little consequence ; that he created the world is the precious and practical fact for us. When I think of the mountain ranges so vast in height, of primaeval forests so extensive ; of the ocean lifting up its unsleeping eye ; of the sun and moon and stars ever looking down, and recollect that there are stars so distant, that, though light travels from the sun to the earth in four minutes, yet the light of these stars, travelling with almost inconceivable rapidity, has not yet reached our orb ; when I think that stars the most distant are really centres of systems, and those systems each with its central sun only groups around another central sun, and that central sun with these groups, which are clusters of worlds, only small groups around a 5* 54: THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. yet inner central sun; and that all these, and more than these that the telescope brings before us, are but a few of the outposts of that starrj'' host which keeps watch on the infinite plains, and ministers about God's throne perpetu- ally; in short, that all that the best telescope is able to bring within the horizon are but some of the scattered sentinels of those magnificent battalions that cover the fields of immensity ; — we may try to conceive, but adequately conceive we cannot, the magnificence and th,e greatness of Him who made all, and sits enthroned upon the riches of all, from whom all came, and to whom all give glory and honor and praise. But I have spoken of catching a glimpse of what God is by the great things that the telescope brings within the horizon from the stupendous heights of nature ; but I dare venture to state, that we have even a grander idea of what God is by the little things that the microscope brings within our view from the depths of the earth we live on. The more that one discovers of the universe about us, the more one is perplexed to determine whether God is seen to be most great in creating fixed stars, in controlling high angels, or in creating those minute and microscopic organisms which the human eye cannot see, but every one of which millions upon millions, invisible and intangible by us, has a perfect organization of nerves and veins and arteries. Man's mind is overwhelmed by the magnificent things which the telescope brings down to him ; it is no less struck by the minute things which the microscope brings up to him ; one feels what difficulty there must be in being an atheist, what credulity there must be in that man who can muster moral depravity to expose his intellectual blindness, and to cry, " There is no God." I think there is nothing BO plain, so palpable, so unmistakable on earth, apart from the Bible, as that there is a God. I have spoken of the outer creation as a mirror of Deity, CREATION. 55 but when we come to what is more familiar to us, ourselves, Y/hat evidence is there in all our structure of God ! I have heard that not a few physicians and medical men are scep- tically inclined. I wonder at it. Of course the human body cannot teach us that Christ died for sinners, for this precious truth we must go to God's revealed word ; but the human body does teach every man that it is not an acci- dental thing struck off from some other, but an original creation of Deity, instinct with beautiful design, and eloquent with instructive lessons. So delicate is this body of ours, that one feels at times it is better not to know it too well, for the more we know it, the more we shall wonder that it holds together for ten minutes ; and yet it is so powerful, that what it can endure, and what it will do, and what it will dare, defies almost the historian to record. Yet, noble as this body is, after all it is not the man ; it is but the movable tent which he carries about with him. It is a combination of levers, and pulleys, and hooks, and pumps, and wheels, and windows, and speaking-trumpets, and acoustic tubes, to enable the man within, who is its owner, to communicate with this outer world. But if this body be so exquisitely made, so wondrously arranged, it must be a very grand inhabitant for which such machinery, so com- plicated, so beautiful, so delicate, and yet so strong, was prepared. If the body give traces and evidence of wisdom, design, omnipotence, how much more that soul which dwells in its innermost chambers, for which that body was made and consecrated of old ! How precious the jewel for which so exquisite a casket was got ready ! how great the inner king for whom so royal a palace was built ! and how truly do both show alike the wisdom and the power of Him who made them, and knit them inseparably together. I know nothing greater than man's soul, but God; and I know no creature in heaven, upon earth, that man would not 56 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. degrade himself by giving religious worship to. Man never appears more ennobled than when he bows the knee and gives undivided adoration to God. What man's soul has done is evidence of its greatness, but the fact that that soul, so great, could not reinstate itself in the relationship to God which it had lost, is evidence what a terrible chasm sin must have introduced into the world. I have thus glanced at those thoughts familiar to most minds, as illustrative of the greatness of Him who made the heaven and the earth, and all things visible and invisi- ble. Enough remains in all God's works to indicate benev- olence, and to show that he is not only an almighty Creator, but a benevolent Creator. I know there are jarring ele- ments thrust up at intervals that seem to prove the opposite, but they are to be accounted for by revelation light, and only by that light. But take the world as we find it, and we discover in the whole, notwithstanding the ravages of a new and hostile element, wonderful traces of benevo- lence. I believe no physiologist has discovered in the human body a single nerve that was designed to create pain ; he has not found a single vessel that was meant to vitiate the blood, or a single gland originally meant to secrete poison ; the whole organization of man indicates original benevolence, in one word, that the benefit and happiness of man was the primal end of the first creation of man. So, when we look on God's outer world, he might, for instance, have made one vast monotonous scene, perfectly sufficient to grow food and to furnish diink for man. But as we are refreshed by change, and cannot bear long pro- tracted monotony, he has introduced infinite variety. The same sight always seen, the same tone always heard, how- ever beautiful, become tiresome in the end. We are made for the enjoyment of variety. Well, God has condescended in creation to minister to this. What splendid variety in CREATION. 57 the starry sky ! what rich variety in a landscape ! what variety of color in all things about, above, around, and beneath us ! and all not necessary to man, but all emanating from infinite benevolence, and meant to be happiness to man. What is no less striking a proof of creative goodness is this ; that the best portions of God's created world no nobleman or prince can put into his title deeds, or claim as his monopoly. For instance, when I go out into the coun- try, I can say that these acres belong to that nobleman, those fields to that landlord ; but that which is the choicest of both, the beautiful landscape, belongs to all ; I can enjoy it just as much as the proprietor of it all ; and I can see from my humble door the splendor of a starry sky, and be refreshed by the scene as intensely as the greatest king or emperor in the whole earth. How interesting is it, that, while God has given to the rich man stones, earth, water, — the rough, hard, elementary materials, — he has reserved the cream of his creation, its loveliest, its most beautiful parts, the virgin blush of morn, and the matron dignity of even, for the beggar by the way-side as much as for the peer, the prince, or the nobleman. We see in all this rich and deep traces and evidences of God's benevolence. We may fairly argue, after these reflections, that, if God made all, God governs all. If we suppose that God made all, as we are sure, we may very logically infer that God governs all. It is impossible to suppose that so complicated an economy as the material world, and the organized and living beings that are on it, would go on unless He who originally made them maintains them. We know that by a / law, which every philosopher knows, impulses die, forces exhaust themselves. And in the absence of a governing hand and impulsive presence, it seems to me creation would stand still, fountains would cease to gush forth, rivers to flow, orbs would diverge from their relationship, and all 58^ THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. creation would soon resolve itself into chaos again. It is the fool looking at creation, who says, " No God." It is as great a fool, who looks at the carrying oa- of creation and sees no God. Creation's origin cries, " There is a God : " its continuance cries, " There is a God : " the Bible says, " for by him all things were made, and by him all things consist." Atheism is the most illogical and unnatural thing. It seems to me a vacuum, a freezing vacuum, in -v^^hich no wing can soar, no human being can breathe; where "all i life dies, and death lives, and nature breeds perverse, all monstrous, all prodigious things." And surely, if it be an illogical creed, it is not a delightful one. To have no paternal heart to feel for this great family of ours, to have no open eye to pity us, no guiding hand to keep us ; to feel that, when we lie down on the last pillow, on which we must all lie down, and when the nearest and dearest must leave us, unable to accompany us any further, there is no one beyond to take us up, — it is intolerable, it is dreadful, it revolts the deepest instincts of the human heart, it con- tradicts the word of God. Having noticed these simple lessons, I venture again to allude to a science that has excited very great attention, of which I am not a profound student, but of the main details of which I know something ; I mean, what has been sup- posed to be the dissonance between geological science, and the Mosaic account in Genesis of the creation of the world. It has been alleged by some scientific men that there is a discord between what Moses writes, as he alleged, by the inspiration of God, in Genesis, and what they discover, as they truly assert, in the archives of the globe itself. I recur to this subject to notice, very briefly, that the Bible was not written to teach us science : this was not its object ; and to try to construct a scientific system from the CREATION. 39 pages of the Bible, is to try to extort from it what it was never meant to supply. It v»'as written in human speech, and in popular phraseology, to convey to our souls precious and saving truths. We ourselves know, that if we were to hear a thorough scientific scholar, being a minister of the gospel, preaching, never *in popular phraseology, but in strictly scientific terms, we would not long listen to him; because much that he said would seem to us incongruous, much would be unintelligible, and more would fail in con- veying those precious truths that we come to church to hear. The Bible was not given us as a book out of which systems of science might be drawn. The chemist may inquire how such and such crystallization took place, the astronomer may investigate how the sun and moon and earth are related, and the geologist may try to determine how old the earth is ; but the Bible returns to the chemist, the astronomer, and the geologist, the answer which its Author returned to one of old, who asked the too curious question, "Are there many that be saved ? " " Strive to enter in at the strait gate." It tells them, these questions you may ask of creation, and try to extort an answer by your optic tube, or your crucible ; and by all means try to master and to acquire every information that creation can furnish ; but when you appeal to the Bible, you come, not as geologists, not as astronomers, not as chemists, but as sin- ners asking a question infinitely more important, " Men and brethren, what must we do to be saved?" That is the question that the Bible answers in varied forms ; and anx- iously putting the same question, still we must search for a suitable answer. But, while this is perfectly true, there are in the Bible incidental allusions, occasional passing declarations, which fairly, and without forcing them, touch the domain of science. I say, in stating Divine things, and in illustrating 60 THE cnuRcn before the flood. spiritual truths, there are figures drawn from the outer world, and incidental references to great physical, provi- dential, or natural phenomena, scattered throughout the pages of the Bible. If one could discover that these incidental allusions, however incidental, never main but subordinate things, do really contradict the positive and well ascertained conclusions of science, — if one should find that a distinct statement in Genesis positively contra- dicts a distinct discovery made by a patient inquisitor into the archives of nature, — then my course would be very plain. I know not that the mere scientific man would be able to take the same course. Mine would be this, — I have satisfied myself on independent evidence, most clear, most conclusive, to my mind irresistible, that this book is from God. Having done this, I lay aside this fact on a shelf by itself in my mind, there to remain immovable, not to be touched by any thing, because, on evidence the most satisfactory, I have proved this Bible to be Divine. If you discover in your book — the book of the earth, or the book of the sky — any thing to contradict it, I am quite sure that there must be some flaw in your calculation ; for my book has been proved by incontestable evidence to be Divine, and therefore you must be in error ; your conclusion cannot be just. Wait longer, and search deeper. Such would be my reply. It would not satisfy the mere scientific man ; although, I might add, I have some precedent for it : for you scientific men have come forward to prove that the Mosaic account was untrue, before now; and only after you went back to your studies, and inquired a little more profoundly, did you admit you were wrong. Very well, if some of your former discoveries have by yourselves been admitted to have been wrong, some of your present alleged discoveries, which you marshal against revelation, may, on more mature investigation, be found to be wrong too ; and CREATION. 61 therefore I am not unwise in holding this Bible as Divine, and waiting patiently until you become a little riper in your studies ; and believing that then you will certainly find that the Bible remains, with its credentials untouched, the inspi- ration and the revelation of God. But now, while this satisfies me, it will not altogether satisfy the scientific inquirer. He stumbles, hesitates ; and the sceptic will seize the discoveries of science and fling them in the face of Christianity ; and men who are too willing to get something to say against the Bible, because it prophesies evil about them, — men who are too anxious to get their intellects to bear out what their passions need, in order to cover their indulgences, — will be too thankful to catch something to throw against the Bible ; and men of science, who are full of scientific investigation, and enamoured of scientific dis- covery, will hesitate before they accept a book which, they think, contradicts the plainest and the most unequivocal disclosures which they have made in the bowels of the earth, or among the stars of the sky. To all these I answer, as I have already indicated, there is not the least dissonance between God's written book and the most mature discoveries of modern geological science. One thing, however, there may be ; there may be a contradiction between the discoveries of geology and our preconceived interpretations of the Bible. But this is not because the Bible is wrong, but because our interpretation of it was wrong. " And the earth was without form, and void ; and dark- ness was upon the face of the deep." Now here is the past condition of the globe, prior to its present configura- tion, collocation, and arrangement. After this, the present configuration of the globe began, about six thousand years ago. "The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light." 6 62 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. Now to show you that this view is not a novel one, nor a peculiar one of my own, I will just give you one or two extracts from a very remarkable book, indicating great scientific acquirements united to deep religious feeling. It is written by Dr. Hitchcock, President of Amherst College, and Professor of Natural Theology and Geology, and is called " The Religion of Geology and its connected Sci- ences." He gives the opinions of a number of eminent men, who hold this view. " ' The interval,' says Bishop Horsley, ' between the production of the matter of chaos and the formation of light, is undescribed and unknown.* * By the phrase, in the beginning,' says Doederlin, ' the time is declared when something began to be. But when God produced this remarkable work, Moses does not pre- cisely define.' 'We do not know,' says Sharon Turner, * and we have no means of knowing, at what point of the ever-flowing eternity, of that which is alone eternal, — the Divine subsistence, — the creation of our earth, or any part of the universe, began.' ' All that we can learn explicitly from revelation is, that nearly six thousand years have passed since our first parents began to be.' ' The detailed history of creation in the first chapter of Genesis,' says Dr. Chalmers, 'begins at the middle of the second verse; and what precedes might be understood as an introductory sentence, by which we are most appositely told, both that God created all things at the first, and that afterwards — by what interval of time it is not specified — the earth lapsed into chaos, from the darkness and disorder of which the present system or economy of things was made to arise. Between the initial act and the details of Genesis, the world, for aught we know, might have been the theatre of many revolutions, the traces of which geology may still investigate.' " Here is a very decided testimony. Dr. Pye Smith, too, the recent president of Homerton College, says, Z CREATION. 63 " A philological survey of the initial sections of the Bible (Gen. i. 1 to ii. 3) brings out the result : 1. That the first sentence is a simple, independent, all-comprehending axiom, to this effect — that matter^ elementary or combined, aggre- gated only or organized, and depeiident, seiitient, and in- tellectual beings, have not existed from eternity, either in self-continuity or succession, but had a beginning; that their beginning took place by the all-powerful will of one Being, the self-existent, independent, and infinite in all perfection ; and that the date of that beginning is not known. 2. That at a recent epoch our planet was brought into a state of disorganization, detritus, or ruin,' (perhaps we have no perfectly appropriate term,) from a former condition. 3. That it pleased the almighty, wise, and benevolent Supreme, out of that state of ruin to adjust the surface of the earth to its now existing condition, the whole extending through the period of six natural days." Dr. Harris also says, " My firm persuasion is, that the first verse of Genesis was designed by the Divine Spirit to announce the absolute organization of the material universe by the Almighty Creator ; and that it is so understood in the other parts of holy writ ; that, passing by an indefinite interval, the second verse describes the state of our planet immediately prior to the Adamic creation, and that the third verse begins the account of the six days' work." Dr. King, of Glasgow, Dr. Schmucker, of the Lutheran Church, and Dr. Pond, of the American Church, are also quoted in this very book, to show that this is not a singular opinion, but one held by the best divines, who have had the mate- rials enabling them to come to a conclusion. The disclosures of geology justify the announcement of revelation, that all material things had a beginning. Now, this is a very remarkable fact, that geology proves that the eternity of matter, which infidels try to establish, is a false- 64 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. hood and a fable. In other -svords, when we argued with the infidel, and said, There are in the earth, in the human body, in flowers, and trees, and all things, evidences of design, and that design benevolent design ; and therefore there must be a benevolent designer ; the reply of the scep- tic invariably was, that this was always the case ; and unless you can show that this long chain of designs had a begin- ning, you do not prove that there is a God who made the world ; because it has continued since we knew, and it must always continue, and we infer that it must always have been. JSTow, geology settles this ; it proves to demonstra- tion that races have become extinct, and that new acts of creation have been interposed. I think it is one of the most striking and wonderful discoveries of this science, that the Creator has more than twice, thrice, four, or perhaps ten times, stepped in and created by distinct acts successive races or dynasties of animate things. In other words, geology proves how true is the announcement of Revela- tion, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." Dr. Chalmers has wielded this argument with very great force in his Evidences of Natural Religion, which are well worth perusing. And this science proves, too, that God is distinct from creation, and not what the Pantheists suppose him to be, part and parcel of creation. All science, therefore, as it becomes brighter, is casting fresh light upon the Scriptures, and proving, if the Chris- tian needs any additional proof, that "holy men of old wrote as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." If we take the Koran of Mahomet, we shall find statements in it inconsistent with the simplest elements of science. If we open the Vedas of the East, we shall find that they contain the most absurd and irrational description of the physical world. But in the Bible there never yet has been found a CREATION. 65 single statement that contradicts the discoveries of science. On the contrary, science rather keeps advancing and coming up to the simple statements of the word of God. And in all this we have a proof, if the Christian needs it, that " holy men of old wrote as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." Now, this God who in the beginning made the heaven and the earth, is our Father. We learn this, not from the archives of the earth, in which the geologist traces his foot prints, and fetches up the proofs and monuments of his creative power, but in that precious book which tells us that in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. "Whether, therefore, we see God's foot prints in the depths where the geologist unfolds them, or trace God's presence in the heights where the astronomer soars, or whether He sweeps past, and we catch a glimpse of His glory as he passes by, in all heights — in all depths — everywhere, it is God; but the Christian can add, It is our Father. No section of the earth discloses to the Christian a hostile being, but every part of it discovers to him his Father. And he can look at sun, and moon, and stars, and fruit, and flower, and tree, and say what none but a Christian can say, " My Father made thc%n all." In the next place, seeing God in every creature, and see- ing that God governs every creature, the Christian must feel that nothing can scathe him unseen or unpermitted by God. What a precious thought is this — there are no such things in this world as accidents! We know well that. if the pin were to fly out of the axle of a wheel, it might be the destruction of many persons ; and so if there were such a thing as an accident thrust into God's creation, it might be the disorganization of all. There are no such things as accidents, but all are permitted, or controlled, and directed by God. A Christian knows, when he looks abroad on 6* 66 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. creation, that nothing is hostile to him. That avalanche, that earthquake, that poison, cannot scathe me; all are God's creatures, and they will work for good to me ; and if it is his will to make use of any one of them to remove me, it is only to liberate me from the house in which I have tabernacled, in order to introduce me to a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. Another lesson we may learn from this. The fact that God made all should be to us an inducement to .make a sanctified use of all. God says, when you sit down to eat the blessings he has provided, all that are on that table are my creatures; I made all. That bread you eat, that water you drink, the wine you taste, are God's creatures ; they bear the superscription and the stamp of their Maker ; and they should be used therefore to God's glory. There- fore, in the language of the sacred penman, " whether ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God." In the next place, may we not gather from creation a type of regeneration. Some Christians believe in instant conversions ; I doubt them. "What is called an instant con- version is very often the result of innumerable previous thoughts, influences, sympathies, all brought to converge into one focus ; and then that which is the result of innu- merable previous and long acting elements is mistaken, and supposed by him who is its subject to be instantaneous. In creation, God took six days to arrange the present surface of this planet. He might have done it by his fiat, but he was pleased to create it by a process; and I think this analogy would lead us to infer that he is pleased to regen- erate by a process. If God made so beautiful a world out of chaos, if the fairest flowers of the field all came originally out of the chaotic elements " without form and void," may we not infer CREATION. 67 at least the possibility of what Scripture declares to be a prophecy, the resurrection of the dead ; and that the least atom of our dust God's omniscience sees, and God's omnip-# otence will collect and reconstitute again in living and immortal bodies. But there is a lesson that this chapter does not teach — - that we are not what God made us. That is plain enough. God once made us in his own image, and he pronounced us to be good : who does not feel, for our own hearts condemn lis, that that image is defaced, that the glory is lost; that we once were friends, but we are many of us foes ; once in communion with him, now many of us strangers. All that is wrong in man, man is responsible for. The Bible never says that God made sin, and he is not responsible for it. Wherever it came from, I cannot tell, but God did not make it. But this we are sure of, every thing that remains good in the universe has God for its Author ; but all that is wicked, all that is sinful, is from the creature, and from the creature alone. But, blessed be God ! though we made ourselves evil, he has not left us to our own devices; he has bowed the heavens, and come into our world, and died for us upon the cross, and made an atonement for our sins ; and through His precious blood we may be restored to our lost relationship, reinstated in a greater dignity, once more be the sons of God, and the world close with a grander Paradise and a nobler being to cultivate it, than that with which creation first began. CHAPTER IV. THE FIRST MAN, ADAM, AND THE LAST. " Thou man thy image mad'st, in dignity, In knowledge, and in beauty like to Thee; Placed in a heaven on earth ; without his toil, The ever-flourishing and fruitful soil Unpurchased food produced ; all creatures were His subjects, serving more for love than fear." " Who " (Adam) " is the figure of him that was to come." — Eom. v. 14. Creation bears still over all its aspects the evidences, not only of creative power, but of beneficence and good- ness. God might have made the orb we inhabit a prison ; he might have furnished us with all that is essential to subsistence, and left us to grope our way upon its surface, and to endure life rather than to live, if such a life could be called living at all. But, instead of that, he has made it as beautiful as the hand of skill and as the heart of beneficence could devise. He has studded its ceiling with stars, as with a thousand lamps ; he has beautified its floor with the variegated flowers ^f the field, and made creation a ministry of beauty, so rich, that the ceaseless action of six thousand years have not been able to destroy it, and the sin of succeeding generations has not utterly swept it away. • But after God had made the earth, and formed all its living tenantry, it seems one was wanting to be the capital and the crown, the ruler and priest of all. The birds were THE FIRST MAN, ADAM, AND THE LAST. 69 in the air, those choristers of the earth, whose song is the anthem of the sky, the fishes in the streams, the cattle upon a thousand hills ; but all still waited for him who is pro- nounced by St. Paul to have been " the figure of him that was to come." Without intelligence inhabiting the earth, without an eye to read it, or an ear to hear it, it would have been after all a very uninteresting orb, but when man was placed upon it in his meridian wisdom, strength, and health, then it was perfect ; it was pronounced by its Maker to be " very good." Man was the eye of creation to see the hand that governs it, the ear of creation to hear the bidding of Hira who made it, the heart of creation to love God, the priest, in short, of creation to offer up its many-voiced psalm of praise, and to lift up its incense, perpetually to inihister a holy Levite in creation, and before creation's God, giving unto him that made it all the glory, and ihe honor, and the praise. Man, therefore, was the last and the noblest of creation's birthweek ; his appearance crowned it. His body was made of the dust, but it was the eflElores- cence of the dust ; just as the diamond is made of charcoal, but is yet the diamond. His soul was made in the likeness of Deity, immortal as God is, and holy as God is, and happy as God is. He had in that garden the tree of life to shade him, the music of a thousand streams to delight him, the very branches of the trees were harp-strings that hymned God's praise, and it required his voice only to mingle in the universal harmony to render homage to him who governs all, and would preserve all. After man's creation, oh w^hich I need not dwell, we have a sentiment enunciated by Him who knew man, it was not good that man should be alone ; and therefore he made one to be a helpmate, that is, meet, or appropriate, for him. Does not this teach us that the social state is man's natural state? that the monastic, the ascetic, the insulated life is 70 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. man's 'unnatural state ? This is evinced by fact. In soli- tude man degenerates ; in society, as part of a mighty whole, man advances and develops his powers, his faculties, and his endowments, in the highest possible degree. In other words, man was not made to be a solitary, but a social being. The special evidence of this-was God's institution of marriage ; it has its divine foundation and origin in God ; God himself was the first celebrant of it, and it is the insti- tution that still survives the fall. It w^as reconstituted or rebaptized by Christ when he quoted the very words of this chapter, indicating in the one voice the inspiration of Moses, and demonstrating in the other the propriety of that ordi- nance, the history and original of which is here recorded. "We thus learn that marriage is not a mere civil contract. Of course it is a civil contract, so far as that the law of the land must be the basis of it for all legal purposes ; but it is really and truly more than that ; it is a Divine institution. It is legal marriage to be married at the registrar's office, but it is not Christian marriage. It does seem to me that it is not a mere civil union to be recognized by law, which of course it must be, but that it is as well a sacred, a spiritual, and a religious ordinance, never to be celebrated without religious rites, religious sanction, and under the influence of religious principles. Destroy Christianity, and how long do you think will marriage last? Take away religion, and it becomes a mere joint-stock agreement, which may last for years, for months, or for weeks, according to the taste and the temperament of the parties. But admit the high and holy sanction of religion, and then it is not, what Romanism calls it, a sacrament ; but it is, as Protestants regard it, a solemn, a holy, and a lasting union, to be dissolved only by death, and the shadow and the type of a greater one, to which the Apostle alludes in his Epistle to the Ephesians. We gather from God's appointment in connection with THE FIRST MAN, ADAM, AND THE LAST. 71 man, that polygamy never was God's design, nor was it meant for man. It was not God's purpose ; for Adam was created, and Eve was brought to him, and it is said that a man shall " leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife (not wives) ; and they shall be one flesh." And, as if nature itself would testify against the infraction of the Divine ordinance, wherever polygamy exists, as in Mahometan countries, there the human race rapidly degen- erates ; and only where the Christian sanctions, and the Christian law, and the Christian principles are developed and carried into practice, is it seen that society reaches to its culminating grandeur, and man, instead of retrograding down to the brutes that perish, approximates to God in moral, in intellectual, and even in physical state ; and society ceases to be a drove, and becomes a nation. I might give the very simple illustration of the truth, that polygamy is not designed, in the very simple fact that the sexes are very nearly equal in number. There is a slight prepon- derance of the female sex ; but the proportion of male to female is, what it has ever been, very nearly equal. It is the religious sanction that gives the wife her proper dignity, her true place and relationship. In some countries the wife is regarded merely as an elegant and sensuous toy. In other countries she is made a domestic servant. In Hindoo countries she is degraded to the lowest possible level to which so beautiful a fragment of humanity can be driven. Only in Christian, primarily in Protestant, coun- tries — I say, primarily and chiefly in Protestant countries, does she become the companion, the confidant, the friend, the equal of man. Beautifully, though rather quaintly, is it remarked by Henry, but not less truly, that she was not taken from man's head, to govern him, nor from man's foot, to be trampled on by him, but from man's side, to indicate companionship, coequality, and mutual friendship. That UNXVBRSITT r^ 72 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. she is of the same original rank and dignity as man, is plain from her very name. She was called Isha. The Hebrew for a man is Ish ; for a woman it is Isha ; just as we say, " lion," " lioness." Here it is " man," and " man- ness," which words would be the literal translation of the Hebrew. Thus it is shown that she has the same rank, and the same gifts, and the same powers in her own sphere that man has. Woman only loses power when she steps from the sphere that she adorns into one that she was uot meant for ; just as man loses his finest tone and temperament when he degrades her from the position that she should occupy, and sinks her into one for which she was never meant. You will find that it is by each keeping to his own place, that each will excel. There is a sphere where woman is sure to fail, and the reaction will be her own degradation ; and there is a sphere where man is sure not to excel, and the result will be only his own ruin. It is by each holding his own place, invested wuth his original attributes, and ful- filling the duties that God has assigned, that each receives his true lustre, and both are felt useful one to the other. This union, which is here indicated, is to death. There is no law in the Scriptures indicating any sanction of separa- tion, unless for the violation of the very essence of the holy compact. What God has joined let no man put asunder. And, except on the strength of this testimony, I cannot see any ground for the perpetuity of the marriage compact. The next remarkable fact in connection with the history of man, is the institution of the Christian Sabbath. I state these things as preparatory to a parallel which is based upon these facts. God, it is said, rested on the seventh day. This does not mean, of course, and few would suppose it, that God was weary and took rest. The simple mean fact is, that God rested from creation work on the Sabbath day. This is plain from our Lord's own words, "My THE FIRST MAN, ADAM, AND THE LAST. 73 Father worketh hitherto, and I work," meaning that on the Sabbath day God carries on his work of providence just as much as on the other days of the week. And therefore all that is meant is, that he ceased from one kind of work. The new dynasty was introduced, and God therefore ceased from creation work. But providential work he still carries on. For instance, the sap rising from the roots of plants and trees to the stem, the earth marching in its orbit, the sun and the moon and the stars pursuing their courses, are all by the immediate power of God put forth upon the seventh day just as it is put forth on the rest of the days of the week. And therefore, we are now to understand by our resting on the Sabbath, not simply the staying of the water-wheel, the hushing of the whistle of the railway engine, and the shutting up of the shop-windows, and so much of the sangie kind that is right and proper, but also that that day is to be spent in active work also, namely, in enlightening our minds, in ministering to each other's com- fort, and to each other's spiritual, intellectual, and moral good, and in doing every thing within our reach to make society around us more holy and happy. The Sabbath plainly is not a mere Jewish institution. The evidence of that is, Adam was not a Jew, perhaps I might say he was not a Gentile ; he was neither ; but the Sabbath was insti- tuted for the use of Adam as the father of the human race, not as the first link in the ancient Jewish or Levitical economy. Therefore, the original institution of the Sab- bath is evidence that it is not a Jewish institution, merely for the Jews, and to pass away with their economy, but that it is for all mankind, and the right of all mankind ; so that each man has just as great a right to have his Sabbath as he has to have his Bible. It is true toleration to prevent anybody keeping the Bible from you, and it is true tolera- tion to prevent anybody keeping the Sabbath from you. It 7 74 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. is your right ; God has given it to you as his own precious gift ; use it, sanctify it, devote it to the holiest of purposes, and allow all men within your reach the enjoyment that you yourselves have. The Sabbath thus instituted was a patriarchal observance before the giving of the law. The ceasing of the manna on the seventh day, which was also before the law, is evi- dence that the Sabbath was then observed. The fourth commandment says, " Remember the Sabbath day, io keep it holy," which shows that instead of its being the institu- tion of it, it was only a reference to its prior institution. It says, " Remember the Sabbath day," a day that they knew, only to be recollected, not to be instituted in order to be .observed. It is said, God blessed that day. He blessed it just in the same manner as our Saviour blessed the bread at the communion table. Just as he set apart that bread, instead of being a common meal, to be a sacramental thing; so God set apart this day from being a day for common work, to be a day for sequestered purposes, and for holy work. If the Sabbath were needful for man in Paradise, how much more needful is it for man now ! If then he needed some day to remind him more vividly of what he owed to God, how much more do we need it now ! Let us, there- fore, value the Sabbath ; let us defend the Sabbath from all aggression that would taint, pollute, or destroy it. When a nation loses its Sabbaths, it loses the firmest pillars of its stability, its grandeur, and its power. The real secrets of a nation's strength are not what we hear, nor what we see, but they are its religion, its Sabbaths, its Bibles. These are like the piers sunk in the flood below the tide mark, invisi- ble to us, but upon them rests the whole superstructure of national greatness and national strength. It has, however, been objected, that we had no right to THE FIRST MAN, ADAM, AND THE LAST. 75 change this day from the seventh, on which day it was originally instituted, to the first. I answer, there are two parts in the Sabbath ; there is the ceremonial part, which is the day which is to be observed ; there is the moral part, which is the seventh portion of our time: it is not the seventh day, but it is the seventh portion of our time conse- crated to Sabbath work, and to Sabbath objects. Now the ceremonial of the Jewish religion is altered, and the cere- monial of the Christian religion alters according to circum- stances, but the moral and spiritual remain. So the mere ceremonial of the Sabbath varies with varying circum- stances, but the moral remains. For instance, at the Anti- podes it is now Saturday with them, whereas it is Sabbath with us ; and if you go half-way to the Antipodes, they have half of our Sabbath and a portion of our Saturday. It follows, then, that the exact day cannot be observed over the whole earth, for it is Sabbath with us and Saturday at the Antipodes ; and thus it varies over the whole surface of the globe. And, therefore, we have evidence that the ceremonial is adapted to circumstances, but the moral or ever recurring seventh day, constituted and observed as the Sabbath, is of absolute obligation. And then we read that the reason of the change was, that he who proclaimed him- self Lord of the Sabbath, — he, mind you, not who was called so, but who proclaimed himself Lord 6f the Sab- bath, — assigned the first day of the week to be the Chris- tian Sabbath. And every seventh day still recurring is still the Sabbath, only it is the first, in order to remind us not only of creation, but to lead us to anticipate the world that shall be restored to the righteousness and love of Christ Jesus. We have thus seen the leading incidents in another chap- ter of Genesis. It is now said that Adam, thus surrounded, thus invested, was a type, or a figure, for the word is the 76 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. same, of him that was to come, that is, of the Lord Jesus Christ. And to show that this is not a solitary passage, I refer to the First Epistle to the Corinthians, where Paul tells us also in the 4oth verse of the 15th chapter, " The first man, Adam, was made a living soul ; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit." Then, the 47th verse says, " The first man is of the earth, earthy : the second man is the Lord from heaven." Throughout the Epistle to the Komans, he argues on the hypothesis that the first Adam was the type of the second. Let us see then if there is any parallelism, or if the first be illustrative of the second. The first Adam was formed of the dust of the earth, breathed into immediately by God, without a father and without a mother. In so far, he seems to have been typical of the second ; for our Lord, as relates to his humanity, had no father ; as relates to his Deity, had no mother. And therefore, contrary to the sentiments of the Roman Church, we assert that Joseph was not the father of Jesus, and Mary was not the mother of God. In the next place, Adam was, when first created, a new manifestation of God. The rest of the animals that pre- ceded the creation of Adam were created out of the dust, and had mere animal life, but no more. But Adam consti- tuted a new manifestation ; he was a link between matter as embodied in the animal creation, and spirit as existent in the angels that are around the throne. He combined in himself the ethereal and the material, and was so far a manifestation of God. We are told that what ^as true in the type is more gloriously so in the Antitype : for Jesus, as we are told by the Apostle, is " God manifest in the flesh," is the perfect man. Looking to him, we can see the idea that was wrecked in Adam, restored in Christ, and acquainted with him you can catch a glimpse of the glory of God as he sweeps by ; thus we see in Jesus the model THE FIRST MAN, ADAM, AND THE LAST. 77 of the perfect man, the manifestation of the gracious God, and now the most glorious manifestation in the history of God's dealings with mankind. Again, Adam was, when he was made, constituted the lord of creation ; he was the governor of all ; he gave names to all ; and these names were indicative of his lordship. And wh(f does not see traces of that lordship still ? Even the powerful lion, unless very ravenous with hunger, will shrink back from man ; and it is said, that they who have the nerve and the physical firmness, when assailed by wild beasts, may by a fixed and piercing eye, make them flinch back. The brute creation seems to catch in man's face a fugitive shadow of ancient dominion, that makes them wince from his presence. That lordship may degenerate into tyranny, which sin has made it, but there is enough of it left to show that it was once, and there is enough of its perversion to show how sin has driven it out of ^course. But man's original positioa was to be lord of all creation, and if he had not let go his peace, when he let go his alle- giance to God, it would be so still. Man rose in mutiny against God, and all nature instantly rose in mutiny against man. But as Adam was the lord of creation, and meant to be so, we read that our blessed Redeemer is Lord of crea- tion by right, and shall be Lord of creation in fact. We read in the eighth Psalm, " Lord our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth ! who hast set thy glory above the heavens. Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou 'ordained strength because of thine enemies, that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger. When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained ; what is man that thou art mindful of him ? and the son of man, that thou visitest him ? For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honor- 7* 78 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands ; thou hast put all things under his feet " — here was tha first constitution : " all sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field, the fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas. O Lord our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth ! " Now we find the Apostle Paul quoting^this very Psalm in the Epistle to the Hebrews, and stating, (ii. 6-9,) " But one in a certain place testified, saying, What is man, that thou art mindful of him ? or the son of man, that thou visitest him? Thou madest him a little lower than the angels ; thou crownedst him with glory and honor, and didst set him over the works of thy hands: thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet. For in that he put all in subjection under him, he left nothing that is not put under him. But now we see not yet all things put under him. But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor ; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man." In other words, the Apostle indicates that Christ sits upon his throne, till all his enemies shall be made his footstool ; that he is by right and by original investiture Lord of all. The day comes when what is right shall be fact ; and he who has justly, and by title, the right of all, shall be in history throned Lord of all. In the next place, Adam felt it not good, as I have ex- plained, to be alone, and God made "an help meet for him." How interesting is the fact, that Jesus, surrounded by cherubim and seraphim, in glory which we cannot con- ceive, and eye hath not seen, and ear hath not heard, need- ing nothing to add to his happiness, capable of nothing that could detract from that happiness — how mysterious, how remarkable, that he, like Adam, if I might use an expres- sion capable of misconstruction, felt alone, and selected a THE FIRST MAN, ADAM, AND THE LAST. 79 people out of every kindred and tongue to be liis " bride " — " the Lamb's wife " — I use the hmguage of Scripture, that he might present her to himself " a glorious church, without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing." Now, why did Christ thus interfere? There is no answer except in his own love. Why pass by the angols that fell — the loftier nature — and lay hold of us ? I cannot answer. Why interpose to rescue those who had ruined fliemselves? I cannot answer, except in these Avords, " God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." And when I think that that soul which is in each man's body had a beginning, but never can have an end, I can well see that if that grand interposition had not been, ours had been endless sorrow, and endless suffering ; for through that interposition alone our lost inheritance is restored, our forfeited rights returned, and man made capa- ble of the hopes of glory, and of honor, and of immortality. We read that Eve his wife was taken from Adam's side while he slept. Some of our modern philosophers laugh at this. Very well ; give me a better history, give me what you can prove to be true, and I will accept it ; but I have heard of no account so simple and so satisfactory as that which is contained in the book of Gq^iesis. You may talk of it as a thing strange, but it may have had its spiritual significance as well as historic truth, and may contain more than we have yet learned. But, at all events, whatever is its significance, it is recorded as fact ; and we are satisfied to keep the old facts in our creed, till they are dislodged by others that can be proved to be so, and something better. Eve was, then, taken from Adam's side, while Adam was thrown into a deep slumber ; so that during the operation he slept, and the chasm created in his side was more than compensated by an accession immediately after to the hap- 80 IHE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. piness and comfort and joy of his heart. When Jesus hung upon the cross, and his side was pierced, and he was laid in the sleep of death in that solitary tomb in the garden, his church started to her feet, having there her birthplace, entered on her majestic and glorious career, and will not cease until he presents her to himself, " a glorious church, without spot, or wrinkle, or blemish, or any such thing." The idea of #he Apostle is so perfectly beautiful, and so descriptive of the fact, that I again refer to it. " Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it ; that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might pre- sent it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing ; but that it should be holy and without blemish." Eph. v. 25-27. We learn from the Scriptures, that Adam was a federal and a representative person. In him all humanity was, with him to stand in its pristine allegiance, or with him to fall. Jesus also has been constituted our federal head. What Adam did, all humanity is guilty of. I do not stop to explain it, I merely quote what is the expression of Scrip- ture — what Adam did, all humanity is guilty of; what Jesus, the second Adam did, all believers get the advantage of, just as if they h^d done it. Nature proves in all her economy that we fell in Adam. Revelation shows through all its pages, how we may be restored in Christ. Adam's sin has smitten those who have not personally sinned after his transgression — innocent babes; Christ's righteousness is imputed to those who have not done righteously, but are the chiefest of sinners, that believe in him. " He hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin ; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." 2 Cor. v. 21. All that we lost in Adam is more than restored in Christ, by what he has bequeathed to them that believe, to them THE FIRST MAN, ADAM, AND THE LAST. 81 that are his adopted and regenerated family — an inheri- tance which Adam never had — a glory to which Adam could have never risen — an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away. The first Adam fell in the most favorable circumstances ; the second Adam glo- riously triumphed in the most hostile circumstances. Our estate was lost in a garden, it was regained in a desert. The first Adam, with every thing in his favor, lost all ; the second Adam, with every thing against him, more than re- gained all. Paradise lost is. the history of the one ; Para- dise regained is the bright epitome of the other. Creation shall have a Sabbath. The Jewish Rabbis all say, — whether they have got it from tradition, — or wherever they got it I know not, that the seven thousandth year of the world will be its great Sabbath, or, as it is called in the Epistle to the Hebrews, iv. 9, the oa^^ariaiidg, the rest that " remaineth to the people of God." We have reason to believe, then, that the earth is not finally cast off, that the devil will not have it as his possession. It is God's eartli; it bears still the traces of his handiwork; his foot prints are over it ; and though the trail of the serpent has polluted its brightest flowers, and sin, like a fever in its heart, has wrecked and convulsed it from its centre to its circumference, yet it basks in the hopes of a glorious resur- rection. Earth shall put off its long working-day clothes, which it has worn for six days, or six thousand years, and put on its Easter robe, and be more beautiful than it was when it came from the creative word of God. I believe that where sin hath abounded, grace hath much more abounded ; that there is nothing that v;e lost in Adam that shall not be more than restored in Christ. But, will there not be those who shall be sentenced to everlasting misery? and that would not have been, you argue, if Adam had not fallen. But why are they sen- r 82 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. tenced to everlasting misery ? Adam did not sin against his will, and no man is cast out of lieaven, or from tlie hopes of heaven, against his will. No man is lost in spite of him- self. The devil worked in Adam to will and to do of his evil pleasure ; and the Holy Spirit works in us to will and to do of his good pleasure. Adam was lost wilfully, wick- edly, criminally ; sinners now are lost exactly in the same way, because Avilfully they reject the great remedy, the salvation provided in the gospel of Christ. Let us then know, that not one soul will be in the realms of the lost in consequence of Adam's transgression. I am not denying the inheritance of it, I am not denying the imputation of it ; but I believe that not one soul will be among the lost in consequence of what Adam did, but that the condemning sin will be, " that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil." This is the condemnation, that ye will not believe in the Son of God, whom he hath sent. Therefore, I believe that when earth shall be restored and replaced in its former orbit, and rebeautified with more than its pristine glory, Satan will not be able to count one wreck, or to lay his finger on one thing, animate or inanimate, and say, " This is suffering, because I succeeded." But every lost creature will have the corroding and the painful recollection, that that creature ruined itself, has passed into misery a suicide, and finds itself in hell because it would not open its eyes, and take the road to heaven. It has been supposed, I may notice, by many eminent thinkers, that the whole picture of Adam in Paradise is not an historical fact intended to illustrate a spiritual truth, but, on the contrary, that the spiritual truth existed, and that Adam and Eve and Paradise are only the copies; — in other words, that Christ and his church are the originals, and that Adam and Eve are the mere copies, and that they THE FIRST MAN, ADAM, AND THfi LAST. 83 were appointed as types and symbols of that which was to be. Now, let us consider this : — We are all the children of Adam. We need not waste time in confessing the justice or the injustice of the fact, that he sinned and that we suffer. Our personal sins aggravate that suffering, and our hearts condemn us, and God is greater than our hearts, and knoweth all things. We feel that we are born in an abnor- mal state of things. God never made the world as it is, and he never made man as he is. Something has hap- pened, some great catastrophe has smitten all, some dread eclipse has swept over all. We are not now as we origi- nally were. The Bible explains the secret of it. It tells us that by one man's disobedience many were constituted sinners. (Rom. v. 19.) It tells us that in Adam all die. (1 Cor. XV. 22.) It tells us there is none righteous, no not one. (Rom. iii. 10.) And, in the second place, we learn that we cannot retrieve our ruin. That gap must be gigantic that the vast genius of man cannot span. Man can transmit his thoughts upon the lightning's wings ; he can span firths of the sea ; he can cross broad and deep rivers ; he can raise monuments of his genius that shall sparkle in the first rays of the rising, and reflect the last beams of the setting, sun. But man cannot cross the distance that separates him from God. Here we are without strength ; here we are emphatically weak. And we need therefore to feel, not only that we are sinners, but that we have not in ourselves the force to alter our relation to God, and to reconstitute ourselves in that relationship which we have justly forfeited. It is then to man thus helpless that the good news came, " In him we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins." (Eph. i. 7; Col. i. 14.) "As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive." 84 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. (1 Cor. XV. 22.) "As by one man's disobedience many were constituted sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many" — the vast multitude — "be constituted righteous." (Rom. V. 19.) His righteousness is our title; his blood is our atonement. And " to him that overcometh," he says, " will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God." (Rev. ii. 7.) In other words, Christ is the way back to heaven, and by and through him we have reaccess to our lost inheritance, a new and lasting title to the true and irreversible rest that remaineth to the people of God. If, then, we are thus convinced that, whether we like it or not, we are involved in the first Adam's ruin, how blessed to us should the good tidings be that we are welcome, infinitely welcome, to share in the second Adam's restoration ! The first we cannot help : it has come upon us without our think- ing, without our responsibility, if I may so speak : but the second we may reject or we may accept. We may say, " We will not have this man to rule over us ; " or we may say, " Lord, to whom can we come but unto thee? thou"— the second Adam — "hast the words of eternal life." May He move our hearts by his Spirit, to embrace his blessed gospel, and thus to save our souls, for Christ's sake. Amen. CHAPTER V. THE CURSE. " Her rash hand in evil hour Forth reaching to the fruit, she plucked, slie ate ; Earth felt the wound, and Nature from her seat Sighing, through all her works gave signs of woe, That all was lost." '* And the Lord God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field : upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life : and I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed : it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. Unto the woman he said, I will gi-eatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth chil- dren : and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee. And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree of which I com- manded thee, saying. Thou shalt not eat of it ; cursed is the ground for thy sake: in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life: thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee ; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground : for out of it wast thou taken : for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. And Adam called his wife's name Eve; because she was the mother of all living. Unto Adam, and to his wife, did the Lord God make coats of skins, and clothed them. And the Lord God said. Behold, the man is become as one of us, to knoAV good and evil : and now, lest he put forth bis hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever : there- fore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to tillthe ground from whence he was taken. So he drove out the man : and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life." — Gen. iii. 14-24. I HAVE selected the sentence denounced on the human family, and on all associated with them, as the subject of 8 86 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. th^ present chapter. The curse itself that is here executed, was threatened in Genesis ii. 16. "And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat : but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it : for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." We have, in Genesis iii. 14-24, the execution of the penalty that had been previously threatened, in all its length and breadth, upon man, and all connected with man. I stated in a previous chapter, that geologists have dis- covered the traces, the havoc, and all the apparatus of death long prior to the fall of man. I do not think it possible to resist the proofs, that men of mature, and patient, and Chris- tian minds have adduced, to show that there was such havoc as they describe, it may be thousands, it may be tens of thousands, of years prior to the configuration of the globe in its present state, the creation of Adam, and the work recorded to have taken place during the six days of the first week. To explain this three theories are proposed. These are given by Dr. Hitchcock, the American clergy- man to whom I have before referred. I quote the work, though here I am constrained to differ from him. We must, in reading a book, refuse what we cannot agree with, and accept what the author proves to be true. He gives three theories explanatory of this great change which has been introduced, and he adopts the last himself. "The first theory," he says, "proceeds on the supposition that death is a universal law of organic nature, from which man was exempted so long as he obeyed the law of God." Dr. Pye Smith, recently deceased, a very eminent scientific scholar, as well as Christian man, belonging to the Inde- pendent body, held this tlieory ; and he thought that man was created mortal, and tending to die, but that if he had continued in his allegiance to God, he would not have died. THE CURSE. 87 Death, he thought, was a universal law of organic natuiie ; that the tendency of man was to die, but that God would have repressed that tendency, so long as Adam retained his allegiance to him. The second theory which he quotes, is that espoused by the celebrated Jeremy or Bishop Taylor. "The second theory," says Dr. Hitchcock, " which will reconcile science and revelation on the subject of death, is one long since illustrated by Jeremy Taylor. And since he could have had no reference to geology in proposing it, because geology did not exist in his day, we may be sure, either that he learnt it from the Bible, or that other branches of knowl- edge teach the existence of death as a general law of nature, as well as geology. " * That death, therefore,' says Taylor, * which God threatened to Adam, and which passed upon his j^osterity, is not the going out of this world, but the manner of going. If he had stayed in innocence, he should have gone placidly and fairly, without vexations and afflictive circumstances ; he should not have died by sickness, defect, misfortune, or unwillingness. But when he fell, then he began to die ; the same day, (God said,) and that must needs be true; and, therefore, it must mean upon that very day he fell into an evil and dangerous condition, a state of change and affliction, then death began ; that is, man began to die by a natural diminution, and aptness to disease and misery. Change or separation of soul and body is but accidental to death ; death may be with or without either ; but the formality, the curse, and the sting — that is, misery, sorrow, fear, diminution, defect, anguish, dishonor, and whatsoever is niiserable and afflictive in nature — that is death. Death is not an action, but a whole state and condition ; and this was first brought in upon us by the offence of one man.' " 88 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. The third theory, and that adopted by Dr. Hitchcock, is, that death is the universal law. " The third theory respect- ing death," says he, " takes a more comprehensive view of the subject, and traces its origin to the Divine plan of the creation. " In creating this world, God did not act without a plan previously determined upon in all its details. Of course, man's character and condition formed prominent items in that plan." And then he goes on to show what he believes ; that man was meant originally to die ; that if he had continued in his innocence, he would have died ; that all the brute creation was also meant to die ; and that if Adam had stood in his allegiance to God, Adam and Eve would have died, but, he says, softly and quietly, without violence, and merely in a sort of transference, almost unconscious as an infant's sleep, till he should awake in a lovelier and a fairer world. I mustv say, that on weighing these theories, and giving them the most patient study that I can, I do not like any of the three. I like the old popular interpretation, which holds that Adam was not meant to die, and that the source of his death, and the death of that part of the animal creation created during the six days, was just Adam's sin. One fallacy that pervades these theories is, the assumption that the world was merely meant to be a temporary tent for man to dwell in, and that transference was his ultimate destiny. But I think that this world was meant for Adam's heaven and lasting home. God could not have been nearer to him, seeing that he walked in the cool of the evening in the garden, and conversed and held communion with him. And therefore the notion of transference assumes what I cannot grant. And if man was meant to continue always in this world, if this world had remained unfallen, then there was no necessity for death. I do not therefore see THE CURSF.. 89 that this theory satisfies the scriptural record, or gives a conclusion that one can settle down in, as warranted by, and in harmony with, all the passages of Scripture, to which I will briefly allude, and which seem to me to establish the common belief, that all nature fell the instant that Adam fell, and that Milton's Paradise Lost, whatever be its defects in other respects, gives a true statement of the Fall, and all its issues. First then, in speaking of the sentence of death inflicted upon man and upon the brute creation, it is not said in so many words that death was inflicted on the brute creation in consequence of Adam's sin ; but it seems to me that this conclusion may be gathered from allusions scattered throughout the book, in which there seems implied a curse, and that curse explained by death lighting upon all the animal creation. At all events, the curse pronounced upon the serpent seems to involve a curse pronounced upon all the brute creation previous ; it is said, " Thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field." Surely, if the serpent had an aggravated and added curse, it implies that the other animals were , partakers of the ordinary curse, and that therefore the whole animal creation came under God's curse at this crisis ; what w^as the nature of that curse, it remains for us to explain by subsequent passages. Finding the whole animal creation coming under the curse, and the serpent only under an aggravated form of that curse, we try to ascertain whether this curse means death. I turn to some passages where it states that animals were destroyed on account of man's sin. At Genesis vi. 7 there is tjie following passage, " And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air." The beasts, and the creeping things, and the fowls of the air had not corrupted their way during 8* 90 THE CnURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. the antediluvian period ; but man having done so, we have here an evidence that the brute creation participated in the consequence of man's sin ; and that because the lord of creation sinned, all his subjects were involved in his ruin. So in Genesis vii. 23, "Every living substance was de- stroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of heaven ; and they were destroyed from the earth." And again in Genesis viii. 21, "And the Lord smelled a sweet savor; and the Lord said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake; for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth ; neither will I again smite any more every thing living as I have done." Now, we find in all these cases of judgment pronounced upon man, the brute creation participating in it. And does not this seem to be the reoccurrence on a smaller scale of what had occurred on a larger scale ? Does it not seem like a repetition in special cases of what had o'ccurred in the universal case ? And if animals, whenever man sinned, are always seen to be involved in the consequences of man's sin, we may see that what took place only in special cases under the providence, and wisdom, and benevolence of God, was only the unspent echo or unfaded image of what had taken place on a larger scale, when man sinned, and all the brute creation shared in his ruin. We see the extent of the curse, in its sweeping the ground of its richest beauty, depriving the air, as chemists have supposed, of some of its most vital and precious constituent elements, making the earth, which once burst into roses when Eve looked upon it, now bear but thistles, and briers, and thorns. The very fact that the earth thus suffered under man's sin involves the suffering of the brutes which lived upon that earth, and were dependent upon it for their nutrition and their food. And when we turn to the eighth chapter of the Epistle to THE CURSE. 91 the Romans, we find the Apostle asserting substantially what >I am now trying to prove. " For the earnest expectation of the creature " (creation) " waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. For creation was made subject to vanity, not willingly," — that is, it was not of its own accord, it was not the wish or act of the dumb brute creation, — " but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope. Because creation itself also shall be deliv- ered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God." And then he says, " For we know that the whole creation," that includes the dumb brute creation, "groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now." So strongly has this been understood, and so universally, to relate to the dumb animals, that some persons believe that brutes will be raised at the last day. Of course, they only guess, they cannot gather this from any clear passage of the word of God. And then he adds, "And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the first-fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body." Now, it does seem to me, that all these passages prove that the brute creation became participants of death, because of man's primal and mother sin. But now the objection comes before us, how do you explain the fact that geologists assert, that death did exist prior to Adam ? The geologist will say, you assert that death is the consequence of sin ; but our discoveries in the subterranean caves of the earth show, written on records perfectly intelligible, that death and havoc existed in the animal creation long prior to the introduction of Adam's sin, the consequences and issues of Adam's fall. In the first place, I observe in reply to this, that geology does not show death to have occurred in a single instance 92 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. amongst the animals created during the first six days of creation as existent prior to Adam. All the animals that perished in those enormous masses seem to have belonged to a different climate, to a different condition of the globe, and to be altogether of a more ancient race than those cre- ated during the six days before the crowning act of man's creation. And in the next place, geology does not discover in the fossihferous strata, as it is termed, which extends six or eight miles downward, a single remain of man ; it is in the highest alluvium only that it does discover his bones : and thus, geology proves demonstrably that man must have been created last ; and the animals created during the six days found immediately below him, must have been created just before him. "What is the amount of the discoveries of geology ? It is this, that death took place among animal races thai existed long prior to the creation of man. And among these races they discover, what I think we cannot deny, that not only did animals die prior to the creation of man, but that they also devoured each other ; because fossil remains have been found with one animal inclosed in the body of another, one crushed in the teeth of another. Thus the destruction of many of the monsters that have been excavated from the depths of the earth, prove that death and havoc had raged together long prior to the present configuration of our globe, and therefore long prior to the sentence pronounced upon Adam, " Thou shalt surely die." Still, after all this, I stand by the proposition in the w^ord of God, that death is the consequence of sin. And to show how strongly this proposition is asserted, I turn to Romans V. 12, where the Apostle says, in language that cannot be mistaken, " By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin ; and so death passed upon all men, for that all THE CURSE. 93 have sinned." If we turn to 1 Corinthians xv. 22, we shall find these expressions : " As in Adam all die," — that plainly is the death of the body, since he is speaking of its resur- rection, — " even so in Christ shall all be made alive." In the twenty-sixth verse, " The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death," that is, the death of the body. Then the fifty-fourth verse, "When this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written," that is, at the last day, " Death " — he is speak- ing of the resurrection of the body, and therefore he means physical death — " is swallowed up in victory." I appeal to every honest reader of the Bible, if his very first impres- sion has not been that death is the wages of sin. Since we discover the great fact, that death is the effect of sin, and secondly, the other fact, that death existed before Adam's sin was committed, how do we reconcile the latter discovery with revelation ? I answer, we have evidence in the word of God, as well as in the world of God, that sin existed before Adam's sin. We read of angels that revolted against God, of " angels which kept not their first estate," and are now plunged into everlasting darkness. We thus discover a great fact, that sin existed somewhere prior to the creation of man. Is it therefore improbable — I submit the thought for study — is it improbable that this earth was the habitation of angels in a long prior, and, it may be, still more glorious state ? May it not be that the havoc and disorganization which geologists discover as occurrences in distant ages, are the wrecks of an angel Paradise existing long prior to the garden of Eden and the creation of man ? I do not say that it is so. I throw out the conjecture for study. It is not written, it is merely guessed. Angels fell, and they committed sin, a greater sin than Adam and Eve. Who knows the height and depth and extent to which this 94 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. sin of theirs may have gone ^ Who knows what havoc it may have brought upon creation all around them, how high toward heaven it may have reached, how deep toward earth's centre it may have shot? Who knows but that those subterranean traces of ruin, of disorganization, and of death, may not be the issues of angels' sin long prior to Adam's creation, and that the havoc and death that we see now is only the transference, not the first application, of a sentence, executed millions of years before, to a new dynasty introduced in new circumstances, and of which Adam was the federal head, who sinned and brought upon his race what angels brought upon theirs, — death, with all its misery, and all its woe. If this be the case, then the sentence of death pronounced upon Adam was not the crea- tion of a new law, but the application of an old one ; it was not the occurrence of a first fact, but the repetition of a long prior existent fact. This, too, would explain how Adam and Eve should know what w^as meant by dying before they had sinned, and how they should know what evil was when they were only personally conscious of good. We may therefore con- clude that the sentence, " In the day thou sinnest thou shalt die," was not the creation of a new penalty that never had been attached to sin before, but that it w^as only the decla- ration of an old one ; and that it was not the occurrence of a new fact that never had transpired in the history of the universe before, but the repetition of a fact that had pre- viously occurred in the case of angels. Jude speaks of " the angels -which kept not their first estate," — (rtjv iavtoiv OiQxnv,) "their first state of dignity." Where was their first state ? We are not told, but it seems probable that it was on this globe in its first existence ; and so it seems that what geologists have discovered as the traces of ancient ruin were introduced by the previous tenantry, and that we THE CURSE. ^ 9i entered on a refurnished, not a new house. And thus this Scripture is illustrated in the subterranean caves and sepul- chral depths of the earth, as in every home and churchyard of our present economy — " The wages of sin is death," and therefore that death had not been, if sin had not been pre- viously committed. So much then for the attempt to recon- cile what seems at first sight to be irreconcilable. But there is another difficulty. Physiologists and anato- mists say. Why then do we not find animals now as when they were first created ? For instance, if we see a lion, we can at once perceive from his peculiar teeth, and visceral organization, that he is made to tear, to devour, and to live upon animal food. And any man can see, from the visceral organization of an ox, that he is meant to feed upon grass. And man is so constructed, that it is plain from a study of his visceral organization, that he is meant to live upon animal food, or vegetable food, or both together. Then the question is asked. If death were introduced by sin, how does it happen that animals were constructed as we now find them ? If not originally so made, how do you explain the change ? Do you think the naturalists will believe that after man sinned carnivorous teeth came where grami- nivorous teeth were before, or that the whole visceral organization of the brute creation was radically altered? I believe that the lion and tiger were created, just as we find them, as far as relates to their physical organization ; but I believe that they were so made because of God's sure and certain anticipation of what would occur — the sin of man, the fall of the world, and the necessity of creatures being adapted to a world altered because a world fallen. He made them, in anticipation of that, just as we now find them. We cannot say how long Adam retained his inno- cence. We cannot say what opportunity was given for the exhibition of these animals' propensities. But we know 96 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. that a great deal of God's existing constitution of the world is anticipatory. The atonement, for instance, was a primal fact ; it was not an after devised remedy for an untoward and unexpected disease, but it was set forth and arranged and spoken from the depths of eternity. I cannot explain why sin was permitted, or why man should be responsible, since the atonement, and of necessity the fall, were to be ; nor can I explain many other things in God's creation. But I think it is in perfect harmony with many other analogies that God should have made carnivorous animals by an anticipative fiat, where he foresaw there would inevitably be death and ruin. That all would have been peace if sin had not intruded, our Lord's miracles seem to me to prove. They show what creation was before man fell, and what it would have continued if man had never fallen, by giving instalments of what it will be when the regenesis comes, and all things are rectified and restored again. His miracles were not merely feats of power, but they were essentially redemptive. When he healed the sick,* when he opened the eyes of the blind, , and restored hearing to the deaf; when he expelled the demons, when he raised the dead, when he restored broken relation- ships — in all these facts he not only showed power, but he showed also that the hand of the great restorer was touch ing creation's jarring strings, bringing them back to their ancient and primeval harmony, thereby showing to man what nature once was, and what nature shall again be, when he shall come, as he promised, and restore all things. I gather in the word of God these indications or proofs of what I have now stated, and I see no reason arising from geological discoveries, for departing from the old conviction, so universally cherished, and, I think, so justly, that death is the fruit of sin, and that wherever death's foot print is, there sin's stain has previously been. THE CURSE. 97 No one looking at man as lie now is, would come to the conclusion that he was made just as we find him. We cannot believe that man was made originally to die ; there is nothing in the constitution of his body to indicate this as a primal law. On the other hand, medical men and physi- ologists have said, that if a stranger could come from another orb and examine the human body in full life, he would pronounce it a perpetual motion ; that its machinery must go on for ever. There is no ultimate physical reason in the world, why, when man comes to fifty or sixty years of age, the crows' feet, as they are called, should appear at each eye, and whiteness glisten from his hair, and infirmity, weakness, feebleness, decay, seize every limb. Such a change is explicable on other grounds than physical organi- zation; it is only explained by the judicial sentence, "In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." It is also worthy of remark, that facts lead to the presumption that after the Fall man did not die so soon as we do ; for we shall read that the patriarchs lived, some seven hundred, some nine hundred, and some even a thousand years. It is worthy of notice that the sentence of death took effect by degrees, and after the flood only do we find man's life shortened to a period approaching its present length, the last time that it was shortened ; when the duration of human life was reduced to one hundred and twenty years. Such, I believe, is the natural period of human life. There is no fiat of God shortening human life since that ; and there is no passage in the word of God that will warrant the conclusion that the liijiit of man's natural life should be seventy years of age." I know that some persons will ask. Have you not read the 90th Psalm, " The days of our years are threescore years and ten ; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labor and sorrow?" But recollect when that 9 98 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. Psalm was written, and by whom. In the first place, it was written by a man who lived to a hundred and twenty, and therefore this could not describe himself. And in the next place it proves, not confutes, my position ; for Moses says, " Instead of our years, in this wilderness condition, being what they have been, they are reduced to threescore years and ten, and if we should stand the wear and tear of this condition and reach eighty, we find it labor and sorrow." This is a complaint that their years were -so few, and that complaint embosoms the conclusion that properly and in better circumstances they were much longer. And as Moses, who wrote that Psalm, lived to a hundred and twenty years, I am still of opinion that if men were more temperate, and more attentive to sanitary laws, humanly speaking, a hundred and twenty would be their present age. If men were more temperate, more attentive to their sanitary condition, if they would believe that their air is of more importance than their food, and that temperance and moderation are the obligations that Christianity pre- scribes and prudence and experience suggest, they would live to a greater age, in all probability, than they do now. Much, however, of the shortness of life is just in conse- quence of the sin of man, and it is only the rebound of the ancient sentence, "In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." In proportion as Christianity attains its ascendency in the heart of man, and its influence over all the habits of man ; in proportion as the precepts of Apostles are transferred to the practice of daily life, man in some degree overcomes the state into which the primal sin has plunged him, and approximates to that glorious and ultimate state in which, when Christ shall come and restore lost paradise to rejoicing man, all things shall be. I cannot in this address enter upon the moral effects of man's sin. I will reserve that, with the great remedy, for THE CURSE. 99 my next. Let us learn, then, to look upon sin as essential evil ; let us explain the sad and sorrowful experience of man, not by blaming God, but by blaming ourselves. Whence sin came, why sin was permitted, I cannot explain. All I gather from the Bible is, that nowdiere is it said that God made it. He made the sky, the sea, and he made the dry land ; he made the hills, and the great deeps ; he made the leviathan of Job, tlip crocodile of the Nile, the insect that flutters in the sunbeam, and the ephemera that dies in a day ; but I do not find that he made sin. And whatever sin has done is not God's doing ; and wherever its responsi- bility lies, it rests not with him. O glorious grace, then, O transcendent love, that when man had committed suicide, God, who had no hand in the suicide, has mercifully inter- posed himself, and his hand alone has provided, out of our death, life ; out of our ruin, restoration ; through the pre- cious blood and the glorious sacrifice of Him who is the way, the truth, and, what poor Eve only was in type, the life, and the source of all living. CHAPTER V.l. REDEMPTION. " Eedemption ! 't was creation made sublime. Redemption! 't was the labolf of tlie skies: Far more than labor, it was death in heaven. A truth so strange, 't were bold to think it true If not far bolder still to disbeUeve." *^ And the Lord God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field : upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life : and I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed : it shall bruise thy head, and tliou shalt bruise his heel. Unto the woman he said, I will gi'eatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception ; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth chil- dren : and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee. And unto Adam he said. Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy Avife, and hast eaten of the tree of which' I com- manded thee, saying. Thou shalt not eat of it; cursed is the ground for thy sake: in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life: thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee ; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground : for out of it wast thou taken : for dust thou art^ and unto dust shalt thou retm*n. And Adam called his wife^s name Eve; because she was the mother of all living. Unto Adam, and to his wife, did the Lord God make coats of skins, and clothed them. And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil : and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever: there- fore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he Avas taken. So he drove out the man : and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden chcrubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of hfe." — Gen. iii. 14-24. In the former chapter I stated that we have here the record of the curse pronounced in the case of disobedience REDEMPTION. 101 actually executed upon the offending and guilty pair. I endeavored to show to what extent the sweep of that curse has ranged, and in what respects its operation is actual now among us. I statecj my belief that death, whether in the material body of man, or in the animal creation, is the result of sin. I tried to meet the difficulty which geologists have brought forward, that death has been discovered prior to the last configuration of this world, or the work of the six days, and the creation of man; and therefore, they argue, death cannot be the result of sin. I showed that, whether it can be proved or not that death, as existent prior to the creation of man, w^as the result of his sin, we can prove that sin existed long before the six days' work and the creation of man ; for Jude tells us, what other portions of Scripture confirm, that angels first introduced sin by breaking their allegiance to God. Thus the wreck and ruin traced by geology in the subterranean chambers of the earth, confessedly thousands of years older than the Mosaic record, may be the fruits and the effects of that great first sin introduced by the fallen angels into the universe long before Adam and Eve were created. But, whether this be true or not, the fact that animals now die, I showed, was in consequence of man's sin. I quoted instances where the sin of man is stated by the historical record to have been visited on the brute creation ; and I showed clear and une- quivocal testimonies of Scripture, that man's death — the death of his body — is the result of man's sin. "As in Adam," says the Apostle, " all die," — he is speaking of the resurrection of the body, — " even so in Christ shall all be made alive ; " that is, all — good and bad — shall be raised at the last day. We have, therefore, clear proof, I think, that wherever death is, whether in the chambers that geology has excavated, or on the platform of the world which we now see, wherever it is, that it is the fruit of sin. 9* 102 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. And, therefore, I do not believe that man or the brute crea- tion was meant to die. It is very well to say. How could the world contain them ? it is easy to raise a thousand diffi- culties : it is still the plain fact, that seems to run through the Scriptures, that death is the fruit of sin. And there- fore, when God said, " In the day thou eat est thereof thou shalt surely die," it was not the creation of a new penalty, but the application of a penalty thjlt had been applied long, long, long before. There are also other fruits of sin ; "^i will greatly multi- ply thy sorrow and thy conception ; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children." I need not comment upon these w^ords. It has its echo in the experience of suffering wo- maphood. Every mother is my witness. "And thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee." Just where Christianity is unknown, there the lordship of the husband hardens into tyranny; and only in proportion as restorative religion, that is, Christianity, is felt, there the lordship of the husband softens into love. I do not think we can have a stronger proof of the fulfilment of this curse than in China, in Hindostan, in Turkey. We cannot have a clearer evidence that the curse has been so far averted or reversed in Christian countries, where woman is raised to her proper platform, and made the companion, the friend, and the help meet for man, not his drudge, his servant, or his plaything. It is also added, that "the ground is cursed for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life ; thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee ; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field ; in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread." Who does not feel this ? This sorrow and sweat of face is not peculiar to the agricultural interest ; it is as distinctive of the commercial interest. If the farmer must water the earth with his tears, and fertilize its blasted KEDEMPTION. 103 soil with the sweat of his brow ; the merchantman, the tradesman, has to undergo the same fatigue, and to feel the same exhaustion, only in another sphere. And as to thos6 who are called the ynproductive portions of the human race, or those who are supposed not to be the working classes, that is, lawyers, physicians, and clergymen, and such like, I suspect they feel the curse as truly as others. I believe myself to be a working man, only I use the brain instead, of the hand ; and whether the pen prepare sermons, or write books, or run up ledgers, there is the same attendant fatigue. And thus the great law is felt from the queen upon the throne down to the meanest of her subjects ; for of all aching heads, that head often aches most that wears a crown. As Shakspeare says, " Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown." " In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground ; for out of it wast thou taken : for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." Let us now briefly allude to the moral part of the curse,- but especially and more fully to the grand remedy ; that which was preached to meet it. It is said, that when man fell their eyes were opened. Of course, morally and physically they saw before. Mor- ally, they saw truth in all its beauty; physically, they beheld Paradise in all its glory. But the expression that is here used, " The eyes of them both were opened," evidently means that they saw what they never expected to see, and felt within them what they never dreamt of feeling. They saw a blot descend upon the earth, barrenness upon all the parts that were most productive ; cold and storm, disturb- ance, disorganization, where all was beauty, harmony, and peace before. And they felt, I have not the least doubt, within them a new and disturbing element, which they could 104 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. not understand — that sensation which we know, and which we have all felt, called remorse, or the feeling that succeeds THE RAINBOW. 251 true that Christ died for our sins. The Bible, therefore, is not what makes it true, but it is that blessed book that records what is true, and has been previously accomplished, and never in its facts and its issues can pass away. As long, therefore, as the pages of the Bible are legible to. us, so long as we hear from the pulpit, or can read these truths as they gleam from the sacred page, we have the sign, the memo- rial, the token of God's covenant with us in Christ Jesus, that there is no condemnation to them that are in him, that justified by faith we have peace with God through Jesus Christ our Lord. The Bible therefore is the confirmatory sign that it is so ; it is not for God's sake, but for ours — not because he needs it, but because our sense of safety demands it ; and the result of having such a document as the Bible still lasting, is not that our safety is thereby made more perfect, but that our sense of that safety is thereby more deeply impressed. And so with the Lord's supper — as long as a communion table is spread on earth, we have a sign of the covenant before us ; and it has been spread from generation to generation, and will be spread from generation to generation, still testifying to man, that Christ our passover is^ sacrificed for us, and there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. It may be said. If we have the word of God in any shape, what is the use of a sign ? I answer, scepticism would do without any sign, or sacrament, or symbol — superstition would make a god of it and wor- ship it — enlightened Christianity looks at the sign, but passes through the sign and rests upon the substance — Christ, and him crucified. This covenant of which the rainbow was the sign, was made with Noah irrespective of any worthiness m him. It is a most touching statement on the part of God, " I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake ; though the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth ; " and 252 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. ^ therefore the statement implies that this covenant was made with Noah, not because there was any excellence that he obtained from man's nature, but in spite of the accumulating demerits that were still crowded into man's conduct. Even so, that covenant made with us in Christ is not the conse- quence of any excellence in us, but, on the contrary, it is in spite of the errors, demerits, and sins that are in us. It is to man as a sinner and in spite of his sins that the gospel comes, — that salvation is made, — that a full, free, com- plete pardon is sealed and signed and made over to him. In other words, " we are saved by grace," is as old as the days of Noah. It is not a mere theological dogma .ibr divines to quarrel about, but it is a great, all-pervading, and precious reality ; saved in spite of our sins ; saved not be- cause of our virtues, but in the face of all we merited, and in the face and in spite of all that we have demerited — " God so loved us that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him might not perish, but have eternal life." Therefore when we apply to that God for pardon, when with the voice of prayer we draw near to his footstool, may we recollect that our sense of sin is not to deter us from going with boldness to him, who has promised to forgive it. He admits and contemplates the element of our sins in all his provisions and arrangements ; his is not a dispensation to men who have no sins, but a dispensation of mercy to men who are stained and polluted by sin, in spite of and notwithstanding their manifold and innumerable sins. " We are saved by grace," means that we are saved in spite of what we are. There is not a flower that will bloom in Paradise regained ; there is not an excellency or glory that will adorn that city that hath foundations ; there is not a joji into which we shall enter, or which will enter into us, which we shall be able to count as gained by us, purchased by us, or worked for by us in any shape. " By works " is THE RAINBOW. 253 the way to everlasting ruin, and many there are who go thus ; by grace is the way to everlasting glory, and, alas, in the existing generation it is still the few that find it. "After that the loving-kindness of God our Saviour to man ap- peared, not by works of righteousness that we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost." Let me notice another peculiarity in this covenant of which this rainbow is the token, — that the covenant made with Noah was as immutable and permanent as the sign that God hung up in the sky in order to mark it. Some- Avhere about 4,000 years have elapsed since the Deluge; the bow still spreads itself on the bosom of the clouds, and no second deluge has overflowed the earth. Seed-time appears, harvest-home is still celebrated ; and thus we see the truth and the immutability of the covenant and the covenant memorial of God. And that better covenant that he has made with us is an everlasting covenant, in all things well ordered and sure, confirmed by his word and his oath, that by two immutable things we might have strong hope. God gives a word and an oath — not because it is necessary to him, but in condescension to the weakness of man. The whole economy of the gospel is not a system of types, sacri- fices, shadows, ceremonies, oaths, and promises, because God needed them ; but they are expressions and proofs of con- descending kindness on God's part, trying by every possible moral persuasion to convince us that he longs and loves to save us and to make us happy, as he now makes us holy, for ever and ever. The inherent suspicion in the natural man's heart is, that God lies in wait to destroy him. The first triumphant result of grace in man's heart is, the conviction that God delights to bless and make him happy. I could easily convince all the population of London that God is watching for their destruction like a tiger watching for his 22 254 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. prey — that would be easy enough ; but the great difficulty to overcome, f«r which types are suspended in the sky, sacraments continued upon earth, promises and oaths are echoing in the sacred volume, is to persuade men that God has no pleasure in the death of a sinner, that he dehghts in mercy — that he longs to save — that he loves, not hates — would make happy — not make miserable. God's everlast- ing covenant is in all things ordered and sure — confirmed by an oath and a promise. And to this covenant he beauti- fully alludes when he says, " In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment, but with everlasting kindness " — contrasting the little wrath with everlasting kindness — " will I have mercy on thee, saith the Lord thy Redeemer. For this is as the waters of Noah unto me ; for as I have sworn that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth, so have I sworn that I would not be wroth with thee, nor rebuke thee. For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed," — as if it were by another deluge, or rather by the outbursting of that elemental fire which is the world's second baptism, — " but my kindness shall not de- part from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee." And regarding us as still in the ark, and still upon the floods, he says, " Oh thou afflicted, tossed with tempest and not com- forted, behold, I will lay thy stones with fair colors, and lay thy foundations with sapphires. And I will make thy win- dows of agates." I stated the Rabbinical tradition, that the ark had one window, as the Bible states, but that that win- dow was one vast precious stone, and that stone an agate. "And thy gates of carbuncles, and all thy borders of pleas- ant stones. And all thy children shall be taught of the Lord ; and great shall be the peace of thy children." We have as great a warrant in believing this, as Noah ever had in believing that there would not be another Flood. THE RAINBOW. 255 "We have as great warrant in believing God's everlasting kindness and justice and tender mercy, immutable as bis being, as ever Noah had in believing that there should not be a second Flood ; and returning Sabbaths are to us sure and eloquent signs, as the rainbow ever was to Noah that a second Flood should not overflow the earth. Heaven and earth may pass away, but one word shall not pass away till all things be fulfilled. How can we doubt it ? Has any prophecy of the past failed.'^ The sceptic cannot lay a finger on a single prediction that was to take place before now, and show that it has failed ; while the Christian can lay his hands on a thousand that have been fully and glo- riously fulfilled. I have as complete conviction that God's loving-kindness shall not depart from his own, nor God's overshadowing mercy be withdrawn from them, till heaven and earth pass away, as I have, or as Noah ever could have had, that a second Flood shall not overflow the earth. The least promise of God is surer and more lasting than the greatest work of man. Towers may fall, nations pass away, dynasties be overwhelmed, war sweep the wide world with its scourge, and all things that are visible be broken up and shattered and destroyed ; but not one jot shall pass away from God's word, till all shall be fulfilled. What a glorious foundation ! What a happy man should a Christian be ! What reasons for repose amid conflict ! What a foundation for rest amid tilting thrones and fearing populations has a Christian in this, that God is his, and that he is God's, and that Omnipresence watches him, Omnipotence defends him, and love and grace and mercy constantly follow him. If there were no sun, I need not observe, because it must occur to all, there could be no rainbow. It is impossible that rain drops could make a rainbow without light ; if there were no sun in the firmament, there could be no rainbow overspreading the black cloud. And it is no less true, 256 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. if there were no Sun of righteousness, there could be no covenant or covenant memorial ; for as truly as there can be no rainbow in the sky without a sun shining on it, so truly there can be no redemption of a sinner without a Redeemer in the heavens to bestow it. Christ is to redemp- tion what the sun is to the whole solar system, and more — he is not a mere accessary in the system, he is its essence— he is not a mere ornamental detail, but his name is exalted above every name; he is the substance, the pith, and essence of all Christianity. Christianity is Christ unfolded, and Christ is Christianity personated in himself. The whole of Christianity itself, with all its institutions, is merely a medium for conveying the light of this Sun of righteousness to us, and conveying this light in its purest, softest, and most beautiful effects. What are parables, and miracles, and types, and promises, and doctrines, and invita- tions, but the rays of pure light refracted and reflected from earthly objects, that We may look upon them, and the eye not suffer by excess of brightness. The whole facts of Christianity — the manger, the cross, the crown of thorns, the grave, the resurrection — are objects on which the rays of the Sun of righteousness impinge, and from which they are reflected and refracted in all the beautiful colors of the rainbow. God's love is the pure light of heaven ; God's mercy is that light softened and refracted in its transmission through Christ, and reaching sinners — the chiefest of sin- ners. Glory is what no man hath seen nor can see, in which God dwells as in light inaccessible and full of glory ; but grace is glory transmitted through Christ, the medium, and thus subdued it is visible and welcome to us — the first dawn of that day of glory into which we shall soon enter. Thus, without a sun there could be no rainbow, without a Redeemer there could be no redemption, without Christ there is no Christianity, without a Saviour there is no salvation. THE RAINBOW. 257 Not only is tlie sun requisite to constitute that rainbow, but also a dark cloud in the sky, without which no sun shining through the shower drop could possibly make the rainbow visible. If there had been no Fall, there could be no rainbow ; if there had been no dark cloud of sin, there would not have been, because there would have been no necessity for the rainbow, the covenant memorial of mercy visible to mankind; but where sin hath abounded, grace doth much more abound, and what we look upon as the most unlikely, God has made the background from which he throws up in richest splendor his own glory and sove- reignty. Have you not noticed, as you have sometimes gazed into the distant west, how the banks of black clouds that threatened to overshadow the sun in his meridian throne, have sometimes formed themselves into a vermilion and golden couch, on which the king of day seems to retire to rest ; and thus that which threatens to obscure him only making him more glorious as he takes his western exodus. So has it been with man's Fall, that which was meant by Satan and which would seem to tend to hide the glory of the Great King, is overruled by God's great mercy to bring greater glory to himself and to give greater happiness to mankind. And if we wish to see God most glorious, it is as he appears amidst the exhalations of sin, out of evil educing good, out of the Fall evolving a more glorious recovery, where he seems robed with the richest splendor, gathering to himself the brightest glory, when he gathers within his gracious bosom the greatest number of pardoned and forgiven and sanctified sinners. This dispensation has emphatically a rainbow character. What is the rainbow ? I have shown that if there be no sun there can be no rainbow ; and if no black cloud there can be no rainbow. The rainbow is therefore the mixture of both light and darkness. In hell there is darkness 22* 258 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. without light, the black and portentous clouds without one single relieving ray, in other words, without grace. In heaven there is the pure light, the sky without one cloud, the light without one shadow, the pure glory without a particle of guilt. There is no refraction there. But on earth there is the mixture of the two — here there are rolling over us the dark and portentous clouds in which the lightnings sleep and the thunders find their lair for a season ; and when we dread lest the one shall be launched, and the other rush forth on the world, we look 'up and we see athwart the bosom of the blackest cloud the beau- tifully defined rainbow — mercy and truth which have met together, and righteousness and peace which have kissed each other. Heaven is the pure light without any darkness at all ; hell is the dense darkness without any light at all ; in this world the two are in collision — light and darkness, holiness and sin, God and Satan, truth and error ; and over the mingled mass the rainbow. The issue therefore is as certain as the throne, and the fulfilment of the promise of victory, as the pledges that God has so visibly and so graciously given. Thus, as you see the rainbow span the sky, you may think of that first rainbow, made the covenant memorial to Noah, that girded Ararat, and attested that God's promise, that there should be no second Flood, will hold good. But you may also pass from viewing the sign of this covenant to look at another. In the book of Revelation there is described a rainbow about the throne — the continuity of the two covenants being thus set forth. And whenever, therefore, you see that rainbow in the sky, you see there a pledge of God's loving-kindness, a memorial of his inex- haustible mercy, that carries you back to what he said at the beginning, and that carries you forward to what he will certainly fulfil, when time shall close and eternity begin its grand and endless march. THE RAINBOW. 259 Every time we approach the communion table, we cast our eyes upon the sign of that which is to be our everlasting covenant, what the rainbow was to the covenant made with Noah. God did not then create the rainbow, but conse- crated it to be the symbol of a great truth. So, Jesus did not then create the bread and wine, but he took them, already existent, and consecrated them to be the symbols of a grand and blessed truth. I fear the expression sometimes applied at a communion table, that the minister consecrates the bread and wine, is a remnant of a superstition which is fast passing away. Jesus consecrated that bread and wine once for all, when he instituted the supper, just as he died once for all, when he expired upon the cross ; and all that the minister does at that table, or rather, all that the com- municants do at that table — for he is merely the president of the brethren there, not a priest in any form or shape whatever — is to pray, not that the elements may be changed, but that our faith may be strengthened, our love deepened, our devotedness increased, and our course like the shining light that shineth more and more unto the perfect day. And just as the rainbow reminded Noah, not only of what was passed, but also of the nature of the age that was to come, so the Lord's supper is to be to us, not simply a memorial of a past transaction, but a pledge also of a future joy. It is not simply retrospective ; it is also prospective. The Lord's supper is not simply a feast for faith to feed upon, but a spot in her ascent for hope to rest upon. It is not only, " Do this in remembrance of me," but substantially also, as indicated in 1 Cor. xi. 26, " Do this in remembrance of me till I come.''^ And some critics think, " Do this in remembrance of me," might be justly translated, " Do this and put me in mind." Just as the token of the bow in the cloud was appointed for God to look upon, and thus to be put in mind of his covenant with Noah and all flesh ; so, 260 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. too, the Lord's supper puts God in mind of his covenant with his own, as it overarches with its holy span the past and the future, unites a Saviour who came to suffer with a Saviour who will come to reign. Like the beautiful rain- bow itself, the Lord's supper rests upon the cross, and reminds us that Christ our passover was slain for us; it then vaults into the sky, sweeps across the ages as they roll, and rests the other limb of its arch upon the diadem of Jesus; and thus connecting the past and the future, the sacrifice with its humiliation, and the crown with its- glory, it reminds us of him by whose ransom we are redeemed, of him who comes the second time without sin unto salvation to them that look for him. And now, just as the rainbow was not the substance of the covenant, but the sign of it, so the Lord's supper is not the substance of our sacrifice, but the sign of it. The rain- bow was not the covenant established with Noah, though it is called so, but the sign of it. The bread and wine are not the body and blood of Christ, though they are called so, but the signs of them. Noah looked through the sign, and saw the sign giver behind it ; we look through the symbol, and see the great sacrifice above, behind, and before it. And when Noah looked upon the bow in the cloud, do you think he did so with dismay, and dread, and terror ? Just the very reverse — the very end of the bow was to assure Noah, to make him happy, and to increase his confi- dence. And the very end of the Lord's supper is to pro- duce the same effects on us. We may look, as Christians, upon the supper of the Lord, just as Noah looked upon the rainbow in the sky. He looked upon the cloud that was behind it, in which the thun- der slept and the lightnings crouched, but the bow was to him the proof that they could not touch him. So, God's wrath is still revealed against all sin, and the law still thun- THE EAINBOW. 261 ders and lightens upon Mount Sinai; but between Sinai and us is the communion table, which is to us the sign that these fiery judgments cannot touch us. And therefore believers come to that table, not as crouching slaves to a tyrannical master, who is ready and waiting to scourge them ; not as foes trembling to the presence of a terrible king, who is ready and waiting to destroy them ; but as chil- dren to a father, as the ransomed to a Redeemer ; and feel- ing that if there be one festival in the year, it is a com- munion Sabbath ; and that if there ought to be a bounding heart on any Sunday, it is on that day when we celebrate the love that suffered for us, and look upon the symbol that tells us that the wrath, like the waters of the Deluge, has passed away, and that a new and joyous sunshine gilds the valley where we are sojourners, and sprinkles the everlast- ing hills with its first beams, beyond which our home, and our heart, and our treasure are. CHAPTER XV. THE THREE FOREFATHERS. " What havoc hast thou made, foul monster, sin! Greatest and first of ills ! The fruitful parent Of woes of all dimensions ! But for thee Sorrow and slavery had never been." "And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him. And he said, Cursed he Canaan; a servant of ser- vants shall he be unto his brethren. And he said, Blessed he the Lord God of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant. God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem ; and Canaan shall be his servant.'; — Gen. ix. 24-27. NoAH planted a vineyard ; discovered that fermentation could produce alcohol ; drank of it, and became intoxicated. There can be no doubt from this, that ancient wine, as ancient as the Flood, was alcoholic. It is impossible to escape this conclusion. The assertion of those who contend that ancient wine had no alcohol in it, is not borne out by Scripture. Noah was not condemned for planting his vine- yard, nor for fermenting his wine, nor was he guilty in that he drank wine; his guilt lay in drinking to excess. No judgment or censure is pronounced upon Noah for touching wine, but for the excess in which he indulged, some say incautiously, but that I doubt : I believe he drank crimi- nally ; and therefore sinned in the sight of God. He awoke from this excessive stupor, produced by the drinking of that which he ought to have used in moderation, and he dis- covered that he had been made the merriment of one of his THE THREE FOREFATHERS. 263 children about him, and pronounced the words prefixed to this chapter. We have here the three great parents of the whole human family, Shem, and Ham, or Canaan, and Japheth. These are the three great springs of the human race, whose aboriginal distinctions are more or less perpetuated to this day; so universally and so deeply is the original impress struck on the three great families that form the earth's population, that we can still easily distinguish them by certain sharp characteristics; the three races are the Asiatic, the African, and the European. Subdivisions there unquestionably are ; modifications of caste, complexion, and feature, unquestionably there are ; but still, these three families are to this moment distinct. The American, I need not tell you, is not a distinct family, but an offshoot of the great European family, or the descendants of Japheth, one of the three grey fathers and founders of the human race. It needs very little physiological learning to teach us, that the whole human race has a common origin. There are moral as well as material proofs. We have identity of sorrows and joy ; identity of health and sick- ness; identity of fears and peace; identity of life, and identity of death, to teach us unmistakably that the black skin and the white skin, however much they differ as to outward aspect, cover one common flesh and blood, and belong to one family ; and are but the varying characteris- tics of the great race of mankind. These three, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, the founders of the human race, met together in the ark, emerged from that ark on the sides of Ararat, and went forth from the mountain range to spread the human family from it to the very ends of the habitable globe ; the human race, in its founders, met once all together under one roof, and around one altar, and beneath the overshadowing wings of one 264 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. Father ; and were upheld and guided together as one crew on the stormy waves to a momentary rest on Ararat. Blessed be God, it is not the last time they shall meet — they shall meet again, emerging from a more awful catastro- phe, in a yet more glorious ark, to take possession of a yet more magnificent Ararat — to enter upon a more lasting home ; out of which all cares shall be banished ; into which all blessings shall flow ; and from which we shall never go forth exiles and strangers, like Shem, and Ham, and Japheth, to fertilize the soil with the sweat of -our brow, and to water the earth with fast flowing tears ; for then there will be no more sorrow, nor tears, nor sighing, nor crying, but all former things shall have passed away. Noah sinned, and yet his sin, whilst it was his guilt, was overruled of God to be the occasion and the proof of a great and important fact. It is this — the Flood that washed away a vast population from the surface of the earth, did not wasli out sin from the depths of the human heart. God said, before he let loose that dread judgment, " Every imagination of the thoughts of man's heart is only evil continually ; " and God said, after that judgment had done its mission, "I will not again curse the ground for man's sake, though the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth." We are told by St. Peter, that the Flood was to the antediluvians what baptism is to us ; and now, as that Flood only cleansed the outer surface of the earth, but did not cleanse the inner thoughts of the heart, so baptism — for the parallelism is complete — cleanses the outer flesh, but it does not purify the inner heart. Noah emerged from the Flood a sinner; Ham stepped forth from the ark a sinner ; and does it need any argument of mine to persuade any, that an unregenerate man baptized in the most canoni- cal way, and by a priestly hand, according to the most exact ritual, under the most plausible circumstances, emerges from THE THREE FOREFATHERS. 265 the waters in which he has been bathed, or from the sprink- ling to which he has been subjected, just as he was before ? giving proof that as the Flood could not make Paradise again overspread the earth with its glory, and thus antici- pate millennial scenes, so ecclesiastical baptism cannot do for man that which is the prerogative and function of the Holy Spirit alone — regenerate, and sanctify, and save the soul. This sin of Noah teaches another fact. It was overruled by God to show that Noah was not, as it were, a second Adam, by whom and in whom the great experiment of humanity was to be attempted again. He was not the proof that God was starting with a new plan, or a new foundation. The fact that he sinned is the evidence that he was made, or born rather, in the image of Adam, and inherited Adam's sin and Adam's alienation from God. All that was sinful in Noah, was from Adam ; all that was holy, beautiful, and true, we are told in a previous chapter, was by grace. We learn, too, the inveteracy of man's guilt, from the fact that ages did not wipe it away, that penalties did not destroy it, that all schemes and plans ever since have all failed to alter it. The whole vessel of humanity is flawed, and marred, and tainted ; and the more we know poor fallen m^n, the more abased w^ must feel. There is much in man to pity, much to deplore, much to pray for ; but it is not our part to set ourselves in conscious and sceptical conceit upon the judgment throne, and fulminate anathemas, and pronounce condemnation, where it becomes us to bow the knee at the throne of grace, and to pray that the God who made would remake and regenerate mankind. The more immediate subject of these reflections is the sentence of Noah. Shall I call it the curse ? I will rather call it the prediction pronounced by Noah, and fulfilled, as 23 266 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. facts demonstrate, in the case of all the offspring of Shem, and Ham, and Japheth. Shem's excellence was not the cause of Shem's blessing ; Ham's sin was not the cause of Ham's judgment. It is quite possible to be the occasion of a thing, and yet not to be the cause of that thing. The prediction uttered by Noah was not the ebullition of private passion, but the expression of God's everlasting and immu- table purpose. If I were to be injured by a person, and instantly to retaliate in bitter anathemas, it would be sin and revenge, which ought not to be. But when a inainister of God, inspired as Noah was, becomes the organ of a prophecy of God, the evidence that he did not express his own private feelings, but was the medium of God's purpose, is found in the fact, that what he prophesied has been literally fulfilled. If this had been personal spite, would God, by the fulfilment of it, have sanctioned it? Surely not. Noah did not give vent to an angry curse, because Ham had sinned; or break forth into a great blessing, because Shem had done good ; but he became on this occa- sion the organ, and no more, of prophecy ; the instrument, and po more, of a blessing pronounced upon the one, and of an awful and a solemn judgment inflicted upon the other. This promise was *not so much a personal infliction, meant to light on persons, but a family or a national thing, meant to brand or to beautify great sections of the human race. It was not Canaan personal that he cursed ; it was not Shem personal that he blessed ; but their descendants. Thus, when we read in the Scripture, " Esau have I hated, Jacob have I loved," we see it was not the individual Esau and the individual Jacob that is spoken of, but the family or the state of which they were the founders and the great forefathers. Even so this great curse or punishment here denounced by Noah, lighted on a race. THE THREE FOREFATHERS. 267 But it is the characteristic of all great judgments, that they are transmitted only when the son imitates the de- pravity of the father, and becomes the conductor of the curse that was pronounced upon the family ; but the instant that the son or the descendant dissents from the family in its corrupt features, and develops new and happier ones, the transmissitm of the curse is arrested, and the individual who is the exception in the family becomes an inheritor of the blessing. An evidence of this is found in the fact that Melchisedec was a descendant of Canaan and of Ham, yet Melchisedec was king of righteousness and king of peace, blessed of God, and a type of the great Messiah. Abime- lecli was a descendant of Ham or of Canaan, as we find in the 20th chapter of Genesis ; yet we read of him that the integrity of his heart in the sight of God was great, and was recognized and blest of God. Thus we find, that though the curse be denounced upon a family, because of some first founder's sin, as soon as a member of that family emerges by purity of character, by loftiness of purpose, by regenera- tion of heart, from the circle in which the rest are, as far as he is concerned the curse is arrested in its transmission, and he becomes an inheritor of the blessing which was pro- nounced upon Shem. Thus, the judgment of Noah was rather a prophecy relating to a race, j;han a curse or a bless- ing pronounced upon individuals. The difference between the two is very marked — a prophecy is what we know will be ; a curse or a blessing is what we wish to be. What we know will be is one thing, what we wish to be is a very dis- tinct and a very different thing. A bad man wishes ill. to the human race ; a prophet predicts judgments upon the guilty. Here we have Noah not imprecating a curse to be, but predicting a grand and distinctive condition, domestic, social, and national, that should ultimately be, and has really been. In the very next passage of Genesis, we read of the 268 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. divisions of the family of Canaan, of Sliem, and Japheth ; the sons of Japheth divided the isles around the Mediterra- nean Sea, including the European nations ; the dwellings of Shem were all towards the East, or Asia ; the descendants of Ham occupied Africa, and the western parts of Asia, Sidon being their border. Kot only does the prophet de- termine the details of the possessions of the children of Shem, and of Ham, and of Japheth, but he predicts that the descendants of Shem, or Israel, shall have the descend- ants of Canaan, or his father Ham, for slaves or bondmen. If we take a chart, and trace on it the history of' nations, we shall find that the curse denounced upon the family of Ham or Canaan, has been literally and strictly fulfilled. For instance, the Canaanites, as their name testifies, who occupied Canaan before the children of Israel took posses- sion of it, were driven, some from their land, and others were made bondsmen and slaves to Israel. At a subsequent era, in the days of David, the descendants of Ham, or the Canaanites, were swept completely from the land of Canaan. They afterwards settled in Africa ; and subsequently they became part and parcel of the Roman empire ; and in later times we all know that the descendants of Ham, or the Africans, have been more or less the slaves and the bonds- men of the descendants of Japheth. Let anybody read the history of Africa — I am not justifying what is there done, but citing fact — has it not been the nursery of slaves for the nations of Asia and of Europe ? And to this day one petty prince in Africa goes to war with another, and the trophies of the conqueror are slaves for the markets of Asia and of America. Slavery is at this moment, notwith- standing the noble sacrifices we have made, as a country, to suppress it, as flourishing and as wide spread as ever it was in the history of unhappy Africa — in fact, efforts to arrest it have strangely acted in spreading and supporting it ; and THE THREE FOREFATHERS. 269 yet it is nothing in the African that makes him essentially a slave. People fancy, that because the African's skull is not rounded so beautifully as ours, that therefore the African's brain is altogether inferior to ours, and his nature very different. Are you aware that the magnificent Christian writer Augustine was an African, it may be a Canaanite? Are you aware that Hannibal, who shook imperial Rome, and made the Caesars tremble on their thrones, was an Afri- am, probably as black as a negro, a descendant of Ham, not from Japheth ? And were it not that there is a mysterious judgment resting on the race, that we cannot remove, and that they seem yet unable to overcome, the African, as susceptible of education as we are, would be as signalized by his litera- ture, his skill in war, his success in diplomacy, as any of the descendants of Japheth, or of Shem. At the same time it is worthy of remark, that the very curse of Africa is likely to be the medium of its chiefest blessing ; for slavery, which w^e so deeply deprecate and deplore, is really overruled by God at this moment, to be the means of the Christianiza- tion of that country. How often have we tried to ascend the rivers of Africa, and seen our travellers perish midway by the malaria or poisonous air of the climate ! And how often have our missionaries travelled in that land, and left their graves the only evidence that they were there ! But now the slaves of America are coming into contact with the Christianity of America, and with the Christianity of other nations of the earth ; so that at this moment, evil as it is, slavery is overruled to originate black Christian missiona- ries, to whom the climate offers no obstruction ; and who love their countrymen, and go forth to do them good ; and thus that which has stained the hands of Europeans with infamy and sin, will be overruled by the God of all grace, to be the enlightenment, and the elevation of a country long sunk in darkness and in the shadow of death. The pre- 23* 270 THE CIIUKCn BEFORE THE FLOOD. diction, that the sons of Canaan shall be bondsmen of bondsmen, is expressive of the worst slavery that can be conceived; whenever the Hebrew writers wish to express their sentiments very strongly, they redouble the word and speak thus, " King of kings," which means a very great king ; so " Lord of lords ; " and in this case, " Bondsmen of bondsmen," denotes the greatest slavery that man can be subjected to. We do not wish to state that this ancient prophecy, which was uttered in the neighborhood of Ararat four thousand years ago, and which is fulfilling, afid being fulfilled at the present moment, defying all efforts to diminish it or to avert it, sanctions our support of slavery in the slightest manner ; man wa,3 never meant to be the property of man, but to be the possession and the prop^erty of God only. We are not to take God's prophecy, and go forth and do what our consciences tell us is sin, in order, as we allege, to sanctify that sin by appealing to the predictions of God. A specimen of this I have been amazed at reading in a work published by an illustrious politician of the pres- ent day. A very able biography of Lord George Ben- tinck has been written by a distinguished politician, D'ls- raeli; and in that biography he makes the extraordinary statement — that it was predicted that the Jews should crucify Christ ; and therefore, it is implied, the Jews were not guilty of any sin in doing so. He says, if the crucifiers had not been there, how could the Victim have been immo- lated ? and that the Jews' part in that dread tragedy was as necessary, and therefore as sinless, as was the fact, that the great Victim should die ; in other words, he assumes, that we are w^arranted to attempt to fulfil prophecies, at any sacrifice. Where God prophecies, he will take care of the fulfilment; but where God prescribes to us, it is ours to obey his precepts ; and if Mr. D'Israeli, who has so elo- quently written upon this subject, had only read the Acts of THE THKEE FOREFATHERS. ' 271 the Apostles, he would there have found it stated upon au- thority that he would not, I presume, question, that whilst it was the purpose and prediction of God, that Christ should die, it was, notwithstanding, sin and criminality in the Jews, to put him to death. St. Peter, speaking to the Jews, said, "Jesus of Nazareth, being delivered by the determinate counsel" — there is God's purpose — "and foreknowledge of God " — there is God's prophecy — " ye have taken, and with wicked hands have crucified and slain." So that while it was matter of purpose and matter of prophecy, it is asserted at the same time by Peter — and if we read Peter's addresses at the commencement of the Acts, we shall find the distinction more than once — that it was not the less sinful of the Jews, because they executed the prophecy of God. So Cyrus was God's battle-axe, to do God's work, i yet he was sinful nevertheless. Nebuchadnezzar fulfilled Go^'s prophecy, and yet Nebuchadnezzar's sin was not the less. We must distinguish between a prophecy and a pre- cept ; it is our business to obey the precepts ; it is God's prerogative to look after the fulfilment of his own prophe- 'cies. Never should we venture to quote a prophecy as jus- tifying an act of ours. We are stepping into God's province when we try to fulfil prophecies ; it is ours to obey his pre- cepts, because they are the prescriptions of God himself. Whatever, then, may be the nature and effects of the ancient prediction uttered by Noah, and however fully these have been realized in the lapse of years, and however necessary that all should be fulfilled, we are not to conclude that our fulfilling it exempts us from the crime that cleaves to- those who make man a property of man ; and treat the creature, made in the image of God, as if he were one of the beasts of the field. I have looked at the fulfilment of the prophecy in refer- ence to Canaan ; let us now see it in relation to Shem. We 272 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. know from the 10th chapter of Genesis, that the, Jews and Asiatics are the descendants of Shem — about this there is no dispute whatever, amongst those who have written upon ethnography, or watched and traced the origin and descent of nations. It is said, " Blessed be the God of Shem." That imphes that Shem should have God for his covenant God. The first promise made to Abraham was, " I am thy God ; and I will be a God unto thy seed." AYe may trace in the constant allusion to God as the covenant God of the Jews, echoing along the centuries the first prophecy that was issued by Noah respecting Shem, and the God of Shem. Hence, from the altar of the Jew alone, amidst the nations of the earth, there ascended pure incense ; from the lips of the Jew, amidst the mass of nations around, there issued true praise ; and only amid the nation of the Jews was there exhibited and developed that sublime and lofty humility of heart, that earnest and pure consistency of character, which indicated the presence of the God of Shem, and the special benediction of the Lord God of Israel. Let me notice also the prediction respecting Japheth, and see how far it has been fulfilled. But here there is a diffi- culty in the application of the word " he." " God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem." Some think that he there relates to God, and that it means God shall dwell in the tents of Shem ; others think, and with greater propriety, that it relates to Japheth, and that it states that Japheth shall dwell in the tents of Shem. But it is remarkable enough, that in whatever light we take it, it has been strictly fulfdled. Does it mean that God shall dwell in the tents of Shem ? then let us recollect the words of God, for it is said, " The Word was made flesh, and dwelt amongst us." The literal translation of it is. He shall be the " Shechinah " in the midst of Shem. The word " She- chinah " is derived from the Hebrew word " To dwell ; " THE THREE FOREFATHERS. 273 it therefore means that God shall have his temple, his residence, his altar, his dwelling-place, in the tents of Shem; or, in other words, that the Word shall be made flesh, and dwell in the midst of us. But if it means that Japheth shall dwell in the tents of Shem, then it implies, first, that the great blessings of the Jews, the descendants of Shem, shall be shared by the Gentiles or the Europeans, the descendants of Japheth ; and that Japheth dwelling in the tents of Shem, or the Gentiles admitted to the same grand privilege as the Jew, shall be one of the blessed characteristi3S of the latter day. And it is plainly with some such view as this, or rather, with this prophecy clearly before him, that Isaiah proclaims, with reference to the admission of the Gentiles, addressing the Jews, " Enlarge the place of thy tent, stretch forth the curtains of thine habitations; spare not, lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes ; for thou shalt break forth on the right hand and on the left, and thy seed shall inherit the Gentiles, and make the desolate cities to be inhabited : " he evidently alludes to the prediction that Japheth, or the Gentiles, shall yet dwell in, or share the privileges of, the descendants of Shem, or the Jews. The prediction added to this, that God shall enlarge Japheth, has been most strikingly fulfilled in the history of nations to this time. "Which of the three nations has been most enlarged ? Every attempt made by the Saracen or the Turk, by the African or the Asiatic, to take the land of Japheth, has signally failed ; but on the other hand, we find that every effort made by the descendants of Japheth, that is, the European race, and the crown and the flower of it, the Saxon portion of it, has been followed by wide spread and triumphant success. We can quote America as a specimen of God enlarging the dwelling of Japheth. We can point to our countrymen in Palestine, to thousands 274 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. penetrating Africa, and tens of thousands finding settle- ments amid all the great rivers of Asia, as proofs that God still enlarges Japheth, and spreads that great and powerful section of the human family from sea to sea, and from the river even to the very ends of the earth. It is remarkable also that we hear, in this day, our newspapers and our statesmen continually speak of the indomitable energy of the Saxon race, and of the destiny of the world to be peopled and subdued by them. This is just the unconscious attestation of statesmen, philosophers, and literary men, to the fulfilment of* the prophecy, " God shall enlarge Japheth ; " and, quite as remarkable, nations seem to flourish precisely — if you will allow the expression — in proportion as the Saxon element is in them, apart from the depressing influence of Romanism, and the elevating power of Protestant Christianity. Looking to Ireland, let us ask, which is the expanding race, the Saxon, or the Celtic? Who are the depressed race there, who have recourse to emigration as their only means of escape from utter destruc- tion ? The race that are, as it can be proved, the descend- ants of Ham, or the Milesian race ; for the present Irish language is actually a dialect of the Punic or Carthaginian language spoken in the days of Hannibal. At all events, it is so like it, that it would appear, from inscriptions on ancient monuments, to be an offshoot from it. Now whilst it is quite true, that Protestantism elevates a nation, and Popery degrades it, there seems something in the Saxon character powerful, indomitable, expansive ; and there seems something in the African character, wherever its blood even mingles, or still more predominates, that leads to degen- eracy," weakness, and almost ruin. What is this, but the 19th century proclaiming by its facts, that the prophecy which was uttered 4,000 years ago is true; and that thy word, O God, is truth ? THE THREE FOREFATHEKS. 275 I might show at far greater length, but what I have said is sufficient to prove the fulfilment of this ancient proph- ecy, that Canaan shall be a servant of servants unto his brethren ; that Shem shall be blessed in the knowledge and enjoyment of the true God ; and that Japheth shall dwell in the tents of Shem, that is, be participator in Shem's privileges, or, as some think that dwelling in tents is connected with enlargement, it may mean taking possession of the country of Shem. Let us look to the East — who are the lords of India? In whose hands is it at this moment ? In the hands of the descendants of Japheth. How striking it is to see this ancient prophecy fulfilled before our eyes ! How strange, after proof on proof, that any man should doubt that Moses wrote as he was inspired by the Holy Spirit of God ! One or two short lessons are suggested. We see from ancient prophecy, thus carried into fulfilment by God, that his word shall cleave its way to its own accomplishment, in spite of all obstructions, and in the face of every difficulty. Man thinks he is acting for himself, whilst unconsciously he is but the instrument in the hand of God. God has sketched the patriarchal cartoon, and man is rushing, in all ages, with all his might, to fill it up. God has predicted what shall be, and man unconsciously is doing what God has said must be. The accidents of time are the inspira- tions of God; the deeds of man are the fulfilment of the prophecies of God. There is much of sovereignty in all that God does. Why curse Canaan ? why bless Shem ? why enlarge Japheth ? These are some of the " whys " that we often ask, and to which we can get no answer. We have less of originating poAver than we suppose ; God reigns. " Thou hast hid these things, O Father, from the wise and prudent ; and thou hast revealed them unto babes." Why this was 276 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. we cannot say. The close will explain the beginning ; tlie light of eternity shall shine upon the dark nooks of time ; the voices of heaven in the last day, will resolve and harmonize the apparent discords which we hear and are puzzled by, in this dispensation. If we are the children of Japheth, let us recollect that we are the partakers of great privileges, and have, there- fore, higher, loftier, less exhaustible responsibilities. Why does God make one man stronger and another richer than his fellow ? Not that they may exact more, but that they may give and sacrifice more. Why has God made Japheth so great? That Japheth may be the instrument only of greater good. Why is the English tongue the possession of America, and of India, and of Palestine, and of vast sections of Africa, and increasingly so? It is, no doubt, that this tongue, inspired by the riches of Divine light, and life, and grace, may be the medium of countless benedic- tions to all the ends of the earth. There is nothing we may look to with greater hopes than this, that our country's power is spreading every day; and there is nothing we should pray for with greater fervor, than that where our country's power is felt, mankind may taste and feel her mercy too. Wherever the roll of our conquering drum is heard, may the glad voice of the gospel be heard also ; on whatever strand, or in whatever harbor, our ships drop their anchors, may the glad tidings of a Saviour be heard. God grant that Englishmen may go forth to the ends of the earth, not like the locusts of Egypt, to blast and blight every green and beautiful thing ; but the pioneers of good, the lights of the world, to shed the splendors of the cross upon all mankind ; or the salt of the truth, silently, but no less effectually, to saturate all that are in contact with them, or under their influence. If we are exalted in privilege as the descendants of Japheth, there is no room for pride. THE THREE FOREFATHERS. 277 Our privileges and our sins should equally humble us. Our privileges are not our own, therefore they should humble us. Our sins are our own, therefore they should humble us. Amid our blessings we should ever feel, " Who has made thee to differ ? " and as God has made us, not by our desert, but in his own sovereignty, to differ, it is that we may be a blessing in proportion to the extent of our prosperity unto all that come into contact with us. Let us learn, in the last place, that to be the descendant of Japheth, highly exalted, and even to be the descendant of Shem, with the knowledge of the true God, is not neces- sarily to be a Christian. Many are Abraham's children according to the flesh, who have no saving acquaintance with Abraham's God. Let us remember that to be classed in the family of Japheth, will only add to our condemnation, if we walk unworthy of it ; and that the great prerequisite that admits into glory, and without whi-ch we shall never see God in mercy and in love, is to be born again. It matters little whether we be English, Scotch, French, or Irish ; — if we be not Christians, — real, living, converted Christians, — we can never become the heirs of God, and fellow partakers with the saints of the covenant of promise. 24 CHAPTER XVL Enoch's prophecy. " Oh, on that day, that wrathful day When man to judgment wakes from clay, Be thou, Christ, the sinner's stay. Though heaven and earth shall pass away." " .And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousand of his saints, to execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him." — JuDE 14, 15. In the course of some lectures on the eleventh chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews, (Voices of the Dead,) there will be found illustrated at length these words, " By faith Enoch was translated, that he should not see death ; and "was not found, because God had translated him : for before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God." We now turn to another fact in the history of the same illustrious member of the Church before the Flood, the prophecy that is stated by the sacred penman to have been littered by Enoch. But before we do so, let us notice some of the characteris- tics of Enoch. First of all, we find that the line of Enoch was the lineage out of which Christ was to come. In marking out the family of Adam in its best and most beautiful divis- Enoch's prophecy. 279 ions, the line of Cain is passed by, and seemingly forgotten ; the line of Setli, so much the superior of the twain, is selected as the lineage out of which Christ was to come, and yet this line is any thing but faultless. We have only to trace it through its successive links until it comes to the days of Noah, and onward to the patriarch Abraham, and we shall find that the very choicest specimens of all human- ity — the line singled out because of its own peculiar and distinctive excellence, — was yet morally vitiated, and was in the likeness of the fallen Adam. In looking at the -character of Enoch, we see that the highest personal piety is perfectly consistent with a life led in the world, and the fulfilment of all the duties and the responsibilities that flow from it. Enoch was not a recluse, his home was not an anchorite's cell, his life was not that of an ascetic. He did not live a monk — he did not die a suicide. He had sons and daughters, he belonged to society, he was a husband, a father, and a friend ; and yet he was distinguished for his piety and superiority to the sins, the follies, and the vices of mankind. We have therefore in this early age evidence that the ascetic life is not necessary to the highest Christian attainments, that the very loftiest approach to the character of God may be realized wdthout coming mechanically out of the world, but by being morally superior to its sins and its corrupt practices and evils. In the next place, we have the character of Enoch defined by one grand feature, namely, his relation to God. He is said to be one who walked with God. This is a most expressive trait ; it is the leading touch in the picture, that reveals all the rest. His walking with God, or his relation- ship to God, like the great law of gravitation in the physical world, kept all the rest of the parts of his character in perfect proportion, harmony, and order. Wherever there is genuine piety, there will be pure morality. Let our rela- 280 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. tionship to God be put right by regeneration of heart, and renewal of nature, and our relationships to each other will all beautifully fall into their natural and proper places. How short, however, is the biography of this good man ! How little is said of him, but how much is implied ! Read the life of a Caasar, an Alexander, or a Napoleon, and you find whole volumes necessary to register their exploits ; but the reader of the life of one of the most illustrious Chris- tians of the ancient day, sees a single line alike Ips epitaph and his biography. The roaring cataracts of time make great noise and startle the still worfd ; but the sweet and gentle streams that beautify it as they run with a belt of verdure, and flower, and fruit, make no noise at all. And yet, the few words in which Enoch's life is expressed are eloquently suggestive. A whole biography of holy and consistent character is called up by the simple announce- ment, " Enoch walked with God." And when one looks at the rest of this record, and the characteristics of the age, as these again are enunciated by God himself in a subsequent chapter, we must see how very solitary, in one sense, Enoch's, life was. He was not alone , in the sense that he was not in society ; but he was alone in his deepest and truest sympathies, and feelings, and rela- tions. The highest Christian in the heart of the greatest crowd may be far more alone than the ascetic living in a cell, or perched upon the trunk of a tree in the midst of the remotest desert. Real ahneness is not something corporeal, material, outer ; it is spiritual, moral, inner. Enoch, in the midst of a world of great excitement, of rare criminality, of vast enterprise, walked with God ; alone in his feelings, with few to respond to them, or to take sweet counsel with him, as he walked to the place where God dwelt. And yet, in this solitariness of his character, there was a sublimity that only makes it appear the more illustrious and beautiful. Enoch's rROPHECY. 281 He walked with God, when the rest of mankind about him were walking, as it is subsequently recorded, after the imagi- nations of the thoughts of their own hearts, which were only evil continually. We learn from this allusion to Enoch, that God never yet in the history of mankind was without a witness to himself. There never has been an age when the corruption has been so dark, universal, and unrelieved, that there was not one single witness to protest and testify against it. In the darkest eclipse of the heaven, some bright stars have caught the eye of some spectator; and in the bleakest deserts, wilds, and solitudes of the earth, there blooms often the most beautiful and fragrant flower ; unseen by man, yet as beautiful as if meant for universal inspection. And in the mediaeval ages, when the whole visible Christian frame- work had become degenerate and corrupt, there were links of a true succession invisible to man, but visible to God, connecting the apostles of the first century with the Reform- ers of the sixteenth, and indicating that God never in the worst of times was without a witness to proclaim his praise, or bid the nations look and live and be happy. "We learn also that the time never was when there was no church in the world. The church is not a thing of the New Testament as distinguished from the Old. There was a church when Adam and Eve and Abel were the three who met first in the name of Jesus, and realized then as truly, if not so fully, as we do now the fulfilment of the promise, " I am in the midst of them." And there was a chu*ch, wherever Enoch found one or two, as surely he did, to join with him in worshipping God. And wherever now, under whatever form, or longitude, or latitude, two or three shall meet together in Christ's name, there will be a true church of the Lord Jesus Christ. The church has been from the beginning ; and if we are to listen to that church, 24* 282 THE cnuRcn before the flood. let us listen to Enoch, to Noah, to Abraham, to Job, to Isaiah, to the prophets, evangelists, and apostles, its choicest members, for all these were members, teachers, and minis- ters of it. The church never yet was without teachers. The name Enoch means "teaching," although some have thought it means rather " educated." He was a public teacher of the truth. He taught it by what he was, as well as by what he said. He walked with God, and that walk was an ^eloquent homily : God took him, or translated him to himself, and that translation was an impressive peroration to it. When Enoch therefore walked with God, he was, and thus showed he was, a teacher sent from God. The fact that Enoch prophesied, is evidence that he had an official character as well as a personal relationship to God, and was a teacher of the church in which he lived, a prophet who spake as he was moved by the Holy Ghost, a light in the surrounding darkness, an oracle in the midst of abounding error. The holiest man was selected by God to denounce the most awful judgment, not only upon that age, but upon all mankind at the close of this dispensation. Who was se- lected to prophesy, " Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints, to execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him ? " It was the holiest man. So awful and solemn a duty, it was fit to devolve upon one who walked with God, and lived nearest to him. He was the prophet of the judgment to come, whose life was the most beautiful instance and specimen of Christian consistency and conduct. Holy lips alone should enunciate awful judgments. It was a holy man who was selected to be God's first prophet of the coming woe. The burden of a prophet's woe should lie Enoch's prophecy. 283 upon a heart that is the habitation of God himself. And therefore, Enoch, the holy man, was selected to give utter- ance to the prophecy, so very solemn in its character, " The Lord cometh to execute judgment." Having offered these prefatory remarks upon the prophet, let us look at his prophecy. The first question that has been asked is, Where is this prophecy recorded ? Where did Jude find it? Nothing is said in the 5th chapter of Genesis about Enoch prophesying the descent of judgment upon the nations of the earth. Some have supposed that he refers to an apocryphal book called the Book of Enoch, which contains a statement something hke this; and that Jude, therefore, assumes the inspiration of a book not regis- tered in the sacred canon ; but this cannot be proved. In the first place, it can be proved that the Book of Enoch, which some scholars have discovered, and which, I believe, one has published, was not written till the 4th or 5th cen- tury after the Christian era ; and that Jude, therefore, could not refer to a book which did not exist at the time when he wrote his Epistle. Nor is there any necessity for supposing that he at all refers to any book. He states a fact ; and the same inspiration that prompted Jude to write his Epistle, revealed to Jude the prophecy ; and the truth of the proph- ecy, like the truth of the Epistle, rests upon the immediate and unquestioned inspiration of God. We therefore con- clude that Jude knew the fact to be so, and the prophecy to be truth ; and inspired and guided by the Holy Spirit of God, he enunciated it for the information of the church in all ages. We find in Jude the true use to be made of good men. Jude records simply the prophecy, but does not propose the worship of li^noch ; and our practice ought to be, not to canonize the saints that are gone, but to collect the lessons they have left behind them, to learn those lessons as far as 284: THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. tliey were the echoes of God's truth, and to imitate their conduct as far as they followed and imitated the Lord Jesus Christ. The only relic of Enoch that Jude recognized, is the prophecy he left behind him, and the only images that we should regard of those who have gone before us, should be the truths they taught, and the examples they set. It is not the adoration of their names, but the imitation of their examples, that becomes us. In no part of the word of God are we told to collect the relics, or to ask the intercession, or to apply for the merits of those who have preceded us to glory ; but in every part of it we are told to learn the pure lessons that they taught, to imitate the holy example they developed, and to be guided by that learning and that imi- tation only so far as they taught the truth of God, and imitated the Lord Jesus Christ. We learn, from this allusion of Jude, that Enoch was the first and most ancient prophet after God himself. The first prophecy was in the form of a promise, "The woman's seed shall bruise the serpent's head." The next catholic or universal prophecy was that enunciated by Enoch, when he said, " Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints, to execute judgment upon all." And yet, we believe this prophecy to be true, not because it is old. Mere age does not make falsehood truth, and seeming novelty does not make truth false. Antiquity without truth is simply the inveteracy of error. "We do not look to the antiquity of a dogma, in order to assert our reception of it, but to the truth of that dogma. Some ancient things are false, some apparently recent things are true ; and God's inspired truth is like himself; it was, is, and ever shall be, the same yes- terday, today, and for ever. But we accept the prophecy, not because it is a relic floated down from an ancient and a distant age, but because it is a truth bearing the image and the superscription of inspiration itself. Enoch's prophecy. 285 Now this prophecy of Enoch was strongly applicable to the antediluvian age. Men lived long, and because they lived to a great age and were vigorous in health, as they were gigantic, some of them, in stature, their sins and their crimes were corresponding to their age, their strength, and their position. Hence our Lord, when alluding to the days before the Flood, describes them in such terms as these, " In the days that were before the Flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and knew not until the Flood came," a picture that implies the utter absence of any thing like real religion, from the hearts and the cares and the anxieties of the antediluvian population ; and no doubt they were saying then, as men say now, " All things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation." How start- ling to their atheistic hopes must have been this voice, clear and piercing, ringing amid a thoughtless population, " Be- hold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his vsaints, to execute judgment upon all ! " This voice of Enoch must have sounded to the antediluvian sinners exactly as the warning of our Lord in the parable sounded to the fool while he was saying, " I have much goods laid up for many years," — "Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee." In an age when dishonesty was promising gain, when vanity was promising distinction, when ambition was promising place and power, when unbelief was promising safety, God's word, louder and stronger than them all, pro- claimed, " The Lord cometh to execute judgment upon all the ungodly." Now such a warning voice as this is no less needed now. It is literally, if I may use the expression, more true now than it was then. Every day that shuts down upon the earth brings us one notch nearer that epoch, when the Lord shall come with ten thousands of his saints ; and every year 286 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. as it closes brings us a greater stage nearer to that day of the Lord, when the heavens and the earth shall be on fire, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, and a new heaven and a new earth shall emerge, wherein dwelleth righteousness. Every one knows how prone poor humanity is, even in its best, that is, its Christian aspect, to settle down and say, " Two or three years ago, five or six years ago, I thought we were on the eve of great things ; I thought that the earth was quaking, and all things agitated and dis- organized, preparatory to the advent of Him who shall readjust, reorder, and reharmonize all ; but now all things continue as they were : since the fathers slept there is no change. Nature still pursues her course, the sun still ris§s, and stars still come, and all things continue as they were." "We need a booming sound borne across the waters from the continent of Europe, from nations still agitated, seething, and convulsed, to give us, like a premonitory warning from heaven, a presign how frail is the crust on which we stand ; how many, how deep, and how terrific are the powers that are sleeping, not extinguished or destroyed, beneath it. But it is refreshing to recollect, that what is fitted to awe an ungodly and a thoughtless world, is calculated only to give consolation to the people of God. Enoch felt no dismay, because he believed his own prophecy; his heart beat calm in the prospect of it; and those saints who shared in Enoch's piety were conscious of no feelings of awe. Or alarm, or dismay, because they anticipated the sure fulfilment of Enoch's solemn prophecy. It is so now; those who may be justly agitated by the prospect of approaching doom, are not the people of God. They stand loose to the world; their repose is not on its breast, they rest on the Rock of ages, and feel perfectly sure that "though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea, though the waters thereof roar Enoch's prophecy. 287 and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof; there is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the taberna- cles of the Most High. God is in the midst of her ; she shall not be moved; God shall help her, and that right early." Therefore the believer can say to his own heart, " Be still ; " as God now says to him, " Be still, and know that I am God ; I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth." The ungodly may tremble, Enoch's prophecy is the knell of their doom. It appears all dark to them, it reflects only sunshine to the people of God ; it is the savor of death to the sinner, the savor of life to the Christian. The Lord cometh in majesty, but yet in mercy, taking vengeance upon them that know him not, but gathering to himself, far beyond the reach of scathe or injury, those who have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. In the heart of the believer, it is the day of his glorious conquest, the com- mencement of his true, his joyous life; the day when all perplexities shall be cleared up, when the troubler shall no longer have power, and the troubled shall no longer have pain, when God shall extinguish the springs of sorrow, and wipe away all tears from all eyes, and we, removed for ever from contact with sin, shall be for ever with the Lord. The aspect of the text depends very much upon the character of the reader. This prophecy of coming judgment comes like the knell of doom, where it is believed, to the unre- newed; but to the children of God it sounds as the first note of their sure and approaching jubilee. They feel perfect peace in the prospect of it. Do we ? What a contrast will be presented to his previous state, when the Lord shall come with ten thousands of bis saints ! Once a sufferer, now a triumphant King. Once in a manger, now upon a throne. Once weeping for us, suffer- 288 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. ing in our stead, dying for our salvation ; now, to them who look for him, does he come wearing many crowns, robed in majesty, the second time without sin unto salvation. The contrast between Christ's first advent and his second advent is entire; and yet both advents, the sorrowful and the triumphant, are to a believer only springs of comfort, of repose, and peace ; he knows him in whom he has believed. This prophecy of Enoch is evidently the chord that runs through all the prophecies of the Old and New 'Testament Scriptures: it seems to have been the basis or suggestive source of them all. It was the first se«d sown. The very same truths are expressed by our Lord himself, when he said, " This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations ; and then shall the end come : " and again, when he stated, " As the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be ; " that is, he shall come with all the unexpected speed, and with all the dazzling splendor, of the lightning flash in the dark mid- night, crushing some, but lighting others home. We shall have very little premonitory symptom of his immediate approach ; we know not when he comes, we only know that he will come with the unexpected speed, as he will burst upon us with the dazzling splendor, of the lightning itself. And " immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heaven shall be shaken " — all thrones, principalities, poten- tates, dominions, powers, darkened, shattered, disorganized, broken. Then he says, *" He shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other. But of that day and hour knoweth no man ; no, not Enoch's prophecy. 289 the angels of heaven, but my Father only." And because the day and the hour are not known, we are therefore always to stand ready. And the apostle expresses the same prophecy of Enoch in another formula, when he says, " Tha Lord shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first." He expresses the same prophecy in another formula, when he tells us, " The Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ : who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power, when he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe in that day " — the two aspects of the prophecy constantly presenting Christ made welcome by his own, in whom he is to be admired, while he will be manifested and dreaded by his enemies, and unexpected by those who know not the gospel, and who shall be the conscious victims of an iiTctrievable destruction from the presence of the Lord. But the phase of the prophecy on which Enoch dwells is its more awful one. He says, " The Lord cometh with ten thousand of his saints, to execute judgment upon all, and to ' convince all that are ungodly among them of all their un- godly deeds." Who are these ungodly, who will be the sub- jects of this judgment ? Very true, they will be the profane, the blaspheming, the atheistic, the infidel, the immoral : quite true, they will be among them. But those whom Enoch specially specifies are not such only ; they are "the ungodly." Now who are the ungodly? Thousands are ungodly, who in all the relationships of life are most exemplary. Many a consistent father, an excellent hus- band, a good master, obedient servant, loyal subject, is yet 25 290 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. an ungodly man. God has selected here, not those whom all would instantly conclude must be the victims of such a vconsuming judgment, but a class to which so many uncon- sciously belong, a class whose sinful peculiarities are so delicate as to be perceptible only to the spiritual eye. These fancy all is right with them, because they are not what other men are — adulterers, di^unkards, thieves, and such like. The ungodly are just those who have no constant governing sense of love, loyalty, or responsibility to God. They are exemplary and excellent in all the relationships of life, but are overruled by no influence whatever that comes from God. In short, they would be precisely what they are at this moment, if there were no God above, and no eternity before. If they are honest, they are so constitutionally. There are men constituted by nature with such a nice and keen sense of integrity, that they would not be guilty of the least dishonesty on any terms, or under the pressure of any inducement whatever. And there are other men who have so sensitive a sense of what is kind, and generous, and lov- ing, that the very instincts of their nature melt their very hearts into sympathy and love. It is their nature. They cannot help it. All this is most beautiful. Far be it from me to say any thing that might be misconstrued as depre- ciating these almost unwithered flowers of Paradise — these fair blossoms that relieve the almost universal winter of the social system. What we say is, beautiful as they are, they are not enough. There is a relationship to God that ought to be first, greatest, chiefest ; and this ought to be, while the others ought not to be trodden down. They even will be the subjects of the predicted judgment, and the first sub- jects, who are praised by men, but unknown to God — "I never knew you ; " who have been right in every earthly relationship, but wrong in this heavenly one. For this pri- vation there is no compensation. Suppose a colony were to Enoch's prophecy. 291 revolt from tlie parent country; and suppose that colony, after its revolt and wilful separation, were to be charac- terized by every thing that is good and peaceful and right internally — its homes happy, its people obedient, and its laws observed, and every thing in its condition all that can be desired in a prosperous and happy land. Suppose these people, through their officers, to plead with the parent coun- try from which it has wickedly revolted, as their apology, that it had every inner excellence of quality and character. This would not vindicate their rebellion. And so with us, it is no excuse for having left our relationship to God, that we maintain our relationships to each other ; because if we observe the last six commandments of the decalogue per- fectly, yet the first four commandments are surely not given simply to be broken. If we should be able to plead at God's judgment-seat, "All the last six commandments of the decalogue we have kept perfectly," God will still ask -you, " But what have you done with ' the first four ? You have been just to your neighbor, you have been sober in your- self; but you have not been godly, that is, maintained and fulfilled your relationship to me, as you were bound by my law and your nature to do." The ungodly are moral with- out religion ; their virtues have earthly, not heavenly roots. Wherever there is real religion in the heart, of course there is morality in the life ; and if there be not, the religion sup- posed to be in the heart is a pretence and a delusion. But there may be morality in the life of a certain kind, without religion in the heart. All religious men are moral, but all moral men are not religious. And, therefore, the class which is specially singled out here, is just that very class which man is least likely to think in danger, and which consists of those who are every thing that is beautiful and just in the relationships of time, but who have no affinities with the everlasting; who live just as if there were no 292 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. world to come, who have no sympathy with God, no felt relation to eternity, whose character, in short, has not one element in it created by a deep and pervading sense of love and responsibihty to that God who made us, and gave his Son to die for us. Thus we can understand alike the guilt and nature of the class singled out here as the first subjects of the visitation ; and if they perish, what shall be the end of the rest ? There are indeed but two great comprehensive classes that constantly exist, and that will appear at the judgment- day just as they have been, — the godly and the ungodly, with their shades of character. At that day all distinctions are either merged in this, or they are barely appreciated by Him who sits upon the throne of judgment. "VYe are so prone to intrench ourselves within a party, or a sect, or a denomination, and to fancy that because we belong to that party and are surrounded by the laws and the bulwarks of that sect, that therefore we cannot be wrong ; that we need frequently to be warned that the distinctions which God recognizes are these which ecclesiastics never deal with; that the distinctions that will last and live and appear sharp and clearly defined at the judgment-day, are these, — the godly and the ungodly, the saint and the sinner. The bound lines that we draw, will all be swept as wave marks on the sea sand by the flowing tide ; but the great bound lines that have been since Paradise, will last till the judg- ment-day, and will appear again. It is not therefore an out- ward name, however musical, that will shelter us. It is not a mere connection with a class, a party, or a sect, that will save us. The question at the judgment-day will not be, whence we come, or what we are called, or of what family we are; but who we are, and on whom we stand, and whether grace — sovereign grace — has transformed us. Let us be therefore more intent on building up an inner Enoch's PEOPnECT. 293 life than an outer one. Let us be more anxious to belong- clearly and unmistakably to the class of saints, than to some sublunary coterie, or ecclesiastical distinction or order, upon earth. The only two successions that have never failed, that began in Paradise lost, and that will reach the very margin of Paradise regained, are sinners by nature, and saints by grace. In this solemn prophecy, it is predicted that he shall judge them for all their ungodly words which they have ungodly spoken, and for all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed. A word once spoken goes on repeating itself for ever, a deed once done never can cease its reverberations in this dispensation ; by a law of science the word that now comes from my lips will be reflected and reverberated round and round the globe, till hushed at the eve of the judgment-day. Our senses are so blunt, that we cannot perceive the more delicate vibrations ; but that does not make those vibrations cease to be. This will explain a thousand statements in the word of God. At that day we shall hear with awful dismay, if among the lost, the guilty words we spoke, the unholy whispers we breathed, and the vibrations of all the deeds we have done, loud, clear, and piercing ; the very atmosphere will be the register and even • whispering gallery of all we said ; and the very earth, the page on which will be written all we did ; and we shall see ourselves at that day reflected and repeated from all things around us. If this be so, if all the ungodly deeds that ungodly men have done, and all the ungodly words that ungodly men have spoken, are to come up in retributive responses, in manifold reflections, what a solemn meeting will a judgment-day be ! But their sins will not come up on a judgment-day to God's people. There is a voice that " speaketh better things than the blood of Abel," and that is the blood of Jesus ; and that sound will absorb all sounds 25 * 294 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. of sin and sorrow whatever : and there is an efficacy in that precious blood, so real, so vital, so powerful, that it will cleanse the earth as it cleanseth the heart from all the traces and the records of our transgression. Nothing but the for- giveness of our sins through the blood of Jesus will stop the resurrection of our sins, or deaden and destroy the echoes of our evil. Nothing but pardon now can extinguish the certainty of our meeting, and meeting in dismay, our sins and our transgressions again. Do we desire that that word once spoken by us, which we would give all the world to recall, may never rise from the dead, let us appeal to the voice of the blood of Jesus that speaketh better things than the blood of Abel. If we wish that that deed which we have done, the lineaments of which are engraven upon memory, and the reflection of which is upon the earth on which we tread, a dark and ominous spectre, and upon the sky on which we look, a deepening cloud, though our blunt senses cannot now see it ; if we wish that the original should be blotted out from memory, and that the reflection may be blotted out from the earth, behold the blood of Jesus Christ that " cleanseth from all sin." If we will not take the gos- pel's grand provisions, we must make up our minds to hear, reverberating in everlasting crashes of thunder, words that we would not now should be heard for worlds ; and to see, revealed in the lightning in which the Judge comes, deeds that we would give worlds now to be expunged for ever. They that will not accept the gospel of Jesus, must meet him as they are with the deep graven lines of their trans- gressions upon them, and the dread reverberations of their own ungodly words around them, saying, " Inasmuch as ye did it not to the least of these, ye did it not to me;'* " Depart, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." This is the only alternative. We must be Christians, or brave the issue. Enoch's PRorHECY. 295 Every day as it closes brings us nearer to the time when this great prophecy of Enoch will be realized. Scenes are coming successively within the horizon that the most casual observer cannot be blind to. I expressed my conviction that in 1848 the seventh vial began to be poured out ; that there was then the commencement of "the great earth- quake," when "great Babylon" should come "in remem- brance before God ; " and when the kingdoms of the earth should be disorganized, to make way for a kingdom that cannot be moved. (Rev. xvi. 17-21.) The first shock of the earthquake occurred in 1848. We are just upon the eve, as far as one can gather from the shadows of coming events, of a more terrific one. Ask statesmen, ask those who are competent to give an opinion, what they think of the aspect of continental Europe at the present moment. There is not a kingdom over the continent that does not rock ; there is not a throne in Europe that is any more secure by being defended by bayonets than it was before ; there is not a population in Europe that is not at this moment seething and restless under an undefined impression of possibilities that cannot be, or under an assured conviction of the need of events and changes that they think ought to be. Very solemn is the period at which we stand. Very soon, in all likelihood, Europe will be blazing around us, its cities the volcanic mouths and craters of the pent up elements of ruin. Very soon, days of trial and of trouble such as have not been since the beginning will overtake us. When they do come, none will stand the ordeal of that day but they who are Christ's people, not by name, but in deed and in truth. And while there are many things that will be very dark in that day, one can see, striking through the gloom, rays of bright hope and of coming glory. That very earth- quake that will disorganize kingdoms, bury proud capitals, 296 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. and agitate the world, carries with it, like a mill-stone into the sea, great Babylon that pollutes the earth. I have no more fear that the Romish Apostasy will gain the suprem- acy in this land, than I have that Mahometanism will. I believe it is now plunging in its last spasmodic convulsions. It wiU, like a dying maniac, put forth its most tremendous energies in its last struggle, but its fury is the evidence of its last moments ; in spite of all, it will go down like a mill-stone into the sea, and shaH be heard and seen no more at all. And the Jews will begin to look at their long lost home, already setting their hearts upon Palestine. And Christian men will begin more than ever to let go the distinctions which they have worn, and to think only of the glorious and lasting and vital features that characterize and stamp all the people of God. But amid all the havoc and obscurity of coming conflict, we can see — and therefore we lift up our heads because our redemption draweth nigh — emerging from beneath the horizon, the Sun of righteous- ness, who shall arise with "healing in his wings to them that fear him, and that look for him the second time, without sin unto salvation. The nearer that the time for these things is, the busier we ought to be. If we want to keep our estates, let us lay them out. If you want to be rich, give. If you want to be strong, expend your strength. If you want to be really built up in your faith, try to build up others in their most holy faith. The shorter the time that remains, the more we have to do. Charge every hour that lasts with intenser feeling. Crowd into every day that remains acts of greater beneficence. Concentrate every energy, seek to be useful, determine to make men better for your having been in the world. The light will soon be out, the day will soon be done, the night cometh when no man can work. And if we be God's people, the nearer we ai-e to the Lord's coming Enoch's prophecy. 297 with ten thousand of his saints, the more busily we shall be getting ready to meet him. Blessed is that servant whom, when his Lord cometh, he findeth busy in his Lord's vine- yard, and in his Lord's employment. And then, blessed result ! as the issue of it, all creation shall be emancipated from its bondage. The repressive curse that weighs down Eden beneath us, and prevents its bursting out into flower and blossom, will be removed ; the desert will become green, the wilderness will blossom as the spring of Paradise, and nature will be fairer in her last robes than she was in her first. And, in the next place, the brute creation shall be restored and emancipated from their bondage. The whole creation, says the apostle, groans and travails in pain, wait- ing to be delivered. Man makes use of the bad instincts of the brute creation — instincts from beneath, not from above — in order to promote his own sinful or thoughtless purposes ; but a day comes when these, too, shall be re- stored, " and the wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid ; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together ; and a little child shall lead them. And the cow and the bear shall feed ; their young ones shall lie down together : and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice' den. And they shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain : for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea." Then, too, the sons of God, when the Lord comes with ten thousand of his saints, shall be manifested ; the tabernacle of God shall then be with men ; God shall then wipe away all tears from all eyes ; Enoch's grand prophecy shall be lost in John's grander Apocalypse ; the genesis of Moses shall be merged in the regenesis of the Revelation; all things shall be made new, and God will again apj^figU^liie 298 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. midst of a better Eden, and speak with man at eventide, no longer a refugee from him under the consciousness of sin, but his son, his friend ; reclaimed, restored, regenerated, — all things made new. When the Lord shall thus come with his saints, taking vengeance on them that know him not, may we be spared and kept, as a man spareth his son that serveth him, and be found among his jewels on that day. CHAPTER XVII. ENOCH S CKEED* " ' There is no God,' the foolish saith, But none, ' There is no sorrow : ' And Nature oft the cry of faith In bitter need will borrow. " Eyes, which the preacher could not school, By way-side graves are raised ; And lips say,_ ' God be pitiful,' That ne'er said, ' God be praised.' " " But without faith zi is impossible to please Mm: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him." — Hebrews xi. 6. The apostle draws the inference embodied in these- words, from the statement he had made respecting Enoch, who was translated, and who had this testimony that he pleased God. The inference he makes from this is, that if Enoch pleased God, he must have had faith ; that same faith which he, the apostle, had in Christ the Saviour, — for without faith, it is impossible to please God. Without this grace, whatever excellency we may have, we cannot please him. We may be the most learned, the most eloquent, the most wealthy, or the most renowned, it matters not, without that faith which gives to every grace its excellency, to all fruits their flavor, and to all flowers their tints, it is impossible to please God. It is faith, however, not in a proposition, but in him who proposes it. The faith of a Christian is not built upon 300 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. a series of arguments that make out a certain conclusion ; but simply upon this, Thus saith the Lord. We accept the proposal, not because we can prove it, — this the mathema- tician does ; but because God says it, — this the Christian does. We may prove a proposition contained in Scripture on independent data, and there is no sin in doing so ; but we must never let go this inner and vital fact, that we receive the proposition simply because God says it, and upon his authority alone. Faith, then, is not in reason, nor in the church, nor in authority, nor in antiquity, nor in numbers, nor in the fathers ; but simply in Christ Jesus, than whom there is none other by whom we may be saved. Without this faith, it is impossible to please God. The very question, " What must I do to be saved ? " has only one answer to it, " Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved;" or. Have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt please God. If, then, without faith in him it is impossible to be saved, without faith in him it is impossible to please God. Christ is the way in which Enoch walked, and without believing in Jesus we cannot enter upon that way which Christ is. Without faith in Christ, we are not in the way that leads to heaven ; we cannot, therefore, walk with God; we cannot, therefore, please God. Without faith in Christ, we cannot have that natural disposition which is declared to be " enmity to God '* extracted, and that true disposition which is declared to be love to God implanted in its place. The apostle himself tells us in his Epistle to the Romans, They that are in the flesh, they that are carnal, unconverted, unregenerate, can- not please God. Between God and us, in such a state, there can be no coincidence of walk ; there can be no unity of design ; there can be no harmony of nature ; there can be no identity of object : we are at issue ; we are opposed Enoch's creed. 801 to each other : and until a man be regenerated by that Holy Spirit which is given only to them who believe in Jesus, and ask that gift in his name, it is impossible that he can please God. So that, to please him, or to walk with him, we must have a change in state that is secured by the righteousness of Jesus, and we must have a change of nature which is produced by the power of the Holy Spirit ; and without that change of state which introduces us to a new way, and that change of nature which gives us a new love and aim and end in walking in that way, we cannot please God. But the apostle gives the reasons and the grounds for his conclusion, in these words, " He that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him." Let us look at these propositions thus early received : first, at the belief that God is ; secondly, at the belief that God is a rewarder ; thirdly, at the character of those who exercise that faith ; who thus like Enoch believe, namely, that they " come to God," that they " diligently seek him." We have three great proposi- tions : first, God's being ; secondly, God's being, discovered by man's faith, developed in God's bounty, in our belief that he is a rewarder ; thirdly, the nature of faith analyzed and explained by this description, that he who has it comes to God, and that he diligently seeks him. The first proposition that comes before us, as the object of faith, is, that God is. We are not left wholly to the Bible for this conclusion that God is. Conscience from its depths protests against the atheistic wish. No God, — " The fool hath said in his heart. No God." In the depths of man's conscience, even, when it is most diseased, there is felt — not seen, but felt — a law ; and if a law and penalties, a lawgiver who gave the law, and will inflict the penalties. Man's conscience comes 26 302 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. to the conclusion — that there is a God, try to distort it, fend it off, keep it down, as he likes ; every man knows that there are moments when fears, hopes, and trembling anxie- ties about the future and his relationship to God, bubble up from the depths of the conscience, and indicate the terrible chaos of thought, feeling, and anxiety that are below. Not only does conscience say, There is a God ; but there is scarcely a nation upon earth that has been discovered, even in the most barbarous nooks of it, that has not some idea of something superior to man, who controls man, and who may be, and ought to be, propitiated by man. They may have very wrong, very absurd, very corrupt concep- tions and definitions of God ; but that they acknowledge the existence of a God, or of something superior to man, is the result of every inquiry into their circumstances. It has been often thought that a conviction so universal, that has lasted so long, must be true. If it were not an instinct in the human heart, it would have been worn out long ere now ; but because it is an instinct that God has implanted and fixed there, and made part and parcel of man's very constitution, man's prejudices and passions and depravity have never yet served, or succeeded, in utterly exclud- ing it. Creation, also, testifies to the existence of a God. Wher- ever we find a house, there we infer there must have been a builder. Wherever we see a watch, we infer there must have been a watchmaker. Wherever I see a creature, I argue there must have been a Creator. There is immense philosophy in that psalm, " Pie made us, not we ourselves." Wherever, then, I see effects, there I must believe there has been a cause. This book of nature is torn and defaced in many places ; but still, even on its most mutilated and defaced fragments, I can see lingering, unquenched, and Enoch's ckeed. t 300 unquenchable remains of the glories of a God. Creation tells us there is a God. All its elements, from the pebble on the sea-shore to the planet in the sky, preach there is a God. From the flower by the way-side to the sun on his meridian throne, all things great and all things small, silently, but irresistibly, teach, There is a divinity that stirs within them, who made and shaped and still maintains them. Truly, it is a fool, intellectually as well as morally, that concludes, or even wishes. No God. It is impossible for the very highest creature, even an angel, to come to the conclusion that there is no God. All that any creature can do — the very utmost that he can reach — is to say that I have not been able to discover any thing within the limited range of my experience, that satis- fies me that there is a God. He must be a very stupid or a very wicked man, not to have discovered in his own ex- quisite organization, — in that heart with its thousand strings so accurately tuned and kept so wonderfully in harmony, — the great Creator must have originally made it. He must be a very stupid, or, if not, a very depraved man ; but at best no one can come to a conclusion broader than this, that he has not been able to discover that there is a God : for how does he know that just ten yards beyond the horizon that he has spanned there may not be the legible demonstra- tions of a God ? how does he know that just twenty yards beyond the ground that he has explored, there may not be something that says. There is a God? The man that asserts, There is no God, must be able to say, I have pierced the earth, and bored all its strata ; I have swept the firmament, and penetrated all its mysteries. I have sounded every deep, and risen to every height, and searched every star, and analyzed every object. In other words, the man that can say, There is no God, must himself be God, which is an absurdity, and an inconsistency ; ibr if finite, the very 304 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. space that lie had not penetrated may be the very lesson book that tells, There is a God. And, therefpre, all that a man can say is, " I have not been able to discover him ; " if he has not been able to discover there is a God, even within the range of his own experience, we repeat it, he must be very blind, or very unwilling. The eye alone, that pure mirror, the ear also, that wonderful chamber of sound, the hand likewise, as one has proved in one of the Bridge- water Treatises — these and every other fragment of the human frame reflect and indicate a God; and tell us, that God is. But Enoch goes further — a Christian by faith believes that there is a God. In other words, he accepts the exist- ence of a God, not as the conclusion of a process of reason- ing, but as a proposition announced by God himself. He accepts the Bible as God's book. He believes God's testi- mony respecting himself; and, therefore, by faith he be- lieves that God is. To his circumcised ear, every doctrine in the Bible is the mind of God; every precept in the Bible is the will of God ; every promise in the Bible is the bounty of God. He sees God in all things ; he traces his foot prints in all paths ; he hears his Father's voice in all dispensations. He believes not, as some do, that God was ; but he believes, as saints do, that God is ; not only being, but actually operating ; not that God created things, gave them an impulse, and left them to themselves ; but that God created all, and that what philosophy calls the laws of nature are but the continuous touches of God; but what philosophy calls the forces of nature are but the evidences of God's power touching all, retuning all that is deranged, and controlling all. Hence, a believer sees God in all the providences that occur in all the chapters of his history. In all great catastrophes, in all little incidents, in the upheav- ing of a kingdom, in the overthrowing of a throne, in the Enoch's creed. 305 turning of a corner, the Christian believes that God is. By faith he believes that God is. A child of God feels that he is not a victim of accidents, and chances, and changes, and random vicissitudes. He is embosomed in God, and God is embosomed in his deepest and dearest convictions. It is with him no naked, abstract piece of philosophy. Thou, God, seest me ; but it is with him his innermost, his dearest, his deepest thought. Thou, God, seest me. Justified by the righteousness of Jesus, washed in his blood, guided by his Spirit, he loves to be with God, and desires God to be with him ; he sees all things in God, and God in all things, and the wide world's intricate mechanism " working for good to them that love God, and are the called according to his pur- pose." And thus, the faith of a Christian that God is, places the creature in his lowly place of adoring humility, while it recognizes God in his lofty sovereignty, and exclu- sive supremacy, as the Controller, the Guardian, and the Guide of all. Enoch believed not only that God is, but that he is in Christ the image of God, " God manifest in the flesh." " The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begot- ten." The mere naturalist sees a God in nature ; the mere legislator sees a God in law; but by faith we see more clearly, what Enoch saw more dimly, that God is in Christ not governing the world only, nor enunciating law only, but reconciling the world unto himself. It is only in Christ that we see God in all his glory, his attributes in perfect harmony, and just as he is — God just, while he justifies the sinner that believes; God holy, while he takes the guilty one that comes to him to his bosom. This spectacle, this vision, is only to be seen while we stand where Moses stood, on the everlasting Rock, and let the Lord pass before us, as he proclaims himself the Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, keeping mercy for thousands, for- • 26* 306 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. giving iniquity, transgression, and sin. Only from God in Christ can we hear these words, " I, even I, am he that blotteth out all thine iniquities." Only of God in Christ can we read this, " If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and cleanse us from all un- righteousness." Only from God in Christ can we hear these words, " Come, and let us reason together ; though your sins be like crimson, they shall be like wool; and though they be red like scarlet, they shall be white as snow." By faith, we believe that God is in nature controlling it, in law guarding it, in Christ reconciling us to himself, and blotting out all our trespasses. By faith we receive a vision of God's being, infinitely brighter and more glorious than any mirror of that Being that nature can furnish even to those that extort her deepest secrets, or that law can utter to those that listen with the holiest and the most attentive ear. In nature God is, but above us ; in the law God is, but against us ; in Christ God is, but Emmanuel, " God with us," our Father and our Friend. But by faith we not only believe that God is, or God's being ; but we believe, too, in God's bounty, " that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him." We often misinterpret the word "reward." Reward is not the consequence of merit, but the sequence of work. We are not told here that w^e merit, and therefore get the reward; but that we work, and the reward is graciously vouchsafed to us. Where the the word " reward " is used by the sacred penmen, work, but not merit, is always implied. "Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt ; for to him that worketh not, but belie veth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness." Thus speaking of reward, he teaches it may be given by grace, as well as by Enoch's creed. 307 work. We read in another passage, " The reward of inher- itance ; " but if it be inheritance, it cannot be deserved. " God said to Abraham, I am thy exceeding great reward." Now, says the apostle, " Abraham was justified, not by works, for then he would have had something to glory in, but was justified by faith." It is called " reward," to show that Christians do not enter heaven indolent men ; but, on the other hand, it is said to be by grace, to show that they do not enter heaven as meriting or self-righteous men. They run, they strive, they fight, they labor ; yet they get to heaven not because they do so, but through Christ ; and yet without doing so, they do not enter into heaven at all. Two things are plain : unless we strive we shall not enter ; unless we labor we shall not obtain ; unless we sow we shall not reap ; unless we fight we shall not be crowned. And yet, we are not crowned because we fight ; we do not reap because we sow ; we do not obtain because we labor ; but we are saved by grace from the first pulse of life to the first enjoyment of glory. The reward, therefore, is by grace, and not of works. The devils believe; but, not having a promise of a reward, they tremble. We believe in God ; but, having the sure promise of the reward of the inherit- ance, we rejoice in hope of it with joy unspeakable and full of glory. There may be much in the faith which thus believes in God, and believes, not that he shall be, but " that he is, a rewarder of them that diligently seek him," to per- plex the Christian. David, who believed this very propo- sition, that God was " a rewarder of them that diligently seek him," was yet so perplexed when he saw the wicked prosper, and the godly suffer, that he exclaimed, " Surely in vain have I washed my hands in innocency. It is plain that God is not a moral governor; that God is not the rewarder of them that diligently seek him. I have suffered for my religion by the scorn of foes, because I hid it not ; 308 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. but all this is entirely in vain, because God is not a rewarder of them that diligently seek him." But he waited ; he went into the sanctuary ; he listened to what was preached, and read there ; and he discovered that, in spite of appearances, " God is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him ; " for " They are brought into desolation, as in a moment ; they are utterly consumed with terrors." They are placed in slippery places; and though for a moment the sun may seem to shine upon them, it is only that the darkness that speedily comes may seem the more terrible. We see, too, an ancient prophet who was perplexed and thought that he was cast off; but who, when he read and pondered God's word more, said, "Though the labor of the olive should fail, and the fields yield no meat, and there be no herds in the stall, and every thing should proclaim that God is not a rewarder of them that diligently seek him ; yet will I rejoice in the Lord, and joy in the God of my salvation." If pres- ent appearances ever indicate to us, as they sometimes do, that God is not a rewarder of piety, let us recollect this is not the day of judgment, but ih& day of grace. God suffers the wicked occasionally to prosper. In God's dealings with us, he frequently afflicts, not to gratify revenge on his part ; but for our good. And very often God's hand may be heavy, when God's heart overflows with love. Very often the blackest cloud, that seems to us to be a perfect eclipse, may conceal behind it, or may be itself the vehicle of, bene- dictions that are destined to burst upon us. You must not judge that God has ceased to be, and to be a rewarder of them that seek him ; because present appearances are not what we think they should be. God deals on a large scale. He arranges things for great, magnificent, and worthy issues ; and often it is necessary that his people should suffer for a season, before they rejoice and be exceeding glad with their great reward in heaven. Yet a Christian's most afflicted Enoch's creed. 809 hours are often his sweetest and most blessed. The day- time with all its splendor has but one sun ; but when the sun sets, and the night comes, the whole sky sparkles and glows with innumerable stars. A Christian's daytime has but one sun ; but a Christian's time of sadness, depression, and affliction, often reveals to him glories in the height and blessings at his feet, that he never conceived, still less calcu- lated upon; and, at all events, whatever be our present state, patient continuance in well-doing is followed by glory ; and we who are believers may yet say, " Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day ; and not to me only, but unto them also that love his appearing." But rich, or poor, obscure or renowned, Jew or Gentile, Greek or barbarian, bond or free, God is — where we do not see him ; faith implies the unseen, or it is not faith ; God is, even when we do not see, even when we see the contrary — faith still believes " that he is — a rewarder of them that diligently seek him." And when perplexed by the inexpli- cable opposition to this by occurrences that seem utterly to frustrate it, the Christian falls back on what the Lord said, " What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter." Let us look at the way in which this faith is explained — "they that come to him." The Christian is a person that "comes to God," he is a person "that diligently seeks him." What does this imply? When we read that one comes to God, we see phraseology borrowed from the ancient temple service. The Jew, before he could present his sacrifice, had to come to the temple physically. He must come from a distance to the mercy-seat, the glory between the cherubim, the high-priest, and the ever present God. The phraseology of the New Testament is in this borrowed from the ancient ritual of Levi ; and hence 310 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. the Christian who believes in God is said to "come" to him. The word "come," implies that we are by nature at a distance from God. "We are described by the apostle as "far off" from God: by nature it is too true we are not near to God. Sin by its projectile force has cast us out from the presence of God. In this distant position, we are not only far from God, but we are disinclined to go to God. We are worse than far off; we are enmity and opposition to God. So strong is this enmity to God in the bosom of the most amiable, the most gentle, the most courteous and accomplished by nature, that it needs Omnipotence to overcome it ; for " no man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him." The lost sheep needs to be gone after by the shepherd, and, when the shepherd has found it, would you not suppose it would gratefully follow him till it reached the fold ? Alas ! before that lost sheep, after it has been found, can be brought back to the fold, it must be put upon the shepherd's shoulder, and carried home. We need not only to be discovered, detected in our hiding, to be found by the Shepherd who first seeks us; but in every step and movement of our journey forward, to be carried on the shoulder of him that has discovered us. In other words, we need not only omnipresent love to search for us in our hiding ; but we need omnipotent power to carry us home, before we can reach the fold. A Christian who believed, who was con- verted, thirty years ago, needs as much grace to keep him right this year, as he needed to keep him right thirty years ago. We need grace to put us in the right way, and we need no less the same grace to keep us there. The impression, and the semiatheistic notion, of some is, that God formed the world, gave it a projectile impulse, and that, from the Enoch's creed. 311 force of that impulse, it has rolled in its orbit ever since and some Christians seem to fall into an analogous error — - that God set them going thirty years ago, and that now they must continue under their first momentum in the same way of their own strength. God created the world, and he controls it. God discovers the sinner, and conducts the sinner home ; he acts, as truly as acted. The heart beats, not because God wound it up and set it going, but because he touches it every moment; and the regenerated heart loves, not only because God set it loving, but because he keeps it loving all the day long. In him, by nature, we live and have our being ; in him, by grace, we live, and move, and have our redemption. "We need not only to be discovered in our distance from God, but to be sustained at every step in our journey home to God. But how are we to come to him? There is but one way ; there is no name under heaven but one : " No man Cometh unto the Father but by me." Christ suffered for sin, " the just for the unjust," to bring us to God. " Him that Cometh to me, I will in nowise cast out;" and "we have boldness by a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us by his own blood." Hear, then, this great truth, that there is but one way to heaven. Chris- tianity is most exclusive in one respect: it is most large, liberal, and comprehensive in another. It proclaims with earnest exclusiveness. There is but one way to heaven. It matters not how near to it you are, or how often you may cross it ; if you do not walk in it you cannot reach heaven. We must come to God by Christ, the way, the only way ; and, coming thus, and thus only, we learn that he is. The gospel is not a theory ; it is experience. They that come to God learn that he is. How precious is this ! We go to God with the supposition that he is ; we retire from God 312 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. with the demonstration that he. is. "We go to God believing that he is ; and we remain with God experiencing in our hearts that he is. Thus, experiment leads unto experience ; experience leads unto more faith ; faith leads unto assur- ance; and assurance unto quietness for ever. The true credential of Christianity is in the believer's own bosom. No man ever read the Bible diligently, dispassionately, prayerfully, without detecting, scarcely latent, under every leaf of this Tree of Life, the evidence of the glory and the inspiration of God. No man ever earnestly ventured on Christianity, trying to make the experiment of its reality, without experiencing, in the long run, that it is the wisdom of God, and that it is the power of God unto salvation. I must notice another definition of this faith. It is, we " diligently seek him." We are to seek him with the whole heart. Seek him with the same intensity with which men seek profit in business, success in their efforts, honor, or whatever else the world sets out in pursuit of. Let us seek God as diligently, as earnestly, as the world seeks its own. We are to seek him, first of all, in his own blessed word. The Bible is the oracle of truth, the very likeness of God. It is the exactest mirror and representation of Deity ; not in stone, nor carved in wood ; but in eloquent words, pure, vivid, living ideas. This blessed book you may rever- ence, love, appreciate as gold, you may taste as having the sweetness of honey ; you may do every thing in admiration of the Bible, but worship it. Roman Catholics have wor- shipped images, and statues, and rags, and relics, and even human heads — is it not strange that they never thought of worshipping the Bible, which, after all, is the truest likeness of God ? They dared not worship it ; because, if they made the attempt, fire would have rushed from the mouth of this witness, and revealed to their confusion, " It is writ- ten, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only Enoch's creed. 313 shalt thou serve." This blessed book is to be loved, to be cherished, to be studied ; but not to be worshipped. We can hear in it God's voice, as Adam heard it among the trees of the garden at eventide. It is that holy land over which we may walk, not needing a priest to keep us from falling. It is that deep, unsounded, and luminous ocean, the bed of which is covered with gems for us. Let go your cathedrals, your confessions of faith, your articles, your liturgies, your psalm books, your hymns, every thing you have ; but let go the Bible only with your life. It is the noblest bequest that God ever left to man. It is the right and privilege of saints ; we must never give it up till we enter that blessed place where the Bible will be superseded, and we shall be no more taught from letters at second hand, but from the lips of God, our Father, himself. We are to seek God, not only in the Bible, but in the sanctuary. Seek him in the preacher's sermon, in the read- ing of the chapters of the Bible. Seek the sermon that is truest, purest, and, in the sermon. Him who ought to be its text, the golden thread that runs through the whole, and gives its beauty and its cohesion to all. Do not hear the sermon in order to be pleased with it, or in order to criticize it, or in order to make comments on the preacher. The preacher's motive is not to lead you to his house, or to him- self, or to his church, but to his God. That sermon which does not lead you, directly or indirectly, by inference or by prescription, to God the Saviour, is something very defi- cient, and needs to be studied again. You are to seek God in the sanctuary; seek him in the sermon, and if, after patient and prayerful waiting, you do not find him, go there no more ; for the living bread is not there. Seek him diligently by prayer. What is prayer ? Not counting beads, or saying Ave Marias, or repeating Pater- nosters ; still less making any or all a penance to man, and 27 314 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. a propitiation to God. Nor are we to make prayers to be seen of men, in corners of the streets ; but because we have a deep sense of need : we are to pray just as that need, dictates, or inclines. And wlienever we pray in the congre- gation, in the school-room, in the prayer-meeting, we should use simple words. When men are in earnest discussion about a subject, they speak simply. I can bear bombastic sermons ; but turgid, loquacious prayers are to me most offensive. A person who expresses deep feeling, does not beat about for high-sounding words ; he uses instinctively the plain old Saxon words, that exactly and readily suit his purpose, and convey most shortly and vividly the meaning they are charged with. Pray simply. We cannot speak too naturally to God. Seek God at the communion table. Because some have deified the Lord's supper, let us not go to the opposite extreme, and destroy it. Because some have worshipped it, as if it were a god, let not us trample it under foot, as if it were an absolute rite. The poor Israelites in their caprice one day worshipped a brass serpent; on the next day they broke it up, as if it were a thing of nought. We are not to cast away ordinances as if they were useless, nor to worship them as if they were gods. If we seeji God aright in the sanctuary, we shall not only find him, but we shall be so absorbed by our sense of the magnificence of the God that is in it, that we shall put into its lowly but just place the ordinance that reveals him. We are to seek him in the world outside, in providence, in all the events of history, in all the chapters of individual biography ; in the sunny spots of human life, in its darkest eclipses, in its most solitary nooks ; when his blessing lights upon us, and when the cloud envelops us ; in all our joys, in all our sorrows. Seek him in the world he has made, into which the serpent indeed has entered, but over which Enoch's creed. 815 God will yet reign from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth. God is in all things. God is, in spite of all appearances, the rewarder of them that come to him. Having thus explained the faith, I will show how it pleases God. Such faith as that which I have shown, implies a deep sense of one's own insignificance ; therefore God is well pleased with it. Secondly, this faith makes a man own that he has lost God, that he is far from him, that he must be diligently sought ; and, therefore, he runs to him, and diligently seeks him ; and God is well pleased with it. Such faith empties man of all conceit in himself ; makes him own that he is blind, and poor, and naked, and that no creature can satisfy him, that no created thing can give him comfort ; and such faith owns that God is able, all-sufficient, and all-willing to reward them that diligently seek him, and to manifest himself to them that believe in him. And with- 'out this self-emptying, self-denying, God-glorifying, Christ- magnifying faith, it is impossible to please God. It matters not, if we present him thousands of rams, and ten thousands of rivers of oil, if we give him our first-born for the sin of our soul, if we were to make the most weary pilgrimages and the most torturing penances ; all are utterly worthless. Without fiiith which confides in him as a Father, believes in him as a God, looks to him as a rewarder of them that dili- gently seek him, it is utterly impossible to please God. To please him is the noblest and the purest aim, and the most profitable ; for " whatsoever things we ask," says John, " we receive them ; because we do those things that are pleasing in his sight ; " and if we please God, " he will make our very enemies to be at peace with us." Thus, it is worth pleasing him, not by doing any thing to propitiate him ; but 316 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. by walking with him as a child walks with a father ; not as a slave with a tyrant master before whom he cringes, or as a maniac with his keeper of whom he is constantly afraid ; but as a child with a parent, in whose face he sees sunshine, and in whose footfall he hears the most welcome music, as Enoch walked. Thus walking, and thus believing, we please God, and are accepted of him, through Christ Jesus, the only Saviour of this illustrious member of the Antediluvian Church, and of all who believe, till the end of time. CHAPTER XVIII. THE BABEL BUILDERS ; OR, UNSANCTIFIED JUDGMENTS. " Nor deem the irrevocable past As wholly wasted — wholly vain, If, rising on its wrecks, at last To something nobler we attain." " And they said, Go to, bt us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven ; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded. And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language ; and this they begin to do : and now nothing will be re- strained from them, which they have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not under- stand one another's speech. So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth : and they left off to build the city." — Gex. xi. 4-8. I HAVE presented elsewhere in explanatory remarks those geographical, and, if I may use the word, ethno- graphical criticisms, which cast some light upon the mere history of the chapter which I have now read. But it is important that we should look at God's word, not only in the light of history and of science, but also in that light which shall make it practically improving to our own hearts, and lives, and consciences. Therefore, I proceed to draw from the whole of the historical statement we have read, those interesting and important spiritual lessons with which all Scripture is charged, and which it needs only patient and 27* 318 ■ THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. prayerful investigation to educe for our comfort, edification, and progress. How true is God's portrait of humanity after the Flood ! how true was his portrait of humanity before it ! Before he sent that overwhelming judgment, he, who could not be mis- taken, said, " Every imagination of the thoughts of man's heart is evil, and that continually;" and after the Flood had swept the earth, and punished the guilty, and saved by a special miracle them that loved him, God, looking still to man's heart, said, "Though the imagination of ther thoughts of man's heart be still evil continually, yet I will not send another Flood to destroy the whole earth." You have humanity sketched before the Flood, and the crimes that then prevailed are t^ evidence how truly God spake. You have humanity sketched after the Flood, and the daring and impious experiment described in the eleventh chapter of Genesis, is the evidence how true that portrait was. We see from all this that the visible church and the true spiritual church are not coextensive. It was only the visi- ble church that was saved in the ark, they were not all members of the true spiritual church. Noah, and his wives and children, were the selected group saved by God's spe- cial providence, and by a specific miracle, from the desolat- ing judgments that overwhelmed the rest of the world ; but in that little group there were some who were saved tempo- rarily, but not spiritually and eternally ; for no sooner do they escape from the ark, than, forgetful of all past mercies, despising all existent signs, they start again an experiment of impiety and wickedness only equalled by the folly in which they were permitted to conceive it. So is it still. In the smallest church all are not truly converted men. All that pass through baptismal water are not regenerated, just as all that were saved by the Flood were not saved by the Holy Spirit of God. He is not a Jew who is one out- THE BABEL BUILDERS. 819 wardly; he Is not a Christian who is one only baptized. There needs an inner work to make us members of the inner church, just as the outer rite can make us members of the outer ecclesiastical community. A very important lesson is taught here, — mere judg- ments are unequal to sanctify the heart, wicked men do not become better by the judgments that befall them. In short, the visitation that overtakes a person, has its fruits accord- ing to the prior character and heart of that person. In the case of God's people, all afflictions are chastisements, sweet- ened and sanctified to them. In the case of those who are not God's people, afflictions have only a hardening effect. It is the inner state of the individual prior to the affliction, that determines and surely predicts what shall be the prac- tical moral effect of that affliction. There is nothing in suffering, however severe, or however long, that is essen- tially sanctifying, otherwise the penalties of the lost would end in the purification of the lost. There is nothing in any suffering that can root out the fibres of the old heart, or neutralize its inherent poison. The Spirit of God only can do so. Affliction to the believer is mercy ; affliction to the unbeliever is penal, and not paternal in any respect. We see this in the case of those who escaped in the ark ; what they had lost — for they had all lost friends and relatives — had no sanctifying effect upon them. In looking at this historical fact, it is worthy of remark, there was no sin in building the tower — that was not the sin — there was no more sin in building the Tower of Babel, than there was in building the Pyramids, or any of the steeples of London. The outer act was not in itself sinful ; the construction of a city was rather a desirable thing ; it is the seat of refinement, and of human progress. In the outer act itself there could have been nothing that was sinful. Wherein then did the sin lie ? The same outward 320 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. act may diiFer in moral character in different circumstances. It is the heart behind the hand that decides the nature and the character of its work ; it is the aim, the motive, the end, that indicates moral character. One man may build a church, and yet there may be no piety in the act ; another man may build a playhouse, and there may be no impiety in it. It is when the work is in itself neutral, that you are to deter- mine its moral character by the prior moral feelings of the artisan, or the mechanic, or the genius that devised and constructs it. In building this tower, the sin was in the aim, the end, and object which they had in view. Let us investigate what these were, and then we shall be able to calculate the moral nature of the workmen engaged in this enterprise. "We have only to listen to the original invitation, — " Come, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven ; and let us make us a name," that is, get national celebrity or national glory, — to see that this was their grand, predominating, and absorbing object. But has this actuating motive perished or been buried amid the ruins of the Tower of Babel? Alas, it has not. How many study, not in order to be useful to man and serviceable in the cause of Christ, but to get a name ! Many an author writes books, many a senator makes speeches, many a states- man constructs cabinets, many a soldier draws the sword, many a sailor walks the deck, not from patriotic motives, or with Christian designs, but to get a name. As Dr. Chal- mers well said, " Each of us has his tower of Babel, which we are continually building, and never learning wisdom from the experience of the past." It is no evidence that the thing is good to say that any of these things — to be a soldier, a sailor, an author, a preacher, or an orator, — is good in itself: we must mark the aim, the end, the object in view. It matters not what the thing be, if it be not in THE BABEL BUILDERS. 821 itself sinful ; but it does matter what our end, object, and aim are in doing it. There may possibly be less sin in building a playhouse to obtain a name, than in building a church for the same end. In building a playhouse to get a name, it is the world's workmen doing the world's bidding to obtain the world's applause ; but in building a church to get a name, it is adding hypocrisy to the world's crime. Many a man founds an hospital, not because he loves man the more, but because he loves his own name better. Another man builds a college, not because he loves the education of the young, but in order that his name may be mentioned with praise by the youth that are to study there. In the old mediaeval ages, men built churches and monas- teries in order that they might have masses said for their souls ; but in our days we build colleges, and found hospitals, not to get masses said for our souls, but to get praises added to our names : and all the difference is, that they did their acts for superstitious ends, and we do ours for sceptical ends — both are Babels, that, built or building, will perish and overwhelm the builders in their ruins. How much more beautiful is the description of our blessed Lord, — when you found hospitals, when you do alms, when you build colleges, take heed that " ye do not these things to be seen of men,'* that ye do not do them to get a name ; otherwise ye have no reward of your Father who is in heaven. Therefore, when ye do your alms, sound not a trumpet before you, or, translated into modern language, do not put a paragraph in the newspaper ; " but when thou doest thine alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth." How intensely expressive ! Let us do it so purely from a right motive, so truly to a right end, so thoroughly in the right name, that there shall be no alloy of any other end or motive whatever. When we reflect — the best and holiest of us all — on all the side-ends and by-ends, the sub-motives and under-ob- 322 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. jects, that we have in view in the best things we do, in the purest things we devise, in the noblest acts of sacrifice we make, we must all bow before God and say, " Enter not into judgment, Lord, with thy servants, for in thy sight no man living can be justified." It is therefore too true that the Christian, if he does not build a Babel with the precise Babel ends, and on the precise Babel foundation, yet has designs that have the old alloy, just as our language has in it the traces of the old confusion — it is not merely that our language testifies to the disruption at Babel, but our hearts testify to "it too. How often do we see one apparently wrapped and absorbed in what is Christian, who yet has no Christian motive at all ! I have seen the mountain eagle almost beating the blue firmament with his outspread wings, and I have thought, as I gazed at his magnificent ascent, that he was soaring towards the sky and the realms of purer and of brighter day ; but I had only to wait a little to find out, that though he seemed to soar so high and aspire so purely, his bright eye was upon the quarry all the while, that was on the ground below. So it is with many a one, with loud pretensions, high-sounding profession, great Chris- tian aims avowed and declared, while he seems to be -soaring upward with his outspread wings, and seeking a loftier sphere and a nobler land, he is really looking down to what will bring the greatest profit to his purse, or the noblest credit to his name. Thus we have the Babel spirit mixing with us, thus we have Babel motives still actuating us. But there were more defects than these in the conduct of the Babel builders. One great defect was, they left out all thought of God. It was, perhaps, well that they did so, because their object was bad ; but still, if the object had been perfectly good, to leave out all thought of God in undertaking so magnificent a scheme, was, to say the least of it, extremely atheistic. But do we not in some degree THE BABEL BUILDERS. 323 inherit this ? We look at means, and money, and talent, as if these were the only things, and we forget that means, money, talent, will all be blasted, if they are put in the place of God. How often do we undertake missionary enterprises, and new schemes of philanthropy and useful- ness to the poor, or for the spiritual enlightenment of the benighted, and forget that the end is to be achieved, not by the multitude of means, or the weight of money, or the splendor of patronage, but directly by the blessing of Almighty God ! No scheme can prosper, from which this element is exhausted, and no right scheme will fail, however meagre at its commencement, in which this element is truly and heartily recognized. " I shall die in my nest," said one, and he found it otherwise. " Soul, take thine ease," said another, "thou hast much goods laid up for many days," and that night his soul was required of him. " To- morrow shall be as this day," say some ; " I shall multiply my days," say others ; and their inward thought is that their houses shall continue, and their names shall be upon them, and yet the Lord has designed, " Except the Lord watch the city, the watchman watcheth in vain." It is not in man that walketh to direct his steps ; it is not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts. Thus, one of the Babel sins was leaving God out of the enterprise. Let us ask ourselves. Do we leave out God in our enterprises ? or, Do we introduce him into all ? We are not only to die in the Lord, but we are to live in the Lord ; and those who hope to die in the Lord, should know that there is no likelihood that that hope will be realized, except they now live in the Lord. It is right to marry, but it is a Babel marriage unless it be marrying in the Lord. It is right to live, but it is a Babel life unless to live be Christ. It is necessary to die, but such death will be an ominous one unless we die in him in whom we live, that is, 324 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. in the Lord. "We have only to read the chart of history, to see that, whenever nations have forgotten God, God has sooner or later forsaken them. How much have we seen of this, to go back no longer than 1845 ! In that year the Babel spirit made the whole nations one vast speculating body. Soon afterwards, God looked down, and confusion and wreck fell upon all. Soon after, we thought we could defy the seasons, and have bread, and plenty to spare ; God looked down, smote the element in which we trusted, and all was confusion again. In another year, we thought we had made such progress in all our sanatory arrangements, that we might repel triumphantly the incursions of pestilence and plague ; God looked down, another year and a nation's heart almost stood still with terror. In 1851, some were predicting a millennium, who had been predicting it for ten years before ; and others were enjoying, as we all properly enjoyed, the spectacle of peace, which we hoped to be the earnest of peace with all the nations of the earth ; no sooner did 1851 close with the hopes and pledges of peace, and the interchanges of peace, and 1852 begin, than war, and rumors of war, and preparations for war, were heard on every side. How truly, then, is God teaching us to guard against the spirit of the Babel builders, and in our anticipations, our arrangements, our schemes, our enter- prises, never to forget to add, in spirit if not in letter, " If the Lord will." By this I do not mean that we are to proclaim these words on all occasions, in all intercourse ; but that in our thoughts there is to be the undercurrent of feeling, " If the Lord will ; " in all our conversations the undertone, " If the Lord will ; " in all our schemes, and enterprises, and prospects, the inner feeling, " If the Lord will ; " in other words, admitting all other elements that are good, but never excluding the element that is essential — God's glory, God's presence, and our dependence on him, and responsibility to him. THE BABEL BUILDERS. 325 But, perhaps, in these Babel builders there was worse than simply leaving out God ; there was, I fear, not simply atheism, which is being without God ; but there was, I fear, antitheism, or opposition to God. They knew God's ordi- nance, which was, that they should go forth according to the arrangements made with Shem and Ham and Japheth, and cover and replenish the whole earth ; but they did not like to go forth upon unknown lands, and into strange latitudes ; and therefore, though they heard sounding in their ears the bidding of that God who had saved them from the deluge, they determined to defy his thunders, to brave his threaten- ings, and to build a tower which should be a rallying centre for the earth's population to gather round ; and so high, in all probability, that no second deluge, which they supposed possible, should reach its top ; and so strong, that no hostile force should be able to overturn it. Leaving out God is atheism; acting contrary to God is antitheism. But they found that whatever is attempted against God recoils upon them who make the attempt. One cannot read the history of the past, or any department of that history, without seeing that, whenever man has dared to provoke the contro- versy, whether he or God shall prevail, Babel confusion has been his doom, and the manifested glory and sovereignty of God the great lesson ; it may be, not permanently, but surely and deeply taught. At all events, whether it was hostility to God, defiance " of him, or simply omission of God and forgetfulness of him, there was in their whole scheme thorough unbelief. God's word told them that there should be no second Flood, but their wicked hearts said. We do not believe God's word, and therefore we will make preparations to meet a contingency still possible. God's word again told them that, as often as they saw that sacramental symbol span the firmament, and display its beauteous arch, they should have a pledge for 28 326 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. their assurance, not for God's, that no second Flood should come ; but they said, No, we will not believe that sign, and therefore we will act just as if there were no such promise confirmed by any such pledge. Do we ever feel and mani- fest this spirit ? There is in the Lord's supper a standing pledge, like the rainbow, that Jesus suflfered, and that God spared him not, but delivered him up for us all. Do we, notwithstanding, sometimes doubt that fact, and feel as if God had never given a Saviour ? God says, " Behold, the Lord Cometh : he cometh with clouds, and every eye shall see him, and they also that pierced him." Do we not some- times doubt, and say, "To-morjow shall be as this day," and, " Where is the promise of his coming ? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning?" Such is the unbelief of the Babel builders, and if their sin is ours, for retribution exists on earth as truly as it will exist hereafter, their punishment will be ours also. "Whatever is undertaken without God, or in disbe- lief of God's word, or in defiance of God's power, will never prosper. Li national constitutions, in national legisla- tion, in the foundation of palaces, and in the building of cottages, in drawing up great charters for a people, and in writing small leases for a house, the great element of co- herence, strength, endurance, safety, prosperity, honor, is the recognition of God, and in so recognizing him, the fee- blest shall be strong, the fewest shall be conquerors. All Scripture, confirmed by all history, shows that institutions laid in God are lasting as the stars, institutions built in defi- ance of him perish and dissolve like frostwork in a night. Let us therefore carry, into the sequestered nooks of pri- vate life, what we ought to see developed in the greatest and most conspicuous places of public life — a sense of de- pendence on Him who looks on. Let the merchant sit down at his desk with as solemn feeling as that wherewith THE BABEL BUILDERS. 327 he sits down at the Lord's table. Let him enter his counting- house with a sense of responsibility to God, as real as that with which he enters the sanctuary ; and let him write his ledger with just as deep and sensitive a mind, as that with which he reads his Bible. I believe that a besetting heresy of the day is not Calvinism, nor Arminianism, nor any other ism, but the practical separation of what is religious, and what is secular. I never can accept such separation. Education without religion is no education at all. Business without religion is Babel building, and it will have a Babel issue. So minute is the requirement of God's word, that he says, " Whatever ye do, whether ye eat or drink, do all to the glory of God." But the besetting and the very popu- lar idea is, religion is religion, and it is fit for the church ; business is business, and it only is fit for the market. Most certainly, do not carry your business into your religion, and make religion a matter of profit and of loss ; but you ought to carry your religion into your business, that your business may be beautiful before God, and just and honorable in the sight of man. When we come to the sanctuary, we come to be taught what religion is, and how deep, and how high, and how far religion ought to reach. When we go out into the counting-house, the market, the warehouse, the place where mammon's traffic is, we go there to show how religion can make us to differ. The merchant who drinks in the lessons of the Bible on the Sunday, will not go to the Royal Exchange and preach there ; but he will in his trans- actions make it be felt by others that there is such honesty about that man, such integrity, right-heartedness, and truth, that he must have some spring to feed it, some hidden manna, some source of persistency and power that we know not of; we will go where that man goes, his people shall be our people, we will hear what his minister says. The minis- ter who has some twenty or thirty thorough Christianized 328 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. men going out into the world, acting out their Christianity in the world's business without show, pretence, or talk, or cant, or any thing approaching to it, will soon have a crowded congregation, because other people will inquire into the secret of this superiority to all around, and they will go to learn where and what that secret is, and they will say at last what some said to the woman of Samaria, " Now we believe, not because of thy saying ; for we have heard him ourselves." We learn another lesson from the Babel builders ; what- ever man attempts without God, or in spite of God, or in disobedience of God, or in disbelief of God, in order to attain a given end, is almost sure to issue in the opposite. These men set about building this tower to do what ? To " get a great name," to become the illustrious engineers and architects of the world, so that after ages should quote them as men of the grandest genius, and the greatest powers, and their name should be pronounced with veneration when their dust was sleeping in the grave below. That was their design, this was their object — did they accomplish it? Instead of gaining an illustrious name, they are bywords ; when we see some wild enthusiast fail, we call him a Babel builder; when we meet a fanatic attempting some wild scheme, we say, he is a Babel builder. They have got fame, but it is the fame of contempt ; and the fragments of their tower, and the memorials of its erection, still endure, to show that they who set out to get reputation in spite of God, will only get shame, discredit, and contempt. But this was not their only object — they had another in view. It was to prevent themselves being scattered over all the face of the earth ; it was to be a central rallying tower to retain the unity of the masses. Did they accomplish it? Just the reverse — the very thing they deprecated was the very thing they provoked. The very scattering that they raised THE BABEL BUILDERS. 329 the tower to prevent, was the very scattering — violently and not gently, as it would have been — which they really brought in all its severit;;^ upon themselves. How truly does Obadiah speak of them when he says, " The pride of thine heart hath deceived thee, thou that dwellest in the clefts of the rock, whose habitation is high ; that saith in his heart, Who shall bring me down to the ground ? Though thou exalt thyself as the eagle, and though thou set thy nest among the stars, thence will I bring thee down, saith the Lord." God resisteth the proud, he giveth grace to the humble. We do not need a space of five hundred yards to build our Babel ; in many a nook and sequestered place is a tower of Babel attempted still. Who has not felt, more or less, that when you have set your heart upon something, without taking in the sense of God's presence, or your responsibility to him, or the contingency that he might inter- pose, and when you have gained the very thing that your heart was set upon, how often it has been found another thorn in your pillow, a corrosive and a cankering thing in your heart ! Many a man has set his heart upon making a fortune, and without a thought about God — not taking means that are dishonest, yet atheistically — he has set his heart upon making a fortune, and God allows him to suc- ceed. What is the result of it ? Just when he has made the fortune, he is laid upon a sick-bed from which he never rises. I have seen this in the extremest degree, when the fortune was magnificent, beyond counting. Or you have set your heart upon a fortune, and you have obtained it, and learned how unsatisfactory it is, and that you have Been spending your money for that which looked like bread, but which is not bread, and your labor for that which you thought would satisfy, and, lo, it satisfieth not. Many have made a fortune in which all seemed to be prosperous and merry as a marriage bell, and yet that very fortune has 28* 330 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. occasioned them such torment, disputes, bitterness of heart, and anxiety of mind, that they have wished to God that they had never had a fortune at all. I heard of one who set his heart upon a fortune with all his might — an irreli- gious, atheistic, ungodly man : he made the fortune, and one day he was met going to commit suicide — such was the satisfaction it gave to him. Whatever we attempt against God, or without God, either will be contradicted in its issue, or if we obtain the object we had in view, that object will be a thorn, a calamity, and a curse. A crown reached in the face of God will be but a burning circlet ; a throne, or a presidential chair, attained by violation of the laws of God will be but a restless seat ; reputation and renown achieved in the spite of God will be poor enjoyment to him who has it. That little word " God," the exponent of a grand ele- ment in a man's heart, gives vigor to the hand that wins the fortune, and it gives repose to the heart to enjoy that fortune after it is won. Therefore, merchants, tradesmen, soldiers, sailors, all men, whatever be your position, whatever your profession, seek first the kingdom of God and his righteous- ness, and all other things shall be added unto you. How beautiful is that ! It is like the law of gravitation — all falls under it, clusters around it, becomes holy and prosperous just by its being in the heart and actuating all. All humanity is suffering under the curse incurred by the Babel builders. We need not quarrel with that great law of God's providential dealing, visiting the sins of the fathers upon the children. You need not say, it is unjust. I do not stop to discuss its justice ; I assert simply, it is a fact, and a fact written in the Bible, and acted out in providence every day. The question is not. Is the thing true ? for we feel it ; and therefore to quarrel with the Bible for asserting it, is to quarrel with God's word for speaking truth. These Babel builders built this tower in defiance of God, or in THE BABEL BUILDERS, 831 unbelief of God ; their tongues were confounded ; literally, the J became no longer of one lip. Now what is the result ? That every missionary who goes out to preach to the heathen, goes out cramped and scathed by the curse of Babel. He has to sit down three or four years to learn the language, and, after he has learned it, who does not know that the speaking with foreign idioms, and with all the defi- ciencies of foreign habits, to a heathen people, is presenting the gospel with the least element of power, and in its least favorable aspect ? We have in our experience every day to deal with that great fact before us — the confusion of tongues. And what is the cause of most men's quarrels ? Not that their hearts are really so much at issue the one with the other, but that the language in which they unfold and express them is misunderstood the one by the other. Whenever we hear great ecclesiastical quarrels between bishops and presbyters, synods and general assemblies, we hear the undertone of Babel in the midst of them — the quarrel is less about things, and more about modes of expression. In the case of Calvinism and Arminianism, — hear a truly converted Arminian and Calvinist pray together, and you will find that they pray the same ; hear them preach, they preach very much the same ; and you find that the logomachy is rather in the terms employed — that it is a Babel dispute — that they are at heart really and vitally one. The reason of our quarrels generally is more in our expression of our meaning, than in our meaning itself. Every man has not the power of expressing his thoughts. Some men have such power of speaking, that they can speak for hours without a particle of meaning. Other men have great stores of thought, but such inability to utter it, that they cannot speak five minutes fluently. And when we know what mighty varieties there are between these two extremes, we shall learn to forgive those that differ, and 332 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. lament the Babel curse that is found in our divisions, and we shall pray for what I now refer to, that future and coming Pentecost, of which the last was but an instalment, when, not the earth shall be of one tongue, for that would be monotony, but when all men shall speak all tongues as they speak their mother-tongue, and then there will be unity and peace. Pentecost came only in the first drops; the great shower, I believe, is yet to come. At Babel, separa- tion was the curse ; at Pentecost, separation was turned into a blessing. At Babel, men were scattered mechanically by the different tongues that instantly broke out ; at Pentecost, men were morally united, though mechanically separated. Let us then pray for that blessed Pentecost, when God shall pour out his Spirit upon all flesh, and all shall see eye to eye, and all shall be taught of God, and great shall be the peace of his children. How truly do we see at each stage of the book of Genesis, God's presence — God reigns. He taught man- kind, that though man had sinned and the world had strayed, yet he had not given up the reins of government, he had not left all to chance. I have no doubt that the Babel builders fancied that God, having satisfied his justice, as they would call it, by the deluge, had returned to repose, and left the world to manage itself; but he interposed to show that he held the reins, that he is throned above the floods, and that he will restrain the wrath of man, and make the remainder of it praise him. Unity in itself is not necessarily a blessing. The Romish church boasts always of its unity. Now there never was a finer specimen of unity upon earth than the unity of the Babel builders. They were all of one tongue, they were all of one mind, they had all one purpose, and they set to work shoulder to shoulder to accomplish that great enter- prise. Therefore, mere unity is not necessarily a blessing. THE BABEL BUILDERS. §33 It is what men are united in, that is the main thing, not the mere fact that men are united. Better differ in the details of a holy enterprise that we seek to accomplish, than be united in a wicked enterprise, on which we have set our hearts. Where there is unity without truth, there there is conspiracy. Where there is unity in truth, there is no doubt a blessing. And certainly, when bad men combine, good men should always try to unite. But, never forget, our union will be in the ratio of the truth that we hold, and only through the truth can we be made one ; for the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then it is peace- able. And in the next place, let us learn from this, too, how inefficient a channel of truth tradition is. They had no Bible in those days ; they did not perhaps strictly need one, men lived so long — for it seems that still after the Flood the patriarchal ages of the antediluvians were continued, gradually lessening until the days of Moses — that truth had every chance, if I may use the expression, of remain- ing undiluted ; yet these builders had lost every vestige of truth, and departed from every anilouncement that God had made ; they atheistically lived and atheistically perished. Let us set our hearts upon building, not a Babel, but on building up living stones in the living temple of the living God. Let us also anticipate that " city that hath foundations," for Babel had none, "whose builder and maker is God:" which hath no need of the sun, nor of the moon ; for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the light thereof: in which there shall enter nothing that defileth, and the inhabitant shall not say, I am sick ; and in which the descendants of Sliem, and Ham, and Japheth shall meet, because they have previously met in Christ; and so shall we be for ever with the Lord, to whom be praise and glory. Amen. CHAPTER XIX. THE EVERLASTING GOSPEL. " Onward as we trace » God's oracles, redemption is the point To which they all converge." "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." — John iii. 16. These words, " God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him, should not perish, but have eternal life," constitute one of the very simplest, and yet the most comprehensive summary of Christian truth in the whole word of God. It is the centre and the circumference of all Christianity. The most precious truths are folded up in it as in a beautiful and living bud, and they are only developed and expanded in all the pages of the writings of evangelists, the epistles of apostles, and the preaching and sermons of faithful ministers of Christ Jesus. It was the faith of Adam, Abel, Enoch, and Noah. Its truth was in their hearts, as in ours. It was the creed of the Church before the Flood. It assumes certain great propositions which all Christians admit, — that the world is in ruins. The Church before the Flood saw the ruins. I do not stop to dispute, or to try to gauge the measure and the extent of these ruins. It is one of the plainest propositions in the word of God, that all THE EVERLASTING GOSPEL. 335 have sinned, that all are plunged into a common catastrophe, that all are perishing from God, " by nature children of wrath, even as others," without any distinction of any practical value as to a future and eternal state. The imaginations of man's heart are evil. This same book reveals another fact just as plainly, and as distinctly ; a fact brought out before the Flood also — that man cannot recover himself; that it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps ; it is still less in man that liveth to quicken his own dead heart. It reveals in the plainest terms, that for 4,000 years before the Christian era, and for 1,800 years since, society has been attempting to regenerate itself, and it has all along been a gigantic failure ; and the only evidences of progress, the only traces of advancement, are those patches of beautiful sunshine which are the direct or the indirect rays of that Sun of righteousness who has arisen with healing under his wings. The only prescription which .the Bible urges now, or ever urged since the Fall, for this great calamity, is faith in him whom God promised once, and has given since, and by faith in whom we have eternal life. Nothing better was ever conceived by man ; nothing more is required by God. We need what we may have, salvation through the blood of Christ ; nothing less will suit the greatest saint, nothing more is needed for th« very chiefest of sinners. " God so loved the world, that he gave" this, which alone is adequate — "his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." But before we open up these words, I pause a few' minutes in order to meet difficulties that occur to one's self, and to many that do not venture to express them, and that have been urged by some who reject the gospel as reasons why they must refuse it at its very commencement. It has been said, Might not God have saved all this vast expendi- 336 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. ture by sjmply preventing man from sinning, and the earth from falling ? We answer, What God might have done it is not for human wisdom to decide ; what God can do is not my rule of faith, but what God has written in his blessed and holy word. These are speculations in which we are lost the moment that we try to fathom them. But still there are some thoughts that may modify the force of such an objection, wherever its weight may be felt. God did not make man as we now find him, nor the earth as it now is. If we believe the Bible, the very reverse is the fact. The whole Church before the Flood is my proof. God made man at first perfectly holy, and perfectly happy, and the earth so beautiful, that he, in whose sight the angels them- selves are stained with imperfections, and the heavens unclean, pronounced all, then and there, to be " very good." No man can say where sin came from, nor tell how it is in the world ; but we ourselves know, because we feel, that it is in the world : but we are thoroughly satisfied, that what- ever source it came from, it came not from the bosom of God. God is not responsible for it. It is a jar in the glo- rious harmony, a foul blot on his fair and beautiful work- manship, it is not his doing; but — bright and blessed prophecy ! — a jar which shall yet be resolved into har- mony, a blot which shall yet be so expunged, that the earth will look forth more fresh, more beautiful, and glorious, than when first it came from the plastic hands of him that made it. In the second place, in looking at this objection, it is necessary to observe, man was left to the freedom of his own will. If God had created man with a disposition to sin, with an inherent liking and bias to it, the responsibility would seem to me, with our present information, to have rested upon God ; but so far from making man with a bias to evil, he made him perfectly holy and happy, with every possible dissuasive from doing evil, and with every con- THE EVERLASTING GOSPEL. 837 ceivable inducement to persist in the love of God, and in allegiance to his law. True, God might have made man a machine ; he miglit have made him inanimate or unfeeling like a railway engine, the groove of which he had settled, and the course of which was as sure and fixed as rising sun and setting stars ; but this would not have been man ; such a being would have been below even the brute. God made us with glorious sovereignty, invested with absolute freedom of will, free to retain our allegiance, free to abjure it. Because man was made so great at his original crea- tion, he was left therefore so free in his election of the good, or his preference of the evil. And therefore when any complain that God did not make us otherwise, they com- plain that God gave us what they now insist upon as their supreme and noble prerogative, — freedom, independence, election of the good, or election of the evil. In the next place, it may turn out — nay, we know from Scripture it will turn out, that greater glory will redound to God, and greater good to the vast universe, by permitting man to fall, and providing for man such a recovery, than if God had made man in the way, and after the type, which we have so faintly indicated. But will not some of the human race perish for ever, whereas if man had been made otherwise, none would have been lost? But why do they perish? Not one souf, as far as we are concerned, will be lost, except for neglecting or rejecting the great salvation ; and therefore, if man perishes, he goes to perdition with the responsibility resting wholly upon himself. Not one soul will Satan be able to present throughout eternity as an exact trophy of his success in seducing Adam and Eve from their first allegiance. Every lost soul in misery, as far as relates to us, will be there a conscious, deliberate, voluntary sui- cide, one that rushed to hell in the spite of a thousand remonstrances that urged him to turn and flee to God for 29 338 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. safety and for forgiveness. It may be, that what has taken place will end in greater glory to God, in greater happiness to the creature, than if man had been made, what we think he would have been so unnaturally made, a mere machine, and incapable of any originating movement from within. Another thought deserves our consideration : this world is one amid ten thousand, or ten thousand times ten thousand. We do not believe that those vast orbs which the telescope brings within our vision are empty, or solid, or mere masses of matter only. We believe that there are worlds far greater than our own, teeming with vast populations ; and it may be, that what is done on this orb, like what is enacted in Westminster with reference to the whole empire, is done on one great and royal spot, that the rest of the orbs of the universe may learn new lessons of the love, the mercy, the justice, the forbearance of God ; and so our world be the lesson book of the universe, the instructress of all creation. If this be so, we may discover that there was a wisdom, and a love, and a goodness, and a propriety, if we may use that expression, in what has taken place, which does not strike us at first sight, but which we shall spend eternity in learning, ever as we turn over a new leaf of the everlast- ing book, and make a new step in the endless progression which is our happy and blessed destiny. The whole provision of the gospel, we read; is exclusively of God. Man never conceived it, nor ever devised it. The great law of the gospel economy is, man shall receive all the benefit, God shall receive all the glory. It is a religion that came from God, and therefore it will carry man back to God. We never should forget, that only a religion that comes from God will ever conduct the creature to God ; the origin of this religion of ours is announced in these words, " God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." THE EVERLASTING GOSPEL. 339 These words lead us to conclude, that such and so great was God's love to sinners, that he was ready to stoop to any sacrifice short of the sacrifice of holiness, justice, truth, to redeem us. He saw a race self-ruined, weltering in its ruins, unahle to restore or reinstate itself in its lost orbit. He longed and desired to save it. His fii-st emotion toward us was that of paternal love ; what renders this love the more striking is, that He — the offended party — first loved, and made the first movement toward those that were the offending and the unrepentant criminals. This is the great- ness of that love, that he who justly was angry, who justly might have consumed us, loved us — loved those, whose only desert was penalty, whose only merit was punishment, whose extinction from the universe would never have been missed, whose accession to the choirs of the blessed can add no splendors to God's throne, and give no happiness addi- tional to God himself. Yet this sacrifice, whatever it was, as we proceed to explain, he was prepared to make as the exponent of his love, and to open a way for the egress of that love, that we — rebellious sinners, ruined, careless, thoughtless, perishing — might become the subjects of an everlasting salvation. If God so loved us, and so intensely desired to save us, why did he not do it at once ? There was a great difficulty. The Bible tells us so, — for the Bible is not simply the statement of propositions, but an appeal to our judgments as to the reasonableness of those propositions. The whole Epistle to the Romans is not simply a proclamation of great truths, but it is a vindication of those truths to man's judg- ment, and in the hearing of man's conscience. This diffi- culty would seem to be something of this kind : how God should receive to his bosom those that had fallen and sinned against him equally with those who retained their first and pristine allegiance, and served and glorified him to the end. 340 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. How shall God manifest himself the just Sovereign of the universe, the holy Governor of all its orbs, and yet look upon the guilty with the same complacency with which he looks upon the innocent and the unfallen. It would be a sorry law that has no fixity ; it would be a no less sorry law that has no rewards and punishments. You say, God is omnipotent. So he is ; but although he can save a sinner in spite of sin, he cannot save a sinner in spite of his own holy law. God cannot cease to be good, and just, and holy, and faithful, and true. The grand difhculty is met, and mastered, and solved in the great fact enunciated in these words, " God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." Grant the propriety of the principle of a substitute, and all is plain: but whether you grant its propriety or not, it is certainly declared in the Bible as fact, that Jesus Christ took upon him our whole responsibility, stood in our stead, and dealt with God, and God dealt with him, as if all humanity had been compressed, and personated, and repre- sented in him. I am not discussing the propriety of this, or whether it commends itself to our conscience or not, because it is fact, yet a fact that has analogies and shadows in the world, that one may be a substitute for another in some thinnjs ; and if in some small things that come within our horizon, why not in that great thing which appertains to the word of God, and the salvation of lost humanity? But whether our conscience approve it or not, it is true, that he, the spotless Lamb, arrayed himself in our tainted fleece ; that he, the Holy One, was treated as if the greatest sinner; that he who was infinitely pure, endured all that we incurred as transgressors, olTeyed and did all that we owed to God as creatures ; and by reason of what he suffered, our sufferings are dispensed with ; and by reason THE EVERLASTING GOSPEL. 341 of what he did, our doing, as a title, is completely super- seded, and his is ours. In Christ's death we have deliver- ance from the curse. In Christ's active obedience we have a title to the blessing ; and by God so loving us, as to give such a sum to be the expression of that love, he has made a provision by which he may be seen to be just ; for he has not shrunk from inflicting the penalty denounced upon a single sinner ; and holy, for he is seen so hating sin, that even when that sin was upon the only begotten Son, he spared him not ; so true, that the soul that sinned has died ; so loving, that he provided this glorious Substitute, that we, the otherwise hopeless sinners, might go free, I see, there- fore, in the gospel, a scheme that commends itself to my judgment as answering all the great designs of God, vindi- cating his character, placing it in the most beautiful and glorious light, and bringing down to us a salvation inex- haustible as the years of eternity itself. All this originated from his love. It is not said, that, because Christ has thus endured what we deserved, be- cause Christ has thus done what we could not do, that therefore God loved us ; but that all Christ did is the fruit of God's love. He loved us, and therefore Christ came ; it is not, Christ came, and therefore God loved us. God loved Adam just as much when he lay amid the wrecks of dismantled Paradise, as when he walked amid the flowers and unblighted fruits of Paradise in its first glory. God's love is the same today that it was before Adam fell. He so loved Adam in his first estate, that he clothed the earth with beauty, and made his palace to be the admiration of the universe. He so loved Adam in his ruin, that he gave, as the expression of his love, " his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth iti him should not perish, but have everlasting' life." He so loved Adam in his innocence, that he made every thing a ministry to his pleasure. He so 29* 342 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. loved Adam in his ruin, that he touched the earth with the blood of his incarnate Son, that poor lost Adam's sins might be forgiven, and that he, the refugee and rebel, might be restored to his lost and forfeited allegiance. That same iove that rolls, like an illuminated sea, in the realms of the blessed, one wave of which, sweeping over Paradise, made its immortal soil burst into blossom, and fruit, and beauty, sent down its richest embodiment when it crowned all its previous expressions by this last and greatest one — the gift of Christ to be our Saviour. In this provision of Christ Jesus, salvation is possible where it was impossible before ; God's love is accessible where it was inaccessible before; a door in heaven is opened where there was no door before ; access to God is permitted where there was no access before ; and through Christ the sinful creature, can do what once the unfallen creature alone could do — draw near to God's footstool, and see its Father and its God. It seems to me, therefore, that the provision in the gospel commends itself to the judgment of man, and approves itself to be, what the poor Greek in his folly denied it to be, " the wisdom of God," as well as " the power of God, unto salvation." I may illustrate what I mean for those to whom an illustration might be more instructive in this way. Con- ceive a vast inclosure situated in some central part of the globe ; conceive that inclosure to contain within it, like an hospital, the dying, and, like a churchyard, the dead. Suppose that one in glory, like unto the Son of man, looks down upon it, sympathizes with the dying, and weeps,' as he wept for dead Lazarus, over its dead. Suppose he has resolved, in the might of his sympathy, to retrieve, recover, save it, if it be possible. He comes down from that height of splendor in which he dwelt from everlasting — "the Man that is God's fellow " — to this inclosure of the dying and THE EVERLASTING GOSPEL. 343 the dead ; he approaches one gate, and he asks if he, the Omnipotent to save, may be admitted, that he may save ; and the sentinel of that gate says, " My name is Justice ; all within have been weighed in the balance, they are found wanting, and none may approach to deliver them." He applies at another gate, and at that gate is another sentinel, whose name is Holiness, and his answer is, " They are fallen, sinful, polluted. All outside is the region of purity, all inside is the region of corruption and of sin ; and they cannot be permitted to breathe that holy air, and to gaze upon that unfallen spot where you have been, and where I am." He approaches another, where he finds Truth. She replies, " I have said it ; I proclaimed on Sinai what would have been true if I had never proclaimed it ; what is not true because I have proclaimed it, but what would have been true if it had never been heard by mortal ear ; ' The soul that sins, it shall die.' These have sinned, and die they must, and live they cannot." This Visitant returns to his celestial abode, and he puts the question there, " What is to be done?" and the mighty problem conceived by infinite Wisdom, and originated from infinite Love, is made known, that God will deal with these dying and dead ones by a Substitute, and if one can be found who will just stand in their stead, and exhaust the penalty that they have incurred, and obey that law, that infallible law, which they cannot obey, then they shall go free. That heavenly Visitant returns to the same place, and there goes outside the camp : he suffers, and weeps, and bleeds, and dies ; and after he has done so, and risen from the grave, and ascended to his Father and to our Father, to his God and to our God, he proclaims what is done ; and Justice replies, " I am satis- fied; the gates are opened;" and Truth replies, "I am satisfied ; let the gates be opened ; " and Holiness replies, " I am satisfied ; let the gates be opened ; " and one mighty 344 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. puls^ of love, from the heart of all love, thrills through every grave ; and one mighty wave of healing, from the Fountain of all healing, rolls through every breast ; and the dead live, the diseased are healed ; and mercy and truth moet together; truth, and righteousness, and peace kiss each other ; and there is salvation for the worst of sinners, in a way and by a process that reflects the greatest glory upon Him that " so loved us, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." But I have viewed the provisions very much as a chan- nel by which God's love can come forth to us, or as a pro- vision in which holiness, truth, and justice ^orm themselves into a channel by which God's love may reach us. I view it as more than this. The gift of Christ is precious, not only for what it conveys to us, but because of what it expresses and embodies to us. The gift of a Saviour teaches me two things : first, that it is possible now for God's mercy to reach me, a^d to forgive me : and next, that God so loves and longs to sav^ me, that to convince me of the height, and length, and breadth of that love, he gave as the exponent of it — his only begotten Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, what am I taught by this ? I am taught by this blessed provision, in its first aspect, that I may be saved, admitted into heaven, numbered with those that are there, but still, it may be, a stranger to God, and God a stranger to nae, tolerated in heaven as one legally acquitted and no more ; but I am taught by this provision in its second aspect, that I shall be welcomed into heaven, that I shall be received, not as a servant, but a son ; that I shall not only be acquitted by a legislator legally, but accepted by a Father with all the expressions of paternal love; and that I shall be in heaven, not merely as one legally there, but as one whose admission into its realms THE EVERLASTING GOSPEL. " 345 shall start long-slumbering songs, and be responded to by sympathy from God and all the holy ones who have pre- ceded me to glory. And thus the gift of a Saviour is not only a channel along which it is possible for God's love to reach me, and along which it is possible for me to reach God, but it is also to me an index, or evidence, of the rich- ness of that sovereign love that God bears to me, a poor sinner. " God so loved us." What immensity of meaning is condensed in that monosyllable " so I " " He so loved me, that," in the language of St. Paul, " he spared not his only Son." What that relationship of Son is, we know not ; we can form no just conception of it ; and the greatest light is cast upon it when we leave it to shine in its own untouched magnificence and glory. God's love to stars, and flowers, and created things is one thing; God's love to angels is another thing ; God's love to sinners is different from both ; God's love to his own Son is something so unique, so pecu- liar, so raised above our apprehension or the reach of our sympathies, that all we know is, that when God sj)ared not his own Son, he showed in so doing a love at which an apostle who had been in the third heaven, unable to fathom it, exclaims, "O the height, and depth, and length, and breadth ; it passeth understanding ! " Let us notice here the expression, " gave." Every word is instinct with meaning. It*is not said here, that he " per- mitted " his Son to die. It is said, " He gave," or, as it is expressed by Paul, " He spared not his only begotten Son." That expression alone is a shadaw of the height and depth of that love. When he gave Christ, he did not compel an unwilling being to become a substitute for us, but he gave one who rejoiced to take our place, whose love was the same as the Father's, and who rejoiced to array himself in our responsi- bilities, and to die for us, that we might never die. I have 346 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. always felt that the Socinian who denies the Deity of Christ, most consistently denies the atonement of Christ — I mean, the atonement as we understand the word to mean ; for it seems to me, that if Christ were a mere creature, there has something occurred in the dispensation of God inconsistent with the revelation he has given of himself. If Christ were a mere creature, most innocent, most spotless, most holy, as the Socinian ever admits him to be, then how can you explain this fact, that the holiest being in the whole uni- verse was made by God himself to be the greatest sufferer in the whole universe ? The great law of God is, that holi- ness is perfect happiness, that sin is misery. Then, how happens it that the holiest being, who justly came under the law that perfect holiness is perfect happiness, has not merely become through man's wickedness, but by God's direct arrangement, the greatest sufferer ? It would seem, that if God were not there, his dying was worth nothing as a sub- stitution or an atonement ; he had no right to lay down his life. A creature's life is not at his disposal. A man who commits suicide is just as guilty as one who slays another, that is, if he be in possession of his mind. I have no right to lay down my life for another, however much I may love him. But Christ says, " I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself; I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again." In other words, he died volun- tarily ; and the fact that he accepted the death that he suf- fered ; that he endured the cross ; that he laid down his life willingly, and not reluctantly, is proof he was God as truly as man — God in our nature, as a substitution for our sins. Thus he died, not a reluctant victim, but a willing Saviour, for us and for our salvation. All his sorrow and sufferings were as much the exponents of his love, as the evidences of his atonement. I need not now dwell on some THE EVERLASTING GOSPEL. 347 instances there are in heathen history, and in Scripture nar- rative, of great love. Barak and Deborah jeoparding their lives in the high places of the field, indicated great love, but it was for their own. Gideon fighting for the Shechemites, not fearing death, braving danger, displayed great love, but it was for his own. David's love for Absalom was beauti- ful, but it was for a son. David's love for Jonathan was beautiful, but it was the love of great friendship. But here is the great unparalleled and unprecedented fact, that God loved us, that " herein is love, that while we were yet sin- ners Christ died for us." Now, what is the result of all this provision ? It is, "that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life." " Whosoever believeth." I have waived all the comparatively paltry discussions in which mere Cal- vinists and Arminians waste their time, as to the extent of this atonement. May it not be possible in our creeds to hold the highest Calvinism, whilst in our sermons we preach what may be thought Arminianism ? May not one preach the sovereignty of grace, and yet unfold the grand provision of the gospel, and man's responsibility for its rejection? Not otherwise shall we present the gospel in its true glory. The high Calvinist gives a profile of Christianity ; the low Arminian gives the other profile of it ; while he who neither preaches Calvinism nor Arminianism, but the glorious gos- pel of Christ, gives the truest view of Christianity. "What then does " the world " mean ? It means tht)se that do not deserve to be saved ; those that have no instinctive desire to be saved ; those that were lost, ruined, and undone, and neither were able nor willing to help themselves. Christ so loved these, that whosoever believeth in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life. " Whosoever " is the limit. All caste, and color, and country, and clime, so far as their moral conditions are involved, are obliterated in the pro- l348 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. vision of the gospel. Those words, " It is finished," rent the partition walls of ten thousand distinctions. Those dis- tinctions which raised so high their adamantine walls upon the earth, and that still look to us so impassable, are swept away like sand ridges before the outflowing tide of that love that gave Christ to die for us. It is a love that can overflow all heights, that can satisfy all wants, that has provided a Saviour for all that will, without exception, without limita- tion of any sort or any shape whatever. These words contemplate only two great classes ; those that have eternal life, and those that are perishing — "Whosoever believeth in him should not perish," — that implies one class — " but have eternal life " — that is the other class. What is perishing ? I have examined the word that is translated " perish," in various Lexicons, and find one of its leading ideas to be, " to be wretched," " to be miserable," " to be undone." The Greek gambler, when he was ruined, used the Greek word, " perished," — "I am miserable and ruined for life." And, therefore, the meaning of this pas- sage is, " Whosoever believeth in him should not be ruined for ever and for ever." It does not mean annihilation, but " living, lasting consciousness of evil." It is better to show that there is nothing to prevent our being instantly saved, than to try to induce men to cry, " Peace, peace," by the wretched sophistry that hell is only a kind of Protestant purgatory, in which they will be purged for a season. It means, perished and ruined eternally, and yet not by a decree of God. The stone let drop from the height, needs not to be impelled by any other than the law of gravitation : it falls to the ground naturally. The man who was bitten by the serpent in the wilderness did not die because Moses had decreed it so, or because the serpent by its operation made it so, but he did by the very fact that he refused to THE EVERLASTING GOSPEL. 349 look at that symbol, looking at which would have given him instant health. Even so, the sinner who is not saved through the blood and sacrifice of Jesus, does not perish by a decree sinking him to the depths of ruin, but, while he rejects Christ, by the very necessity of his case. The effect of sin is distance from God, and the action of sin is to increase that distance more and more, and the meaning of hell is just the endless retrogression or distance from God ; just as God's love and salvation are the elements of endless approximation to God ; and the definition of heaven is, a ceaseless centripetal attraction, under which the ran- somed is ever approaching God, ever drinking deeper and deeper joys, and yet never reaching that infinite and glo- rious centre ; and hence by the very law of the sufferings of the lost, the longer they live, the more terrible their catastrophe becomes. Perishing, has compressed in it an amount of sorrow, and agony, and woe, that many would pronounce to be exaggeration were they to hear one attempt to unfold and explain it. Are we in this class ? We have not to do something in order to be cast into it : we are born members of this class ; we are born in this company ; we begin to fall the instant we come into the world, and our downward tendency must be met and arrested by the inter- position of the truths contained in the gospel, before we can ever return and be numbered in the condition of those I describe in the next place — those that have eternal life; this is the second class. What is meant by "eternal life?" Those that have embraced the new, and, I think, the most unscriptural the- ology, say, that " eternal life " means, that those who believe in this will simply live for ever, while those that reject the gospel will after a season be utterly annihilated. Surely this expression, " eternal life," as used in the Bible, means some- thing more than endless progression of life, or simply cease- 30 350 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. lessly living. Did you ever hear it asserted in the Scrip- tures, or did you ever hear it said by any man, that Satan and his angels have eternal life ? Does not the very state- ment revolt the very deepest and holiest instincts of our nature ? We dare not say, Satan has eternal life ; and yet Satan will live for ever and for ever. This " eternal life '' does not mean mere endless life, but a nobler and more glo- rious life, — a life that man lost in Paradise, and that is only found at the cross, — a life that unites to life, and gives responsibilities to which the natural man is altogether dead. A man who has this life, moves in a new orbit ; he is under the attraction of a new power ; all the affections of his soul are resonant with the songs of the blessed ; and his heart beats under the touch of the finger of infinite Love. The Spirit tells him, and the blessed consciousness of it assures him, " We know that we have eternal life." " This has power to make Our noisy years seem moments in the being Of the eternal silence. Though inland far we be, Our souls have sight of that immortal sea, Which brought us hither; Can in a moment travel thither, And see the children sport upon the shore, And hear the mighty waters rolling eve'rmore." Our conscious possession of this eternal life is the element of our greatest happiness. It is not a life that time meas- ures, it is in itself so peculiar, so glorious, so blessed, that a believer knows what jit is, and yet he cannot unfold and explain it to any one besides. It is the conscious possession of this eternal life that makes us meet death as a mere slight interruption in our upward and glorious progress. "VVe feel that when we shall lay down this mortal, we shall leave but a little dust behind us, the abandonment of which THE EVERLASTING GOSPEL. 351 only enables us to put forth new wings, and to soar to new realms, and to enjoy in all its splendor and its fulness that life which endures for ever. But the language of Jesus is, "Whosoever believeth" hath eternal life. The assurance of heaven does not mean that a man leaps from the love and the practice of sin into a sort of Mahometan Paradise, or Pagan Elysium ; he that believes on the Son of God has eternal life. It is a per- sonal and present prerogative, and he that has it is conscious of it. If we are destined to enter into heaven, we must carry heaven with us now. If there never has been a little heaven within us upon earth, we shall never enter into a larger heaven with God in glory. Heaven begins in the individual bosom, and culminates in the glory that is to be revealed. The love of God comes to us in the shape of life ; it remains within us in the form of life, and that life flowers in everlasting joy and felicity. These are the two great classes of mankind — those that have from the first Adam naked audi perishing souls ; and those that have from the " second Adam everlasting life. There may be circumstantial, national, ecclesiastical, physi- cal, moral distinctions, but all these are evanescent as the clouds that sweep through the sky. These two great, broad distinctions are lasting as the great bright stars that shine still and far beyond us ; they who belong to the company of the lost — and of all categories that is the most awful — or they who belong to the glorious company of the saved, and are now living, justified, and adopted. Let us not look at heaven as if it were all in the future, but recollect it must begin now in the individual heart. All that the judgment- day does, is to perpetuate what is now. " He that is unjust, let him be unjust still ; he that is unholy, let him be unholy still " — that is hell. In fact, Christ continues the impulse that began on earth, and that impulse is everlasting heaven ; 352 THE CnUKCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. and Christ permits in them that believe not the impulse that began at birth, and that impulse, unarrested, is everlasting hell. But whilst there is this broad distinction, let me explain very briefly how one may be changed. " Whosoever be- lieveth." Then there must be a personal act on our part. No man finds himself in heaven, and is surprised how he ever got there. No man finds himself among the lost, and is startled by the unexpected discovery. Every man knows in his calmest and most solemn moments quite w^ell whither he is going. He sometimes so trembles at his own thoughts, that he will not let himself hear the whispers of his own conscience. Many a man would rather face a foe armed with all the weapons of battle, than his own conscience ; and the struggle of thousands every day is to get rid of the monitions of that faithful monitor within — the presenti- ments, and prophecies, and forebodings of a conscience, that knows quite well whether it be at peace with God, or still a stranger altogether to the gospel. Before this change can take place, you must believe in Christ Jesus. It is, " Who- soever believeth ; " not, " Whosoever doeth," " Whosoever suifereth," "Whosoever payeth," but "Whosoever believ- eth." But, what is believing ? Just putting confidence in this testimony of God ; it is the acquiescence of the inmost man in this blessed truth, that there is now a provision so glorious, that God's mercy can reach me while it reflects his own glory ; that there is now a Saviour, the exponent of God's love for me — why not for me ? — and believing thus, I am justified by faith, and have peace with God. It is the simplicity of the gospel that is, unfortunately, shall we say, its greatest stumbling-block. Too many ministers of the gospel, by giving elaborate metaphysical disquisitions on subjective and objective divinity, upon faith, and virtue, and vice, obscure that glorious truth, which comes with the THE EVERLASTING GOSPEL. 353 Splendor and the simplicity of the sunbeam, "'Whosoever believeth in the Son of God shall not perish, but have eternal life." It is just confidence in God, confidence in the testifier, confidence in the testimony. It is coming to him penetrated with a deep sense of our ruin, and with a lively apprehension of the perfection of the work of him who came to save us. But, you perhaps say, Am I quite sure it is for me ? The question is, "Why not for me ? You are not to sit down, and say, Why for me? but you are to explain and answer this expression, Why not for me ? You are a sinner, you are lost, you are perishing. Then you are the very person that Christ came to save ; and if you see this, and rely upon this glorious provision, and look to glory, and happiness, and heaven in the strength of it, and say, I will show how thankful I am by how holy I live, and by delighting to do all the commandments of him who loved me, then you have peace. Just as the Israelite dying in the desert looked to the brazen serpent, and that instant recovered, so the sinner, serpent stung, dying, perishing, in this world's desert, is called upon simply to look at, to believe on, to put confidence in Christ, and to have thus everlasting life. It is just taking God at his own word; it is saying from the very heart, " Amen," to all that God has done. The great sin that will be the destruction of not a few will be, that they knew this, and despised it; that they heard this, and perished notwithstanding. The text is the first note of the everlasting jubilee; to believe in this is your instant duty. Do not say, " I cannot." Cannot ! You can put confidence in the Bank of England, confidence in your parent, confidence in your brother, confidence in a merchant, and cannot put confidence in God ! Are you not ashamed to say, " I cannot believe ? " And if you are con- scious that you cannot, do you not know of him who said, 30* 354 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. " Mj strengtli is made perfect in weakness/' " Ask, and ye shall receive." The consciousness that you cannot believe, is the first pulse of everlasting life ; but the declaration of want of confidence in God expressed by " I cannot," is only a deceptive way of saying, " I will not." Let us not die with bread before us. I believe the most awful ruin is that which begins its descent on Calvary, and at the foot of the cross : the most terrible midnight is that whose twilight begins by the setting of the Sun of right- eousness here below. Flee from the wrath to come; be Christians. Arise, and go to your Father, who " so loved you, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life." CHAPTER XX. FAITH AND HOPE. " The steps of faith Fall on the seeming void, and find The Eock beneath." " Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." — Hebkews xi. 1. We have seen a portion of the " cloud of witnesses " in the Church before the Flood. They walked by faith in the days of Noah, as we do now. Faith was the secret of their victory, as it is of ours. Man can easily understand, in his natural condition, why love, obedience, and truth should be commanded in the Scriptures. These are graces which he can admire, even when he refuses to practice and embody them in his conduct. But the mere natural man, unacquainted with the great truths of the gospel, is unable to comprehend why faith should be made so much of in every part of the gospel. For example, it seems to him rather the ground for an objection to Christianity, than a reason for its Divine origin ; that men should be exhorted so often to believe, and, as' he supposes, should be exhorted so seldom to do, to act, to obey. He reads such passages as these, " If ye have faith as a grain of mustard-seed, ye shall say to this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place ; and it shall remove ; and nothing shall be impossible unto you." He reads again, 356 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. " The just shall live by faith." He reads also, " Justified by faith, we have peace with God." Again, when the ques- tion was asked, in the agony of overwhelming and poignant conviction, " What must I do to be saved ? " he reads that the answer was not, " Climb to heaven," nor, " Purchase heaven by your good deeds," nor, " Obey and be rewarded," as rational men would suppose ; but, " Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." And he reads again that, not self-reliance, not courage, not strength, not might, not power, either were or are the victory that overcom- eth the world ; but " this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith." He cannot understand it. It seems to him evident that the system is not Divine that inculcates a grace which, he conceives, may live and flourish in its intensest form, without the fruits of purity, truth, and holi- ness. We are perfectly aware that faith, severed from love, may be a mere conviction in the head, unproductive of any real good. But, whilst faith, when it is alone as a mere intellectual conviction, and no more, may be worth nothing ; yet there is not a grace in the Christian character that has vitality or fragrance without faith. Love severed from faith is a blossom nipped from the branch on which it grows. Duty severed from faith becomes a hard, stiff, rigid perform- ance. Only when inspired, sustained, and invigorated by it, does the blossom bloom in amaranthine beauty, and develop itself in precious truth and duty, and reflect the light of glory in the sky. It is, however, very remarkable, that Paul, the " apostle of faith," as he has been called, gives the most exquisite definition and illustration of love ; and, on the other hand, John, the "apostle of love," attributes most to faith. Who can forget that beautiful chapter, " Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love, I FAITH AND HOPE. 357 am become as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mys- teries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith," says the apostle of faith, " so that I could remove moun- tains, and have not love, I am nothing " ? On the other hand, when we turn to John, who dwelt so much on love, the apostle that Jesus loved, in whom the human sympa- thies of Jesus so much centred, and ask him what he thinks of faith, he answers, " Who is he that overcometh the w^orld, but he that' believeth ? " " Whatsoever is born of God over- cometh the world : and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith." " He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself." " These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God ; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God." Paul, who is suspected by some of laying too much stress on faith, gives the grandest picture of love ; and John, who is sus- pected by others of laying "too much stress upon love, attributes, nevertheless, in the midst of his portraiture of love, the strength, and force, and victory to faith. The truth is, that faith is the root underground, not always seen ; and because it feeds upon the unseen. We trace faith not by seeing it, but by seeing its fruits. It is the hidden force, coiled up in the regenerated heart, which gives birth to that victory over sin and Satan and the world, which is described as more than victory, through him that loved us. The true definition of faith, when we take the original word for our guide, is not an abstract, intellectual belief, if that be possible; but "confidence" — (Ttiarig). It is the same to the mind, that leaning on a stick, or a wall, or on a foundation, or on any other support, is to the body. It is not a cold conviction that lies in the understanding ; but a 358 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. warm, generous confidence, that lives in the innermost recesses of the heart. That man does not truly believe, who does not bring head and heart to rely upon " the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world." Is it objected by some, that the gospel lays too much stress upon this confidence — for we may translate the word very properly " confidence." I answer, is not faith, or con- fidence, the very cement of the whole structure, and pyra- mid of social life. Without faith, or confidence in the laws of nature, as they are commonly called, the farmer would not sow, the man of business would not enter into engage- ments or make promises, and the sailor would not attempt to cross the Atlantic. The artisan would not labor, except he had faith that the market would be open, and accessible to the products of his labor. In other words, by faith the farmer sows, the merchant speculates, the sailor goes to sea, and the artisan engages in his daily toil. Whether we like it or not, the just and the unjust live by faith. The just live a higher Hfe, the unjust live a lower, but both must live by faith. Take away this " faith " — or " confidence " — and what is the worth of any institution that we have ? Take away confidence from a bank, and it goes to ruin. Exhaust public confidence from an insurance office, and it will soon be broken up. Take away confidence from gov- ernment, and its stability is gone. Exhaust the confidence of man in man, and each individual would be insulated from the rest of society, and would look with a cold suspicion upon his neighbor, and all reciprocal good offices would cease, and society would fall to pieces, or corrupt and rot imder its own depravity and wickedness. Faith or confidence is necessary to the very existence of the social system, and, if it be perfectly reasonable that con- fidence should be so important an element in this under world, is it unreasonable to suppose that God should have FAITH AND HOPE. 359 laid hold of so precious an element, and made it occupy a mighty and important place in the higher world ? It has, however, been objected by some to faith, and to the stress that is laid on it, that many persons substitute " I believe " for " I do," or " I give," " I love." St. James tells u», that it is not the exercise of true Christian faith, to say to the cold, " Go, and be warmed," to the naked, " Go, and be clothed," while he does not warm nor clothe them ; and he asks very naturally, " can such a faith — can this sham faith save ? " It is this sham faith that St. James speaks of, and not the faith of the gospel. But when persons do sub- stitute " I believe " for ^* I do," " I love^" religion is not to be blamed, surely, for this perversion of it. The man who substitutes the creed for the decalogue, who thinks the repe- tition of one without an omission to be an atonement for his breach of the other ; who thinks that orthodoxy is a suf- ficient substitute, and an atonement for immorality, and that right believing is good enough, although there be not right living ; perverts the gospel, has not only no right faith, but has no idea of the nature or obligations of faith. There cannot be real faith, or confidence in God, in the Scriptural sense of that word, without a retinue of Christian graces constantly in its train. To talk of faith being imperfect without works, is just as foolish as to talk of a fire being im- perfect without heat, or of the sun being imperfect without sunbeams. If there be no heat, there is no fire ; if there be no light, there is no risen sun ; if there be no good works, there is no faith. There cannot be true Christian faith, unless there follow it, necessarily and truly, a thorough Christian practice. Faith gives momentum to every grace, the direction it is to take, the vitality in which it flourishes ; and without faith, all Christian graces would instantly expire. The definition of the apostle is, " Faith is the substance of things hoped for." 360 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. There has been a great deal of discussion as to what is the precise meaning of the word "substance," Perhaps the plainest expletive is, it is the " basis " of things hoped for, that whatever good hope a man has, must, if it be good, lean upon the foundation of previous sound faith. In other words, it teaches us, that it is impossible to cherish a hope worth having, unless we have a faith that will issue in fruition ; that for all good things that are truly hoped for, there must be good things that are truly believed in. Faith, the belief of good, is the basis of hope, the expecta- tion of good. When it is said, " Faith is the substance of things hoped for," we naturally ask. What are some of these things? what did Noah, and Enoch, and Abel expect ? There are some things that are properly the objects of hope ; there are other things that we never ought and never can hope for. Persons say, " I hope for the forgiveness of my sins ;" "I hope one day to repent." This language is absurd. Forgiveness of sin is not the object of hope at all ; it is the object and possession of faith. " I hope to repent," is delusion ; because I repent through believing, not by hoping. It is the ruin of many, that they hope to be forgiven; it is the joy and safety of thousands, that they believe that they are forgiven, or in order to be forgiven. We are not to hope to be forgiven ; but to believe, in order to be forgiven, or that we are already forgiven. We are not to build our faith upon our hopes, but our hopes upon our faith. Thus " faith is the substance," the basis, " of things hoped for." No Christian ought, or is warranted, to hope for increase of pardon and justification before God. Every one is now, by faith in the righteousness of Christ, either completely justified, so that his justification cannot be increased, or he is not justified at all. We may be imperfectly sanctified, FAITH AND HOPE. 861 because the work of the Holy Spirit is a progressive one ; but we cannot be imperfectly justified. We either are clothed in the righteousness of the Lamb that has been slain ; and because of that righteousness, Omniscience cannot see a flaw in us ; or we ^re so completely strangers to that righteousness, so destitute of it, that we have no title to heaven whatever in the sight of God. Justification is the same to the believer who yesterday was forgiven, as it is to the saint who stands upon the verge of glory, and has been justified for fifty years. We are perfectly justified, or not justified at all. We cannot, therefore, hope for increase of justification in the sight of God. Nor can we hope for increase of the love of God. God's love to us is not increased with the increase of our faith. He loved us from everlasting, just as he loves us now, and in either case so intensely, that the exponent of that love is the gift of his only begotten Son — the Lord Jesus Christ. We may enjoy more of that love by having the inner eye more open to its reception; but to increase that love is impossible. We cannot increase the infifiite. The breath of the babe cannot add to the impetus of the hurricane. The tear of the orphan cannot add to the immensity of the waters of the unsounded sea. The finite cannot increase the infinite. God's love, infinite in its existence, unchange- able in its application, must be " the same yesterday, today, and for ever ; " we cannot expect an increase of it. What, then, are we warranted to hope for ? What hope should we build upon the increase of our faith ? The great hope constantly held out in the New Testament is the promised return of the Lord Jesus Christ ; that return which Enoch prophesied : " I will come again, and receive you to myself." To them that look for him, he will come a second time, without sin to salvation. " Looking for," says the apostle, " that blessed hope, the glorious appearing of 31 362 THE CnURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. Jesus Christ, our God and Saviour." In otlier words, we do not believe, for our salvation, in justification by faith, but in Christ ; so we do not hope for a millennium, but for Christ. The faith of the Christian rests upon a personal Being — Christ ; the hope of the Christian stretches to a personal Being — Christ. We believe upon him for the forgiveness of our sins ; we hope in him for the perfection of our glory, and happiness for ever. The faith of the Christian believes in the truth of the promise ; the hope of the Christian feeds upon the goodness of the promise. Faith takes the cup in its hand that God freely offers ; hope tastes the wine that is in the cup, and is gladdened and exhilarated thereby. A Christian may also hope for that blessed inheritance that God has promised. He has reserved for us an entrance into blessedness — an inheritance shall be administered unto us, real though unseen, the subject of promise, the revela- tion of truth. Now, faith is the basis on which the truth stands, and hope approaches the truth, and takes from it the blessing which it embodies. Another object of the Christian's hope is the resurrection of the body. " The hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear the voice of the Son of man, and shall come forth ; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life ; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of condemnation;" or, as the whole magnifi- cent scene is depicted in that beautiful chapter of St. Paul's Epistle to the Thessalonians, " I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again," — here is faith, — " even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him," — here is hope — faith believing, hope expecting. " For this we say unto you by the word of the FAITH AND HOPE. 363 Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first." Whatever good promise God has made in the Bible, faith believes as a truth, and hope looks forward to its fulfilment and realiza- tion as the good that is contained in it. In other words, faith is the foundation laid deep and strong in the Rock of ages ; hope is the beautiful and tapering spire that rises upon that foundation, penetrates the sky, and is illuminated by the first beams of the rising, and by the last rays of departing suns. Faith is the basis, the substance ; hope is that which leans and depends upon it. Faith accepts the bank-note as a true, genuine document; and hope makes use of it as a marketable thing, and transfers it for things that are good and useful. Faith makes invisible things visi- ble ; hope makes future things present. Faith brings down into the present, things that are invisible ; hope brings back into the present, things that are future. Thus hope rests upon faith. That which we hope for, has for its basis that which we believe. Faith is not only " the substance of things hoped for," without which we could not hope for any thing ; but it is "the evidence of things not seen." In other words, a Christian has another sense. As truly as the natural eye sees the panorama, the landscape, the rock, the flowers, the trees ; so truly an inner eye, which is the gift of God, and the possession of every Christian, sees things that are un- seen and eternal. The things that are unseen by the natural eye are as real to the inner eye of a child of God, as the things that are seen by the natural eye are to the natural man. No natural light, bude light, electric light, or other, can enable a blind man to see. No reasoning, no 364 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. philosophy, no science, no eloquence, can enable an unre- generate man wlio has not this inner eye that God gives, to see the things of glory, of eternity, and of happiness to come. To a Christian, faith in God's word is surer than geome- try to a geometrician, or mathematics to a mam of science. He believes in virtue of a sense that a natural man has not. In other words, faith, while it has an analogous thing in the natural man in the shape of confidence in human things, is nevertheless a gift of God ; as the apostle says, " To you it is given to believe;" and only in the exercise of this inspired faith we see things that are unseen. Let us ascertain some of the things unseen, that faith sees. A natural man, that is, a man that is unregenerate, may come to a conclusion that a God exists. Justly he may say, I trace his foot prints on every acre of the earth, and I can see his smiles in the morning light, I can hear his voice in the thunder, and in the chimes of the sea, and there are so many and so marked exhibitions of system, of goodness, and of design in the visible framework of this visible world, that I come to this Qonclusion, that there is a God. But a Christian, while he comes to the same conviction, on the same premises, has, in addition to . this, faith which is " the evidence of things not seen." In other words, a Christian believes that there is a God upon an additional ground, and that additional ground is. Thus saith the Lord : God's enun- ciation of himself is the everlasting ground on which a Christian believes that there is a God. Another thing unseen which the Christian believes, and Adam foresaw and Abel looked for, is the incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ — a cardinal and vital truth in the gospel. " Great is the mystery of godliness." No man can compre- hend it ; but the Bible asserts it, and therefore the Christian believes it. And this incarnation of Jesus is not a dreamy FAITH AND HOPE. . 365 abstraction, an artistic representation, but a Divine person. Jesus is not the Godlike in the human nature, he is not latent divinity in man, nor divine biography in man, as the Pantheists call him ; but he is " God," the personal God, " manifest in the flesh." A Christian, although he does not see Christ, yet believes in Christ ; and the faith by which he thus believes, is to him "the evidence of things not seen." So, in the same manner, we accept the work of the Holy Spirit of God. The world laughs at it ; the natural man, and very gifted men, call it fanaticism ; and yet it is just as much a fact as any of the phenomena in the natural world, that one has undergone a change that has cast a new light upon the universe, and made all things become new ; and that another has not undergone that change, but is sensuous, carnal, of the earth, earthy. A Christian sees the Holy Spirit's work within him, because he believes the Holy Spirit's word without him. He does not see the Spirit's work, and yet he believes its reality, because faith is to him "the evidence of things not seen." Some of the most potent agencies in the outer world are unseen. The most powerful element in nature is invisible. " The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound, thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth, so is every one that is born of the Spirit of God." A man that has this faith, the faith of a Christian, believes also in the immortality of the soul, and its emergence at death from its earthly tabernacle.^ We may conclude, from manifold presumptions, that the soul survives the body ; "but we cannot irrefragably prove it. But the Christian hears God pronouncing its immortality, and that faith whicli accepts whatever God has written, is to him the basis of the thing that is told him, and the evidence of the things that the natural eye cannot see. 31* 366 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. Faith not only discloses tilings that are unseen, but it brings them near and appropriates them. It brings God near, it brings Christ near, it brings the future near, it brings the unseen near to us. So truly so, that the Chris- tian acts from motives, and entertains objects, and aims, and hopes which are strange and mysterious altogether to a nat- ural man. A natural man cannot understand how any one should brave shame, or despise riches, or hate even life itself, rather than light a little incense, as the Christians were asked to do, upon the altar of Jupiter. A natural man cannot understand how he should lose a splendid profit by deference to some inner light — some mighty motive, that guides, sustains, and actuates the soul within. But a Chris- tian does. And why ? Because a natural man lives in a lower element, and a Christian lives in a higher. They to whom the sea is the natural element, cannot understand the movements of them whose element is the air. A Christian lives in the higher element, and, therefore, what influences, guides, moves, directs him, is altogether a mystery to the world; so truly so, that the world knoweth us not, as it knew Him not. And faith not only brings near, it also appropriates. It puts the word " mine " to every thing that God says, and to every thing that God has promised. Any man can say, There is a God, a Saviour, a Bible, a heaven ; but, in the exercise of that faith which is to a Christian " the evidence of things not seen, and the substance of things hoped for," he can say. He is my God, he is my Saviour, he is my Sanctifier ; and that heaven is my heaven, and that happi- ness is my happiness. Thus, faith sets in motion almost all the springs that can move and actuate the human soul. So true is this, that he must be a stranger indeed to faith who does not bring forth all the fruits of the Spirit, and show, in his whole walk and FAITH AND HOPE. 367 convers.ition, that he is moved and guided by an inner but unseen motive power, that is "the victory that overcometh the world." If a man believe truly that there is a region where gold is to be had only for the gathering, or that there are streams, like those of Pactolus of old, whose sands are golden, he goes to that land, and seeks for what can enrich him ; or if there be an invalid who hears of a land where there is a bright sun and a cloudless sky, where his health may be invigorated and restored, he sails for that land, and avails himself of it. If you truly believe that you are lost by nature, and can only be saved by grace ; if you really believe that you are perishing and passing to everlasting death, and that there is an arm stretched down from the skies on w^hich you have only to lay hold to be drawn up to everlasting glory; if you with your affections and heart believe this, it is impossible that you can fail to seize that hand, and so to hope for that glory. This faith, wherever it is, triumphs in every case, too, over death. A Christian by faith triumphs over death. The grave, which shocks some, does not shock him. He knows that he leaves in the grave only the robes in which he officiated as a Levite in the outer temple of God ; into the texture of which robes his hopes, his joys, his happiness do not enter. A Christian, that is, he who has true faith, who has this inner eye that sees the things that are invisible, detects no more connection between death and extinction, than between life and extinction. In other words, dust and the soul, corruption and the spirit, have no connection what- ever in a Christian's estimate. He cannot see that the soul dies, because the body dissolves ; or that, because the one goes to corruption, the other must be annihilated. On the contrary, believing God's testimony, and seeing the things that are unseen by this inner and true eye, he believes that the wreck of the material frame is only the emergence 368 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. and the disentanglement of the glorious tenant that inhab- ited it. Such is that true faith, the basis of the happy things we hope -for, the evidence of the true things which we believe, which the Church before the Flood lived by, as truly as we. Have we this faith implanted An our hearts ? Have we a life distinct from and superior to the life that dies ? Have we springs and motives of action that the world has not? Do we feel " Thou, O God, seest me ; " and is this far more real and cogent and constraining in our experience than any other motive that the world can present ? Do we feel, that because Christ has loved us, which we believe, that we ought to love him, and, loving him, to live to him, which is our duty ? The evidence of the sun being risen is that he shines ; the evidence of the fire being kindled is that it gives forth heat ; the evidence of faith being in us is that we act as faith prescribes, directs, and dictates. Can you, dear reader, believing these things, pray earnestly, "Lord, in- crease our faith ? " Such a petition is the evidence of faith. No man ever asked for faith from the depths of his heart, who had not already a portion of faith to enable him thus to ask. He who can say, " Take my case in thine hand, thou Great Physician, and heal me," has the inner eye that sees that physician already. The blind sees none. The fact that we see Christ, and appeal to him, is the evidence that the inner eye has been couched, and that we have that faith, which " is the substance of things hoped for, the evi- dence of things not seen." If we have this faith, we shall have peace. There is no one more marked fruit of faith spoken of in the Scriptures than peace. " Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee ; " and again, " Justified by faith, we have peace with God." If there be this confidence in God, this sweet composure of our souls in the bosom and within FAITH AND HOPE. 369 the everlasting arms of our Father and of our God, then no storms that rage without can disturb us, no changes, perils, or vicissitudes can move us. When Noah was in the ark, he heard the hailstones patter on the roof, and around him the noise of the angry surges ; but he felt peace. Why ? not because the caulking, or the timber, or the bolts of that ark were all that he could wish them to be ; but because God had said that the ark should outlive it all, and land upon Ararat its redeemed ones, no more to look out upon a world under water; but upon a world rebaptized and renewed. Even so now, we shall have peace, not because we are strong, courageous, and clever, or have patronage, or money, or friends ; but because God keeps him " in per- fect peace, whose mind is stayed upon him." Abel died in peace ; Noah felt peace in the ark ; by faith Daniel had peace in the den of lions. By faith Paul and Silas sang in their dungeon at midnight. By faith John saw Patmos transformed into a beauteous Paradise. By faith the tongues of martyrs, like harp-strings, emitted their sweetest sounds when they were dying. Their spirits passed to glory while anthems and praises were upon their lips. By faith we too shall overcome. It is want of faith that makes some alarmed for the safety of the truth when a leaf falls from a tree. * It is the presence of faith that enables the Christian to say, "Though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea, though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, we will not be afraid : for God is our refuge." It is want of faith that makes hundreds and thousands tremble for evangelical truth, because the pope has imported a car- dinal into London. It is Christian confidence in the truth that makes all true believers feel persuaded that all the car- dinals in Rome will never be able to eradicate eternal truth. God has promised to us and to it immortality — He has declared that Babylon, like a great mill-stone, shall be cast 370 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. into the depths of the sea, and shall be no more heard of at all. The greatest blunder that the Vatican ever perpetra- ted was that appointment. If there be truth in prophecy, or if the line of illustration we have tried to teach be true, it is just when the candle is going out, that it sends forth its brightest but short-lived lustre ; it is when death is going to close upon the body, that the most spasmodic action takes place ; it is just when popery is about to be finally cast down, that its most desperate efforts will be made. But they will all be made in vain. We believe in God, we believe also in Jesus, and, therefore, we have peace — per- fect peace. The Lord reigns, the Lord is our refuge, we shall not be afraid. The same God that carried the Church before the Flood across the waters to Ararat, will conduct us through the last and more terrible baptism of the earth, to the everlasting hills of blessedness and peace. CHAPTER XXI. FULL ASSURANCE. " If bliss had been in art or strength, None but the wise and strong had gained it ; Where now, by faith, all arms are of a length, One size doth all conditions fit. *' A peasant may believe as much As a great clerk, and reach the highest stature : Thus dost thou make proud knowledge bend and crouch, While grace fills up uneven nature." " He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself." — 1 John v. 10. John enunciates the test of our Christianity on evidence intelligible to ourselves, and within our own reach ; a test applicable to antediluvians as to us ; in other words, he says that no man need be ignorant of the way he walks in, of the destiny he is wending to, of the character he sustains, and of the nature and the foundation and the strength of those hopes which he now cherishes. A man cannot well be a Christian without in some degree knowing it. He that believeth on the Son of God has the reflex influence of that belief by having the witness in himself. How imj^ortant is this statement ! No one need remain long ignorant of what he is, or indeed even be doubtful of what he is. Cain knew he was no saint. There are data in which, and by which, each may ascertain whether he be a Christian, or a mere 372 THE CHURCH BEFORE THE FLOOD. child of the world. Let us proceed to enumerate them. Faith, as we have already seen, plays an important part in the gospel. We cannot read the New Testament, or the previous chapter of this work, without seeing that there is ascribed to faith so much, that it seems the leading grace of the Christian character. It is " the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." It is " the vic- tory that overcometh the world." It worketh by love, it purifieth the heart. The vital idea of faith is not an intellectual conviction that lies cold and inoperative in the mind, but an inward moral feeling, that constrains, and kindles, and sanctifies the heart. In faith there is as much of a moral as of an intel- lectual element. It means the trust, or leaning of the heart, that feels its safety to be in doing so, rather than the con- viction of an intellect that believes it orthodox, or right, to believe so. In other words, faith is as much a feeling as a conviction. It is more trusting in something we believe will sustain us, than mere credence of a dogma that we believe to be true. It relates more to the heart than to the head, and indicates its birthplace by the plastic power it exercises on the whole tone and temperament and conduct of the human character. Faith in Christ is not a substitute, or meant to be a substitute, for morality, but the root of it. When we hear one person say, we are saved by faith, and another person say, we are saved by works, it seems at first as if the one were just the correlative of the other ; and as works are the foundation of one man's hopes, right or wrong, so faith is the foundation of another man's hopes, true or false. But it is not so. Faith is no more the ground of my acceptance before God than good conduct. If it were so, Adam's creed would be, Do, and live. Our creed would be. Believe, and live ; and the difference would be this, — Kightness of life FULL ASSURANCE. 373 was the ground of Adam's acceptance i Tightness of creed would be the foundation of oUr acceptance ; but there is no more possibility of justification by believing rightly, than there is in doing rightly. In other words, orthodoxy is not the ground of our salvation. The devils believe all the articles of the creed, and yet they are not saved, but tremble; and a man may still remember all the dogmas of Christianity, and yet not be a Christian at all. The ground of our acceptance is the righteousness of Christ, received by faith; as the ground of Adam's acceptance before he fell was a perfect righteousness achieved by his own doings. The difference between our condition and Adam's is, that Adam had to do righteousness, which, if done, was his right to heaven ; we have to receive righteous- ness, which as received is our right to heaven. What he had to do, we have simply to receive. He worked his way to heaven, and if he had persevered, he would have obtained it ; we receive our title to heaven, and holding fast that title, we are sure of the blessed and glorious result. "He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself. But, whilst faith is not the substitute for works, nor right believing the substitute for right doing, yet wherever there is true faith in the human heart, there will be true holiness in the human life. There is no such thing as faith without works — it is an absurdity to suppose it. There may be what James calls a faith, reputed so by man, without works, but there cannot be the divine and elevating principle of the gospel, unless it be followed by all the fruits of right- eousness, and move radiant in an atmosphere of light and life, so conspicuous that he that reads may run while he does so. One would not think of speaking of the sun in his meridian without light ; nor would one talk of a fire without heat ; we do not speak of a living tree without bud, 32 374 THE CHURCH B]fflt^BETH&^E?^OD. (Ji^?^ * or blossom, or fruit of some sort. So, to speak of living faith without fruits, is to suppose that a man having life can neither hear, nor taste, nor move a limb nor a muscle through his whole frame. The thing is absurd. If there are no fruits, there is no faith ; if there be faith at all, there must necessarily be some, or all the fruits of the gospel. Faith in Christ means, to trust in Christ as the only sacrifice, and to receive from Christ, as the Prophet and the King, direction how to live. From Christ as a sacrifice, we receive a new life ; from Christ as our King, we receive a «new direction. We take pardon from the altar, we take direction from the sceptre, and wherever Christ is relied on truly for the forgiveness of all our sins, he is deferred to really for direction in all our doings. He, then, that thus believeth on the Son of God, hath the witness in himself. It is said, " He that believeth on the Son of God." It is very beautiful, and very important to recollect, that the gospel of Christ is not trust in a doctrine, but in a person. Our creed is not, I believe in Christianity, but, I believe in Christ. And when the question was asked, " What must I do to be saved ? " the answer was not. Believe in justifi- cation by faith — but, "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." The beauty of the gospel is, that it brings us into contact, not with a valley of dry bones, or dead and uninfluential dogmas, but into living, personal connection with Christ, the Son of God, the Saviour of all that believe. Hence our faith is not in the testimony, but in the testifier. The living stone, that is, the Christian, is built, not upon a dead doctrine, but upon the living Rock, the Lord Jesus Clu'ist ; he that believeth, therefore, not in the fact that Jesus died, but in the person of the Son of God, hath the witness in himself The epithet under which the Saviour is here presented, FULL ASSURANCE. 385 you a Christian ? Time sweeps past us with the speed of a hurricane ; the great ocean of eternity is rolling onward every hour, we stand upon a narrow isthmus that is wasted by time, and washed by the waves of the eternal sea ; a few more days, a few more years, and we shall be where there is no more repentance, but where the tremendous results of faith in the Son of God, or of the neglect or the rejection of him will be eternally and universally realized. How is it that men can live a day without some deep persuasion whether they are the sons of God ? ^ How is it that years are allowed to roll on, while no introspective or reflective feelings are cherished by us, and no honest investigation of the facts of religion in our conscience and our heart is entered into ? I know that when I ask you first to be Chris- tians, I ask you not to look within, but to rest upon the object, Christ, that is without. But when I address those who doubt, when there need be no doubt, who hesitate, where there need be no hesitation, who suppose they are Christians, when all facts and all evidences indicate the reverse, — then I ask you to judge by the feelings you have and the fruits you bear, whether you believe on the Son of God, or not. Decide the question — indecision is present agony; re- jection is everlasting ruin; decision for Christ is present and perpetual peace. ;UNI7BRSIT7] WORKS KEV. 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