in faith, in charity; aim at the highest honours of the Christian name; be humble, and be every thing. 66 "Through the eternal Spirit he offered himself without spot to God." Were Abel's days cut short by the hand of violence? So "Messiah the Prince, was cut off, but not for himself." Was Abel hated of, and slain by his brother? Christ" was despised and rejected" of his own, and died by the treachery of a familiar friend in whom he trusted, and by the cruelty of those who were his brethren according to the flesh. Did the blood of Abel cry to God from the ground, for vengeance on the head of him who shed it? O, with what oppressive weight has the blood of Jesus fallen, and how heavily does it still lie on the heads of them, and of their chil Salvation, men and brethren, has, from the beginning, flowed in one and the same channel. There was not one gospel to the antediluvian, and another to the postdiluvian world; one method of redemption to the Jews, and another to the Gentiles; but Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever. Abel, Abraham, Moses, David, Simeon, Paul, and all who have been, or shall be saved, lived and died in the faith of Christ. "Neither is there salvation in any other; for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved."*dren, who with wicked hands crucified and This, therefore, is the great commandment of God to us in these days of meridian light and glory, namely, "that we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another." Was Abel a type of Christ, as well as a believer in him? The scripture indeed saith it not expressly; but surely, without straining, we may discern some striking marks of resemblance. What saith Moses? "Abel was a keeper of sheep." What saith Christ? "I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep." What did Abel? "He, through faith, brought of the firstlings of his flock, and of the fat thereof, an offering unto the Lord." What did Christ? *Acts iv. 12. 1 slew him! Could the blood of Abel atone for his sin? No: but the blood of Christ cleanseth him, and every believer, from all sin. Yet Abel died as a righteous man, Christ as a sinner. Abel, a guilty creature, was justified and accepted through an imputed righteousness; Christ, who was "holy, harmless, undefiled, and separated from sinners," was condemned and suffered, because "The Lord laid on him the iniquity of us all." Abel suffered death once for all; the body of Christ was " offered once for all," and by that one sacrifice, "he hath for ever perfected them that are sanctified." But we pursue the similitude and the contrast no farther. May God bless what has been said. Amen. And to his holy name be praise. HISTORY OF CAIN. LECTURE V. For this is the message that ye heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him? Because his own works were evil, and his brother's righteous.-1 JOHN iii. 11, 12. Ir is a pleasant task to attend the footsteps | be placed before the eyes of men; that sin of the wise and good, through the thorny maze of human life: to draw nigh with the devout, to the altar of God: to learn patience of the meek, compassion of the merciful, and kindness of the generous: to love and admire them in life, and to regret them in death. But ah! how painful to trace the progress, and to mark the appearances of "the carnal mind, which is enmity against God," and hatred to man from the first conception of an ill design, to the final execution of a deed of horror! "Lust, having conceived, bringeth forth sin, and sin when finished, bringeth forth death." Nevertheless, it is highly important, that even objects of detestation should should be viewed in her native loathsomeness and deformity, to excite, if possible, aversion and disgust. To direct men in the journey of life, it is necessary to erect beacons, the admonition of hidden dangers and death; as well as to set up indexes, to point out the right path. The two first men who were born into the world, are designed of Providence to answer this valuable purpose, to those who should come after them. Abel, though dead, continues to instruct men in the excellency, amiableness, and importance of true religion; Cain stands to all generations, a fearful example of ungovernable passion, hurrying a man on to blood, and plunging him into despair. Having considered the | dened through sin, dictated the reply, "I former as a pattern for imitation, we are now know not, am I my brother's keeper?" Is this to consider the history of the latter, as afford- the eldest hope of the first human pair? Is ing an useful and seasonable warning to look he not rather the first born of that accursed to ourselves, "lest we also be hardened, being, who is a liar and a murderer from through the deceitfulness of sin." the beginning? "I know not:" Falsehood must be called in to cover that wickedness which we are ashamed or afraid to avow. "Am I my brother's keeper?" How dreadful is the progress of vice! How crime leads on to crime! Envy begets malice; malice inspires revenge; revenge hurries on to blood; bloodguiltiness seeks shelter under untruth, and untruth attempts to support itself by insolence, assurance, and pride: and haughtiness of spirit is but one step from destruction. Ah, little do men know, when they indulge one evil thought, or venture on one unwarrantable action, what the issue is to be! They vainly flatter themselves it is in their power to stop when they please. But passion, like a fiery unmanageable steed in the hands of an unskilful rider, by one inconsiderate stroke of the spur, may be excited to such a pitch of fury, as no skill can tame, no force restrain; but both horse and rider are hurried together down the precipice, and perish in their rage. The milder, and more indirect admonitions and reproofs of God's word and providence being misunderstood, slighted or defied, justice is concerned, and necessity requires, to speak in plainer language, and to bring the charge directly home: and that severity is most awful, which was preceded by gentleness, patience, and long-suffering. God at length awakes to vengeance; "and he said, What hast thou done? The voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the Cain has now accomplished his bloody purpose. His envied, hated rival is now removed out of sight: the virtues of his brother no longer reproach him: Abel stands no more in the way, to intercept the rays of the favour of God, or of man. Is he not now then at rest? No eye saw him commit the murder. And if it were known, who shall call him to account? No eye saw him! Yes, the eye of Cain saw him: yes, the eye of God saw him: hence the whole earth becomes all eye to behold him, all tongue to accuse him. Who shall call him to account? That shall Cain; his own conscience shall avenge the murder: that shall the hand of every man, fly whither he will; for every man is concerned to destroy him, who makes light of the life of another: that shall God, from whom he cannot fly. Revenge, like "a devilish engine," recoils on him that employs it; or, like the flame of Nebuchadnezzar's fiery furnace, catches hold of, and destroys the ministers of vengeance, not the objects of it. The mournful tidings must soon reach the ears of the afflicted parents. What were now thy feelings, Eve, when he, who was expected to be a Saviour, turns out a destroyer? Which is the heavier affliction, a son prematurely and violently cut off; or a son living to present an object of horror and detestation to their eyes? A pious child dead, is beyond all controversy, a possession infinitely preferable to a profligate alive. Alas! what shall they do? To overlook the mur-ground." der, is to become partakers in the guilt of it; to punish the murderer, as justice demands, is to render themselves childless. Ah! how do the difficulties and distresses of their fallen estate increase upon guilty men every day! The cause, which was too hard for Adam to determine, God takes into his own hand. "And the Lord said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother?" Offences committed in secret, and offenders, whose power and station bid defiance to earthly tribunals, fall properly under the immediate cognizance of heaven. Behold the throne is set, and the judgment opened. How meek and gentle is God with this murderer! He would draw confession from his mouth, not as a snare, but as an indication of contrition. The end which God has in view, in making inquiry after blood, is, not the conviction and punishment; but the conviction, pardon, and recovery of the criminal. What a question. "Where is thy brother?" put by God himself to the wretch whose hands were yet reeking with his blood. What heart, har • Genesis iv. 9, And mark how every creature arms itself in the cause of God. The dead earth is represented as acquiring sensibility, and refusing to cover blood: the silent ground becomes vocal, and loudly accuses the criminal; the stones of the field are at war with him who has made God his foe: nay, the earth is made not only the accuser, but the punisher of the guilty; for this new transgression it falls under a heavier curse. Adam for his offence, was doomed to eat bread with the sweat of his brow; was doomed to labour, yet to labour in hope of increase; but Cain shall spend his strength for nought and in vain. The ground shall present greater rigidity to the hand of cultivation : shall cast out the seed thrown into it, or consume and destroy it; or at best produce a lean and scanty crop. Cain and the earth are to be mutually cursed to each other. It seems to tremble under, and shrink from the feet of a murderer; it refuses henceforth to yield unto him her strength, and considers him as a monstrous misshapen birth, of which she is ashamed, and which she wishes to destroy. *Genesis iv. 10. 1 He considers it as an unnatural mother, | say, are on the side of truth, and virtue, and whom no pains can molify, no submission religion: his opinions, he has no inclination reconcile. "A fugitive and a vagabond shalt dogmatically to propose; he neither wishes thou be in the earth." When the mind is to make a secret of them, nor expects any changed, every thing changes with it: when one, much less the world, implicitly to adopt a man is at discord with himself, he is eter- them. He is conscious of a desire to do nally from home. The spacious world, good; not over anxious about fame; happy Cain's hereditary domain, is become a vast in the affection of many friends, and unsolitude; of a home is turned into a place of conscious of having given cause to any good exile. The person whom all men shun is man to be his enemy. Forgive a digression, every where a stranger; he who is smitten suggested by the occasion, not rambled into of his own conscience, is continually sur-through design; proceeding not from the derounded with enemies. The same principle which engages men in criminal enterprises, in the hope of impunity, throws them into despair, upon the denunciation of punishment. As they formerly expected much higher satisfaction from the execution of their wicked purposes, than the most successful villany ever could bestow; so now their own guilty minds outrun the awards of justice itself; and the awakened conscience does ample vengeance upon the offender at length, amply vindicates the cause both of God and man. This is strikingly exemplified in the case of Cain. His recent boldness and insolence are a strong contrast to his present dejection and terror. He now sinks under the apprehension of intolerable chastisements, and forebodes greater evils than his sentence denounced. His banishment he considers as far from being the greatest of the calamities of his condition; he feels himself excluded, hidden from the gracious presence of God; and deserted of his Maker, liable to fall by the hand of every assailant. But God remembers mercy in the midst of anger; and the life which he himself was graciously pleased to spare, no one else must, on any pretence whatever, presume to take away. He only who can bestow life, has a right to dispose of it. Ye over curious inquirers, who must needs be informed of every thing, what does it concern you to know, by what mark God distinguished Cain, to prevent his being killed by any one who might take upon himself to be the avenger of blood? Speculation and conjecture, which with some pass for illustration and knowledge, are not the objects of these exercises; but whatever assists faith, whatever supports a sound morality, whatever conveys real information, inspires a taste for goodness, represses inordinate and sinful desire; whatever teaches gratitude and love to God, and good will to men, that we would carefully observe, and earnestly inculcate. As it is no part of our intention to wander into the regions of speculation, under a pretence of elucidating the sacred history, it is still less so, to enter the lists of controversy. Your Lecturer has, no doubt, his opinions and prejudices, like other men: his prejudices, however, he is confident to sire a man has to speak of himself, but from a wish, by doing it once for all, to cut off all future occasion of speaking, in or of the first person. We return to the history. "It shall come to pass," says guilty, trembling Cain, "that every one that findeth me shall slay me." This is one of the many passages of scripture, which the enemies of religion have laid hold of, and held forth as contradictory to other parts of revelation, in the view of invalidating and destroying the whole. Here, they allege, Moses is inconsistent with himself; in deriving the whole human race from the common root of Adam, and at the same time supposing the world so populous at the time of Abel's murder, as to excite in Cain a well grounded apprehension of the public resentment and punishment of his crimes. Either, say they, there were other men and women created at the same time with, or before Adam and Eve; or else Cain's fears were groundless and absurd. A learned and ingenious critic has taken the trouble to refute this objection, by instituting a calculation founded on obvious probabilities at least, by which it appears, that at the time of Abel's murder the world was sufficiently peopled, on the Mosaic supposition, that all mankind descended from Adam, to render the public justice an object of well grounded apprehension to guilty Cain. We pretend not to assert that the calculation of a modern author is a demonstration of a fact so remote: if it be probable, it is sufficient for our purpose, that of doing away one of the cavils of infidelity. The birth of Seth is fixed, by the history, in the one hundred and thirtieth year of Adam: it is therefore reasonable to place the death of Abel two years earlier, or near it; that is, in the one hundred and twenty-eighth year of the world. "Now, though we should suppose," says the calculator,* "that Adam and Eve had no other sons in the year of the world one hundred and twenty-eight but Cain and Abel, it must be allowed that they had daughters, who might early marry with those two sons. I require no more than the descendants of these two, to make a very considerable number of men upon the earth, in the said year one hundred and twenty-eight. * Dissert. Chronol. Geogr. Critiq. sur la Bible. 1 me. Dissert. Journal de Paris, Jan. 1712, tom. li. p. 6. The posterity of Cain are represented in scripture, as the first to build a city. The mutual fears and wants of men drive them into society; put them upon raising bulwarks, devising restraints, cultivating the arts which afford the means of defence against attacks from without, or which amuse and divert within. The invention of music, and of manufactures in brass and iron, are, accordingly, likewise ascribed to his descendants. When men are got together in great multitudes, as their different talents will naturally whet each other to the invention of new arts of life, and the cultivation of science; so their various passions, mingling with, and acting upon one another, will necessarily produce unheard-of disorders and irregularities. Hence, in Enoch, the city of Cain, and in Lamech, the sixth from Cain, we first read of that invasion of the rights of mankind, polygamy, or the marrying more wives than one. In a great city, as there will be many who omit doing their duty altogether, so there will be some, who will take upon them to do more than duty prescribes. The unvarying nearness, or equality which Providence has preserved from the creation of the world, of male and female births, is full demonstration, independent of all statute law, that the Governor of the world means every man to have his own wife, and every woman her own husband; that to neglect his intention in this matter, is an attempt to counteract his providence; and that to outrun it is an effort, equally vain, presumptuous, wicked, and absurd, to mend his work. For, supposing them to have been married in | ecution," he went out from the presence of How long Cain lived, and when, or where, and in what manner he died, we have no information. And little satisfaction can it yield, happy man, through a life of guilt and re- cured a succession, which should at length | murderous Cain? A female hand armed with terminate in that "promised seed," who was a sword, lifted up to slay, dipped in blood! "to bruise the serpent's head," who was "to destroy the works of the devil." "And Adam knew his wife again: and she bare a son, and called his name Seth; for God, said she, hath appointed me another seed, instead of Abel, whom Cain slew." No, she wields a more deadly weapon, she brandishes an envenomed tongue: poison more fatal than that of asps is under her lips; it is not the body that suffers, when that unruly member moves; it is the spirit, it is the spirit that bleeds: the man dies, and sees not who it was that hurt him; he perishes in the best part of himself, his good name is blasted; and what has he left worth possessing? The sight of a little material blood makes her faint: a dead corpse terrifies and shocks her, but she can calmly, and with delight, sit down to that horrid human sacrifice, a murdered, mangled reputation! This wicked man's history is a loud admonition to all to watch over their spirits; and carefully to guard against the first emotions of envy, anger, hatred, contempt, malice, or revenge. And the words of Jesus Christ confirm and enforce the solemn warning, "I say unto you, that whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause, shall be in danger of the judgment; and whosoever shall say But the history, also, in its connexion, inunto his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of spires holy joy and confidence in God, by the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou representing the constant, seasonable, and fool, shall be in danger of hell fire. There- suitable interpositions of his providence, acfore, if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and cording to the various exigencies of mankind. there rememberest that thy brother hath Devils and wicked men are continually aimaught against thee; leave there thy gift be- ing at defacing his image, at marring his fore the altar, and go thy way; first be re-work; but they cannot prevail. The purconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift."* Hold thy bloody hand, son, daughter of murderous Cain! Why should a brother, a sister fall by it! That furious look is a dagger; that unkind word has made the blood, the heart's blood to follow it. Daughter of * Matt. v. 22-24. poses of the divine wisdom and mercy are not to be defeated by the united efforts of earth and hell. Abel dies, but Seth starts up in his room. Jesus expires on the cross, but “through death destroys him that had the power of death, that is, the devil. Surely, O Lord, the wrath of man shall praise thee, and the remainder of wrath thou shalt restrain." HISTORY OF ENOCH. LECTURE VI. And Enoch walked with God, and he was not; for God took him.-GENESIS v. 24. THE regular and uniform dominion of the laws of nature, or the occasional suspension and alteration of them, are equally a proof of the being and providence of God. Whether the sun, with uninterrupted speed, continues to perform his daily and annual course; or whether he "stands still in Gibeon," or "goes back on the dial of Ahaz;" the interposition of the Most High is equally apparent, and equally to be adored. And why may not He, who has "appointed unto all men, once to die," in order to make his power known, and his goodness felt, exhibit here and there an illustrious exemption from the power of the grave, and thereby vindicate his sovereign rights as the great arbiter and disposer of life and death. To fallen Adam it was denounced, "Dust thou art, and to dust thou shalt return;" by one man "sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:" But, behold, the mortal sentence is remitted in favour of Enoch, the seventh from Adam; behold the order of nature is altered, the decree of Heaven is dispensed with; he is "translated without tasting of death." When an event, so entirely out of course, takes place, it is natural, and not unprofitable, to inquire into the causes of it; for when the issue is singular and uncommon, we justly conclude that the circumstances which led to it, were likewise singular and uncommon. The holy scriptures afford us, but sparingly, materials for a life which concluded so very differently from that of other men; but what they have furnished, is striking and instructive. The venerable father of the human race |