1 the most exalted measure of it; How much better is it to depart, with the crown of martyrdom, than to have nothing in expectation, against the world to come, but unmixed vengeance! and, though in all the affluence which this world can command for the prefent, driven out from the PRESENCE OF THE LORD *! By Le CLERC's opinion, that the PRESENCE OF THE LORD was the name of a particular place, where Adam dwelt, is unworthy of confutation, as it nearly amounts to an exprefs contradiction of the Holy Ghoft, who frequently calls his Church by that name. Job i. 6. The fentence which God paffed on Cain deferves more minute investigation. It is expreffed to confiderable dif advantage in our tranflation, thus, "And now art thou curfed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand. When thou tilleft the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her ftrength. A fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth." Gen. iv. 11, 12. Junius and Tremelius render it, "Nunc itaque tu maledictus efto: EXUL ab ifta terra quæ aperuit os fuum ad excipiendum fanguinem fratris a manu tua." i. e. "Be thou accurfed: be thou an exile from that [fpot] of earth which opened her mouth to receive thy brother's blood at thy hand." The original is fomewhat obfcure, being eliptic; and our tranflators have been mifled by omiting the capital diftinctive within the verfe, and alfo by neglecting the fupplement which the context affords: But Junius's tranflation is as properly pointed as fupplied. Our tranflators feeur to have underflood verfe 11. as parallel to Gen. iii. 17. “Curfed be the ground for thy fake." But fomething more dreadful is certainly intended. The bar rennefs By this excifion the old leaven of malice and wickednefs was, for once, purged out of the antediluvian Church; and fhe was fupplied with a new feed in the perfon of Seth. "And the (Eve) bare a fon, and called his name Seth: For God," faid fhe, "hath appointed me another feed, inftead of Abel, whom Cain flew." The feed renness and briars of the earth are confiftent enough with enjoying the prefence of God through jefus Chrift; but this was fuch a punishment as included feparation from the fmiles of his reconciled counte-nance. Befides, that punishment which was anounced. to Adam is alfo denounced, but with greater horrors; against Cain, in verfe 12. already quoted. According to Junius's tranflation, verfe 11. contains, FIRST, A Sen tence of Excommunication. SECONDLY, A Sentence of Banishment. 1. A Sentence of Excommunication more dreadful than any church, in ordinary circumftances, can pronounce. A fentence only competent to God himself, or the extraordinary officers of the church, who are capable of difcerning the fpirits, and of judging the eternal ftate. This fentence feems to be parallel to that in I Corinth. xvi. 22. "If any man love not the Lord jefus Christ, let him be ANATHEMA MARANATHA;” AC-· CURSED AT THE COMING OF THE LORD.Be thou accurfed! What is this but the anticipation of the fenterree, from a judgment feat? "Depart from me YE CURSED!" 2. A Sentence of Banishment, "Be thou an exile from that earth which opened her mouth to receive thy brother's blood at thy hand:" That is, from that spot of this feed of Cain, though ejected from the prefence of the Lord, flourished in the world till the flood. The Church was preserved pure in the families of Adam and Seth; and in many more, perhaps, for more than the space of an hundred years. Some divines imagine, that irreligion and impiety fprang up again, in thefe families, in the days of Enos, who was born about an hundred and fix years after the death of Abel: Yea, fome have averred, that Enos himself was not only an idolater, but the earth where thy brother's blood was fhed, as the feed of the Church. It was not confiftent with the Church's fafety, that her murderer fhould dwell any longer in the midft of her. God had ends worthy of himself, however, for fparing that life which Cain had forfeited: Probably he was fpared at this time because he had in his loins the inventors of the fine arts. See verfes 20, 21. Should any hefitate about the propriety of fupplying EXU: from a following verfe, I hope he will be fatisfied by confulting Glaffii Gram. Sacr. p. 700. In rhetorical fpeeches, it is nothing uncommon for the Hebrew writers to place the relative before the antecedent, at the distance even of a verfe or two: And hence, abrupt fpeeches must be fupplied from the fubfequent as well as from the preceding context. E. G. Song. i. 2. "Let him (the King) kifs me with the kifles of his mouth." Here the term KING must be fupplied from verfe 4. to complete the fenfe. Pfal. lxxxvii. 1. "His foundation is in his holy mountain." That is JEHOVAH's, from ver. 2. And Pfal. lxxii, 4. See Glaflium, above quoted. very founder of idolatry: But upon what grounds this last charge is exhibited, few, besides themselves, can fay. It is fo far from being fupported, that it is really overthrown by the Mofaic hiftory of the men of his time: "And to Seth, to him alfo, there was born a fon; and he called his name Enos. Then began men to call upon the name of the Lord." So our tranflation has it in the text but on the margin it is rendered, "Then began men to call themfelves BY the name of the Lord." The marginal translation, I humbly judge, is the just one. They called themselves by the name of the Lord, as children are called after the name of their father. They called themselves by him in dedicating themselves unto him, and avouching their relation to him as fons: For the difcriminating title, by which the religious children of Seth were diftinguished from the profane brood of Cain, was that of THE SONS OF GOD; and it continued to be the ufual defignation of the godly until the days of Job *. In the days of Enos then, the Sons of Seth avowed the family to * Job i. 6. H 2 which - which they belonged, in oppofition to the feed of the ferpent. And their avowal was fuch as cannot imply lefs than covenantdedication; for the expreffion is perfectly fimilar to that of the Prophet, "Another fhall call himself by the name of Jacob." Covenanters were called by THE NAME OF THE LORD, or THE SONS OF GOD, in the antediluvian ftate; and by the NAME OF JACOB, OF ISRAELITES, in the period to which the oracle refers. And the connection leaves us no room to doubt, but calling one's felf by the name of Jacob is a fœderal action; for it is ranked among other actions confeffedly of that kind: “One fhall fay, I am the Lord's: and another fhall call himself by the name of Jacob : and another fhall fubfcribe with the hand unto the Lord, and firname himself by the name of Ifrael *.” ALL * If. xliv. 5. For confirming the fenfe of Gen. iv. 26. I beg leave to infert what C. VITRINGA has advanced on this fubject: "Sed ipfum noftrum P FORME ACTI VÆ cum voce w constructum, eodem fenfu fummitur "apud Mofen (Gen. iv. 26.) TUM CAPTUM EST APPELLARI DE NOMINE JEHOVEÆ. Quæ verfio hoc tempore "doctis interpretibus merito probatur. h. e. dici cape"runt filii Dei. Si quiftamen hic fervare velit fignifica. ་ ་ tionem forma activa interpretatio eadem erit." In this the |