immortal heirship vouchsafed to men who, like him, are in fellowship with their gracious Maker.

The world grew worse after Enoch left it. “And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented the Lord that He had made man on the earth, and it grieved Him at His heart. 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; for it repenteth me that I have made them." "1 It is a revelation of righteous judgment, made to Noah, and through him to his fellow-men, for he was a preacher of righteousness. Thus early, through that one man, God spake to others. It was according to the unchangeable law of necessity for God's manifestation of Himself through human nature, if man is to know anything concerning His moral character. What was about to befall the world, in the catastrophe of the Flood, would be without meaning, but for the previous teaching and warning uttered by human lips inspired of God; and these utterances ran on the same line as other manifestations of the Divine will through inspired persons, preparing for One who should exceed and surpass them all.

God's Spirit was striving with man through man; but as it was at first, in Noah's ministry, it could not always be. An age of Divine patience abused, brings a season of Divine judgment on the abusers; and the Flood was a revelation of the wrath of God against the wickedness. of man.

"But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord." 1 Gen. vi. 5-7.

"By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house; by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith."1 Revelation through him went on, repeating over and over again the lesson-even then an old one-touching the sin and misery of disbelieving, which is only another word for disobeying God, and also, as to the rectitude and blessedness of those who put their trust in Him. The Flood came as the sanction of a broken law, demonstrating alike the evil of sin and the justice of God.

What has been said in these first two chapters of our history may seem very bare, and altogether wanting in that richness of grace and truth which it is the object of the gospel to supply. No doubt it is, and of necessity, in comparison with what follows, it must be. The light of the dawn must seem faint when remembered amidst the brilliancy of noon-day. Religious instructors, for purposes of edification, may take up the points which we have just reviewed, and examine and amplify them, by the help of after-history, and of psalmists, prophets, and apostles. This is quite proper. But as our object is to trace revelation from its beginnings, we have to repress the suggestive faculty, to curb a disposition for illustrative remarks, and to confine ourselves as strictly as possible to the rudimentary sentences and hints contained in the earliest chapters of the Bible; and if we cannot get at precise conceptions of what was actually taught by these primary Divine lessons, at least we can guard against any interpretation of them, which anticipates the appearance of truths not enunciated till afterwards.

1 Heb. xi. 7.

37

CHAPTER III.

AFTER THE FLOOD, AND BEFORE THE CALL OF

ABRAHAM.

HREE distinct revelations followed the deliverance

THR

of Noah and his family by means of the ark, divinely appointed and constructed.

(a) A renewal of the charter of human dominion over the world, together with a superadded grant of animal food. "Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things." With it was coupled a prohibition of certain food. "But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat."1 This remarkable Noachic precept, handed down through succeeding ages, and solemnly repeated in the infancy of the Christian Church,2 had a significancy once which it has lost now. Afterwards incorporated in the Levitical law in these words, "For the life of the flesh is in the blood," it was applied to the illustration of the meaning of animal sacrifices. "I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul. Therefore I said unto the children of Israel, No soul of you shall eat blood, neither shall any stranger that sojourneth among you eat blood." 3 The same precept is immediately afterwards repeated in different language. The reiterated injunction 3 Lev. xvii. II, 12.

2 Acts xv. 29.

1 Gen. ix. 3, 4.

has a retrospective bearing. It indicates the prior institution of the prohibitory statute, and the prior revelation of its ground and reason. We are warranted, then, in regarding the first enactment of abstinence from eating blood, as intimately connected with the law of sacrifice, and as being intended to educate men for an apprehension of shedding blood on altars, as being no less than an offering up of life to Him, who is its Author and Lord.

(b) Next comes the promulgation of a law which teaches the peculiar sacredness of human life. “And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man's brother will I require the life of man. Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made He man." 1

(c) Afterwards we find the declaration of a covenant for the gracious perpetuation of the course of nature, ratified by the sign of the Rainbow. No more was a flood to destroy the earth. God did set His bow in the cloud, and testified that He would look upon it and remember His promise of patience and forbearance amidst the provocations of human sin. What God said to Noah imparted a gracious significancy to the many-coloured arch of heaven, as it spanned the clouds of a retiring That beautiful phenomenon of nature became a

storm.

symbol of Divine Love.

prophecy, and pro

Canaan, the heir of

Noah received the gift of nounced the destiny of his sons. Ham, was to be a servant of servants, a doom which is regarded as having a fulfilment in the slavery of Africans. Japheth was to be enlarged, and to dwell in the tents of 1 Gen. ix. 5, 6.

Shem, a prediction which has been illustrated by the story of the peculiar relations between Japhetic and Semitic races, i. e. the nations of the West and the East.

The prophecy has been represented as embracing the following particulars :-" That the world should be divided among the descendants of Noah, but that Japheth should have the largest portion for his inheritance. That the descendants of Shem should preserve the knowledge of the true God, and be specially chosen to be His inheritance, and His peculiar people. That the descendants of Japheth should ultimately dwell in the tents of Shem, that is, according to Jewish interpretation, should learn from the descendants of Shem the knowledge of the true God. That Canaan, and perhaps other Hamitic nations, should be depressed and reduced to a condition of servitude." 1

After the history of Noah and the Flood comes that of the Tower of Babel. The only way in which that history comes before us here is in reference to the Divine intervention to scatter the proud builders on account of their presumption. It is described in human. language, and according to human forms of thought. In what other mode could any revelation of God's ways and purposes be revealed? "It may be asked, could there not have been used terms more general, which would not have suggested such crude conceptions? It might have been simply said, God intervened to prevent the accomplishment of evil purposes, or He provided

1 Speaker's Commentary, in loco. See Newton's Dissertations, Kurtz's History of the Old Covenant, and Davison on Prophecy, Discourse III.; and especially Lange's Commentary on Genesis, Translation, p. 336 et seq.