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gotten a man, the Lord" the promised deliverer. With the coats of animals which they no doubt offered in sacrifice to God, they made themselves garments and were clothed.

Thus early did Christ gain a victory over Satan, redeem to himself a peculiar people, and

ESTABLISH A CHURCH IN THE WORLD.

But the race had become rebellious; and because of the apostacy, God cursed the ground, and drove the transgressors from the beautiful garden, lest, by being suffered to remain there in the enjoyment of their former privileges, they should partake of the tree of life ;-i. e. be insensible to the evil of sin, and fancy that they could gain heaven by their own obedience. They went forth to a world of thorns and briers; there to beget a race from their own fallen nature ;-a race corrupt; enemies to God; who, through voluntary transgression, would bring upon themselves innumerable evils in this life, and become exposed to eternal death.

How many of their offspring were trained up for heaven by their daily sacrifices and instructions, we know not. One interesting, lovely youth in this family, stands on record, "an heir of the righteousness which is by faith." Abel believed in God. In hope of eternal life through the promised seed, he offered a lamb from his flock. The doctrine of the cross was foolishness to Cain. He scorned the thoughts of receiving salvation through the merits of another, and, trusting in his own righteousness, he brought only an offering of the fruit of the ground. The Lord rejected it, but had respect unto that of Abel. Cain's anger rose. He fell upon his brother and slew him.-Awful fruit of the apostacy! Solemn stroke! The first of unnumbered, that should fall from the hands of wicked men upon the followers of the Lamb. Abel perished; the first martyr to truth. Heaven's portals opened wide to admit the first of the ransomed of the Lord, who should come to Mount Zion, washed, sanctified and justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of God. Him angels welcomed with joy as a spectacle never before witnessed in their happy regions; while he, being dead, by his faith yet speaketh to all the children of men, assuring them that a sacrifice, offered with an honest and true heart, a deep sense of the guilt of sin and a firm reliance on the atonement of Christ, will render sinners acceptable to God, and fit them for glory.

Having laid his body in the grave, his parents returned to their dwelling, cast down, yet not destroyed. They trusted the promise of God for a righteous seed, and the Lord remembered

them in mercy and sent them another son, whom they called Seth ;-manifestly a pious man, for said his mother in holy faith, God hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel.

In their posterity, of the third generation, in the days of Enos, they witnessed a general out-pouring of the Spirit. Then," says the inspired historian, "men began to call upon the name of the Lord." Whether we consider these words as denoting that then prayer became a duty of common observance, or that in that age men first erected houses of worship, and assembled for prayer and praise or entered into covenant with God and professed themselves his people, it is manifest there was a general and great revival of religion; for nothing else could have induced men to do either of these things. This was in about the 235th year of the world, when the church was probably large and many were prepared for heaven.

Of the state of religion in the three succeeding generations we have no account. Probably there was no other out-pouring of the Spirit, and the love of many, who had turned to the Lord, had waxed cold. In the seventh generation from Adam, we find Enoch, a man eminently elevated above this world and devoted to God. He was a prophet of the Lord, and uttered a remarkable prophecy of the coming of Christ to take to himself the kingdom and the dominion, and to judge the world." And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam," says Jude, "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." What a view does this give us of the wickedness of man at that period! How solemn was that voice echoing through that world of sin and transgression-like the last trump in the morning of the resurrection! If many mocked, with what anguish must they have remembered it in a future age, when the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the floods came and swept them all away!

Enoch lived a life of faith, maintained holy fellowship and sweet communion with God; and God testified his delight in him by translating him, soul and body, to heaven, not suffering him to taste death. By this great event also, God gave his church a lively assurance of a future world, and the resurrection of the dead. All who had died were sleeping in their graves. No specific promise had been given that the body should be delivered from the ruins of the fall. Here the saints

witnessed a rescue of Enoch from death and the grave, and had a precious intimation of the future entire deliverance of the whole man from the bondage of corruption. One instance God gave to the antediluvian church. One to the church, by Elijah, in succeeding periods, that her faith might be in God; until Christ should burst the bands of death and ascend a triumphant conqueror-" -“the resurrection and the life."

CHAPTER III.

Long lives and numbers of the Antediluvians. Preservation of the Church. Her enemies. Their great wickedness. God's care of his people. Deluge.

GOD was pleased to continue the inhabitants of the old world upon earth to an astonishing period. Enoch was taken to heaven in the 365th year of his age; but the rest of Seth's descendants, of whom we have any account, all lived more than seven centuries. Methuselah attained to the age of 969 years. Many, "not knowing the power of God," have supposed that their years were lunar months; but a moment's consideration will show the absurdity of such a conjecture; for it would make them parents when mere infants, and reduce the duration of the old world to less than 130 years. By suffering man to remain long upon the earth, God gave him an opportunity to act out the wickedness of his heart, and to show to the universe the malignity and bitterness of sin.

Living as they did, through many centuries, the antediluvians must have been very numerous. When Cain destroyed his brother, they had greatly multiplied, so that he was fearful to go forth, lest any one that met him should kill him. The first generations lived through several successive periods, until the mass of men had accumulated to millions.

Among this vast population we behold the Church, small but distinct. Indeed it was the only thing of any worth in the sight of God-the only thing deserving sacred record. He has suffered every thing else mighty kingdoms, flourishing cities, vast achievements, powerful warriors, and renowned statesmen-all to perish in oblivion; and has told us only of the holy seed, the generation of the righteous, who maintained religion, and who, especially from Enoch to Noah, were doubtless hated of all men. The following is their record:

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The enemies of the Church were mighty Cain was a hardened wretch. He despised the sacrifice which prefigured the atonement, and attempted to please God by his own devices. Angry with Jehovah for exposing the hollowness of his heart, he wreaked his vengeance on his brother Abel. God called him to account, and inquired for Abel; but, in hardened impudence, he said, "Am I my brother's keeper?" The Lord pronounced him cursed, and drove him out, a fugitive and vagabond on the earth. At hearing his sentence, remorse seized his soul; and he exclaimed, "My punishment is greater than I can bear!" What a picture of impenitent misery! God determined he should live, a monument of the divine abhorrence of his crime; and he set a mark upon him, lest any finding him should kill him. Cain went forth and forsook the presence and ordinances of God-intrenched himself in a city, and became a miserable worldling. His posterity greatly increased and walked in his steps. Of some we read, who were ingenious artificers, but of none who sought the Lord. Lamech took to himself two wives, and introduced to the world the dreadful sin of polygamy.

Not long did the descendants of Cain flourish in the earth, without exercising a baneful influence upon the children of God. These, beholding their beautiful women, contracted marriages with them. Their progeny were giants in wickedness. Says

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the inspired historian, "there were giants in those days; when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them; the same became men of renown ;"no doubt the men of whom Enoch prophesied the Lord would be avenged for all their ungodly deeds which they had ungodly committed, and all their hard speeches which they had spoken against him." And now the flood-gates of wickedness being open, and the torrents of iniquity overflowing the earth, the Lord sware in his wrath," My Spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh," is corrupt, depraved, has prostituted all his noble powers, before the most debased appetites and passions. The Spirit of God being withdrawn, the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that worketh in the children of disobedience had a full triumph. Generation succeeded generation, practising the most open, daring, atrocious wickedness. Violence, murder, war, rapine and vile idolatry filled the earth. Terrible were the enemies of vital godliness.

But amidst the moral desolations of the old world, the Church stood. It was the cause of Jehovah. In the little families of Methusaleh, and Lamech and Noah it lived; and in the last of these holy men, God designed to carry it through the most awful judgment ever inflicted upon our globe. Upon a view of the horrid impiety which filled the earth, "it repented the Lord that he had made man upon the earth, and it grieved him at his heart." Not only had he an extreme abhorrence of the crimes of men and their desperate wickedness, but his soul loathed them- "And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created, from the face of the earth, both man and beast, and every creeping thing, and the fowls of the air, for it repenteth me that I have made them.”

men.

Easily indeed, might he have sent forth his Spirit, and converted the hearts of that ungodly generation to himself, and fitted them all for the happiness of heaven; and not less impious men of later ages have had the hardihood to contemn God, because, when it lay in his power, he did not save them and all But it pleases Jehovah sometimes to manifest his justice and his wrath, as well as his grace. He would have been righteous in destroying them without warning. But to exhibit further his patience and long suffering, he warned them by the preaching of Noah, for the space of 120 years. In that holy man was the Spirit of Christ; he was full of the Holy Ghost. By this Spirit, says Peter, "he went and preached unto the spirits in prison," (the spirits confined in the time when Peter wrote

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