that was against it. Cain was a revengeful and a murderous man. No wonder, therefore, his offering was rejected. "The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord."* But let us not dwell too long on this most interesting page of sacred history. Ere we leave it, however, let us not fail to observe a fact immediately relating to our inquiry, and which this passage of sacred Scripture teaches, namely, that the first display of the irascible passions which had a fatal issue, took its rise in a religious difference. Alas! how often has the same cause produced the same effects since! It is natural, indeed, that differences, in a matter of such deep importance as religion is, should move the passions; but it is Christian to keep these passions under. Since the days of Cain, however, till the present day, the spirit of Cain has still dwelt upon the earth,-has still been " a wanderer and a vagabond" over it. It has troubled every region. As, indeed, Abel is the type and representative of the spirit of true piety, so may his elder brother be regarded as the type and representative of religious hatred and persecution. It has been usual to regard him as representing the spirit of the world, and, no doubt, using this term in its widest sense, he did so; for in the spirit of the world, that of religious hatred and persecution is included. But, if any distinction is to be made between the two, the spirit of Cain must be associated with the persecuter rather than with the worldling. He slew his brother, not in order to take possession of any thing that was his, or, indeed, to gain any worldly advantage whatever; he slew him simply because he hated his religion, and the virtues to which it gave birth. And here let us mark also the result of the assault which Cain made upon Abel,-the assault which hypocrisy, hatred, and dark malignity made upon gentleness, * Prov. xv. 8. and love, and enlightened piety. Cain rose up against Abel his brother. Abel fell. And is not this an instance of what may generally be expected in a physical encounter between the children of the light and the children of darkness. To the former, force is not the sphere of victory. Not but they are to defend themselves when attacked, as possibly Abel did. But the weapons of their warfare are not carnal. And all those angry and proud arguments which issue from the carnal heart of the polemic, and of which the religious world is now so full, are weapons of Cain, unchristian and accursed. There are only two ways of it, the spirit of persuasion, and the spirit of the sword; and of these the spirit of persuasion is alone Christian. Yet better far the bright steel, and have done with it, than a foul tongue poisoning the air, from year to year, with its bitter and malignant utterances, and vampire-like seeking to suck out the heart's blood of all who cannot assent to its imperious dictates. What though it utters itself in religious tones and syllables: Is it consecrated, forsooth! THE ANTEDILUVIAN WORLD. It is well known, that after the fall, and before the flood, men degenerated, as they multiplied, with marvellous rapidity, and proved themselves, after comparatively few ages, altogether unworthy of the liberty with which they had been entrusted. Instead of maintaining reason and conscience in the supremacy of the soul, which is their only rightful place, mankind speedily plunged into such a state of indulgence, and turned so impious, that God was moved to extirpate the existing population, and to renovate the race. And what is the lesson which such a sad catastrophe is peculiarly designed to teach us? What were the peculiar faults in the constitution of antediluvian society, through which it hurried so fast into utter perdition? This is a deeply interesting question. It must be confessed, however, that the notices which we have of these times are too slender to admit of a satisfactory solution of it. But from the little that we do know, we may safely infer two causes of the degeneracy of the antediluvians, both of them intimately connected with our subject. It has been shewn, that, down to the deluge, there were but few positive institutions in religion. Now this state of things,—since it was the original state,— ought to lead us to infer, that, whenever such institutions. have been divinely given in after ages, it was only because they were indispensably necessary, not because they are in themselves the choice of God. That God has no pleasure in them, we may indeed well believe, not only from the Scripture history of man, but from their awkwardness as means of securing obedience, compared with the law written on the heart, the law of reason and conscience. At all events, the fact that so few were instituted until after it had been demonstrated that the other method had failed, leads us to infer with certainty that they are to be ascribed to a necessity, rather than a pure preference on the part of God. The fact of their fewness in the antediluvian world, however, when viewed, not alone, and merely as an evidence of what God designed first to manifest in providence, but when taken in connexion with the lawlessness and impiety with which that fewness was associated, and the sad catastrophe in which the whole economy terminated, ought plainly to prepare us for a greater number of such institutions in after ages. The fate of the antediluvian world, in which positive institutions appear to have been almost entirely wanting, teaches distinctly that there are certain states of human nature when but little can be trusted to reason and conscience, and when positive institutions, and effective authority, are the only means by which piety, and even society itself, can be perpetuated. This, then, is one important lesson which the world before the flood has handed down to us. There is also another feature of these times not unworthy of notice here. In all societies, subsequently to the deluge, which have risen even a single step only in the scale of civilization, wherever, in short, there has been society at all, a class of men has invariably existed, having for their duty to teach religion, and perform the offices of worship. In all ages and countries which have any histories, a priesthood or ministry of some sort or other, is constantly to be found. But amongst the antediluvians, we find no traces of such an order of men. And this fact, whether we regard it as the cause or the effect of their impiety and lawlessness, equally points to this great truth in the philosophy of history, That an order of men set apart for teaching religion, is one of the most essential elements of a well-constituted society. While priestcraft, therefore, is condemned, as the world has too often had good occasion to do, and as we shall take occasion to do in the sequel, let us not condemn the sacerdotal or pastoral institution. Whatever evils may have resulted from its corrupt administration, it is worthy of belief, that no other order of men has done so much, upon the whole, for the well-being of the human species. NOAH. But the deluge has swept over the earth. Its ungodly masses of human creatures are no more. The church is reduced to a single family. Society begins from a new fountain. Noah, and his sons, and his sons' wives, descend from Mount Ararat. And what is the economy which the new order of things presents to our consideration? Are we not to expect that, in order to prevent for the future the indulgence which had ruined the race already, the survivors shall be straitly bound on all hands by positive laws and institutions, so that, for the time to come, as little as possible may be left to reason and conscience, which, though divinely assisted by the immediate communion and guidance of God, had already proved themselves so incompetent to resist the impulses of appetite, and the allurements of sin? This is what might have been expected, not without much shew of reason. But it was not so. Instead of bindings, and restraints, and a manifold exhibition of authority, all the communications which God made to Noah, when the flood was over, were of the nature of promises, and extensions of privilege. The patriarch was, indeed, commanded to refrain from eating life-blood. But this was an ordinance connected with sacrifice; and therefore the fact of such a command being given, is only calculated to illustrate what has been already advanced on this subject, namely, that this part of worship must always be put under positive rule; because, being a matter of faith only, not of nature, reason and conscience are quite incompetent to organize a suitable ritual. It may also be remarked, that the forefending of blood was calculated to have a very admirable effect in restraining the injured from manslaughter, which, in all infant societies, is peculiarly apt to be precipitately committed, because it is not possible, in such times, to establish any other law but that of revenge, a mode of punishment such that its outgoings can scarcely be regulated. The forbidding of blood was, therefore, a precept which, though positive, was not ar |