became so. It is true, it does not answer curious questions on this awful subject. It traces the origin of evil as far as sobriety and humility would wish to inquire. It states the fact, that God hath made man upright, and that he hath sought out many inventions : hut there it leaves it. If men will object to the equity of the divine proceedings, and allege that what is in consequence of their first father's transgression, is on their part guiltless, they must go on to object. Every man's conscience tells him he is accountable for all he does from choice, let that choice have been influenced by what it may; and no man thinks of excusing his neighbour in his ill conduct towards him, because he is a son of Adam. Out of their own mouth, therefore, will such objectors be judged. But if the doctrine of the fall, as narrated in this book, be admitted, that of salvation by free grace through the atonement of Christ will follow of course. I do not say that redemption by Christcould be inferred from the fall itself; but being revealed in the same sacred book, we cannot believe the one without feeling the necessity of the other. Look at the page of history, and you will find yourselves in a world, of the existence of which you can find no traces till within about four thousand years. All beyond is darkness; and all pretensions to earlier records carry in them self-evident marks of fable. These things are accounted for in this book. If the world were destroyed by a flood, there could no nations have existed tili a little before the times of Abraham. Nay, this book gives us the origin of all the nations, and calls many of them by the names which they sustain to this day. : Finally Look at the antipathy which is every where to be seen between the righteous and the wicked, between them that fear God and them that fear him not. All the narratives which have passed under our review, as those of Cain and Abel, Enoch and his cotemporaries, Isaac and Ishmael, Jacob and Esau, are pictures of originals which the world continues in every age to exhibit. But this book traces this antipathy to its source; and gives us reason to expect its continuance till Satan and his cause shall be bruised under our feet. Secondly: The peculiar characters of sacred history. It is the most concise, and yet comprehensive of any record that has ever yet appeared in the world. In the book of Genesis only, we have gone over the history of two thousand three hundred and sixtynine years. A common historian might have used more words in giving us an account of one of Nimrod's expeditions. Yet it is not like the abridged histories of human writers, which often contain a string of unconnected facts, which leave no impression, and are nearly void of useful information. You see human nature, as created, as depraved, and as renewed by the grace of God: you see the motives of men, and the reason of things, so as to enable you to draw from every story some important lesson, some warning, caution, counsel, encouragement, or instruction in righteous ness. The reason of so much being included in so small a compass, is, it is select. It is not a history of the world, but of persons and things which the world overlooks. It keeps one great object always in view; namely, the progress of the church of God, and touches other societies and their concerns only incidentally, and as they are connected with it. The things which are here recorded are such as would have been mostly overlooked by common historians, just as things of the same kind are overlooked to this day. If you read many of even our Church Histories, you will perceive but little of the history of true religion in them. There is more of the genuine exercise of grace in a page of the life of Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob, than you will frequently find here in a volume. If the world overlooks God, and his cause, God in return overlooks them and theirs. His history holds up an Enoch, and preserves a Noah, while a world lying in wickedness is destroyed by an overwhelming flood. It follows an Abraham, an Isaac, a Jacob, and a Joseph, through all their vicissitudes, narrating the trials and triumphs of faith in these holy men; while the Ishmaels, the Esaus, and all who apostatized from the true God, are given up, and lost in the great world. It traces the spiritual kingdom of God to its smallest beginnings, and follows it through its various obstructions; while the wars, conquests, and intrigues of the great nations of antiquity are passed over as unworthy of notice. In all this we see that the things which are highly esteemed among men, are but lightly accounted of by the Lord; and that He who bath heaven for his throne, and earth for his footstool, overlooks both, in comparison of a poor and contrite spirit. : Lastly: The slow, but certain progress, of the divine designs. God promised Abraham a son when he was seventy-five years old; but he was not born till he was a hundred. And when he is born, he lives forty years unmarried and when married, under an expectation of great fruitfulness, it is twenty years more ere Rebekah bears children; and then it is not without earnest prayer. And now that he has two sons born, Jacob, in whom the promise is to be fulfilled, lives, seventy-five years single, and his life is a kind of blank and when he goes to Padanaram for a wife, he must wait seven years longer ere he obtains her: and when he has a family of children, they prove some of the worst of characters. The only one that is any way hopeful is taken away, he knows not how ; and a long series of afflictions follow one upon another, ere any thing like hope makes its appearance. Yet all this while the Lord had promised, I will surely do thee good; and in the end the good is done. God's ways fetch an astonishing compass. His heart is large, and all his plans are great. He does not make haste to fulfil his counsels; but waits, and causes us to wait, the due time. But at that time they are all fulfilled. We may observe a difference, however, as to the time taken for the fulfilment of different promises. Those which were made to Abraham's other children, and which had no immediate relation to God's spiritual kingdom, as has been remarked in the course of the work, were very soon accomplished, in comparison of that which was confined to Isaac. Small legacies are often received and spent before the heir comes to the full possession of his inheritance. And even those which are made to the church o God, and have respect to his spiritual kingdom, vary in some proportion to their magnitude. God made promise of a son to Abraham : five and twenty years elapse ere this is accomplished. He also promised the land of Canaan for a possession to his posterity: there the performance required a period of nearly five hundred years. At the same time, Abraham was assured that the this promise was nearly These events resemble Messiah should descend from his loins, and that in him all the nations of the earth should be blessed two thousand years ere it came to pass. the oval streaks in the trunk of a tree, which mark its annual growth each describes a larger compass than that which precedes it, and all which precede it are preparatory to that which follows. The establishment of Abraham's posterity in Canaan was a greater event than the birth of Isaac, and greater preparations were made for it. But it was less than the coming of Christ, and required less time and labour to precede it." From this ordinary ratio, if I may so speak, in the divine administration, we are furnished with motives to patience, while waiting for the fulfilment of promises to the church in the latter days. The things promised are here so great and so glorious, that they may well be supposed to fetch a large compass, and to require a period of long and painful suspense ere they are accomplished. The night may be expected to bear some proportion to the day that succeeds it. It is a consolation, however, that the night with us is far spent, and the day is at hand. The twelve hundred and sixty years of antichrist's dominion, and of the church's affliction, must needs be drawing towards a close: and a season so dark, and so long, augurs glorious times before us. We may have our seasons of despondency, like the patriarchs; but there will come a time, and that probably not very distant, when what is said of Israel in the times of Joshua, shall be fulfilled on a larger scale : And the Lord gave them rest round about, according to all that he sware unto their fathers-There failed not aught of any good thing which THE LORD had spoken unto the house of Israel; all me to pass. END OF THE FIFTH VOLUMES |