may be given for this result. One, that the offering of Cain was less choice than that of Abel: it was merely a portion of the earth's produce, while that of his brother was the best of what he had to give-“ the firstlings of his flock, and of the fat thereof." Another, that Abel's offering being an animal sacrifice, and of divine appointment, was intended to commemorate the great future atonement-the "blood-shedding, without which there is no remission ;"* while that of Cain was destitute of any such authority or meaning; upon which principle the apostle to the Hebrews has assured us, that "by faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain." And this faith it was, which, by keeping him in a devout, and humble, and a grateful frame of mind, supplies a third reason for so different a reception of the brothers' offerings, namely, the difference of their own characters. It was with sacrifice as it is with prayer: "God heareth not sinners," who obstinately continue such, who attempt to impose upon their own hearts and upon him; but, "if any man be a sincere worshipper of him, and doeth his will, him he heareth." And that this was no otherwise in the case of Cain, appears from what follows: "he was very wroth," and his gracious Lord condescended to reason with him upon his folly :§ "If thou doest well," he said, "shalt thou not be accepted?" that is, when thou wouldst come to God, come as thy brother does, with a mind as calm, as pure, as conscious of willing obedience as the infirmities of thy fallen nature will permit ; and if thou doest not well," as sometimes through those infirmi. ties must be the case, "sin lieth at the door❞— that is, a sin-offering, an animal sacrifice is ready at hand, to which, like thy brother, thou mayest betake thy * Heb. ix. 22. 66 + Heb. xi. 4. self, with a faith fixed upon the atoning Lamb hereafter to be offered for the sins of the whole world. So thou wilt retain the privileges of the first-born; thy brother will love and serve thee, and all will be well. But Cain resisted all this; he was, mind and heart, "of the wicked one,' ,"* and not of God; his way led him neither to the obedience of the law, nor to the faith of the gospel; hatred and envy raged within his breast; and while he talked with his brother in the field, into which, according to the Greek translation, he persuaded him to go, he rose up against him and slew him. Thus the first introduction of death into the world presented it in its most horrible form; a violent death, a deliberate murder, a murder of the innocent-a brother's murder. Eve now saw the whole train of consequences which followed her fatal fondness for the forbidden tree: lust had conceived, and brought forth sin; and sin, being completed, had brought forth death. She had gotten a man from the Lord, and, O vanity of all human wishes! that man had murdered his guiltless brother, and was banished from her sight and from the visible presence of his God for ever! Still, however, she had faith in the promise, and that kept her from despair. After a while she bare a son, and called his name Seth, or appointed, "for God, said she, hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew."+ Let us not sink into despondency, however gloomy our earthly prospects may at times seem. Let us have faith in God; he will not fail us, nor forsake us: hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good? Let Christians continue in faith, and charity, and holiness, with sobriety; and as Eve was saved through childbearing from her desolate condition, so let them rest assured that God will make for them a + Gen. iv. 25. 1 Tim. 11, 15. 1 Cor. x. 13. * 1 John iii. 12. way to escape out of every temptation, that they may be able to bear it. Let us now return to Cain, the murderer, whose fierce spirit was roused to such a pitch of moody desperation, that when God asked him, "Where is thy brother Abel?"* his answer was couched in terms of barefaced falsehood and defiance, "I know not: am I my brother's keeper?" How gentle, and yet how cutting to the conscience is the Lord's reply, ،، What hast thou done ? the voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground :" that is, it is useless to deny it; the commission of the murder is as well known to your Maker as if the very blood which you have shed had received a voice, and appealed for justice. Cain knew what that justice ought to be; he felt that he had forfeited his own existence, and his terrified imagination pictured to him his own violent end, in addition to the sentence which the Lord passed upon him. He was to be cursed from the earth, which should not yield to him her strength; he was to be driven from the neighbourhood of his parents, from the place of the presence of God; a fugitive and a vagabond he was to be in the earth; and besides all this, he said of himself to the Lord, "It shall come to pass that every one that findeth me shall slay me." But this was not a part of the divine sentence upon him against this, therefore, the Lord provided, by declaring, "Whoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken of him sevenfold ;'t and by setting a mark upon him, lest any finding him should kill him. He caused him to live on, and to have descendants, so that it might be seen to what a pitch of depravity men would attain, when they deserted the good and right ways of God, and followed only their own vain imaginations, or the allurements of luxury and vice. Cain went out from * Gen. iv. 9, 10. + Ver. 14. 1 Ver. 15. the presence of the Lord,* and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden, where he built the first city, and called it Enoch, after the name of his son. Irad, Mehujael, Methusael, and Lamech, were successively the patriarchs of his race of the last-mentioned it is recorded that he had two wives, a practice not warranted by the early institution of marriage, though afterwards permitted, in some cases, to the chosen seed, and very generally adopted by the nations that know not God, among whom alone it is now retained. By these wives, Adah and Zillah, Lamech had three sons and a daughter of these Jabal, the eldest, adopted and taught his descendants a wild and wandering life; Jubal invented some of the most famous instruments of music; and Tubal-cain was an instructor of every artificer in brass and iron. It is highly probable that under the names of Mars, Apollo, and Vulcan, these brethren were honoured by the Gentiles for many succeeding ages, and that many of the disgusting crimes ascribed by them to their gods may be traced to their origin in the family of Lamech, during that gloomy period when the earth was filled with violence, and was corrupt before God.† Lamech himself, in a speech addressed to his wives, appears to allude to some murders which he had committed, but in a manner so obscure, that we cannot hope to understand it, not knowing the facts to which it refers. We must now return to the descendants of Adam in the line of Seth, in the time of whose son Enos it is said that "men began to call upon the name of the Lord," or as it is translated in the margin, "to call themselves by the name of the Lord;" that is, to call themselves the Lord's people, or the sons of God, in opposition to the sons of men, or irreligious family of Cain. Of Cainan, Mahalaleel, and Jared, the succeeding patriarchs in the line of Seth, we have no parti* Gen. iv. 16. + Ibid. vi. 11. ‡ Ibid. iv. 26. culars in Scripture; but of Enoch, the son of Jared, the seventh from Adam, we have a highly interesting and astonishing, though brief account. "Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him."* Of the other patriarchs it is said that they died; the expression, therefore, used concerning Enoch, differing from these, imports that though he left this earth, it was not according to the ordinary course of things, the common death of all men, but through an immediate act of God, removing him bodily from hence, to be for ever with his Lord. That this was the doctrine of the Jewish church, appears from a passage in the book of Ecclesiasticus, where it is said, "Enoch pleased the Lord, and was translated, being an example of repentance to all generations :"+ and the same view of it is admitted by Christians also upon the authority of the Epistle to the Hebrews; in which we read, "by faith Enoch was translated, that he should not see death, and was not found, because God had translated him; for before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God." From this we learn that the meaning of the expression to walk with God, is to please him, and without faith it is impossible to do this; for "he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him," a belief which in the days of Enoch was fast losing ground amongst mankind. We know also from the writings of St. Jude, that Enoch uttered a prophecy against those who should thus deny the only God, and their promised Saviour, § 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 that they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches, * Gen. v. 24. + Eccles, xliv. 16. § Jude 4, 14, 15., |