Earth's Earliest Ages
A Study of Vital Questions
by
G. H. Pember, M.A.
[Modern objections to Christianity are often grounded upon the diversity of Biblical interpretation.] Before we proceed to examine and attempt to explain an important subject of revelation, it will be well to offer a few general remarks on the interpretation of the Bible. For in our days Christianity is vehemently assailed with arguments based upon the diversities of opinion among its professors. Men point with sharp sarcasm to the many sects of Christendom, and to the numerous and serious disagreements of those sects, not merely in questions of Church government and discipline, but even upon vital points of doctrine. They impugn the Divine origin of writings which admit of such variety of interpretation, and can be made the basis of so many differing, and even conflicting, systems.
Nor is this sentiment confined to those who live in professedly Christian countries. It is beginning to spread even among the Heathen: it has already supplied them with a powerful weapon against the worshippers of the Triune Jehovah, and is presenting a new and formidable barrier to missionary success.
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[The charge of diversity is true; but its cause is to be sought in man, and not in the revelation vouchsafed to him.] Now the fact that there are countless diversities in the nominal Church cannot be denied. Nay, we must go still further, and confess that the mischief may be detected even among those who call upon the name of the Lord Jesus in sincerity, and march to meet the future with unfaltering step through faith in His once offered sacrifice for sin: for they, too, have differences of opinion and sundry opposing doctrines all claiming to be derived from the Word of God.
What, then, shall we reply to our assailants? Are the Scriptures really so inconsistent, or so vague, that a multitude of conflicting opinions and doctrines can be fairly deduced from them? Were they so, the fact would indeed be a strong argument against their Divine origin. But we are by no means forced upon such an admission: nay, as soon as we begin to consider the enigma an obvious and certain solution presents itself. For not the revelation of God, but the expounders of that revelation, are responsible for the diversities of Christiandom: the fault rests with the fallen and corrupt nature of man, which so affects him that he cannot clearly discern truth even when it is set before his eyes.
[Proof of this from the early history of the Church.] Do we doubt this? Let us, then, glance at the Gospel as recorded in the New Testament. Do we not find error mingling with truth from the very beginning? Does it not seem to have been the first anxiety of an apostle, after planting a Church, to check the simultaneous upgrowth of rank weeds which threatened soon to choke it? Need we instance Corinth, Galatia, Colossae; the strange doctrines taught at Ephesus and Crete, which are mentioned in the letters to Timothy and Titus; the warnings against existing heresies in the Epistles of Peter, John, and Jude? And if we pass on to examine the uninspired writings of the early Church, we shall be still more impressed with the same sad fact, that, from the very first, there were counteracting influences which impaired the purity of the messages of God.
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[There were at least three classes of corruptors. The first consisted of, perhaps, sincere Christians, whose minds were not entirely freed from the influence of a Pagan education.] For men did not bring the tablets of their hearts smooth and unmarked to receive a first grand impression form the revealed will and purposes of their Creator; but came filled with myths, philosophies, and prejudices, which they could not altogether throw off, but retained, in part at least, and mingled--quite unwittingly, perhaps--with the truth of God. As time went on, the incongruity of this human admixture became more and more apparent; and yet men clung to it, because they felt that it softened the corrective severity of revelation, and forced it into some kind of sympathy with the lusts of fallen nature.
And so they soon found themselves constrained to devise a means of blunting the sword of the Spirit, lest its keen edge should be used to sever the spurious from the genuine. Those portions of Scripture which were most determinedly antagonistic to the hopes and feelings of men were allegorised, or, as by a sad misnomer it was called, "spiritualised," out of their literal and proper meaning; and, being thus deprived of the power which God had placed in them, were no longer able to present insurmountable obstacles to the entrance of false doctrine. And yet, so far, we are speaking only of the mischief done by those who may, perhaps, have been sincere Christians, but who corrupted the Word of God through short-sightedness and lack of wisdom, and, above all, through that inability to clear the mind of fixed ideas which is common to all mortals.
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[The second, of those who joined the Church from motives of self-interest.] But there was another class of corruptors described by Paul as "many unruly and vain talkers and deceivers...who subvert whole houses, teaching things which they ought not, for filthy lucre's sake": ([i]1) men, who, when they saw Christianity rapidly spreading, when they perceived the hold it had upon the minds of those who were affected by it, desired, for their own ambitious or covetous ends, to become leaders of a party which promised to be so influential, which bid so fair for power. These had no scruple in introducing such doctrines as suited themselves, and mightily helped to establish a practice which has been too common in all subsequent time, that use of the Bible which virtually regards it as a book by the aid of which one may justify one's own opinions.
[The third, of those who became nominal Christians for the express purpose of corrupting Christianity.] And lastly; there was yet a third class of men devoted to the higher and more intellectual forms of Pagan worship, initiates of the mysteries-- those secret societies which had then woven their nets over the whole of the civilized world. These crept into the fold unawares, as true wolves in sheep's clothing, with deliberate intent to worry and destroy the flock. For from the first, with an instinct of Satan, they marked the Christian as their mortal foe, and perceiving with ever increasing alarm the failure of persecution after persecution, from Nero to Galerius, to suppress the new sect, felt that it could not be exterminated by open warfare, and must, therefore, be seduced and corrupted by craft. This plan was are more successful than the violence of persecution. Where the sword of the World failed its flatteries were victorious. The astonished Church beheld the frown of her cruel oppressor softening into a friendly smile; was bewildered with offers of peace and union from those who had hitherto breathed out threatenings and slaughter; and, becoming elated with the sudden change, was not indisposed for compromise. And thus the World became nominally Christian, and vast crowds of idolaters passed within the pale of the visible Church, bringing with them their old gods and goddesses under new names, as well as their incessant sacrifices, their rites, their vestments, their incense, and all the paraphernalia of their impious worship. Nor did the philosophers fail to contribute their share to the perplexing confusion which speedily obscured every vital doctrine of Christianity. For, by skilfully blending their own systems with the truths of Scripture, they so bewildered the minds of the multitude that but few retained the power of distinguishing the revelation of God from the craftily interwoven teachings of men.
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So complete, then, even in early times, was the corruption of the Word of God. Nor has the Church ever succeeded in freeing herself from it, though she did make a strenuous effort to do so at the epoch of the Reformation. ([ii]2) From the time when the Adversary first sowed them, the tares have been ever mingled with the wheat, as indeed they must continue to be until the harvest. And the result is that inconsistent and unsound interpretations have been handed down from generation to generation, and received as if they were integral parts of the Scriptures themselves; while any texts which seemed violently opposed were allegorised, spiritualised, or explained away, till they ceased, to be troublesome, or, perchance, were even made subservient. From time to time, too, systems and sects were formed more or less pure than the main body, but into which the Adversary never failed to foist some error; and men, trained to look upon their own Church as the only perfect one, contended fiercely for its tenets, and freely, though often unconsciously, perverted Scripture in maintaining the struggle.
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Weighing, then, all these causes, we surely need not accuse the Bible of vagueness or inconsistency in order to explain the diversities of its interpretation. For, if we be observant and honest, we must often ourselves feel the difficulty of approaching the sacred writings without bias, seeing that we bring with us a number of stereotyped ideas, which we have received as absolutely certain, and never think of testing, but only seek to confirm. And yet, could we but fearlessly and impartially investigate, we might find that some of these ideas are not in the Bible at all, while others are plainly contradicted by it. For the tracks of many a popular doctrine may be followed through the long range of Church history, till at length, we start with affright at the discovery that we have traced them back to the very entrance of the enemy's camp.
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[We must, therefore, be careful to study without prejudice, and with earnest prayer for the guidance of the Spirit.] We will not stay now to illustrate this fact, some proofs of which will come before us in the course of our subject. But it is a matter which every Christian should carefully test for himself, if he be really desirous to seek first, in preference to any other consideration, the Kingdom of God and His righteousness. For he need be in no perplexity as to the mode of procedure, and God will grant him the requisite wisdom if he ask it. Let him but believe that the Bible is the infallible word of the great Creator, and that all men are, and ever have been, prone to error, and he will readily see that to discover the truth of any doctrine he must first strive to divest himself of preconceived notions, of all that he has ever heard about it, and of all feeling either for or against it. And then, with earnest prayer for the Spirit's aid, let him examine every portion of Scripture which bears upon it, noting the simple and obvious teaching of each, and observing how the various texts interpret and corroborate one another. So will he by God's help arrive at the truth. But yet another precaution will be necessary; he must mark the degree of prominence assigned to it in the Bible, and give it, as nearly as possible, the same in his own teaching. For even true doctrines may sometimes be mischievous if unduly pressed to be the exclusion of others, to which, as we may see by their more frequent mention, the Spirit of God attaches greater importance.
Were this course generally pursued, there would soon be an end of diversities in the real Church: the true followers of Christ would present an unbroken phalanx to the world; the greatest obstacle to the spread of the Gospel would be removed; and very different would be the result both of our preaching at home and of our missionary work abroad. ([iii]3) For the sword of the Spirit, if drawn forth keen and glittering from its own scabbard, and not merely picked up from the ground where it has been left, blunted and dulled, perchance, by some former warrior, is irresistible, and pierces though body and soul to the inmost shrine of the God-conscious spirit.
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[The subject proposed. Revived interest in the prophetic Scriptures.] We propose now to examine the testimony of the Divine oracles in regard to three deeply interesting subjects--the creation of our earth, the changes which appear to have taken place in it during ages preceding the Six Days--though our information concerning these stupendous events is very fragmentary and obscure-- and the history of our own race until the terrific catastrophe of the Deluge. We shall then endeavour to ascertain whether such records of the past are able to throw any light upon predicted changes in the future; also what lessons we should learn from them, especially in regard to that already widespread and continually increasing intercourse with the other world which is now called Spiritualism, or, if it be of a more philosophic order, Theosophy or Occultism.
And may the Holy Spirit guide us with a wisdom not our own; keep us from handling the Word of God deceitfully; enable us to consider it without bias, and to discern the meaning which He Who gave it would convey.
Now the latter part of our investigation will be concerned with prophecy, a subject to which, after more than fifteen centuries of neglect, the Spirit of God is again directing the minds of many of His people. For another long age is drawing to its close, the time to set seal to vision and prophet is at hand, and the Lord will not hide from His own what He is about to do.
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[The objection of a believer to the study of prophecy is unreasonable.] Still, however, there lingers in the minds of many Christians a strong objection to prophetic study, though surely a little honest consideration would convince them of their error. For more than a fourth part of the Bible is prophetic: and if God chooses to say so much, dare we refuse to listen? If He has bidden us attend to these truths, shall we turn away almost contemptuously, and say, "It profiteth not"? Certainly, if this be our course, we are setting up our own will in opposition to His, and would do well to inquire whether we really be in the faith or not. For "if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His." ([iv]4) If, then, the Spirit loves to dwell on the future purposes of God, will not also the mind of every one that has that Spirit exhibit a similar desire? Must there not be identify of feeling? If the Spirit of God be really influencing us, should He not be accompanied in His testimony by our Spirit?
[That study involves three great blessings.] In the commencement of the last of the sacred books we find a special blessing promised to him that readeth, and to them that hear the words of the prophecy. ([v]5)First: the grace which always follows obedience. This promise is not merely for him that readeth and is able to explain, nor only for them that hear and fully understand; but for all who read or hear with earnest attention, whether they be able to penetrate into the depths of the meaning or not. Nor is it difficult to see some of the channels through which the blessing flows. We will mention three of them.
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First, then, the study of prophecy is commanded, ([vi]6) and we know generally that the grace of God follows every act of direct obedience on our part. If we search out even the most minute commands of His law, and do them; if we show that we would not have a word uttered by Him fall to the ground, we testify both to ourselves and to others that we do in very deed, and not in word only, recognise Him as our God and our King, the Rightful Disposer of our every thought, word, and action.
Nor will He on His part be slow in acknowledging us as His subjects, as those who have a claim upon His aid and protection. He will give us grace to help in every time of need; His covering shield will be quickly interposed when the black air begins to hurtle with the darts of the enemy; His strength, by which the worlds are sustained, will uphold us when our flesh and our heart are failing; His almighty hand will clasp and guide us when the last impenetrable gloom begins to thicken around us, and a darkness that can indeed be felt veils the place on which we next must set our foot. Now will His grasp slacken till He has drawn us through the night, and our eyes are dazzled as we behold that for which He had caused us to hope, the golden gates of the Paradise of God.
Secondly; if a man read and believe prophecy, though he may not altogether understand it, he cannot at least avoid a strong conviction of the transitoriness of the present order of things, and is thus mightily helped in his efforts to look beyond it. ([vii]7) We are all by nature inclined to Positivism, and for the most part act practically, if we do not theoretically, upon the hypothesis that things always have been and always will be as they are; that no changes will ever take place, except such as may be brought in an ordinary way by agencies already at work.
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And the fact that prophecy instantly dispels this false security is the secret reason why, when God draws back the curtain of the future, men either shudder and turn sullenly away, or else explain what they see as on literal picture of that which must shortly come to pass, but as a figurative foreshadowing of something which they are careful to show is by no means alarming, and indeed nothing more than a natural result of existing influences. For they find it difficult to conceive a violent change such as they themselves have never experienced. They are quite willing to talk of development: they love to speak of the time when preachers will be more successful, and somehow contrive to persuade the whole human race out of its pride, its selfishness, and its general ungodliness: they delight to increase the influence of their own particular sect--though in doing this they frequently confuse political power with the power of the Spirit, and are apt to forget who is the reigning Prince of this World and present dispenser of its brief glory.
Or, perhaps, they are cosmopolitan in their views, and affect to despise the narrow-minded restrictions of sect; while they altogether ignore the fact that they hold sufficiently defined opinions of their own, and are unyieldingly tenacious of them. And so, floating with the stream of a torrent which is now daily increasing in volume and impetuosity, they preach and good will towards all men from a beneficent God who has no idea of ever troubling us about sin, and predict a golden age of liberty, equality, and fraternity. And yet if you test in their own case the first absolutely indispensable condition of their Millennium, they will probably fail, in worse fashion than did the young lawyer, to prove that they love their neighbours as themselves, by going away not merely in sorrow but in wrath.
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Such ideas, then, man will readily adopt: for they are all consistent with a continuance of the present order of things: they can all come to their perfection--so he imagines--without a violent shock, without any super natural interference.
But he who with earnestness and faith looks down the great vista of futurity which God has opened is quickly penetrated by very different thoughts. He beholds the conflict between good and evil intensifying, until that which is good seems overcome and well nigh annihilated: then he feels the firm ground shaking and giving way beneath him: he looks, and, lo, all the cities of the nations are tottering in ruins upon the trembling earth: the sun is withdrawing its wonted light, the moon becomes as blood: the once solid objects around him wave and reel in confusion, like the breaking up and evanescence of a vivid dream. A sudden flash speeds through the gloom, and he sees the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven: he starts with affright as the red lightnings strike the earth: he gazes with awe upon the many slain of the Lord. And then at length a change passes over the scene: the thunders cease to roll, the flashing of the lightning is stayed; and forth from smoke and ruin comes the earth, purified and fair as the garden of Eden; the towers and pinnacles of a noble city appear at the foot of Mount Zion, and from the summit of the mountain rises majestically the wondrous temple described by Ezekiel, before which all flesh shall come to worship the Lord.
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For by the outstretched hand, and by the strong arm of the Almighty, and not by preaching, will the world be taught to acknowledge her Creator, and at last find rest from her feverish toil. The preaching of the Gospel in this present time is but for the calling out of an election according to the purpose of God, and for a witness to the rest of mankind. It is only, as Isaiah tells us, when the judgments of the Lord are in the earth that the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness. ([viii]8)
These outlines, at least, the devout reader of prophecy will be able to trace: and so, when the close of this present age comes like a snare upon all them that dwell upon the face of the whole earth, ([ix]9) it will find him prepared and undismayed.
[Lastly; a knowledge of the revealed purposes of God tends to conform our will to His, and is profitable for sanctification.] Lastly; the study of prophecy reveals to us the mind and will of God. Seems this a light thing? Do we indeed despise the confidence of our Almighty Creator? Let us fear lest we so insult Him; lest, like swine, we trample on the pearls offered to us. And regarding them in this light, how great is the practical value of the prophetic Scriptures! For if we are already justified by Christ, we still have need of daily progress in sanctification, we should be ever becoming more and more transformed to the image of God. And to that end what greater help could we have than a revelation of His mind and purposes in regard to ourselves, our fellow-creatures, and the earth in which we dwell; an estimate by Him of all temporal things, of those visible surroundings by which we are continually affected, and His declaration of their speedy judgment and destruction?
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Is it not a duty to become minutely acquainted with all this; to meditate on it continually; to shape our wishes, hopes, and aspirations, from it; to bring our whole mind into accordance with it; to use our every endeavour to spread the knowledge of it among men; and so to prepare ourselves and others for that new order of things, into which we either must enter individually at the unknown time of death, or may enter simultaneously at any moment by the long expected return or our Lord and Saviour?
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[The popular error in regard to the Creation sprang from the Pagan doctrine of Chaos.] At the very outset of our inquiry we have to encounter a deeply-rooted popular fallacy in regard to the creation of the world--a fallacy which can boast of long antiquity, and which seems originally to have sprung from a sort of compromise between revelation and the legends of Pagan cosmogony.
The ancient poet Hesiod tells us that the first thing in existence was Chaos; that is, according to its etymology, "the yawning and void receptacle for created matter." But the word soon lost its strict meaning, and was used for the crude and shapeless mass of material out of which the heavens and the earth were supposed to have been formed. Ovid thus describes it;--"There was but one appearance of nature throughout the whole world: this they called Chaos, an unformed and confused bulk." ([x]10) And in his "Fasti" he makes Janus, whom he identifies with Chaos, speak as follows--
"The ancients used to call me Chaos: for a primeval being am I. See of how remote an age I shall recount the events! This air, full of light, and the three remaining elements, fire, water, and earth, were a confused heap. As soon as this mass was separated through the discord of its component parts, and had dissolved and passed away into new positions, the flame ascended upward; a nearer place--that is, nearer to earth--received the air; the earth and the sea settled down to the bottom. Then I, who had been but a mass and shapeless bulk, passed into a form and limbs worthy of a god," ([xi]11)
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Thus, according to the cosmogonies of Greece and Rome, the universe sprang from Chaos. Uranus, or Heaven, was supposed to have been the first supreme god. But he was driven from power by his son Cronos or Saturn, who afterwards received the same treatment at the hands of his son Zeus or Jupiter. Chaos was the first thing in existence, and the transient series of gods came subsequently into being.
[Misleading influence of this doctrine upon the Christian world.] This doctrine, ancient and widespread as it was in the time of our Lord, did not fail to influence the real as well as the spurious Christians. Among the last mentioned, the important sects of the Gnostics believed in the eternity and intrinsic evil of matter; but, unlike the Heathen, they taught that the Supreme Being also existed from eternity. The orthodox Christians escaped the greater error altogether; but, nevertheless, gave clear testimony to the influence of the popular belief in their interpretation of the commencing chapter of Genesis. For they made the first verse signify the creation of a confused mass of elements, out of which the heavens and earth were formed during the six days, understanding the next sentence to be a description of this crude matter before God shaped it. And their opinion has descended to our days. But it does not appear to be substantiated by Scripture, as we shall presently see, and the guile of the serpent may be detected in its results. For how great a contest has it provoked between the Church and the World! How ready a handle do the geological difficulties involved in it present to the assailants of Scripture! With what perplexity do we behold earth gloomy with the shadow of pain and death ages before the sin of Adam! How many young minds have been turned aside by the absolute impossibility of defending what they have been taught to regard as Biblical statements! And lastly, in carrying on the dispute, how much precious time has been wasted by able servants of God, who would otherwise have been more profitable employed!
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[Examination of the Mosaic record, "In the beginning."] Let us, then, turn to the Mosaic account, and endeavour to elicit its plain and obvious meaning. "In the beginning," we read, "God created the heaven and the earth." ([xii]12) The beginning refers, of course, to the first existence of that with which the history is concerned, the heaven and the earth. ([xiii]13) Here, then, is at once an end to speculation in regard to the eternity of matter: for God was before the things that are seen, and by His supreme volition called them into being. And again; this short sentence strikes a mortal blow at all pantheistic identification of God and nature. Nature is but one of His many creatures, one of the works of His hands: her years can be numbered, the day of her birth is known; but from everlasting to everlasting He is God.
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[The earth and its surroundings are said to have been "created" in the beginning; while in the six days they were only "made." Meaning of the Hebrew words bara, asah, and yatsar.] Now, in the inspired description of what took place in the beginning, the heaven and earth are not said to have been moulded, fashioned, or made out of material, but to have been created. For, whatever may have been the original meaning of the word bara, it seems certain that in this and similar passages it is used of calling into being without the aid of pre-existing material. The Hebrew writers give it this sense, and Rabbi Nackman declares that there is no other word to express production out of nothing. But it is, of course, easy to understand that a language might not possess a verb originally confined to such a meaning: for the idea would scarcely have been conceived by men without the assistance of revelation. The development theories so popular in our days, coupled as they almost invariably are with more or less of scepticism, indicate the natural bent of human minds on this point; and the philosophic poet Lucretius was an exponent of it when he declared the first principle of nature to be, "Nothing is ever gotten out of nothing by Divine power." ([xiv]14)
Hence we can readily understand that the word selected by the Holy Spirit to express creation may have previously signified the forming out of material. But its use is sufficiently defined in this and other similar passages. For we are told that in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth; but the Scriptures never affirm that He did this in the six days. The work of those days was, as we shall presently see, quite a different thing from original creation: they were times of restoration, and the word asah is generally used in connection with them.
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Now asah signifies to make, fashion, or prepare out of existing material; as, for instance, to build a ship, erect a house, or prepare a meal.
There are, however, two acts of creation mentioned in the history of the six days. First; God is said to have created the inhabitants of the waters and the fowls of heaven: because these do not consist merely of the material mould of their bodies, but have a life principle within which could be conferred only by a direct act of creation. ([xv]15) Hence the change of word in this place is quite intelligible. Just in the same way man is said to have been created, though in the second chapter we are expressly told that his body was formed from the dust. ([xvi]16) For the real man is the soul and spirit: the body, which is naturally changed every seven years, and must ultimately moulder in the grave, is regarded merely as the outward casing which gives him the power of dealing with his present surroundings, and the materials of which are appropriately taken from that earth in contact with which he was destined to live.
In the detailed account of man's origin, a third word is used to signify the forming of his body. This is yatzar, which means to shape, or mould, as a potter does the clay. ([xvii]17)
A passage in Isaiah well illustrates the meaning and connection of all three verbs;--"I have created him for My glory; I have formed him; yea, I have made him." ([xviii]18) On this verse Kimchi remarks;--"I have created him, that is, produced him out of nothing; I have formed him, that is, caused him to exist in a shape or forms appointed; I have made him, that is, made the final dispositions and arrangements respecting him."
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[A faint reflection of the creative power of God may, perhaps, be detected in man.] God, then, in the beginning created the heaven and the earth, not merely the materials out of which they were afterwards formed. How this wonderful work was accomplished we are not told: but it may be that the creative power of God has a very dim analogy in the beings who were made after His image, an analogy which would well illustrate the distance between the creature and the Creator. We know that by force of imagination we can not only place before our eyes scenes in which we were long ago interested, spots which we would fain revisit in the body, departed forms dear to us as our own lives, but we are even able to paint in fancy future events as we would wish them to be. The vision is, however, shadowy, fleeting, and alas! too often unholy. Somewhat, then, perhaps, as we produce this dim and quickly fading picture, the thoughts of God, issuing from the depths of His holiness and love, take instant shape, and become, not an unsubstantial and evancescent dream, but a beautiful reality, established for ever unless He choose to alter or remove it. Hence it may be that a great part, or, perhaps, the whole host of innumerable suns and planets which make up the universe, flashed into being simultaneously at His will, and, in a moment, illumined the black realm of space with their many-hued glories.
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[The first verse of Genesis is not a summary of what follows, but a record of the first and a series of events.] The heaven mentioned in the first verse of Genesis is the starry heaven, not the firmament immediately surrounding our earth: ([xix]19) and since its history is not further unfolded, it may, for aught we know, have remained, developing, perhaps, but without violent change from the time of its creation until now. Not so, however, the earth, as the next verse goes on to show: "And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep."
Now the "and," according to the Hebrew usage--as well as that of most other languages--proves that the first verse is not a compendium of what follows, but a statement of the first event in the record. For if it were a mere summary, the second verse would be the actual commencement of the history, and certainly would not begin with a copulative. A good illustration of this may be found in the fifth chapter of Genesis. ([xx]20) There the opening words, "This is a book of the generations of Adam," are a compendium of the chapter, and, consequently, the next sentence begins without a copulative. We have, therefore, in the second verse of Genesis no first detail of a general statement in the preceding sentence, but the record of an altogether distinct and subsequent event, which did not affect the sidereal heaven, but only the earth and its immediate surroundings. And what that event was we must now endeavour to discover.
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According to our version, "the earth was without form, and void." ([xxi]21) This, however, is not the sense of the Hebrew, but a glaring illustration of the influence of the chaos-legend. Fuerst gives "ruin," or "desolation," as the proper meaning of the noun rendered "without form." The second word signifies "emptiness," then, "that which is empty"; so that in this case the authorised translation is admissible. Now these words are found together only in two other passages, in both of which they are clearly used to express the ruin caused by an outpouring of the wrath of God.
In a prophecy of Isaiah, after a fearful description of the fall of Idumea in the day of vengeance, we find the expression, "He shall stretch out upon it the line of confusion, and the stones--or, as it should be translated, the plummet--of emptiness." ([xxii]22) Now "confusion" and "emptiness" are, in the Hebrew, the same words as those rendered "without form, and void." And the sense is, that just as the architect makes careful use of line and plumment in order to raise the building in perfection, so will the Lord to make the ruin complete.
There is, then, no possibility of mistaking the meaning of the words in this place, and the second passage is even more conclusive. For, in describing the devastation of Judah and Jerusalem, Jeremiah likens it to the preadamite destruction, and exclaims;--"I beheld the earth, and, lo, it was without form, and void; and the heavens, and they had no light. I beheld the mountains, and, lo, they trembled, and all the hills moved lightly. I beheld, and, lo, there was no man, and all the birds of the heavens were fled. I beheld, and lo, the fruitful place was a wilderness, and all the cities thereof were broken down at the presence of the Lord, and by His fierce anger. For thus hath the Lord said, The whole land shall be desolate; yet will I not make a full end." ([xxiii]23)
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We see, therefore, that the Hebrew word tohu signifies "desolation," or "that which is desolate"; and bohu "emptiness," or "that which is empty," probably with reference to the absence of all life ("I beheld, and, lo, there was no man," etc.). And again; the verb translated "was" is occasionally used with a simple accusative in the sense of "to be made," or "to become." An instance of this may be found in the history of Lot's wife, of whom we are told, that "she became a pillar of salt." ([xxiv]24) Such a meaning is by far the best for our context; we may therefore adopt it, and render, "And the earth became desolate and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep."
But if any further evidence be needed to prove that our verse does not describe a chaotic mass which God first created and afterwards fashioned into shape, we have a direct and positive assertion to that effect in the forty-fifth chapter of Isaiah: for we are there told that God did not create the earth a tohu. ([xxv]25) This word, therefore, whatever meaning be assigned to it, cannot at least be descriptive of the earliest condition of earth. But our translators have obscured the fact by rendering tohu "in vain": they can hardly have compared the passages in which it occurs, or they would surely have seen the propriety of translating it in Isaiah's manifest reference to creation by the same word as in Genesis.
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[There is, therefore, ample space between the first and second verses of Genesis for all the geological ages, which are not, however, alluded to in Scripture. Reason of the omission.] It is thus clear that the second verse of Genesis describes the earth as a ruin; but there is no hint of the time which elapsed between creation and this ruin. Age after age may have rolled away, and it was probably during their course that the strata of the earth's crust were gradually developed. Hence we see that geological attacks upon the Scriptures are altogether wide of the mark, are a mere beating of the air. There is room for any length of time between the first and second verses of the Bible. And again; since we have no inspired account of the geological formations, we are at liberty to believe that they were developed just in the order in which we find them. The whole process took place in preadamite times, in connection, perhaps with another race of beings, and, consequently, does not at present concern us.
And it is to be observed that God has never, since the fall of man, revealed anything to gratify a mere thirst for knowledge; but only such matters as may sufficiently illustrate His everlasting power and Godhead, our own fallen condition with its remedy of unfathomable love, and the promise of a speedy deliverance from sin, a complete restoration to His favour, and a never-ending life of perfect obedience and perfect joy.
[In our present condition knowledge is a dangerous possession.] Knowledge in this life is a gift fraught with peril: for our great task here is to learn the lesson of absolute dependence upon God, and entire submission to His will. His dealings with us now are to the end that He may withdraw us from our won purpose, and hide pride from us. ([xxvi]26) But knowledge, unless it be accompanied by a mighty outpouring of grace, causes undue elation. It was the vision of knowledge which filled the breast of our first parent with impious aspirations, and made her listen the Tempter when he bade her hope to be as God. And it is an ominous fact, that, after the fall, the first inventors of the arts and sciences were the descendants, not of the believing Seth, but of the deist and murderer Cain.
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So in our own days the leaders of science are too often leaders of infidelity, the despisers of God and of prayer. Except by special grace, man seems incapable of bearing the slightest weight of power upon his shoulders without losing his balance.
And hence the Scriptures take up just the attitude we should expect. They altogether, as in the verses before us, avoid contact with the science of men. God does not forbid us to search so far as we can into the laws of His universe; but He utterly refuses to aid or accelerate our studies by revelation. For the present He would have us rather attentive to the moral renovation of ourselves and our fellow-creatures: but after a short season He will open vast stores of His wisdom to those who love and trust Him, and delight their souls with the secrets of His creative power.
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[Sin was the cause of the preadamite destruction.] We see, then, that God created the heavens and the earth perfect and beautiful in their beginning, and that at some subsequent period, how remote we cannot tell, the earth had passed into a state of utter desolation, and was void of all life. Not merely had its fruitful places become wilderness, and all its cities been broken down; but the very light of its sun had been withdrawn; all the moisture of its atmosphere had sunk upon its surface, and vast deep, to which God has set bounds that are never transgressed save when wrath has gone from Him, had burst those limits; so that the ruined planet, covered above its very mountain tops with the black floods of destruction, was rolling through space in a horror of great darkness.
But what could have occasioned so terrific a catastrophe? Wherefore had God thus destroyed the work of His hands? If we may draw any inference from the history of our own race, sin must have been the cause of this hideous ruin: sin, too, which would seem to have been patiently borne with through long ages, until at length its cry increased to Heaven, and brought down utter destruction.
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[The fossil remains indicate preadamite ages of sin: for they may be proved to be the relics, not of the Six Days, but of far earlier creation.] For, as the fossil remains clearly show not only were disease and death--inseparable companions of sin--then prevalent among the living creatures of the earth, but even ferocity and slaughter. And the fact proves that these remains have nothing to do with our world; since the Bible declares that all things made by God during the Six Days were very good, and that no evil was in them till Adam sinned. Through his fall the ground was cursed, and it was doubtless at the same time that the whole creation was subjected to that vanity of fruitless toil, of never-ceasing unrest, and of perpetual decay, in which it has since groaned and travailed in pain together until now. ([xxvii]27) When thorns and thistles sprang out of the earth, and its fertility was restrained, then a curse affected the animal kingdom also. There appeared in it a depraved and even savage nature which ultimately, though not perhaps in antediluvian times, reached its climax in a cruel thirst for blood, and completely changed the organization of some species at least. How this change was brought about, it is of course useless to speculate: for the hand of the Almighty wrought it. But that it did take place, and that the beasts of the earth were not always as they now are, we have proof in the following facts.
On the Sixth Day God pronounced every thing which He had made to be very good, a declaration which would seem altogether inconsistent with the present condition of the animal as well as the vegetable kingdom. ([xxviii]28) Again; He gave the green herb alone for food "to every beast of the field, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth." ([xxix]29) There were, therefore, no carnivora in the sinless world.
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Lastly; in a great prophecy of the times of restitution we read;--"The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. And the cow and the bear shall feed, their young ones shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the sucking child shall play upon the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice's den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea." ([xxx]30) That is, that, when sin has been suppressed by the return of the second Adam, the curse shall lose its power, the savage nature of the beasts of the field shall disappear, the carnivora shall become graminivora, the poisonous shall lay aside their venom; all shall be restored to their first condition, and be again as when God pronounced the primal blessing. ([xxxi]31)
Since, then, the fossil remains are those of creatures anterior to Adam, and yet show evident tokens of disease, death, and mutual destruction, they must have belonged to another world, and have a sin-stained history of their own, a history which ended in the ruin of themselves and their habitation.
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[Probable existence of men in preadamite times. Satan seems to have been the first cause of sin and destruction. Vastness of the subject.] And since a lord and vicegerent was set over the animal kingdom of our world, through whose fall deterioration, disease and death obtained irresistible power over every living creature, so we should naturally conclude that superior beings inhabited and ruled that former world, and, like Adam, transgressed the laws of their Creator.
But who were these ancient possessors of the lands now given to us? Whence came they, and whither have they gone? What fearful sin caused their own disappearance, and involved in one confused ruin their earth and its aerial surroundings?
We have no records left to us: the numerous remains in primeval rocks are only those of the lower forms of creation. Yet, as we peer hopelessly into the night, a faint and unsteady gleam seems to emanate from the Scriptures in our hand, a very different light from that which they pour upon other subjects, scarcely more than sufficient to make darkness visible, but enough to reveal the outline of a shadowy form seated on high above the desolation, and looking sullenly down upon his ruined realm.
It is our own great enemy, the Prince of this World and of the Power of the Air.
Let us, then, consider the scanty hints which the Bible seems to offer in regard to this great mystery. But we must tread lightly and rapidly over the bridge which we shall attempt to throw across the foaming torrent: for we cannot be sure of its foundation: nay, in the darkness of the night there may also be serious defects in its construction. Yet the revelation to which we shall refer was given for our learning and, like all Scripture, is profitable, even if we fail to grasp the secret contained in it, provided we handle it with reverence and fear. ([xxxii]32) For the contemplation of such a theme gives us some idea of the ineffable magnitude of the events, past and future, by which time is bounded, and of the countless millions of actors concerned in them: it calls off our minds which are prone to dwell so complacently, and yet so irrationally, upon this present brief age and our still more insignificant selves: it strikes us with inconceivable awe: it makes us tremblingly anxious to be safe in the only refuge before the next great storm of God's wrath comes thundering over our doomed world: it urges us to fulfil our minute duty in the stupendous drama which the great Supreme is rapidly hastening to its close.
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[Sources of information.] Now there are, perhaps, two sources from which we may extract some information respecting the former condition of the earth. First, from any passage which seems to refer directly to it; and secondly, from the account given to us of "the times of restitution of all things," ([xxxiii]33) the very name of which suggests that God's original purpose will not be frustrated by sin, but that everything will be restored even as it was before the earliest rebellion of the fallen angels.
[The titles "Prince of this World," and "God of this Age."] If, then, we glance at the few particulars of Satan's history which have been revealed to us, we cannot fail to observe that, besides the actual power attributed to him, he manifestly holds the legitimate title of "Prince of this World"; or, in other words, that this dignity, together with the royal prerogatives which of right pertain to it, was conferred upon him by God Himself. ([xxxiv]34) For there is no other way of explaining the fact that the Lord Jesus not only spoke of the Adversary by this title, ([xxxv]35) He did not dispute his claim to the present disposal of the kingdoms of the world and their glory. ([xxxvi]36)
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And it is only by recognising the legitimacy of that claim that we can understand a passage of Jude, in which the conduct of the archangel Michael towards Satan is adduced as an example of due respect for authority, even though it be in the hands of the wicked. ([xxxvii]37)
The meaning of "World" is somewhat ambiguous: for while the signification of the Greek word may be confined to our earth and its inhabitants, it may also extend to the totality of the universe, and in the case before us possibly does comprehend all the spheres of our solar system. At least if there be truth in the accounts given by astronomers of the ruined condition of the moon, which is described as "an arid and lifeless wilderness," it would seem likely that Satan's power extends so far. And it may be also that the catastrophe in the sun, which was remedied on the Fourth Day, testifies to his connection with that glorious luminary.
In one passage Paul, according to our version, styles him "the God of this World." ([xxxviii]38) There, however, the Greek for "World" is a different word, and should be translated "Age." Satan is indeed the legitimate Prince of this World; but it is only by abusing his power, and blinding the eyes of men, that he induces them to worship him as their god. At the close of the present age he will be deprived of his princedom; and, the basis of real power being thus removed, his impious superstructure will immediately fall to the ground.
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But, even at the risk of interrupting the argument, we cannot refrain from pausing for a moment to glance at the solemn warning contained in the title "God of this Age." There is indeed reason to believe that the Devil has received far more directly personal worship than those who are not accustomed to investigate such matters would imagine. But it is to something more general that Paul refers. His own words in another place will best explain his meaning;--"Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey?" ([xxxix]39) There are two laws set before us, that of God and that of Satan; and whose law we keep, his servants and worshippers we are. Profession, however vehement, goes for nothing in the other world. We may profess the worship of the Supreme God, we may be very sedulous in the outward part of it; but if at the same time we are obeying the law of Satan, his subjects we are reckoned to be, and to him our prayers and praises ascend. And the law of Satan is this;--That we seek all our pleasures in, and fix all our heartfelt hopes upon, this present age over which he presides; and that we use our best endeavours--by means of various sensuous and intellectual occupations and delights, and countless ways of killing time which he has provided--to keep our thoughts from ever wandering into that age to come, which will see him a fettered captive instead of a prince and a god.
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[The princedom of the Power of the Air.] But he is also called "the Prince of the Power of the Air." ([xl]40) This principality would seem to be the same as "the heavenly places"--our version incorrectly translates "high places" ([xli]41)--which, as Paul tells us, swarm with the spiritual hosts of wickedness. It is by no means necessary to restrict it to the eighty or a hundred miles of atmosphere supposed to surround the earth: for if Satan's power extends to the sun, as we suggested above, and so to the whole of our solar system, the kingdom of the air would include the immense space in which the planets of our centre revolve; and in such a case it seems not unlikely that the throne of its prince may be situated in the photosphere of the sun. We should thus find a deep underlying significance in the fact that idolatry has always commenced with, and in no small degree consisted of, the worship of the Sun-god, whether he be called San, Shamas, Bel, Ra, Baal, Moloch, Milcom, Hadad, Adrammelech and Anamelech, Mithras, Apollo, Sheikh, Shems, or by any other of his innumerable names. ([xlii]42)
There is, perhaps, something suggestive in the word used to describe this kingdom: for it means thick and misty, in contrast to bright and clear, air. Hence it may have been selected to indicate the polluted and sin-defiled condition of Satan's heaven. And this view appears to be confirmed by a passage in the Epistle to the Hebrews, where we read;-- "It was, therefore, necessary that the patterns of things in the heavens should be purified with these; but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these." ([xliii]43) The purification of the latter will probably be accomplished at the return of the Lord, after that expulsion of Satan and his angels from heaven which is foretold in the twelfth chapter of the Apocalypse. And we may notice the beautiful agreement between this idea of the existing impurity of the first heaven and the prophecy of Isaiah, that, in the age to come, "the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days." ([xliv]44)
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[The spiritual powers of the world.] What, then, is the nature of the power indicated by these titles of Satan? To understand it we must glance at the general hints of Scripture concerning spiritual agencies. For, though unseen and little suspected by the rulers of earth, there are also spiritual powers, all originally appointed by God, whether they be loyal to Him nor or not. Rank above rank these watchers stand, each passing on his account to a superior until it reaches the Most High at the apex of the pyramid. So in Zechariah's first vision, those whom the Lord had sent to walk to and fro upon the earth are represented as delivering their report to the Angel of the Lord, who then appeals to the Almighty Himself. ([xlv]45)
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And hence we read of thrones, dominions, principalities, powers, ([xlvi]46) archangels, ([xlvii]47) and angels. Nor can we know much of Scripture without discovering that vast numbers of these invisible beings, who supervise the affairs of men and their world, are in open rebellion against the Almighty; that there are principalities, powers, and world-rulers, of darkness, with whom, as Paul tells us, we have to wage a fearful warfare. ([xlviii]48) These all render account to Satan, their prince, who, in his reports to the Most High, makes use of their intelligence to accuse ourselves and our brethren before God day and night. ([xlix]49)
[Interesting disclosures of the eighty-second Psalm respecting the injustice of their rule, God's controversy with them, and the sentence pronounced upon them.] If we would know something of the manner of their rule we may read God's own estimate of it in the eighty-second Psalm. That brief poem--one of the grandest of the revelations which raise the separating veil and permit a momentary glimpse of mysteries beyond our own sphere--is so important as an illustration of our subject, and also as affording a solution of many moral difficulties caused by the present condition of the world, that we subjoin an amended translation of it, together with a few words of comment.
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1.
"God standeth in the congregation of God:
In the midst of the gods doth He judge.
2. 'How long will ye judge perversely,
And take the side of the wicked? [Selah.]
3. Defend right for the wretched and fatherless:
Do justice to the afflicted and needy:
4. Deliver the wretched and poor:
Rescue them from the hand of the wicked!'
5. 'They know not, and they understand not;
In darkness they walk to and fro:
All the foundations of the earth are tottering.'
6. 'I have said, Ye are gods,
And sons of the Most High are ye all,
7. But ye shall die like men,
And shall fall like one of the princes.'
8. Arise, O God, judge Thou the earth:
For Thou hast all the nations for Thine inheritance."
The Psalm thus falls into four paragraphs, the first of which represents the Almighty as standing among the angelic rulers of this world, and charging them with their folly. Apparently we have two examples of such an assembly in the beginning of the Book of Job, where the sons of God, and Satan among them, are described as coming to present themselves before the Lord. In each of these cases the council, so far as its purposes are revealed to us, had reference to an inhabitant of earth, and its decisions were of the gravest moment to him. The Book of Kings furnishes us with a third instance, in the celestial assize held to determine the fate of Ahab. ([l]50) And just as Satan takes part in the deliberation respecting Job, so here we read of the presence of a lying spirit who receives permission to possess and inspire the false prophets for the destruction of those who trusted them.
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The "gods" of the second line are angels--so called as being the agents of God. ([li]51). A similar use of the word jyihl?a may be found in the ninety-seventh Psalm, in quoting from which Paul renders the clause, "Worship Him, all ye gods," by, "Let all the angels of God worship Him." ([lii]52)
In the charge which follows, how graphically is the present state of the world portrayed! How plainly are we made to see that if lying, fraud, oppression, and violence are prospering; if the tears of the weak are flowing; if there is many a child of God whom,
... "in this world's hard race
O'er wearied and unblessed,
A host of restless phantoms chase";
if there are multitudes who can say, No man cares for my soul--all this is because a Rebel is swaying his sceptre of iron over the groaning earth.
In the third and fourth verses we seem to discern a wondrous unveiling of the love of God. Not only over the fallen race of Adam has He yearned: nay, He has offered space for repentance, and would have shown grace, to the sinning angels also. We are reminded of those mysterious words which the Lord uttered, just after the voice from heaven had resounded through the Temple-- "Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the Prince of this World be cast out!" For it would seem as though the irrevocable decree, fixing the doom of "the world-rulers of this darkness," had only then gone forth, and the ears of the Lord had, as it were, caught the thunder of the closing gates of mercy, which up to that time had stood open even for Satan and the spiritual hosts of wickedness. Possibly it was their hostility to the incarnate Son of God which filled up the measure of their iniquity: so that to them, as well as to the Jews, the Parable of the Husbandman might have been applied. They had refused to offer to the great Creator the fruits of His earth which had been committed to their care: they had rejected merciful pleadings, such as our Psalm discloses: and finally, as soon as they descried the Son entering their realms, they had destroyed whatever hope might have remained to them by crying;-- "This is the Heir! Come, let us kill Him, that the inheritance may be ours!"
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The fifth verse shows that God had already foreseen the end. He declares that His remonstrance is vain: the rebels will not listen. By breaking away from Him they have lost their wisdom, and can no longer understand; they have become shortsighted after the manner of men, if not in their degree. They can but move restlessly to and fro under the darkness into which they have wandered, striving by incessant activity to forget the Divine fulness of their former estate; while they exhibit the reckless madness of sin by stretching out their hand against God and strengthening themselves against the Almighty.
And terrible are the consequences of their condition to the earth which groans beneath their sway. All its foundations are tottering: it is filled with flagrant abuses and crimes, the cry of which ascends to heaven: there is an anarchy of injustice and oppression. They must, then, be deposed: their power must be taken away: a fearful retribution must vindicate the justice of Him Who is King over all.
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Accordingly their sentence follows, and its terms should have prevented that vague interpretation of the Psalm which has been content to refer it to merely human rulers. Not to those who are called into existence under mortal conditions are these words addressed, but to beings who from the earliest hour of their life have rejoiced in the immortality of the sons of God. Nevertheless, because they have sinned and fallen from their first estate, they also must come under the law of sin and death. Like the ephemeral children of Adam they shall perish, and fall like one of the short-lived princes of Earth.
This sentence has not yet been carried out: it will be so, apparently, when Satan is bound and cast for a thousand years into the abyss, or vast fiery deep in the centre of the earth, which, as we may gather from Scripture, is the prison-house of the lost dead. ([liii]53)
The Psalm closes with a prayer. While he contemplates the evils brought upon the world by its present Prince, the Psalmist is moved to long for the advent of the Righteous King, for the coming of Christ to depose the rebel powers, to inherit all nations, and to judge the earth.
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It is then plainly revealed that spiritual as well as human powers are concerned in the administration of our earth. And these diverse agencies are mentioned as making up the totality of its government in a verse of Isaiah, where we are told that the Lord at His coming will depose and punish two distinct governing bodies, "the High Ones that are on high, and the Kings of the Earth upon the earth." ([liv]54) Of these, the former are manifestly identical with Satan and his angels; the latter with the antichristian world-powers. ([lv]55) Nor will Christ alter the form of government, though He change the rulers. For Himself and His Church will then take the place of the High Ones that are on high, while the first rank among the Kings of the Earth upon the earth will be given to the seed of Abraham according to the flesh.
[The regular principalities of our earth appear, with one exception, to be under the sway of Satan.] It is, however, a startling fact that the present disposal of the regular spiritual powers of the world seems to be entirely in the hands of Satan. This is evident from the eighty-second Psalm, as well as from the verse of Isaiah; since in either passage the spiritual rulers are stigmatised without any reserve as rebels against God.
And, again, in the tenth chapter of Daniel we read of the Satanic Prince of Persia, and also of the Prince of Grecia: but the angel of the Lord who opposes the former does not take a similar title. Nay, from his own words we may see that his post is no permanency; he is merely sent down for a special purpose, and retires when it is accomplished, leaving the Prince of Grecia unassailed. And how deeply significant, how worthy of our most solemn thought, is his complaint that, upon his entrance into the heaven of our earth, he found, with a solitary exception, all its principalities either hostile or indifferent! ([lvi]56) From the whole region of the vast rebel empire there came forth but one loyal prince of God to aid him in his conflict with the powers of darkness. This faithful archangel was Michael: nor is it difficult to account for his presence in the regions of air. For he is described to Daniel as "your prince," and afterwards as "the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people." ([lvii]57) It appears, then, that he is the spiritual ruler of Israel; and so, that when God chose a people upon earth for Himself, He took them out of the jurisdiction (ejxousiva [lviii]58) of Satan, and appointed one of His own princes to govern and protect them. Hence with fierce enmity the Prince of Darkness seems to have matched himself against Michael, and to have directed in person his desperate assaults upon the alienated principality. One of his victories is recorded in the Book of Chronicles, where we are told how he "stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel." ([lix]59)
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In the third chapter of Zechariah we seem to have a typical representation of the whole conflict, with a glance at its final result. For the angel of the Lord, before whom Joshua the high priest is seen standing, would naturally be Michael, the protector of Israel; Satan himself is present to accuse; and the Lord is introduced as Judge, deciding against the Adversary, and in favour of Joshua and Jerusalem. But this sentence has not yet taken effect: for Satan, by the vigour and pertinacity of his attacks, afterwards caused the ruin and dispersion of the Jewish people, thus apparently defeating the purpose of God, and completely recovering his lost province. Michael's rule seems, therefore, for the present to be almost in abeyance; but, as we find from the prophetic Scriptures, he will shortly resume the battle, and gain a decisive and final victory. ([lx]60)
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[Therefore the Prince of Darkness still wields a mighty power: and hence the fearful reality of the Christian conflict.] From all this we may surely infer that, although Satan is a rebel, he has not yet been deprived either of his title or his power. He is still the great High One on high, who divides the world into different provinces according to its nationalities, appointing a powerful angel, assisted by countless subordinates, as viceroy over each kingdom, to direct its energies and bend them to his will. And so we get some idea of the terrible reality of Paul's meaning, when he affirms that our great conflict is not with flesh and blood, but has to be carried on against principalities, against powers, against the world-rulers of this age of darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. ([lxi]61)
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But who is sufficient for these things? For the whole aerial surroundings of our planet are densely peopled with a hostile race of beings unutterably superior in wisdom and power to ourselves; having had during a vast number of years every conceivable experience of the weak points of humanity; possessing the incalculable advantage of being themselves invisible, though as spiritual intelligences they are probably able, not merely to judge of us by our words and outward expression of countenance, but even to read the innermost thoughts of our heart; co-operating with the most perfect and never-failing organization; and lastly, directed by a leader of consummate wisdom and skill, who is assisted by powerful princes, and finds his subjects so numerous, that, if we are to lay any stress on the word "legion" in the memorable narrative of Luke, he is able to spare some six thousand of them to guard one miserable captive. ([lxii]62)
[But the Lord is mindful of His own, and does not leave them unprotected.] Truly, with such facts as these before us, we might well faint for fear did we not know that there is a mightier Power above all the hosts of the Prince of Darkness, One Who regards us with feelings of wondrous love, Who is not only able, but yearning, to shield us from the destroyer now, and Who purposes shortly to deliver us altogether from the anxiety, the terror, and the danger, of his assaults. For although the Lord has not yet formally deposed the rebel, and arranged a new government, He does not leave the world entirely to Satan's mercy. Angels of God penetrate the realms of air, encamp round about them that fear Him, and protect them from the malignant foes for whom they would otherwise fall an easy prey. ([lxiii]63) Nor are their numbers insufficient: the servant of Elisha beheld the mountain full of horses and chariots of fire round about his master. ([lxiv]64) Angels of God are appointed to take the charge of whole churches, as we find from the first three chapters of the Apocalypse. Nay, the reins of government are sometimes wrested even from the hands of Satan's most powerful princes, and a great kingdom is for a while ruled by an angel of God. This, as we found just now, was the case with the empire of Persia when the Lord would have the world-power favourable to His exiled people. ([lxv]65)
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[The motions of the elements are probably directed by Satan.] It might also at first seem that the elements are not left altogether in the hands of the rebels. For the voice of the angel of the waters sounded not like that of an apostate, when John heard him saying;-- "Thou art righteous, O Lord, Which art, and wast, and shalt be, because Thou hast judged thus. For they have shed the blood of saints and prophets, and Thou hast given them blood to drink; for they are worthy." ([lxvi]66) These are indeed the words of one who has long sighed and groaned for the wickedness which his eyes have seen and at last recognises the righteous judgment that overtakes it. And again; the angel "which had power over fire" is evidently one of the princes of God. ([lxvii]67)
But since these two, as well as those whom John saw holding the four winds of the earth, ([lxviii]68) are only introduced in connection with the time of the end, it is probable that they are the appointed successors of Satan's ministers, who will hereafter take possession of the elements to use them in the execution of the wrath to come. For until the Devil be deposed from the throne of the air, it is likely that he will exercise control, to a great extent at least, over atmospheric phenomena. In the Book of Job we find him even wielding the lightning: for at his bidding the fire of God fell from heaven, and consumed both the flocks and servants of the patriarch. ([lxix]69) And when, many centuries afterwards, our Lord arose from His sleep and "rebuked" the winds and the sea, ([lxx]70) it cannot be supposed that He was chiding the mere rush of the blast, or the senseless waves; but rather, those malignant spirits of air and water which had combined to excite the storm.
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[General condition of the world owing to the present rebellion of its spiritual rulers and the partial interference of God.] Such, then, is the picture set before us in the Word of God--the whole earth divided into provinces by the Prince of this World, and systematically governed and administered under his direction by his viceroys with their officers and subordinates countless in number; this organisation, perfect in itself, but continually disturbed by interferences from a mightier Power for the protection of individuals, of churches, and occasionally of whole nations. And the product of these two influences gives us the exact state of the world as it is at present; a state generally and systematically evil and godless, but with many individual exceptions, and subject at times to partial changes on a more extensive scale, which we call reformations or revivals; a thick darkness, illumined, however, here and there by burning and shining lamps; an arid desert, but not without its oases; an ever-restless sea, on the surface of which the broad stream of the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience is the prominent feature, but with some under-currents setting in an opposite direction.
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[Ezekiel's prophecy concerning the Prince and the King of Tyrus. These titles are not to be referred to the same person.] Let us now turn to the twenty-eighth chapter of Ezekiel, from which we may, perhaps, extract a little more information on this mysterious subject. The first nineteen verses of the chapter contain a very remarkable but somewhat obscure prophecy, consisting of two distinct parts, an address to the Prince of Tyrus, and a lamentation upon the King of Tyrus. Now there can be no doubt that these titles refer to two persons, and are not merely different appellations of the same. For in the address to the prince there is nothing which could not be said to a human potentate; but the king is manifestly superhuman. Of the prince it is said that he will be slain by the hand of strangers, and the word translated "slain" means "thrust through" with sword or spear: but the king is to be devoured by fire, and brought to ashes upon the earth.
[Interpretation of the address to the Prince of Tyrus.] With regard, therefore, to the first ten verses, there is no reason why we should not apply them to the then reigning prince of Tyre, whose name, as we learn from Josephus, was Ittiobalus. Now Tyre was built on a rocky island about half a mile from the mainland, and was strongly fortified. Hence Ittiobalus is represented as exulting in the strength of his sea-girt city, and likening himself, in proud reliance upon his inaccessible dwelling, to the God that sitteth above the heavens: he is ironically told that he is wiser than Daniel, whose fame was evidently world-wide at the time: his presumption is ascribed to his wisdom, his success in commerce, and the vast riches he had acquired. But because he had set his heart as the heart of the Most High, therefore the terrible of the nations, that is, the Chaldeans, should come against him; and, when about to be slain by a man, he should at length discover that he was no god.
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Thus far the prophecy is easily intelligible; and we know what a short time after its delivery Tyre was besieged by Nebuchadnezzar. It is curious, too, to find the Tyrians in later times flattering Herod by exclaiming that his voice was the voice of a god, and not of a man, and so bringing upon him a punishment far more signal than that which befell their own ancient prince. ([lxxi]71)
[The remainder of the prophecy probably refers to Antichrist. Reasons for this supposition.] But the lamentation upon the King of Tyrus ([lxxii]72) does not so readily yield its meaning: for there are expressions in it which cannot be applied to any mortal. Now to adopt the too common plan of explaining these away as mere figures of speech, is to trifle with the Word of God. We have no right to use so dishonest a method of extricating ourselves from difficulties, a method which enables men to deduce almost any desired meaning from a passage, and makes the whole Bible an enigma instead of a disclosure. We must rather confess, if it be necessary, that we have no clue whatever to an interpretation.
But there is a kind of prophecy, especially frequent in the Psalms, in which the prophet, speaking first of a contemporary matter, is then borne on by the Spirit to some stupendous event of the last times, of which the incident in his own days is a faint type. And if we apply this principle to the passage before us, we are at once struck, upon considering the type, by the similarity of the pretensions of Ittiobalus to those of Paul's Man of Sin, "who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the Temple of God, showing himself that he is God." ([lxxiii]73) Can, then, the King of Tyrus, as distinguished from his type of Prince, be the great final Antichrist? Let us try the key, and see if the wards fit.
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At first; is there any reason why Antichrist should be called the King of Tyre? It would seem so. For Tyre is in Palestine, and in the second verse of this chapter is said to be "in the midst of the seas." Now if we turn to Daniel's prophecy of the Wilful King, we shall find it predicted of that destroyer, that he will enter into the glorious land, and plant the tabernacles of his palace "between the seas." ([lxxiv]74) This in other words seems to mean that he will invade Palestine and fix his abode at Tyre.
But there is a significant change in the expression for Tyre. In Ezekiel's address to the Prince it is said to be "in the midst," or, more literally, "in the heart of the seas," that is, surrounded on all sides by water. ([lxxv]75) And it is a well-known fact, that in former times, up to the date of Alexander's siege at least, Tyre was an island. But it is now a peninsula, and is, therefore, likely to be so in the still future days of Antichrist: hence the expression in the original of Daniel is merely, "between the seas." ([lxxvi]76) And so, perhaps, we may explain the connection of Antichrist with Tyre.
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[Some expressions in the lamentation can, so far as we know, apply only to Satan. But Antichrist will be Satan incarnate.] But what shall we say of the lamentation itself? For there are assertions in it which could be true of no mortal, not even Adam. Certainly our first father was in Eden, and in the garden of God; but we are not told that every precious stone was his covering: we know not how he could be called the Anointed Cherub: we do not hear that he was upon the Holy Mountain of God, and walked up and down in the midst of the Stones of Fire. Indeed, so far as we can see, there is but one being of whom some of the expressions in this passage could be used, and that is Satan: the whole of the remainder may be explained of Antichrist.
But why this strange confusion? Why should these two mysterious wonders be thus apostrophized as though the history and personality of both were merged in one being? It is not difficult to find an explanation. For it needs but little study of Scripture to learn that all human energy is raised and directed by spiritual influences. Upon the children of God comes the Spirit of God, and they are then able to do His will. But if they lose their feeling of dependence upon Him, and grow remiss in prayer, they are liable to be seized and misdirected by spirits of evil, and fearful consequences may ensue. So David was once moved by Satan to the cost of himself and his people, ([lxxvii]77) though not to his final ruin; for the Devil cannot compass that even in the case of the weakest of God's saints. But the wicked are altogether subject to the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience. ([lxxviii]78)
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Now while evil angels and demons are doubtless appointed for the ordinary work of influencing mankind, yet we can easily imagine that, whenever there is any transcendently mighty issue at stake, their great leader, who excels them all in wisdom and power, would himself undertake the more arduous labour. And, accordingly, at our Lord's first advent, when the hour of the Prince of Darkness had come, Satan himself entered into Judas, and directed him to his fearful crime. ([lxxix]79) So when that last great master-piece of the Adversary shall appear, the Antichrist, whose coming, as Paul tells us, is after the working of Satan, ([lxxx]80) and to whom the Dragon shall give his power, and his throne, and great authority, ([lxxxi]81) it is but reasonable to suppose that he will be possessed and energised by the Devil in person. And thus he will be a compound being, partly human, partly superhuman; at once the king of Tyre and the Anointed Cherub that covereth; a travesty by Satan of the incarnation of our Lord. Hence the great difficulties of this prophecy vanish: the tangled web of the lamentation is unravelled. For it is easily intelligible if understood to be spoken sometimes to the human, sometimes to the Satanic part of Antichrist.
Nor need this twofold address seem strange to us: for we have a similar one in connection with the very earliest mention of Satan in the Bible. At his first introduction to us we find him commencing his work of ruin through the medium of a serpent's body. And the just sentence of God, though nominally pronounced upon the serpent alone, comprises both the punishment of the beast energised and that of the Devil within it. Thus the parallelism with our passage is complete.
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[Details of the lamentations. Satan's eminence in wisdom and beauty.] With this general clue to the lamentation let us now proceed to its details. The first sentence seems to apply, primarily at least, to Satan, who is said to have sealed up the sum, being perfect in wisdom and beauty. ([lxxxii]82) His vast empire is often alluded to in Scripture, and, as we have already seen, may not improbably comprehend the whole of our solar system. Certainly no other angelic power of greater or even equal dignity has been revealed to us. The archangel Michael himself is quoted by Jude as preserving towards the Prince of Darkness the respect due to a superior, however wicked he may be, until God has formally commanded his deposition. ([lxxxiii]83) If, then, he be a being of such high degree, he would also in God's perfect kingdom, where there are no anomalies as with us, excel his subordinates in wisdom and beauty as much as he does in rank.
[He was placed in an Eden, which, however, bore no resemblance to the Eden of Adam; but rather to the New Jerusalem as described in the Apocalypse.] The next clause speaks of him as having been in Eden, the garden of God. ([lxxxiv]84) Now Satan was indeed in Adam's Eden: he did not, however, appear there as a minister of God, but as an apostate and malignant spirit eager for the ruin of the new creation. Hence the Eden of this passage must have been of a far earlier date. Nor did it at all resemble the garden in which Adam was placed. For we read nothing of trees pleasant to the sight and good for food: but the prominent feature is the covering, that is, probably, the pavilion or palace, of Satan, which is described as being made of gold and of every precious stone.
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Yet, while this description does not in any way remind us of Paradise, we cannot but be struck by its resemblance to that of the New Jerusalem, with its buildings of pure gold as it were transparent glass, its foundations garnished with all manner of precious stones, its jasper wall, and its gates of pearl. And that city, be it remembered, seems to be the destined habitation of the Church of the Firstborn, who will then be spiritual beings of a higher order, equal to the angels, ([lxxxv]85) and, with Christ at their head, will have succeeded to that same power which Satan and his angels are now so fearfully abusing. ([lxxxvi]86)
[He was a mighty prince from the day of his creation.] The remainder of the verse should be translated;-- "The service of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared with thee on the day when thou wast created." ([lxxxvii]87) Now music is one of the necessary attendants of royal state. In the third chapter of Daniel we have an enumeration of the various instruments which were to signal the time of the king's pleasure: ([lxxxviii]88) and in the fourteenth of Isaiah the pomp of the King of Babylon and the noise of his viols are said the be brought down to the grave with him. ([lxxxix]89) Nay, the blast of a trumpet accompanied the manifestation of God Himself upon Mount Sinai; ([xc]90) and the trump of the archangel will sound at the return in glory of the King of the whole earth.
The meaning, then, of this clause seems to be that Satan was from the moment of his creation surrounded by the insignia of royalty; that he awoke to consciousness to find the air filled with the rejoicing music of those whom God had appointed to stand before him.
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[He was also a priest of the Most High, and his place was at the footstool of the throne of God.] In the next verse we seem to pass from the royalty of Satan to his priestly dignity. ([xci]91) He is said to have been, by God's appointment, the Anointed Cherub that covereth. Anointed doubtless means consecrated by the oil of anointing; while the Cherubim appear to be the highest rank of heavenly beings, sitting nearest to the throne of God, and leading the worship of the universe. ([xcii]92) Possibly they are identical with the thrones of which Paul speaks in the first chapter of his Epistle to the Colossians. ([xciii]93) The words "that covereth" indicate an allusion to the Cherubim that overshadowed the ark; but we cannot, of course, define the precise nature of this office of Satan. The general idea seems to be that he directed and led the worship of his subjects.
He is also said to have been upon the Holy Mountain of God, and to have walked up and down in the midst if the Stones of Fire. ([xciv]94) The Mountain of God is the place of His presence in visible glory, where His High Priest would, of course, stand before Him to minister. The Stones of Fire may, perhaps, be explained as follows. We know that the station of the Cherubim is just beneath the glory at the footstool of the throne. ([xcv]95) Now when Moses took Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel, up the mountain of Sinai to see the God of Israel, "there was under His feet as it were a paved work of a sapphire stone, and as it were the body of heaven in his clearness...And the sight of the glory of the Lord was like devouring fire upon the top of the mount." ([xcvi]96) This paved work of sapphire glowing with devouring fire, is, perhaps, the same as the Stones of Fire: and if so, Satan's presence in the midst of them would indicate his enjoyment of the full Cherubic privilege of nearness to the throne of God.
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[At his creation Satan was perfect in all his ways.] The next verse shows that God is not the Author of evil. ([xcvii]97)For even the Prince of Darkness was by creation perfect in all his ways, and so continued, until iniquity was found in him and he fell.
[Interpretation of the words "by the multitude of thy merchandise."] That which follows is more difficult. "By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned: therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the Mountain of God: and I will destroy thee, O covering Cherub, out of the midst of the Stones of Fire." ([xcviii]98)
The first clause of this verse may refer solely to the human aspect of Antichrist: for there are prophetic intimations that commerce will be a prominent feature in the perilous times of the end. ([xcix]99) In the past history of the world we have many instances of its demoralising effects upon nations wholly given to it, of the luxury, fraud, and violence, which ever seem to develop with its growth.
[Proposed new rendering, and more probable interpretation.] Nevertheless, the clause may apply to Satan in some mysterious way which we cannot yet explain: for we are only able to discern the dimmest outlines of these spiritual matters. Certainly such an application seems to be required by the context, and if the authorised version seems obscure, an admissible change in the rendering will suggest a very suitable interpretation. For the word translated "merchandise" may also [as an investigation of the root will show] ([c]100) signify "detraction" or "slander"; and we know that the very name "Devil" means "the slanderer," or "malignant accuser."
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Now that Satan does carry to God slanderous reports of the actions and motives of men we learn from the Book of Job. And the life of the same patriarch also supplies us with an instance of the cruel violence which seems to follow these accusations so invariably that the whole princedom of Satan has become a realm of injustice, in which the servants of God suffer affliction, while the wicked, as a rule, flourish. For the present the Lord permits this state of things, because His own children need the furnace to purge away their dross; but hereafter He will assuredly require all their sorrows and all their tears at the hands of their malignant persecutor.
From the twelfth chapter of the Apocalypse we learn that He will at length put an end to the slanders of Satan by sending Michael to drive him down from his throne on high, and expel him altogether from the heavenly places. And at the instant of his fall from his aerial dominions a loud voice is heard saying in heaven;-- "Now is come the salvation, and the strength, and the Kingdom of our God, and the authority of His Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down which accused them before our God day and night." ([ci]101)
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This expulsion is probably identical with the one mentioned in our text. For, if we adopt the rendering "slander," or "malignant accusation," the cause assigned for the casting out in Ezekiel exactly corresponds to the proclaimed result of it in the Apocalypse.
[Satan fell through pride.] The next verse presents no difficulty. ([cii]102) For that the heart of Satan was lifted up because of his beauty, and that he corrupted his wisdom by reason of his brightness, we may infer especially from Paul's warning;-- "Not a novice, lest being lifted up with pride he fall into the condemnation of the Devil." ([ciii]103)
Pride in his own superiority seems to have prompted this wondrous being to turn to himself that worship which it was his office to direct to his Almighty Creator. But already the ruin of God has fallen upon his realm: he finds his power checked and cut short by angels who are irresistible because they come in the strength of the Most High: he sees, perchance, the gathering armies of Michael preparing for the fatal onslaught which will drive him from heaven: and knows that they will be quickly followed by the Son of God, Who will hurl his blasted and helpless form from his last stronghold upon earth into the depths of the abyss. Then will he at length both feel and exhibit in his own person to the whole universe the ineffable distance between the loftiest, wisest and fairest of created beings and the great and ever blessed Creator, Who alone is worthy to receive glory and honour and power.
With the latter part of the prophecy, referring as it does to the joint downfall of Satan and Antichrist, we have at present no concern, since we are just now occupied not with the future, but with the past.
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[Summary of the history which appears to be contained in the lamentation.] It, therefore, only remains to put together the information which, if our interpretation be correct, this passage contains. The outline will be somewhat as follows. God created Satan the fairest and wisest of all His creatures in this part of His universe, and made him Prince of the World and of the Power of the Air. Since his wisdom would be chiefly used in expounding the will and ways of God, we can probably discern in its mention his office of prophet. He was placed in an Eden, or region of delight, which was both far anterior to the Eden of Genesis--for he was perfect in all his ways when he entered it--and also, apparently, of an altogether different and more substantial character, resembling the New Jerusalem as described in the Apocalypse.
In the scanty account given to us of this Eden we may, perhaps, trace the lineaments of the heavenly Tabernacle. For, from the second chapter of Genesis, we find that Eden was a district, and the garden an enclosure within it. ([civ]104) Following this analogy we discover in Satan's habitation three enclosures, Eden, the Garden of God, and the Holy Mountain of God, corresponding, possibly, to the Outer Court of the Tabernacle, the Holy Place, and the Holy of Holies, respectively. And this idea is strengthened by the fact that Satan is said to have been upon the Holy Mountain of God as the Anointed Cherub that covereth; just as the images of the covering Cherubim were placed in the Holy of Holies.
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He, therefore, appears to have been the great High Priest of his realm, dwelling in a splendid palace of gold and precious stones near to the place of God's presence; just as the Israelitish High Priest resided at Jerusalem in the vicinity of the temple.
He was also its King, having been placed upon this summit of honour at his creation, and not subsequently raised to it from a lower rank. Finally; he was prefect in all his ways, and apparently continued so for a length of time.
Now all this evidently took place before his fall and the preparation of the present world. And so we can only conclude that he is closely connected with our earth, and that a large portion of his history extends back into times far anterior to those of Adam.
[It thus appears that Satan was appointed prophet, priest, and king, of the world: but he proved himself a rebel. Therefore the Lord Jesus came forth from the Godhead, to assume he abused dignities, and restore the confusion.] Now the analogy between Satan's office and that which our Lord has already taken upon Himself in part, and will shortly exercise in full, is so striking that it is not easy to avoid the following inference. That Satan abused his high office of prophet, priest, and king, and thus involved the whole of his province in sin, and the earthly part of it, at least, in a ruin to which allusion is made in the second verse of Genesis. That, when his return to obedience had been proved an impossibility--perhaps by his conduct towards the new creation, which may have been intended to give him an opportunity of repentance--and when no other created being could be found able to restore the confusion, the Lord Jesus Himself came forth from the Godhead, to take the misused power into His own hands, and to hold it until the rebellion be altogether suppressed, and every trace of it obliterated.
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The offices of prophet and priest He is already exercising, but not that of king. For had He at once assumed the sceptre, the result would have been utter destruction to all living; since all have sinned, and whatsoever is sinful must be cast out of His kingdom into unquenchable fire. It was, therefore, necessary first to put away the iniquity of those who should be saved. This He came into the world to do by the sacrifice of Himself: and now, having given us instructions as to our conduct during His absence, and many exhortations to be ever watching for His return, He has departed with the blood into the heavenly Holy of Holies, there to appear in the presence of God for us. This done, He will come to earth a second time, to wrest the power from the hands of Satan, and, after destroying that which cannot be healed, bring back the residue of creation to purity and order.
[Hence from the prophecies of the times of restitution we may conjecture the nature of Satan's preadamite kingdom.] Seeing, then, that the government which Christ will shortly take upon His shoulders appears to be exactly identical with that which was once committed to Satan, and that God's first arrangements were of necessity perfection, does it not seem likely that, when the times of restitution arrive, the original order of things will begin to be restored in Christ's Millennial kingdom?
If so, we can easily discover the outline of Satan's preadamite world. For in the Millennium, Christ and His Church, the members of which will then have been made like unto Himself, are to reign in the heavenly places over earth and its inhabitants. So, probably in remote ages, before the first whisper of rebellion against God, Satan, as the great governing head and the viceroy of the Almighty, assisted by glorious beings of his own nature, ruled over the sinless dwellers upon earth. At the same time he directed the worship of his subjects, and expounded to them the oracles of the all-wise Creator.
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But his weight of glory was more than he could bear: pride lifted up his heart, and he fell from his obedience. Then, doubtless, corruption appeared among his angels, and so descended to those who were in the flesh. How long God bore with this; what warnings and opportunities He gave; whether any availed themselves of His mercy, and are now holy angels who from time to time revisit the place of their ancient habitation--all such questions as these we can only answer by conjecture from the analogy of our own race. But the fact that we can ask them shows how rightly all our vaunted wisdom in this life is said to be at best but a knowledge in part, and how wonderful a supplement may, in the World to Come, be added to our present scanty information even in regard to the history of our own planet.
[The two orders of Satan's subjects may be traced in the New Testament. Use and meaning of the name Devil.] We are, however, apparently able to discern in the New Testament clear traces of the two orders of Satan's subjects, the spiritual, and those who were in the flesh. For there are three distinctive terms applied to the dwellers in the Kingdom of Darkness.
The first is oJÇdiavBolo", the Devil, a word which in this sense is never used in the plural, and is always a designation of Satan himself. Its lateral meaning is "the one who sets at variance," "the slanderer," or "malignant accuser." And how apt a name is this for him who began to slander God to man when he corrupted our first parents, and has since continued to do so by the stream of hard thoughts and evil suggestions which he is ceaselessly pouring into human hearts! Nor does he stop at this: for in giving in his reports of the inhabitants of earth he also slanders man to God. So we find him declaring that self-interest was the sole motive of Job's righteousness: ([cv]105) so we hear him desiring to have Peter that he may shift him as wheat: ([cvi]106) so we read that he accuses ourselves and our brethren before our God day and night. ([cvii]107) The name Devil is, then, applied to Satan alone: for he appears to be the only evil power who reports the actions of men directly to God.
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[The angels of the Devil.] In the second place we find mention of the angels of Satan, ([cviii]108) who are doubtless the spiritual intelligences which God appointed to assist him in his government, and who chose to follow him into sin. These probably constitute the principalities, powers, and world-rulers of this darkness. ([cix]109)
[The demons, which are not angels, but disembodied spirits.] But another class of Satan's subjects is much more frequently brought before us, that of the diamovnia; and great confusion is introduced into our version by the erroneous translation "devils." ([cx]110) We may, however, in some measure avoid this confusion by remembering that the proper word for Devil has, as we have just said, no plural, and is only applied to Satan himself. Whenever, therefore, we meet the plural in the English Testament, we may be sure that the Greek is daimovnia, which ought to be rendered "demons."
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Now these demons are the same as evil and unclean spirits, as we may see by the following passages. "When the even was come they brought unto him many that were possessed with demons; and He cast out the spirits with His word." ([cxi]111) Again, in Luke's Gospel, we read:-- "And the seventy returned again with joy, saying, Lord, even the demons are subject unto us through Thy name." To which the Lord responds; "Notwithstanding in this rejoice not, that the spirits are subject unto you." ([cxii]112) So in Matthew's account of the lunatic boy, the demon is said to come forth from him; ([cxiii]113) but in Mark's Gospel this same demon is called a foul spirit, and also a deaf and dumb spirit. ([cxiv]114) And Luke gives us a list of "certain women which had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities," of whom the first mentioned is "Mary called Magdalene, out of whom went seven demons." ([cxv]115) Demons and evil spirits are, therefore, synonymous terms.
But they must be carefully distinguished from angels, bad as well as good. For angels are not mere disembodied spirits, but--as we may learn from our Lord's declaration that the children of the resurrection shall be equal to the angels--are clothed with spiritual bodies such as are promised to us. ([cxvi]116) if we "shall be accounted worthy to obtain that age and the resurrection from the dead." ([cxvii]117)
This distinction was clearly understood by the Jews: for in the Acts of the Apostles we read that the Pharisees cried out concerning Paul;-- "We find no evil in this man: but if a spirit or an angel hath spoken to him, let us not fight against God." ([cxviii]118) And in the preceding verse we are told of their opponents, the Sadducees, that they denied the existence of angels and spirits.
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[The classical meaning of the term "demon."] What then is the meaning of the term "demon"? Plato derives it from dahvmwn, an adjective formed from davw, and signifying "knowing" "intelligent"; most modern scholars refer it to daivw, to divine, as though it meant a divider or distributor of destiny. We incline to Plato's opinion, which makes the word point to the superior knowledge believed to be possessed by disembodied spirits.
Its classical use is as follows. By Homer it is applied to the gods; but we must remember that Homer's gods are merely supernatural men. It was afterwards used of a sort of intermediate and inferior divinity. "The deity," says Plato, "has no intercourse with man; but all the intercourse and conversation between gods and men is carried on by the mediation of demons." And he further explains that "the demon is an interpreter and carrier, from men to gods and from gods to men, of the prayers and sacrifices of the one, and of the injunctions and rewards of sacrifices from the other.
If we inquire whence these demons came, we shall be told that they are the spirits of men of the golden age acting as tutelary deities--canonized heroes, precisely similar both in their origin and functions to the Romish saints. In Hesiod's curious description of the ages of the human race we find the following account. ([cxix]119)
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"First of all the immortals, who possess the mansions of Olympus, made a golden race of articulate-speaking men. These lived in the time of Cronos, when he ruled in heaven. Like gods they spent their lives, with hearts void of care, apart and altogether free from toils and trouble. Nor did miserable old age threaten them: but ever alike strong in hands and feet they rejoiced in festal pleasures far from the reach of all ills. And they died as if overcome by sleep. All blessings were theirs. And spontaneously the fruitful soil would bear crops great and abundant. And so they occupied their cultivated lands in tranquility and peace with many goods, being rich in flocks and dear to the blessed gods. But after that earth had covered this generation, they indeed by the counsels of mighty Zeus became demons, kindly ones, haunting the earth, being guardians of mortal men. These I ween, shrouded in mist, and going to and fro everywhere upon the earth, watch both the decisions of justice and harsh deeds, and are dispensers of riches. Such a royal prerogative is theirs."
Now if we remember that according to Bible teaching the Heathen gods were really evil angels and demons who inspired oracles and received worship, we shall easily understand that the golden age of which ancient bards so rapturously sang was no reminiscence of Paradise, but of the times of that former world when Satan's power was still intact. A change in the heavenly dynasty, the expulsion of Cronos or Saturn, is always mentioned as having brought to a close this age of unmingled joy. Nor need we be startled at the good influence attributed by Hesiod to demons. For in a Heathen poem we can only expect to learn what the Prince of this World may choose to say, and have no cause for wonder if he commend his own agents.
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[The incidents recorded by inspired writers seem to identify the New Testament meaning with the classical.] Such, then, are the demons of the classical writers. Nor does there appear to be any reason for changing the meaning of the term in the New Testament. For may not these demons be the spirits of those who trod this earth in the flesh before the ruin described in the second verse of Genesis, and who, at the time of that great destruction, were disembodied by God, and left still under the power, and ultimately to share the fate, of the leader in whose sin they acquiesced? Certainly one oft recorded fact seems to confirm such a theory: for we read that the demons are continually seizing upon the bodies of men, and endeavouring to use them as their own. And may not this propensity indicate a wearisome lace of ease, a wandering unrest, arising from a sense of incompleteness; a longing to escape the intolerable condition of being unclothed--for which they were not created--so intense that, if they can satisfy its cravings in no other way, they will even enter into the filthy bodies of swine? ([cxx]120)
We find no such propensity on the part of Satan and his angels. They, doubtless, still retain their ethereal bodies--for otherwise how could they carry no their conflicts with the angels of God?--and would be likely to regard with high disdain the gross and unwieldy tabernacles of men. They may, indeed, possibly enter human frames; not, however, from inclination, but only because such a course is absolutely necessary for the furtherance of some great conspiracy of evil.
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[We may also distinguish the two classes of Satan's subjects in the Old Testament.] Thus in the New Testament the spiritual subjects of Satan are plainly divided into two classes; nor would it be difficult to prove a similar distinction in the Old. Such angels as the princes of Persia and Grecia, of which we have already spoken, would of course belong to the first order; while the familiar spirits, and probably also the Shedim, Seirim, Lilith, Tsiim, and Iim, would be identical with the demons.
[The absence of human remains in the geological strata is no proof of the non-existence of preadamite men.] But here a question naturally arises. Why, if a preadamite race really existed upon earth in the flesh, do we not find some indications of it among the fossil remains? Certainly no human bones have been as yet detected in primeval rocks; though if any should be hereafter discovered, we need find no contradiction to Scripture in the fact.
But the absence in the fossiliferous strata of any vestige of preadamite man is no real obstacle to the view we have taken. For we are totally unacquainted with the conditions of life in that pristine world, which may not have been, and indeed probably were not, the same as in our own. For Adam was created after, and apparently, as we shall presently see, in full view of a previous failure. Hence it may be that death did not touch those principal men until the final destruction, and that the decaying and dying state of the animal and vegetable kingdoms was a warning ever before their eyes of the wrath that would at length reach their own persons except they repented. It may be that their bodies were resolved into primal elements, leaving the spirit naked, instead of the spirit departing and giving up the body to decay as with us. It may be that they were smitten with some consuming plague of the Lord which changed their comely forms into indistinguishable masses of corruption, ([cxxi]121) or reduced them in a moment to ashes upon the earth. ([cxxii]122) It may be that the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed them up, with all that appertained to them, so that they went down alive into the pit. ([cxxiii]123) It may be that they all perished in what is now to us the deep, and that their remains are covered by the deposit at the bottom of ocean. Evidently our habitable land was once the floor of the sea, theirs may be now.
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[Either the depth of the sea, or a place of confinement immediately below it, appears to be a prison of demons.] Indeed we may find hints which perhaps add some little confirmation to the last conjecture, and tend to link these disembodied spirits with the locality which may have been the scene of their sins in the flesh, and of the just punishment by which they were finally overtaken. At least there is a prison mentioned in Scripture, which is either in the depths of the sea or is connected with them, and in which we may with probability infer that many demons are already confined, while fresh captives are from time to time placed under the same restraint whenever an outrage of more than ordinary daring calls forth the righteous indignation of God, and causes Him to bring the mischievous career of its perpetrators to a sudden and final close.
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Certainly the knowledge of some such fact seems to have terrified the legion of spirits from which our Lord delivered the Gadarene; or, otherwise, what meaning can we assign to their agonizing entreaty that He would not command them to depart into the Abyss. ([cxxiv]124) In Matthew's account their words are different, and they fear lest they should be tormented before the time. ([cxxv]125) But the latter expression probably conveys the same idea as the former; and we are thus made to understand that at a certain fixed, and to them well known, time all the demons who are still at liberty will be cast into the same prison. It is called "the Abyss"; ([cxxvi]126) and in some passages, such as the ninth chapter of the Apocalypse, this term is evidently applied to a fiery hollow in the center of the earth: but it is also used for the depths of the sea, a meaning which accords well with its derivation. For instance, in the Septuagint version it is the deep over which darkness was brooding before the Six Days, and also the great deep, the fountains of which were broken up to inundate the earth. The connection may be merely the idea of depth in both significations: but it seems not unlikely that the Abyss in the centre of the earth was so called from the fact that the compartment which forms it lies immediately beneath, and is entered through, the deep sea by which it is probably secured.
Hence perhaps the reason why, after the last judgment, when all the prisoners of the Abyss will have been cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, there will be no more sea in the renovated earth.
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[Possible meaning of the words, "And the sea gave up the dead which were in it."] And regarding the sea as the bar of the pit, or assuming that the Abyss may sometimes be called the sea, just as the deep sea is called the Abyss, we seem to be helped to the exposition of a passage which has not hitherto received an adequate interpretation. In the account of the last great judgment we read;-- "And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and Death and Hades"-- that is, "the unseen world"; for the translation "Hell" is incorrect-- "delivered up the dead which were in them; and they were judged every man according to their works." ([cxxvii]127) Now the sea is commonly supposed to be mentioned as giving up the bodily germs of those who have been drowned or buried in it. But if the meaning goes no further than that, why do we not also hear of earth giving up the far more numerous dead which lie beneath its sods? Instead, however, of sea being coupled with land, we find it mysteriously connected with Death and the unseen world: that is, it is mentioned in a list of places filled, not with the remains of material forms, but with disembodied spirits.
This is certainly a fatal objection to the common interpretation: but if the sea be the prison of demons, all difficulties vanish, and in that case we can well understand why it is the first to give up its dead. For every one will be judged in his order, and, therefore, these preadamite beings will have an awful precedence of the prisoners of Death and Hades, whose innumerable cells are, perhaps, filled exclusively with criminals from our present world.
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[Conclusion and practical application.] But we must now pass on from this stupendous subject: for enough has been said to exhibit the hints of Scripture in regard to former ages and the preadamite destruction. And since that which is set before us is but a shadowy form, we must not persuade ourselves that we see a sharply defined outline. To be wise above that which is written is to entangle oneself in a net of Satan from which it is all but impossible to escape.
Let us not, however, fail to learn one lesson from the wondrous things we have been contemplating. Rebellion is ruin, no matter how noble, or wise, or fair, its leader may be. For even Lucifer, the bright son of the morning, the loftiest of the angels of God, has fallen low from his high estate, and ere long, shorn of all his wisdom, and might, and beauty, will be plunged into the perpetual night of the Abyss. There is but one attitude natural or possible for a created being, and that is entire submission and unreserved obedience to the will of Him Who created and sustains him.
Let the proud of the earth consider this, those who madly turn against God the very abilities and advantages which they owe to His bounty, those wilful ones who walk defiantly in the ways of their own heart. But if any deny the law, destruction must follow, or the whole universe would soon be disintegrating in anarchy. For the sake of the remainder of His creation the mercy of God is restricted to a fixed limit; and except the rebel repent in time, deprived of all that lifted up his heart, and blasted by the thunderbolts of the Omnipotent, he must sink into the horrible silence of the everlasting darkness. ([cxxviii]128)
[The destruction of the preadamite world seems to have been caused by tremendous convulsions, and also by a glacial period consequent on the extinction of the sun.] We must now return to the ruined earth, the condition of which we can only conjecture from what we are told of the six days of restoration. Violent convulsions must have taken place upon it, for it was inundated with the ocean waters: its sun had been extinguished: the stars were no longer seen above it: its clouds and atmosphere, having no attractive force to keep them in suspension, had descended in moisture upon its surface: there was not a living being to be found in the whole planet. ([cxxix]129)
Now the withdrawal of the sun's influence had probably occasioned that glacial period the vestiges of which, as geologists tell us, are plainly distinguishable at the close of the Tertiary Age. And the same cause will also account for the mingling of the waters that were above the firmament with those that were below it. Both effects are well illustrated by the following extract from one of Herschel's "Familiar Lectures on Scientific Subjects."
"In three days from the extinction of the sun there would, in all probability, not be a vestige of animal or vegetable life on the globe; unless it were among deep-sea fishes and the subterranean inhabitants of the great limestone caves. The first forty-eight hours would suffice to precipitate every atom of moisture from the air in deluges of rain and piles of snow, and from that moment would set in a universal frost such as Siberia or the highest peak of the Himalayas never felt--a temperature of between two and three hundred degrees below zero of our thermometers...No animal or vegetable could resist such a frost for an hour, any more than it could live for an hour in boiling water."
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From this description we may form some idea of the ruin which befell the preadamite world. Of its main features there is a graphic portrayal in a grand passage of Job, in which the folly of contending with God is enforced by an obvious reference to Satan's rebellion and its consequences.
"The
Wise in heart and Mighty in strength,
Who hath defied Him, and remained unhurt?
Who displaceth mountains, and they know not
That He has overturned them in His wrath;
Who maketh the earth to tremble out of her place,
So that her pillars rock to and fro;
Who commandeth the sun, and it riseth not,
And sealeth up the stars."
The terrific convulsions by which the earth was shattered and destroyed are almost placed before our eyes in this sublime description; while the suddenness of the catastrophe is vividly presented by the poetic conception that the mountains were overturned before they were aware of it. The extinction of the sun is plainly indicated, and also the veiling of the stars, so that the thick darkness was relieved not even by their scanty lights. ([cxxx]130)
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How long the glacial period continued it is impossible even to conjecture; but in the scene which the second verse of Genesis places before us we must suppose the ice to have broken up--perhaps through some development of the earth's internal heat, ([cxxxi]131) which in its convulsive struggles may also have displaced the bed of ocean. Thus the whole globe was covered with water, on the surface of which the Spirit of God was already brooding.
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[The First Day of restoration. God creates light, which did not, however, spring from the sun; but was, possibly, magnetic, like the terrestrial light of the Aurora Borealis.] Then, startling the deep silence, and pealing over the black floods of ruin, was heard the thunder of the voice of the Almighty, and the command went forth "Light be." Instantly it flashed from the womb of darkness, and illumined the rolling globe; but only to reveal an overspreading waste of waters.
This "light" of the First Day must be carefully distinguished from the "light-holders" of the Fourth, since the word used conveys in itself no idea of concentration or locality. Nevertheless the light must have been confined to one side of the planet, for we are told that God at once divided between the light and the darkness, and that the alternation of the day and night immediately commenced.
In past times infidels have scoffed at the idea of light being called into existence independently of the sun. And certainly it does seem difficult to conceive that Moses could have anticipated science by so many centuries except upon the one supposition that he was instructed by the Spirit of God, Who is not circumscribed by the limits of human knowledge. But now science also has discovered that the sun is not the only source of light; but that the earth itself, and at least one other planet in our system, may under certain conditions become self-luminous.
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The light of the first day may, possibly, have been magnetic, like the Aurora Borealis, which seems to be powerful only when the sun is weak: for its most brilliant displays are restricted to the long nights of the cold north. In more southern climes its appearance is rare, and its development comparatively incomplete: but it is more frequent and vivid at those periods, recurring every eleventh year, when the spots on the sun are larger and more numerous, and the solar power is consequently diminished. It would thus almost seem that the sun absorbs this light and afterwards diffuses it in a modified form. On the purely terrestrial origin of the Aurora Borealis Humboldt makes the following interesting remarks:--
"This phenomenon derives the greater part of its importance from the fact that the earth becomes self-luminous, and that as a planet, besides the light which it receives from the central body, the sun, it shows itself capable in itself of developing light. The intensity of the terrestrial light, or rather the luminosity which is diffused, exceeds, in cases of the brightest coloured radiation towards the zenith, the light of the moon in its first quarter. Occasionally, as on the 7th of January, 1831, printed characters would be read without difficulty. This almost uninterrupted development of light in the earth leads us by analogy to the remarkable process exhibited in Venus. The portion of this planet which is not illumined by the sun often shines with a phosphorescent light of its own. It is not improbable that the moon, Jupiter, and the comets, shine with an independent light, besides the reflected solar light visible through the polariscope. Without speaking of the problematical but yet ordinary mode in which the sky is illuminated, when a low cloud may be seen to shine with an uninterrupted flickering light for many minutes together, we still meet with other instances of terrestrial development of light in our atmosphere. In this category we may reckon the celebrated luminous mists seen in 1783 and 1831; the steady luminous appearance exhibited without any flickering in great clouds observed by Rozier and Beccaria; and lastly, as Arago well remarks, the faint diffused light which guides the steps of the traveller in cloudy, starless, and moonless nights in autumn and winter, even when there is no snow on the ground."
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[The record of the existence of light apart from the sun is a proof of the Divine origin of the Scriptures. Memorable anticipation of science in the book of Job.] The fact, then, that, at a time when terrestrial luminosity was probably unknown, Moses spoke of the existence of light without the sun, is a strong proof of the Divine source of his knowledge. For though the Bible gives no information by which science is likely to be advanced, yet it does here and there drop mysterious utterances, the truth of one after another of which is discovered as scientific men become better acquainted with the laws of the universe.
Perhaps the most memorable instance of this is the familiar passage in which God demands of the patriarch, "Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades?" ([cxxxii]132) Through the long lapse of centuries since the writing of the Book of Job, which probably dates back into the past as far as three thousand three hundred years, no adequate sense was found for these words. But now a meaning seems to be assuming shape, and gradually becoming more defined and vivid, a meaning worthy of the great God Whose lips first uttered the mysterious sentence. For in 1748 the astronomer Bradley gave a hint, which others have subsequently developed and confirmed, that our solar system, together with the whole of the sidereal heavens within range of our vision and telescopes, is but a portion of an inconceivably vast circle of stars revolving around one centre. And that centre, the pivot of the universe, is now supposed to be among the Pleiades. If this be the case, wonderful indeed are "the sweet influences of Pleiades" which keep the whole of the starry heavens in orderly motion.
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[The Six Days were not ages, but literal days of twenty-four hours.] We are next told that God called the light day and the darkness night, and that the evening and the morning were the First Day. Now in order to verify certain systems of interpretation attempts have been made to show that in this chapter a day must be understood to signify an age.
And doubtless the word "day" is sometimes used of prolonged periods, as in the expression "the day of temptation in the wilderness," and many others. But whenever a numeral is connected with it, the meaning is at once restricted thereby, and it can only be used in its literal acceptation of the time which the earth takes to make one revolution upon its axis. It is, therefore, clear that we must understand the Six Days to be six periods of twenty-four hours each.
But still further; these days are mentioned as comprising an evening and a morning, as being made up of day and night. Here, then, is another warning against the figurative interpretation, which we must carefully avoid lest we expose ourselves to such attacks as the following:--
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"It is evident that the bare theory that a day means an age or immense geological period might be made to yield some rather strange results. What becomes of the evening and morning of which each day is said to have consisted? Was each geologic age divided into two long intervals, one all darkness, the other all light? And if so, what becomes of the plants and trees created in the third day or period, when the evening of the fourth day--the evenings, be it observed, precede the mornings--set in? They must have passed through half a seculum of total darkness, not even cheered by that dim light which the sun, not yet completely manifested, supplied on the morning of the third day. Such an ordeal would have completely destroyed the whole vegetable creation, and yet we find that it survived, and was appointed on the sixth day as the food of man and animals. In fact, we need only substitute the word period for day in the Mosaic narrative to make it very apparent that the writer at least had no such meaning, nor could he have conveyed any such meaning to those who first heard his account read." ([cxxxiii]133)
Now the justice of these remarks cannot be denied, and the lesson to be learnt from them is this: that, if believers would but keep to the plain statements of the Bible, there would be very little for infidels to cavil at; but that as soon as they begin to form theories, and twist revelation into agreement with them, they expose themselves, and, still worse, the Scriptures, to ridicule.
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[Second Day. The firmament placed between the waters, but not pronounced good.] On the next day a second command went forth, and in obedience to it a movement commenced among the waters. At the word of God the firmament, or atmosphere which we breathe, was formed: and by its insertion the waters which float above the earth were again raised to their own place, and separated from those which are upon the earth.
There is, however, in the account of this day's work an omission which is probably significant: for the usual conclusion, "And God saw that it was good," is in this case left out. And since the reasons ordinarily given for the omission are unsatisfactory, we venture to suggest the following explanation. May not the withholding of God's approval be a hint of the immediate occupation of the firmament by demons, those, indeed, which are its present inhabitants? Since they were concerned in the fall of man, they must have speedily appeared in the newly-formed atmosphere. May they not, therefore, have been imprisoned in the deep, and having found some way of escape at the lifting up of the waters, have swarmed into the dominion of the air, of which their leader is Prince? In this case the firmament might have been teeming with them before the close of the Second Day, and we need not wonder that God refused to pronounce their kingdom good.
[Third Day. The waters upon the earth retire to their bounds: the dry land is again seen, and brings forth grass, herbs, and trees. Grand description in the Book of Psalms.] In twenty-four hours the firmament was completed, and then the voice of the Lord was again heard, and in quick response the whole planet resounded with the roar of rushing floods as they hastened from the dry land into the receptacles prepared for them, and revealed the mountains and valleys of the earth. This grand movement is thus described in the hundred-and-fourth Psalm. ([cxxxiv]134)
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5. "He established the earth upon the foundations
thereof,
That it should not be moved for ever and ever.
6. With the deep as with a garment Thou didst cover it,
Above the mountains did the waters stand.
7. At Thy rebuke they fled,
At the voice of Thy thunder they hasted away--
8. The mountains rose, the valley sank--
To the place which Thou hadst established for them.
9. Thou hast se them a bound which they cannot pass,
That they turn not again to cover the earth."
In this passage we may remark a strong confirmation of the view we have adopted. For while the deep is represented as spread over everything, the mountains, together, of course, with all their fossil inclosures, are mentioned as already existing beneath it. They had evidently been formed long before the Third Day. And in strict accordance with this fact is God's command, "Let the dry land appear," or more literally, "be seen"; not "Let it come into existence." The words, "The mountains rose, the valleys sank," are a parenthesis, and describe, of course--or they would conflict with the statement in the sixth verse--the general effect of the scene to a spectator as the waters subsided to their proper level.
On the same day the word of God went forth a second time, and the now liberated soil began to cover itself with a garment of vegetation, the fresh verdure of which was diversified with the hues of countless flowers.
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[Fourth Day. Preparation of the light-holders. Or and Maor.] Thus the earth itself was completely restored, and again fitted for the support and enjoyment of life: it only remained to establish its relations with the heavenly bodies. This God did upon the Fourth Day by concentrating the light-material, which He had previously created, into light-holders. For the word used of the light of the First Day is Or, and of that of the Fourth Maor. And this last is the same as the first, but with a locative prefix which makes it signify a place where light is stored, or a light-holder.
Now we must carefully observe that God is not said to have created these light-holders on the Fourth Day, but merely to have made or prepared them. They were created, as we have seen, in the beginning: and, since the sun appears to be a dark body enveloped by luminous clouds, it was doubtless around its mass that the earth was revolving from the first. Probably, too, the great luminary of our world was also the light of the preadamites: but its lamp had been extinguished, and on the Fourth Day God gave or restored to it the capacity of attracting and diffusing the light-material, by the exercise of which power its photosphere was quickly formed.
And so the solar rays, as they hastened through pace, struck upon the moon, and lighted up its silver rob in the firmament of night.
[Appearance of the stars in the heaven of our earth.] We are next told that God made or prepared--not created--the stars also; that is, apparently, so altered or modified the firmament, perhaps by the concentration of light into the sun, that the stars then first appeared, or re-appeared, in it. For that they had been previously created we have positive proof. At the close of the Third Day earth was finished and ready for the reception of life, while the stars are not mentioned till the Fourth Day. But in a passage of Job we are told that the morning stars were admiring witnesses when God laid the foundation stone of the earth, and sang together for joy at its completion. ([cxxxv]135) They must, therefore, have been pre-existent. And so God's preparation of them on the Fourth Day must have had reference only to their appearance in our firmament, to the purpose which they were to serve in regard to our earth.
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[Fifth Day. Creation of fish and birds. Confusing mistake in our version.] Thus the Fourth Day came to its close: all was now ready; the work of restoration was finished, and the habitation prepared. Then the creative power of God was put forth, and the waters, which had hitherto been void of living beings, were commanded to swarm with the creature that hath life. Our version, "Let the waters bring forth," is incorrect: the literal rendering is, "Let the waters swarm with swarms, with living creatures"; but the text does not tell us that these creatures were produced from the waters.
The following clause is still more grievously mistranslated, since the English is made to imply that even birds were formed from the same element. This would be a direct contradiction of the nineteenth verse of the second chapter, where they are said to have been moulded of earth. But the contradiction does not exist in the Hebrew, the exact sense of which is, "And let fowl fly above the earth in the face of the firmament of heaven." Hence in this verse both fish and fowl are merely commanded to appear in their respective elements without any hint as to their origin.
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[Sixth Day. Creation of cattle, creeping things, and beasts of the field, all of which were graminivorous.] Sea and air were thus filled with life. Then, last of all, on the Sixth Day, God proceeded to people the earth, which was commanded to bring forth--and here the translation is correct--three classes of living creatures--cattle or domesticated animals, creeping things or land reptiles, insects and worms, and beasts of the field or wild roaming animals.
But, as was shown above, all these creatures were graminivorous: for in the thirtieth verse the green herb alone is given them for meat. Nor, of course, was man allowed to feed upon animal flesh: in the twenty-ninth verse his diet also is restricted to the seed-bearing herb and the fruit of trees. The present state of things, in which animal food is allowed and necessary to man, and carnivorous beasts, birds and fishes abound, testifies to a wofully disorganised and unnatural condition; such a one as would be impossible save in a world at variance with the God of order, peace, love, and perfection.
[Further proof that the history of the Six Days is not a record of geological ages.] We have before seen that neither the plants of the Third nor the creatures of the Fifth and Sixth days have anything to do with the fossilised remains found in the earth's crust; because that crust is assumed to have been formed before the great preadamite catastrophe. For the mountains with all their contents are described as already existing beneath the floods of the deep, and as having appeared, without need of creation or preparation, as soon as the waters retreated to their bounds. We are now able to add other cogent reasons in confirmation of this view.
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During the Six Days there were three distinct acts of creative power, by which vegetation, fish and birds, and land animals and man, were successively produced. And we are clearly given to understand that all the plants of our world were created on the third day, while no moving creature that has life was called into being until the fifth day. If, then, the theory which makes each day a geological period were correct, the remains of plants only would be found in the lowest fossiliferous strata. These would fill the formations of their own and the following age; after which they would be mingled with fossil birds and fishes: then, in the rocks of a yet later period, the remains of land animals would also appear. And such a sequence would form the only possible agreement with the account in Genesis.
But what is the result of an examination of the strata? The lowest fossiliferous system is the Silurian: do we find in it nothing but vegetable petrifications? Quite the contrary. The lower and middle Silurian rocks contain a few seaweeds indeed, but no land plants whatever. Yet they abound in creatures belonging to three of the four sections of the animal kingdom, in mollusca, articulata, and radiata. It is only when we get to the highest strata of the upper Silurian rocks that land plants begin to appear, and together with them some specimens of vertebrata, the remaining section of the animal kingdom. If, then, in this oldest fossiliferous system we find plants rare and yet every division of the animal kingdom represented, how can we attempt to force such a fact into accordance with the Mosaic narrative!
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Again; the history of Genesis mentions, as we have seen, but three distinct creations--of plants, of birds and fish, and of land animals. But in the eight classifications of strata, from the Teritary down to the Silurian, there would appear to have been at least as many creations as there are systems, each creation including a very large proportion of animals and plants peculiar to itself. Agassiz goes still further, as the following quotation will show:--
"I hold it to be demonstrated that the totality of organic beings was renewed, not only in the intervals of those great periods which we designate as formations, but also in the stratification of each separate division of every formation. Nor do I believe in the genetic descent of the living species from the different teritary divisions which have been regarded as identical, but which I hold to be specially different; so that I cannot adopt the idea of a transformation of the species of one formation into that of another. In enunciating these conclusions, let it be understood that they are not inductions derived from the study of one particular class of animals--such as fishes--and applied to other classes, but the results of direct comparison of every considerable collections of petrifactions of different formations and classes of animals."
Thus the crust of our earth appears to be a vast mound which God has heaped over the remains of many creations. And geology shows us that the creatures of these ancient worlds either perished by painful disease and mutual destruction, or were overwhelmed in an instant by the most terrific convulsions of nature.
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Lastly; it is recorded ([cxxxvi]136) that all the living creatures and plants created during the Six Days were given to man. It is reasonable, therefore, to suppose that they were intended to remain with him throughout the whole course of his world. And hence, again, the certainty that the fossil plants and animals, nearly all of which were extinct before the creation of Adam, have nothing to do with the creatures of the Third, Fifth, and Sixth days.
[Creation of man. God pronounces every thing to be very good, and rests on the Seventh Day.] The creation of the humbler inhabitants of earth having been thus accomplished, but one other work remained to be done. All was ready for the introduction of those who were to be set over the world as the vicegerents of the Almighty. Accordingly God proceeded to make them in His own image and after His likeness. But in the first chapter of Genesis the calling into being of man, male and female, is simply mentioned to signify his place in creation. Further details are reserved for the present, and the history goes on to say that God saw all He had made that it was very good.
For no evil ever came to His hands. Let this truth be fixed in our hearts: and whenever we are troubled with the thorn or the thistle, with the poisonous or useless weed, with the noxious beast, with the extreme of heat or cold, or with any of the other countless inconveniences and pains of our present condition; whenever we feel ready to faint by reason of fightings without and fears within, let us remember that God made all things good, and avoiding hard thoughts of Him, say, An enemy hath done this.
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Then follows the institution of the Sabbath on the Seventh Day: and the fact of its introduction in this connection is sufficient to show that it was no special ordinance for the Israelite, but a law of God for all the dwellers upon earth from the days of Adam till time shall cease.
[Summary and introduction to the next section of the history. Different meanings of the expressions "the heaven and the earth" and "the earth and the heaven."] And so the first section of this wondrous history closes with a summary of the subject and an introduction to the next part in the words;-- "These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, and every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground. But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground."
Here the creation of the heavens and earth, that is, of the whole universe, refers, of course, to the creation in the beginning. But the making or preparing of the earth and the heavens points to the Six Days of restoration. And this is indicated not only by the change in the verb, but also by the inverted order, "the earth and the heavens," which is only found in one other passage, and is plainly significant. For the Hebrew word for "heavens" has no singular, and it was thus impossible to make in the Old Testament a distinction such as we often find in the New, where the singular of the Greek word is generally used for the first heaven or firmament of our earth, while the plural comprises the starry realms and the heaven of heavens. Hence some other device was necessary, and the fact that "the heavens" in the second clause of this verse mean the firmament of earth is indicated by the inverted order. And this order is also the historical one: for the firmament was not made perfect, so that sun, moon, and stars could be seen in it, until after the entire restoration of the earth. The same sequence in the hundred and forty-eighth Psalm is explained by the seventh verse, "Praise the Lord from the earth." For this Psalm is divided into two parts: in the first six verses praise to God is invoked from the starry vault and the heaven of heavens, in the last eight from the earth and its atmosphere. Hence in the thirteenth verse the glory of the Lord is appropriately said to be above "the earth and the heaven," earth being first mentioned because here also by heaven is meant the firmament which belongs and is, therefore, subordinate to it.
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[The plants and herbs of our world were newly introduced by God on the third day, and did not spring up from the relics of a former creation.] In the next verse, if we retain the Authorised Version, which follows the Septuagint, we must of course understand the verb "make" or "prepare" as applying not only to earth and heaven, but also to "every plant of the field," etc. The sense will then be that God prepared the seeds and placed them in the ground; so that the plants and herbs of our world did not spring from the relics of former creations or grow up spontaneously, but were newly introduced by God at that time. And this is corroborated by the fact that since the withdrawal of the salt and barren waters of the deep He had not as yet caused it to rain upon the earth, nor was there any preadamite spared from the previous destruction to cultivate the soil. All our verdure and plants grew up, therefore, from new germs placed in the ground by God and afterwards developed and nourished by a mist which went up from the earth.
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Such appears to be the meaning of the passage, and this special allusion to the work of the Third Day seems to be inserted as an introduction to the following account of Eden and its garden.
[There is no real discrepancy between the narrative in the first and second chapters of Genesis.] In closing our remarks on the continuous history of the Six Days, we may observe that many discrepancies have been alleged to exist between the first and second chapters of Genesis. Some of these we have already explained: none of them have any real foundation. We have only to bear in mind the different objects of the two records and all difficulty will vanish: for while the one chapter gives a continuous history of the week of restoration, the other is evidently a supplement, adding details of man's creation that we may better understand his nature and his fall. Hence in this second account reference is made to other works of the Six Days only when they happen to be immediately connected with the main subject, and without any regard to the order in which they were performed.
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[Supplementary history of the creation of man.] The detailed account of the creation of man which now presents itself for our consideration is a subject of the deepest interest: for it forms the only possible basis of true doctrine in regard to the origin and nature of our race. We must, therefore, carefully examine it: but the labour will not be tedious, for the whole revelation is contained in the following brief record;-- "And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." ([cxxxvii]137) We have thus three points to consider; the formation of the body, the infusion of the breath of life, and the result that man awoke to consciousness a living soul.
[The moulding of the body.] First, then, we are told that the Lord God formed man, that is, moulded his bodily shape as the potter does the clay. Indeed the meaning of the Hebrew verb is so decided that its present participle, used as a substantive, is the ordinary word for a potter. To this first act of God Job refers when he says, "Remember, I beseech Thee, that Thou hast made me as the clay; and wilt Thou bring me into dust again?" ([cxxxviii]138) For the material moulded was the dust of the ground which had just been mositened by a mist: and hence it is afterwards said, "Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." ([cxxxix]139)
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The word translated "ground" is adamah, which properly means red earth, and from which the name Adam seems to be derived. This corresponds to the natural colour of human skin, which is red on white, and in accordance with which Solomon's description of ideal beauty begins with the words, "My beloved is white and ruddy." ([cxl]140)
[The infusion of the spirit.] The spirit of man had nothing to do with the formation of its sheath. God first moulded the senseless frame, and then breathed into it "the breath of lives"; for the original of the last word is in the plural. We have not, however, previously noticed this, because it may be nothing more than the well known Hebrew plural of excellence: the word, which is the common term for life, is rarely found in the singular. But if we wish to give significance to the number, it may refer to the fact the inbreathing of God produced a twofold life, sensual and spiritual, the distinct existence of each part of which we may often detect within ourselves by their antagonism.
This breath of lives became the spirit of man, the principle of life within him--for, as the Lord tells us, "it is the spirit that quickeneth"--and by the manner of its introduction we are taught that it was a direct emanation from the Creator. We must, of course, carefully avoid confusing it with the Spirit of God, from Whom the Scriptures plainly distinguish it, and Who is represented as bearing witness with our spirit. ([cxli]141) But, as we are told in the Book of Proverbs, ([cxlii]142) it is the candle of the Lord, capable of being lighted by His Spirit, and given by Him as a means whereby man may search into the chambers of his heart and know himself.
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[The origin of the soul.] Man was thus made up of only two independent elements, the corporeal and the spiritual: but when God placed the spirit within the casing of earth, the combination of these produced a third part, and man became a living soul. ([cxliii]143) For direct communication between spirit and flesh is impossible: their intercourse can be carried on only by means of a medium, and the instant production of one was the result of their contact in Adam.
He became a living soul in the sense that spirit and body were completely merged in this third part; so that in his unfallen state he knew nothing of those ceaseless strivings of spirit and flesh which are matters of daily experience to us. There was a perfect blending of his three natures into one, and the soul as the uniting medium became the cause of his individuality, of his existence as a distinct being. It was also to serve the spirit as a covering, and as a means of using the body; nor does Tertullian seem to have erred when he affirmed that the flesh is the body of the soul, the soul that of the spirit.
But it is interesting to notice that, while the soul is the meeting-point of the elements of our being in this present life, the spirit will be the ruling power in our resurrection state. For the first man Adam was made a living soul, but the last Adam a quickening Spirit; ([cxliv]144) and that which is sown a psychic body is raised a spiritual body. ([cxlv]145)
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[The doctrine of man's threefold nature is, with one or two exceptions, much obscured by the inadequacy of our version.] Thus in the very beginning of Scripture we are warned against the popular phraseology of soul and body which has long sustained an erroneous belief that man consists of but two parts. This idea has, indeed, taken such firm root among us that it has caused a deficiency in our language. For though we possess the nouns "spirit" and "soul"--which are, however, too commonly treated as synonyms--we have no adjective derived from the latter, and are thus unable to express connection with soul except by a paraphrase. Certainly an attempt is being made to Anglicize the Greek "psychic"; but the unwonted form and sound of the word seem likely to prevent its adoption into ordinary language. Yet the need of such an adjective has almost concealed the doctrine of man's tripartite nature in our version of the Scriptures: and English readers are carried away from the sense by inadequate translations of a Greek word which signifies "pertaining to the soul," but is sometimes rendered "natural," sometimes "sensual." ([cxlvi]146)
There are, however, one or two passages in which a reference to the threefold composition of our being could not be obscured. Such is the very remarkable verse in the Epistle to the Hebrews;-- "For the Word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to he diving asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. ([cxlvii]147) Here Paul plainly speaks of the immaterial part of man as consisting of two separable elements, soul and spirit; while he describes the material portion as made up of joints and marrow, organs of motion and sensation. Hence he claims for the Word of God the power of separating, and, as it were, taking to pieces the whole being of man, spiritual, psychic, and corporeal, even as the priest flayed and divided limb from limb the animal for the burnt offering, in order to lay bare every part, and discover if there were any hidden spot or blemish.
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Another obvious passage is the well known intercession of Paul for the Thessalonians;-- "And I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." ([cxlviii]148)
[Respective functions of body, soul, and spirit.] Now the body we may term the sense-consciousness, the soul the self-consciousness, and the spirit the God-consciousness. For the body gives us the use of the five senses; the soul comprises the intellect which aids us in the present state of existence, and the emotions which proceed from the senses; while the spirit is our noblest part, which came directly from God, and by which alone we are able to apprehend and worship Him.
This last, as we remarked above, can only act upon the body through the medium of the soul: and we have a good illustration of the fact in the words of Mary;-- "My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour." ([cxlix]149) Here the change in tense shows that the spirit first conceived joy in God, and then, communicating with the soul, roused it to give expression to the feeling by means of the bodily organs.
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But the spirit of the unconverted is steeped in a deathlike slumber, save when it is roused to a momentary sense of responsibility by that Spirit of the Lord, Who convinces even the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment. Such men are unable to hold intercourse with God: the soul, manifested sometimes in intellectuality, sometimes in sensuality, often in both, reigns over them with undisputed sway. This is what Jude wishes to set forth in his nineteenth verse, which should be rendered, "These be they who separate, men governed by soul, not having spirit." ([cl]150) And even in the case of the converted the powers of the spirit are at present in great part suppressed, their place being supplied, though most inadequately, by the faculties of soul and body.
How inadequately which of us does not feel? For when at length we awake from the dream of this world; when our eyes are opened to a contemplation of realities, and a startling conviction of the ever decaying and quickly passing nature of all that is visible flashes upon our mind, from that moment we are possessed by one absorbing desire, that of attaining to life eternal. But to this end what guidance can we expect from the bodily senses, whose ceaseless march is ever to the grave? Nay, even the soul, however intelligent, however diligent in its search, cannot by any pains find out the path of wisdom. Often indeed it essays to do so: but how absolutely untrustworthy its conclusions are we may see in the difficulty of discovering even two men on the highest order of intellect with an identity of opinion. Reason is but an uncertain an deceitful instrument at the best, and the blinding pride of man makes matters still worse. For when one has set his heart upon an idea--which is, perhaps, nothing but the creation of his own fancy, as unsubstantial as the castle of a dream--his powers are thenceforth used for the single purpose of making the picture of his imagination stand out as vividly and as like reality as possible.
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[Reason is fallible and often dangerous; but the power of the spirit is an instinctive and unerring perception of truth.] And thus we may easily see that intellect is not merely fallible, but the most dangerous of all gifts, unless it be guided by the Spirit of God. For it can call evil good, and good evil: it can put darkness for light, and light for darkness; bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter. Nay, the wave of its magic wand can fill not only this life, but even the region beyond the river of death, with sunny landscapes and fair scenes, to all of which it is able to give the semblance of firm reality, until the fatal moment which separates spirit and body, when in an instant the brilliant vista is blotted out for ever by the fiery darkness of the lost.
And even in the case of those who have been born again, who have received power to become sons of God, the intellectual faculty is still so incompetent that, though they possess truth in the Divine revelation, they are nevertheless, as Paul tells us, only able for the present to know and understand it in part. But when hereafter the spirit, our real life, shall be released and restored to its throne, we shall immediately become conscious of powers which we can now neither apprehend nor even imagine; we shall no longer people darkness with the phantoms of reason's dim and ever-changing dreams, but find ourselves in a world where there is no night, and endowed with a piercing and unerring vision which God shall give to all His redeemed. In the place of the uncertain and deceptive logic of the soul, we shall be gifted with that instinctive perception of truth which is the prerogative of untainted spirits.
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[Adam is placed in the garden of Eden, and the first trial of man commences.] Thus, then, the Lord created man in His own image; and we can picture the joy with which Adam awoke to consciousness in the midst of the beautiful world prepared for his habitation and possession. But fair as earth then was, the inexhaustible kindness of his Creator would still further ravish his heart by arranging for his abode a scene of pre-eminent beauty and superabounding delights. Eastward in Eden the Lord God planted a garden, and enriched it with every tree which is pleasant to the sight and good for food, including among them the tree of life and that of the knowledge of good and evil. He then took the man whom He had made, and put him into this Paradise to dress, and, as our version reads, to keep it. But the Hebrew of the latter verb also suggests the idea of watching over or guarding, and seems to point to an enemy and possible assailant.
And now commenced the first age or dispensation of our world, man's first trial to determine whether when in possession of innocence he is able to retain it. Earth by the work of the Six Days was filled with unmingled blessings, all that it contained was very good; supreme dominion was given to Adam, and he was a pure and sinless being. Moreover, there was but one commandment; and, therefore, sin was circumscribed, and but one transgression possible. Of all the numerous trees of the garden man might freely eat, even the tree of life was open to him: but he was commanded to do homage to the great God Who had given him all things, to pay a tithe in acknowledgment of the exhaustless bounty bestowed upon him, by abstaining from one tree, that of the knowledge of good and evil. Of this he was not to eat, or he would prove himself a rebel, and lose his kingdom and his life.
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In regard to the hostile denizens of the air he seems to have received no distinct warning, but only that which was implied in the injunction to dress and watch over the garden. And he needed nothing more: for knowing well the single prohibition of his God, he could at once detect a foe in any being who should tempt him to disobey it.
[The two names Elohim and Jehovah.] There is no mention of this covenant with Adam in the first chapter of Genesis: for there we have merely a record of creation and restoration, while in the supplementary account we are concerned with the moral responsibility of man. And hence a change in the appellation of God, Who when regarded only as the Creator and Ruler is called Elohim or the Mighty One, but Who takes the title of Jehovah--usually translated "the Lord" in our version--as soon as He appears in covenant relation with man. At its first introduction the name Jehovah is joined with Elohim, to obviate all doubt as to the identity of the Being designated by both words.
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Now it is evident that, while either of these names will suit some passages, there must, nevertheless, be many cases in which the one would be appropriate and the other not. Of this the scared writers are always mindful, and we shall presently meet with other instances of their careful discrimination. It thus appears that the very fact adduced by rationalists as a proof that the Scriptures are a clumsy compilation of diverse and incongruous documents, which they call Elohistic and Jehovistic--that this very fact beautifully exhibits the unity and consistency of the whole volume.
[Adam gives names to animals, and must, therefore, have been gifted with speech from the day of his creation.] Yet another and crowning joy was in store for Adam. His benign Creator, knowing that it was not good for him to be alone, determined to bestow upon him a companion and partner of his joy. But first He brought to him the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air, to see what he would call them: that is, to see if he would claim any of them as bone of his bones and flesh of his flesh. Adam gave names to all, but to none that of woman; a result which had, of course, been anticipated by God. Indeed it seems not improbable that He made the trial to stimulate in His creature a desire which He intended to gratify.
And if the first man was able on the very day of his creation to give names--founded, doubtless, on their peculiarities--to beasts and fowls, it is evident that language was a gift bestowed upon him by God at the time when the breath of lives was breathed into his nostrils. Christians, therefore, cannot countenance the speculations of modern philosophers in regard to the gradual development of speech.
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[Creation of woman. Adam and Eve a type of Christ and His Church.] By naming the animal kingdom Adam took possession of his dominion before the appearance of the woman; so that she shared his lordship over creation, not in her own right, but as being bone of his bones and flesh of his flesh. And herein we may discern an evident type of the second Adam and His bride. For the Church, though all things are hers, will possess them through no merit or right of her own, but only as the bride of Him Who is the Heir of all things. ([cli]151)
In the history of the creation of woman we should observe the close connection between male and female, and the responsibilities of mutual love which it involves; the protection due on the one side, the subjection on the other. Each particular is so suggestive of the great mystery of Christ and His Church that it will be well to notice some of the points of comparison.
[A consideration of some of the details of the type.] First, then, the Lord began His final work by casting Adam into a deep sleep. And so did the second Adam lie three days in the sleep of death before the creation of His bride could be commenced.
While the first Adam slept, God opened his side and took out a rib wherewith He made the woman. So while the second Adam slept in death upon the cross, a soldier pierced His side, so that there came forth blood and water; and by means of that blood, without the shedding of which there could never have been remission of sins, the Church is now in process of formation. Thou "didst purchase unto God by Thy blood men of every tribe, and tongue, and people, and nation." ([clii]152) is the cry of the elders when the time has at length come to sing the new song.
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After the rib had been withdrawn God closed up the flesh instead thereof. No second rib was to be taken: only one woman was made for Adam, though many were afterwards born of him. So also will it be with the second Adam: He, too, will have but one heavenly bride, the Church of the First-born, they that are His at His coming. ([cliii]153) This body will be completed during His presence in the air, or first heaven, and His marriage will take place just before the terrible destruction which is to precede the Millennial reign, as may be seen by the order of events given in the nineteenth and twentieth chapters of the Apocalypse. Multitudes will be afterwards saved by Him: kings' daughters will be among His honourable women; but upon His right hand will stand the queen in gold of Ophir. ([cliv]154)
We next read;-- "the rib which the Lord God had taken from man made He a woman." But the last words are by no means an adequate rendering of the original, which should be translated "builded He into a woman." And there is a remarkable coincidence in the use of such a term, and the frequent application of the words "build" and "edify" to the Church in the New Testament.
When God had made the woman He brought her unto Adam. So is God now bringing the elect in spirit to the heavenly Bridegroom, and no man can come unto Christ except the Father draw him. ([clv]155) And so will He presently bring the completed bride in person to the second Adam, and at length answer that prayer;-- Father, I will that they also, whom Thou hast given Me, be with Me where I am; that they may behold My glory, which Thou hast given Me." ([clvi]156)
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Upon receiving his wife Adam exclaimed;-- "This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh." So the second Adam tells us that He is the vine and we are the branches; ([clvii]157) while His apostle still more plainly affirms;-- "For we are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones." ([clviii]158)
Adam then proceeds, "She shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man." Ish is the Hebrew for man, isha for woman. She partook of Adam's nature, therefore she should be called after his name. And at His coming Christ, having changed the bodies of His waiting people into the likeness of His glorious body and make them partakers of His nature, will then fulfil His promise to the overcomer;-- "I will write upon him My new name." ([clix]159)
Lastly; the words, "Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh," are, in their application to the woman, paralleled by the Lord's saying, "He that loveth father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me." ([clx]160) And yet again by the exhortation to the mystic bride;-- "Hearken, O daughter, and consider, and incline thine ear; forget also thine own people and they father's house; so shall the King greatly desire they beauty: for He is thy Lord; and worship thou Him." ([clxi]161) These words have far greater force if we remember that those who are saved by Christ but do not belong to the Church of the first-born will probably inhabit the earth from which they sprang, and not be called away from their ancient dwelling into the heavenly places.
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We may thus see how evidently the history of Adam and Eve foreshadows wondrous things to come, and sets forth the mystery of marriage in its reference to Christ and His Church.
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[The mercy of God seems to have predetermined the fall to remove pride from the heart of man, that he might be afterwards restored to an immortal purity and a more excellent power and glory.] Thus the man and the woman were created on the same day; so that Adam could only have been in existence a few hours before his wife. Nothing was wanting to complete their joy save the certainty that it would be lasting; and on this point they probably felt no fear. For what suspicion had they of the power of evil: how could they read in all that surrounded them the destruction of mightier creations? They knew not the secrets of the ground on which they trod: they rejoiced in the flowery verdure, and saw not the ruins of world beneath world reaching far into the bowels of the earth. They dreamt not that the blue sea was rippling over a vast prison-house of sin; that the very atmosphere above them was swarming with fallen angels and the disembodied spirits of those who had rebelled against the Most High.
And they, too, were destined to be overcome of evil: they were soon to experience the meaning of that awful word, death, which the lips of their Creator had uttered; to feel the terrors of His wrath, the desolation of ruin, the horrors of corruption. For the all-wise God knew the great obstacle to perfection in the creature, and that, until it could be removed, He was unable to show forth His love and pour out His bounty to the full. He could not endow men with great power and wisdom; He could not make them excellent in majesty and glorious in might, swift as the winds or the lightning to do His will, until they had passed the danger of abusing His gifts, and so falling as the sinful angels had done before them.
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Therefore they should not be perfect from the day of their creation; but, by a painful yet most salutary experience, should learn their own creature weakness: they should be imprisoned in bodies of humiliation: ([clxii]162) they should be left to try what their own strength could do, to endeavour to save themselves by their own arm amid the hostile powers of darkness, which should not, therefore, be at once consigned to the doom of the obstinately rebellious: they should fall, but by the merciful pre-arrangement of God not an eternally fatal, not a hopeless fall: they should know what it is to abide in sin, and so to be consumed by His anger, to be troubled by His wrath, to be subjected to vanity, wasting, and decay: with shuddering awe they should enter into the thickening darkness which enshrouds the dread portals of death: all their beauty should turn to corruption, their bodies, however majestic or fair, become repulsive and loathsome.
And through and out of all this they should be saved by a power not their own: benighted, helpless, distraught, not knowing whither to turn, they should be led by the hand of Another: their sin, which they would be utterly unable to expiate, should be punished in the person of a Substitute; the only begotten Son of their loving Creator should die in their stead. Thus should they be taught the absolute dependence of the creature upon the love and power of the Almighty God.
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And if they could humble themselves under His almighty hand; if they could trust Him in the time of their darkness; believe that He was causing all things to work together for their good; and thankfully accept His way of peace and salvation--then, after a little space, the days of their mourning should be ended. He would wash away every stain of sin or tears: instead of the garment of corruption He would invest them with the robes of immortality: He would place the crown of life upon their head: everlasting joy should break forth upon them without the possibility of an intervening cloud: nay, many of them, gifted by His favour with a more complete submission, with a stronger faith, should even be exalted to sit down upon the throne of His Son, and, under Him, to rule in glory over that very earth which had been the scene of their hopes and fears, of their gloomy and toilsome wanderings, while they bore about with them the body of this present condition of death. ([clxiii]163)
[Satan was created in glory and fell: man is born into a state of weakness and misery, and does not attain to his perfection till the resurrection of the just.] Such seems to be an outline of God's purposes in regard to man, as indicated in the Scriptures: such the reason of our sojourn here in weakness, continual liability to misery, and certain progress to decay. Satan first awoke to consciousness in the dazzling light of God's glory, to find himself a mighty prince, perfect in wisdom and beauty. ([clxiv]164) But, having known no other condition, he thought that his power and his splendour proceeded from himself, lost his sense of dependence, and fell without hope. In our case of God's foresight and mercy prevented this irremediable ruin.
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Therefore our being begins in darkness, far from the light and joy of His presence: we are no princes, but slaves to those horrible despots sin and corruption: our beauty is faulty and evanescent: our wisdom is foolishness: our purposes are continually broken off: our bodies date their tendency to dissolution from the day of our birth. Yet there is a hand stretched out to lead us through the night: and if we grasp it, giving up our own ideas of the right way, it will guide us along a road, rough, toilsome and perilous indeed, but which will at length bring us safely to the home of our Father.
And then, when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality: when, after having borne the image of the earthly, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly: when we shall rest, no longer in hope, but in abundant and never failing satisfaction after awaking in God's likeness: then at length shall we have attained the goal of our being, the position for which He created us, nay, to which He ordained us before the foundation of the world. Then shall we know why He bade us consider ourselves strangers and pilgrims upon earth: then shall we feel His meaning when He told us that while in the flesh we are but in a state of death, our real life being hid with Christ in God: ([clxv]165) then, when the heavenly treasure is unlocked before our wondering gaze, shall we understand to the full His dark saying;-- "And if ye have not been faithful in that which is Another's who shall give you that which is your own?" ([clxvi]166)
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[A powerful effect must needs be wrought in us when we glance backward upon this life after we have left it.] Nor, after having been thus led through darkness and perils to God, shall we feel any wish to stray out into the night again. With such a retrospect we shall not be tempted to think that our glory and beauty are an inseparable part of ourselves. And not only shall we have learnt by a fearful experience the dependence of creatures, but our whole being will be penetrated with a burning and unquenchable love of our Creator.
For even in this life how great do His mercies seem! But when once we find ourselves safe in the Paradise of God, freed for ever from the assaults of the world, the flesh and the devil, the first backward glance at the dangers we have just escaped will, perhaps, act upon us with greater power than the whole course of discipline through which we may have previously passed. For we shall then see our fearful accumulation of sin, understand its appalling nature, and be lost in amazement at the love which bore with us while we went on day after day repeating and multiplying transgression. We shall look back upon the many thousand perils out of which we were from time to time delivered, and only a very few of which we had even suspected. We shall behold the horrid and innumerable hosts of darkness, from whose malignant power we were defended for so many years, and at length finally rescued, by a Mightier than they. We shall gaze upon the pit prepared for them, into which we also must needs have descended had not a ransom been found, even the most precious blood of the Lord Jesus.
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And as we turn away from these dark and painful scenes--during the whole time of our connection with which there is but a step betwixt us and death--to the bright smile of our reconciled God, to the glory given to us, to the golden city prepared for our habitation, to the eternity of ever deepening joy before us, shall we not, emptied at last of pride and self-will, and over-powered with humble gratitude, cry aloud, with a strength of love and devotion unknown to this world, "Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever!"
And with such thoughts as these should we comfort one another whenever we are in sorrow and heaviness during our present brief season of trial.
[Probable reason of the hostility of the fallen angels.] Their cunning. We must now return to Adam and Eve, whom we left enjoying in innocence the pleasures which God had provided for them. But short, indeed, was their time of happiness: for the powers of evil were already setting the fatal snare. And they were, perhaps, stimulated to their fell purpose, not only by pure malignity and the wish to oppose God whenever they could do so indirectly, but also by a desire to prolong their own reign. For, knowing themselves to be rebels, they were probably well aware that the Almighty never intended sinless man to be subject to them, and that in Adam He was raising up a seed, not merely to inhabit the earth, but also to take possession of the realms of air. Hence we can easily understand their anxiety to retard, at least, the counsel of God by reducing the new creation to their own level of sin and ruin. And, perchance, they may have known from experience that the result would be a delay of long ages, during which the mercy of the Supreme would grant His creatures time for repentance and recovery.
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The plan of Satan showed that God had not yet deprived him of his wisdom; though, alas! it had been changed by his fall from the noble power of a prince of the Most High to the cunning of a deceitful intriguer! He would not make his assault with power and terror: for that would drive the assailed into the arms of their Protector instead of drawing them away from Him, and their earnest cries for help would quickly call down hot lightnings upon their daring foe. But he would present himself in the form of an inferior and subject animal, from which they would never suspect harm. For, like all his children of this world, Satan, though proud even to destruction, can yet degrade himself to the very dust in order to carry out his purposes.
[Reasons which seem to have determined Satan to make his first assault upon Eve.] He would not essay the man and the woman together: for combined they might uphold one another in the obedience and love of God. And he well knew that, if he were once detected and baffled, a second attempt would be attended with far more serious difficulties; nay, might by some appeal of Adam to God be rendered altogether impracticable.
Again, two reasons seem to have deterred him from tempting Adam alone. For had he commenced by overcoming the man, and then through him worked the fall of the woman, her ruin would have been incomplete: she would not have been wholly without excuse before God, since she would have acted under the orders or influence of the one whom He had set over her.
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And secondly; man, as we have before seen, consists of three parts, spirit, soul, and body; and of these the soul is predominant in consequence of its power over the body. Now it is just in this point that the weakness of man lies, in the fact that his body is psychic and not spiritual. But Adam was created directly from the image of God, Eve only mediately so. If, then, the man was an imperfect image through the predominance of his soul, this defect would naturally be increased in the woman, who would, therefore, be the more susceptible of outward form and beauty, and of all emotions connected with the sense- and self-consciousness, while the influence of her spirit would be proportionally diminished. On this second account also Satan would seem to have chosen her as the fittest object for his first attack.
[Eve is enticed to the locality of the forbidden tree.] Influenced, then, by some such considerations as these, the powers of evil either watched till Adam was absent, or, perhaps, by that mysterious power which we often feel but cannot explain, drew them away from his wife, and, when she was left alone, enticed her through the garden towards the tree in its midst. It may be that their suggestions set her musing on the strangeness of God's prohibition. Wherefore did He plant the tree in their garden if they were not to enjoy it? What so great difference could there be between it and the other trees of which they might eat at pleasure? And then, perhaps, a foolish curiosity may have moved her to examine the forbidden object, in order to see if she could detect its peculiarity.
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But, however it happened, she at any rate suffered herself to be allured to the fatal spot, and so gave opportunity to the Devil. For we should keep as far as possible from that which is prohibited, nor ever tempt God by unnecessarily approaching it, either through curiosity or any other impelling cause. Had Eve avoided the vicinity of the tree, she could never have cast upon it that look which ruined herself and the world. And how many of her descendants have worked their own woe in the same way, by lingering on the borders of wrong, by too curiously examining, by wishing to understand too well, that which they knew to be evil!
[The Tempter appears in the form of a serpent, which at that time was probably the most attractive, as well as the most intelligent, of the beasts of the field.] While Eve was standing near the tree a serpent approached and addressed her. The fact that she was not startled by such an occurrence seems to point to the existence of an intelligent communication between man and the inferior creatures before the fall. But we must not, of course, think of the serpent as the repulsive and venomous reptile to which we now feel an instinctive antipathy. For it had not then been cursed, but held itself upright, the most intelligent and, probably, the most beautiful of all the beasts of the field. It an interesting fact that in that remarkable sculpture--the oldest surviving representation of the fall--which was found in the temple of Osiris at Phylae, Eve is seen offering the fruit to Adam, the tree is between them, and the serpent stands by in an erect posture. Perhaps it sustained itself by wings; and indeed the epithet "flying" is applied to the saraph or fiery species in a passage of Isaiah. ([clxvii]167) The creature was, then, free from venom, and not improbably winged, while its scales glittered in the sun like burnished gold. Perhaps, too, it was recognized by Eve as the most intelligent and most companionable of all animals; and thus in every way it would be the most fitted for pleasing her eye and attracting her attention.
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Little did she suspect that a powerful enemy lurked beneath that beautiful and apparently innocent form: as little as did the disciples imagine that their own and their Master's bitter foe was sitting at meat with them in the body of Judas Iscariot. Nor can we at any time be sure of our safety from similar ambuscades. But there is one test always possible, which, like Ithuriel's spear, compels Satan to assume his true form, and which might have saved Eve. We should surmise the worst, and act accordingly, as soon as we hear one suggestion opposed to God's will and laws: and we should be so much the more on our guard in proportion as it comes from an unlikely source, and is craftily mingled with truth.
[The first words of Satan to Eve.] "Can it be true that God has forbidden you to eat of any tree of the garden?" began the serpent. Perhaps the fact that Eve was casting a longing eye upon the tree and yet abstained from touching it suggested this crafty question. Simple as it may at first appear, it was wondrously full of fascinating guile, marvellously adapted to the purpose of distributing the moral being of Eve, and so preparing the way for its complete subversion. The tempter affects to think that she abstains because God has harshly forbidden herself and her husband to touch any of the beautiful fruit around them. And so by his brief, but most skilful, interrogation he begins to envelop her in the mists of error from at least five outspringing suggestions. First; he throws her off her guard by his assumed ignorance. Secondly; he stirs up vanity from the depths of her self-consciousness by giving here an opportunity to correct and instruct him. Thirdly; he uses the term Elohim, and not the covenant name Jehovah, to represent the Creator as far distant, and as having but little concern with His creatures. Fourthly; he puts in a doubt as to whether God had uttered the prohibition, and hints at the possibility of a mistake. And lastly; he insinuates the blasphemous thought that harshness and caprice on God's part are not inconceivable, but may sometimes be expected.
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[Her answer shows that she is beginning to doubt, and is already caught in the snare.] The blinding effects of this question are immediately evident in Eve's answer. She replies that they may eat of the other trees of the garden, and are only warned off from the one in its midst. Of this alone God had said, "Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die." But God had not prohibited them to touch it: and hence we seem to see in the exaggeration of this added clause a secret discontent and an inclination to set the command of the Almighty in as harsh a light as possible.
Nor is this all: not only does she increase the stringency of the law, but she also weakens the penalty. God had said, "Thou shalt surely die," which she alters into, "lest ye die." Doubt was already doing its work in her mind, she was now prepared to hear the truth of God openly denied.
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And yet again she follows Satan's lead into the dark, and speaks of her Creator and Benefactor as Elohim--the Power, mighty indeed, but to men vague, distant, and almost unknown--instead of Jehovah, the God in covenant with her husband and herself. Satan wished to banish from her heart all thought of a near and closely connected God, and she accepts his suggestion and co-operates with him. For the image of Jehovah is rapidly fading from her mind, and self and sin are beginning to take its place.
Solemn is the warning which the analysis of her thoughts affords to her descendants, to the offspring by whom her own sad path is ceaselessly trodden. For how often, when we are perfectly aware of some direct command of God which we do not wish to obey, are we seduced into an exaggeration of its magnitude and its inconvenience, till at length, by the continual play of evil imaginings, we almost arrive at its impossibility. At the same time we strive to diminish its importance, and the penalty which its neglect is likely to involve, not perceiving that, while we are thus working out our own will in defiance of the will of God, His Holy Spirit is gradually withdrawing from us, and that our God-consciousness--or, as it would be ordinarily termed, religious feeling--is becoming weaker and weaker. Not so, however, the sin within us, which is proportionally growing and acquiring strength; till at last, when our eyes are again opened, we find it like some horrible tumour, which, loathsome and painful as it is to bear, has been so long neglected that it will scarce leave life in us if it be removed.
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[Satan follows up his advantage by a daring accusation of God, and an appeal to Eve's vanity.] Satan quickly perceived the state of Eve's mind: his plan was succeeding: she had begun to doubt. He instantly pressed on his attack by a bold lie combined with a truth, indeed, so far as it went, but one presented in characteristically Satanic fashion, so that the woman might miss its real import, and interpret it in accordance with her own rising vanity. "Ye shall not surely die," said this liar from the beginning, thus daring to place his own assertion in opposition to the Almighty.
And Eve believed him; believed this beast of the field, as she supposed him to be, rather than the great Creator of all things! Earth laden with her countless tombs is ever sighing for the credulity: Ocean, as his chasing waves roll over the bones of multitudes lying amid their unheeded treasures, moans in response: and Hades, while his vast realms are being daily peopled by fresh colonies of unclothed spirits, solemnly proclaims that God is true.
"For as God doth know," pursued the Tempter, "that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as God"--for so we ought to translate-- "knowing good and evil." Truly Jehovah did know this: but why did it not occur to Eve that He must also have known more; that this opening of their eyes would be no addition to their happiness, but harmful and destructive? Could she not by a moment's reflection perceive the fearful responsibility which the knowledge of evil would necessarily involve, and bless the Lord Who had spared her from its perils? Or could she not, at least, trust Him Who had called her into being, and of Whose hands from that time she had received nothing but good, and turn with horror from the blasphemous impiety which suggested to her the possibility of in any way raising herself to His height? She could not, for she was deceived: her reason was perverted by desire; the vision of self-exaltation had intoxicated her. There was no error in Satan's judgment: he had detected the weakest point when he appealed to her vanity and suggested to her the idea of becoming as God.
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Does not the readiness with which she received the daring thought show the necessity of our present state of weakness? Does it not sufficiently explain the fact that a broken and a contrite heart is the first indispensable condition of entering into the Kingdom of the Heavens? ([clxviii]168) And do we not continually perceive, both in ourselves and others, the workings of that feeling upon which Satan played in the case of our first parent? Does it not appear in self-will, which is the determination to be obeyed as God instead of obeying? Is it not evident in pride and conceit, whether arising from birth, ability, beauty, wealth, or any other source? May it not be traced in that boundless self-confidence which puts forth its own wisdom and opinions as alone worthy of notice, and expects them to be received with gratitude and deferred to by all? And, perhaps, its very worst aspect is seen in the complacency with which men listen to reproof and correction richly deserved by themselves, but which they forthwith apply only to others.
[The temptation of Eve compared with that of our Lord.] Carried away, then, by the new feeling aroused in her, Eve turned and gazed upon the tree, while Satan plied her with the three temptations which from that time he has ever employed to ruin the human race--the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.
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She saw that the tree was good for food. That was the lust of the flesh, and corresponded to the Lord's temptation to turn stones into bread. But how different the circumstances and the result! Eve was surrounded with plenty, every other tree in the garden was hers; yet she must needs cast a longing eye upon that which had not been given; her pride and self-will make that one seem more desirable than all the rest. The Lord was in the midst of a desert and faint from hunger: yet He would not break through the limits of his manhood, but submissively waited till His Father sent relief.
Again; Eve saw that the tree was pleasant to the eye. That was the lust of the eyes, and corresponded to the offer of all the kingdoms of this world and their glory to Christ. And though the whole garden was filled with objects of beauty on which she might have gazed with lawful pleasure, Eve, nevertheless, discarded them all for that which God had forbidden. The Lord, on the other hand, as man possessed nothing, and yet refused with indignation the accumulated beauties glories and pleasures of the whole world spread out in one view before His gaze.
Lastly; Eve saw that the tree was a tree to be desired to make one wise. That was the pride of life, and corresponded to our Lord's temptation to throw Himself from the pinnacle of the temple. Eve wished to raise her condition, and yet there was none greater than herself upon earth save her husband. But the Lord, though despised and rejected of men, and known only as the carpenter's son of Nazareth, refused to from the pinnacle of the temple, and be at once hailed by the assembled multitude below as the long expected sign from heaven, as the royal Messiah.
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[Triumph of the Tempter. Adam was not deceived, but sinned deliberately.] Eve had thus first given way to doubt, afterwards submitted to hear direct contradiction of God, and lastly turned to gaze upon the forbidden tree. Then the torrent of her desire rose with such impetuous violence that it carried away every barrier; and without waiting to consult her husband, without pausing to think of her God, she put forth her hand, and in a moment the fatal deed, which nearly six thousand years have not sufficed to obliterate, was accomplished. The days of Eve's innocence were ended: and shortly afterwards, upon the arrival of her husband, she afforded another sad instance of that selfishness of sin, of that insatiable and reckless desire on the part of the fallen to involve others in their own miserable ruin, which had been previously exhibited by Satan. For the tempted immediately became the tempter.
Now Paul expressly tells us that Adam was not deceived, but only the woman. ([clxix]169) For she, when Satan made known to her the qualities of the fruit, at once admitted as the only possible explanation of God's prohibition that He was either ungracious or feared rivals. But Adam probably saw both the impiety and the utter folly of such an imagination, knew that the command was undoubtedly given in God's wisdom for their good, and was, perhaps, not a little confirmed in this view by the condition in which he found his wife. We seem, therefore, to be driven upon the supposition that excessive love bent him to her entreaties, and made him determine to share her fate. And herein we see his unfitness to receive such a gift from God; for though he had done well to love her better than himself, he was hopelessly entangled in the snare of folly when he so idolised her as to transgress for her sake the law of her Creator.
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Thus did the Prince of this World prevail. The new creation had been seduced to rebellion; there was no longer any bar to the resumption of his dominion. Forth from the ground he rose triumphant, and expanded his shadowy wings over the recovered territory, impeding the pure rays of God's sun, and dropping thick the poisonous mists of sin, under which earth's flowers faded, her fruits withered, her plenty was restrained, and she brought forth evil as well as good.
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[The nature of the covering of glory which our first parents lost.] The sin was irrevocably committed: the Tempter had triumphed. But what of the affirmation, "Your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as God, knowing good and evil"? Alas! it had indeed proved true; but in a fashion widely differing from Eve's expectation. For in the impetuosity of her pride she had not tarried to reflect that the knowledge of God must needs be fraught with destructive peril to those who have neither the wisdom nor the power of God. Her eyes and those of her husband were indeed opened; but only to see themselves, to behold their own sad condition of nakedness and shame. For now they became suddenly conscious of the vileness of that flesh which had been the medium of their transgression; they were bewildered with the painful sense of a fall from the eminence on which God had placed them, of their resemblance to the brutes around them, nay, even of their unfitness to be seen.
And these feelings seem to have intensified in no small degree by an instant and visible change in their outward appearance. For while they remained in obedience, the spirit which God had breathed into them retained its full power and vigour. Its pervading influence defended their whole being from the inroads of corruption and death; while at the same time its brightness, shining through the covering of flesh, shed a lustrous halo around them; so that the grosser element of their bodies was concealed within a veil of radiant glory. ([clxx]170) And thus, as the rulers of creation, they were strikingly distinguished from all the creatures which were placed under them.
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But their sin was only made possible by a league of soul and body which destroyed the balance of their being. The overborne spirit was reduced to the condition of a powerless and almost silent prisoner; and, consequently, its light faded and disappeared. Its influence was gone: it could no longer either preserve their bodies from decay, or clothe them in its glory as with a garment. The threat of God was an accomplished fact; the reign of death had commenced.
[At the coming of Christ the sons of God will be manifested by the restoration of the lost covering.] Not is it difficult to prove that the recovery of a visible glory will be the instant result of the restoration of spirit soul and body to perfect order and harmony, the sign of our manifestation as the sons of God. But it will then shine with far more intense brilliancy than it did in Adam: for, as we have before seen, the body of unfallen man was not a spiritual body. The spirit did indeed exercise a mighty and vigorous influence, but the soul was the ruling power, even as it continues to be: for the first man became a living soul. ([clxxi]171) But when the resurrection, or the change consequent upon our Lord's return, takes place, our bodies will become spiritual: ([clxxii]172) the God-consciousness will be supreme in us, holding both soul and body in absolute control, and shedding forth the full power of its glory without let or hindrance.
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Hence in speaking of that time Daniel says;-- "And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever." ([clxxiii]173) So, too, the Lord Himself declares;-- "Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father." ([clxxiv]174)
And yet again; both John and Paul tell us that, when we are summoned into the presence of the Lord Jesus, we shall be like Him, that He will change the body of our humiliation into the likeness of the body of His glory. ([clxxv]175) Nor are we left in ignorance as regards the nature of the body of His glory; for upon the mount of transfiguration He permitted the chosen three to behold the Son of Man as He will appear when He comes in His kingdom. Then His Spirit, ever restrained and hidden during His earthly sojourn, was suddenly freed, and in an instant His whole person was beaming with splendour; so that His face did shine as the sun, and His raiment was white as the light. ([clxxvi]176)
[Attempt of Adam and Eve to supply themselves with a covering by artificial means.] The man and his wife were ashamed; and that fact was the one gleam of hope in their horizon. For had they been dead to the shame of guilt, they would have differed in nothing from evil spirits: their salvation would have been impossible. But the existence of this feeling showed that the God-consciousness within them though overwhelmed, was not altogether extinguished. The blaze had dimmed, but the flax was still smoking and might even yet be fanned into flame again by the Spirit of God.
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Bewildered by their altered condition they immediately tried to supply the lost covering artificially, even as their descendants have ever since been doing. For every living creature, whether of earth, air, or sea, has its own proper covering, not put on from without, but developed naturally from within; man alone is destitute and compelled to have recourse to artificial aids, because through sin he has lost his natural power of shedding forth a most glorious raiment of light. And hence we may see why our Lord preferred the robe of the humble lily to all the magnificence of Solomon. ([clxxvii]177) For the splendid array of the Isrealitish king was foreign, and put on from without; whereas the beauty of the lily is developed from within, and is the simple result of its natural growth.
[The inquisition.] Scarcely had the fallen pair arranged their miserable garments when they heard the voice of the Lord God, that voice which had hitherto been their greatest joy. But how different did it now seem, though its tones were as yet unaltered! They fled in terror to the shrubs of the garden, and endeavoured to hide themselves. Vain attempt! While we are committing sin we may, perhaps, succeed in putting away all thought of God, and persuade ourselves that, because we have forgotten Him, therefore He neither sees nor regards us. But when He comes forth for judgment this delusion is no longer possible: there is no escape: there may not even be delay: we must, however unprepared, meet Him face to face. At the call of God Adam is forced to leave his hiding place. With trembling steps he creeps into the presence of his Maker, and is first constrained to acknowledge that he had fled through shame, and then that the shame arose from his transgression of the only commandment imposed upon him. But his confession is not a frank one, and he gives a miserable proof of his fallen condition, of the loss of all the royalty of his original nature, in his attempt to cast the blame upon his wife, nay, even to censure God Himself. "The woman," he says, "whom Thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat."
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Now, when the Lord turns to her, is the answer of Eve more satisfactory than that of her husband. For she does not plead guilty, and throw herself upon God's mercy; but would lay all the fault upon the serpent, as though she were not a responsible agent.
[The judgment of the serpent, and the curse upon all cattle.] The Lord hears what the two culprits have to say, and patiently gives them every opportunity of defending themselves: but when He turns to the serpent His manner changes. He asks the Tempter no questions, gives him no chance of defence; but, treating him as already condemned, immediately pronounces sentence. What deep thoughts are suggested by this change of procedure; what fearful antecedents of rebellion seem to float like spectres in the gloom of this instant and hopeless judgment!
"Because thou hast done this." There is to be no mistake as to the reason of the curse: it is no accident, no merely natural misfortune; but the deeply-burnt brand which testifies to God's abhorrence of him who brought sin into the new world. The first part of the sentence has immediate and literal reference to the serpent which co-operated with Satan; but there is in it a wondrous type of the degradation of the Son of the Morning himself.
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The words, "Thou art cursed above all cattle," seem to imply a general curse upon the animal kingdom which is not elsewhere mentioned. Possibly it fell upon that part of creation, not through Adam's sin, but because the serpent, the head and representative of the beasts of the field, yielded itself as an instrument of evil. And that the curse should thus extend to every animal is not more marvellous than the transmission of sin through Adam to the whole human race. The cause of the fact in either case has not been revealed to us: the secret is one of those deep things which we cannot know now, but may understand hereafter when the mystery of God shall be finished.
Certainly, however, there is some strange bond connecting together the creatures of our world, so that all are mysteriously affected by, and in a measure responsible for, the conduct of each. This seems to be a great law of creation, and is, perhaps, intended, in part at least, as a means of preserving unity. At any rate Paul, when treating of its application to the Church, puts forth as its object, "that there should be no schism in the body." ([clxxviii]178) And how welcome will be its fulfillment when, just as we have been born into sin through the transgression of Adam, we shall all be made the righteousness of God in Christ.
From the first clause of the sentence upon the serpent it is clear that the creature did not originally crawl upon its belly. The original form of the serpent was altogether changed by the curse. Its structure must, therefore, have been entirely changed, and one who is not biassed by any wish to prove the inspiration of Scripture remarks;--
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"It is agreed that the organism of the serpents is one of extreme degradation; their bodies are lengthened out by the mere vegetative repetitions of the vertebrae; like the worms, they advance only by the ring-like scutes of the abdomen, without force or hinder limbs; though they belong to the latest creatures of the animal kingdom, they represent a decided retrogression in the scale of beings." ([clxxix]179)
[Signification of the words, "Dust shalt thou eat."] By the words, "Dust shalt thou eat," we are not, perhaps, to understand that dust should be the serpent's only food; but that having no organs wherewith to handle its prey, it would be compelled to eat it from the ground, and so to swallow dust with it. "All its food has the flavour of dust," says a Jewish commentary.
And since in undergoing this visible punishment the serpent is a type of Satan, with whom it directly co-operated, its condition is hopeless, and will not be improved when the remainder of creation is delivered from the bondage of corruption. Even in Millennial times dust will still be the serpent's meat, and then, perhaps, its only food. ([clxxx]180) The sight of its degradation, and the more frightful spectacle of the carcases in the valley of Jehoshaphat, ([clxxxi]181) will serve as warnings against sin during the Millennial age.
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[The enmity between the serpent and the woman.] So far the sentence seems to have no more than a typical reference to Satan. But in the following clauses the serpent begins to recede from view, and the great Adversary, who had been concealed within it, is dragged forth to judgment, and hears of the frustration of his hopes, of the brevity of his triumph, and of his terrible and inevitable doom. Wonderfully pregnant with meaning are the few words of this first of prophecies: for they contain the germ of all that has since been revealed, and afford a remarkable proof of the consistency of God's purposes, of His perfect knowledge of the end from the beginning.
Satan had deluded Eve into an alliance with himself against the Creator; but God would break up the confederation: the covenant with Death should be disannulled: the agreement with Hell should not stand. "I will put enmity between thee and the woman," were His almighty words to the abashed and speechless serpent. Nor was it difficult for Satan to divine the meaning of this separation: he was cast out to perdition, but Eve the Lord would save.
Henceforth, therefore, deprived of her beautiful home, driven into the accursed and uncultivated earth, and subjected to toil, pain, and gradual decay which should at last terminate in complete dissolution, she should know that her false friend was the cause of all her misery, and so regard him as her bitterest foe.
On the other hand, the mere fact that the woman would no longer be willing to subserve his purposes would have sufficed to provoke the anger of the fallen angel. Yet God presently gave him a far sharper incentive to hatred, when He declared that the seed of the deceived woman should ultimately destroy her deceiver.
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[The seed of the serpent.] For the enmity should not be confined to the serpent and the woman, but should also extend to their seed. Who, then, are the seed of the serpent? They are those who manifest that spirit of independent pride by which their father the Devil fell: those who will not acknowledge their own hopeless condition, and submit to be saved by the merits of the Son of God; but will either themselves do what is to be done, or else proudly deny the necessity of any doing at all, and clamour against God--if they have any belief in His existence--because He does not at once gratify all their wishes without any reference to His broken law. For blinded and maddened by self-conceit they believe the lie of the serpent, and, considering themselves as God, have, consequently, no reverence for Him, nor hesitate to defy His will if their own inclination prompts them to do so. Such are the serpent's seed, distinguished by the spirit which animates their father and federal head, and doomed at last to share with him the Lake of Fire.
Now was it long before this seed appeared in the person of Cain, "who," as the apostle tells us, "was of that Wicked One, and slew his brother." ([clxxxii]182) Very significant is the remark which John adds to this declaration;-- "And wherefore slew he him? Because his own works were evil, and his brother's righteous." In other words the predicted enmity was the sole cause of the murder.
Our Lord when on earth did not fail to recognise the seed of the serpent in those sinners whose contradiction He endured. "O generation of vipers," ([clxxxiii]183) He cries, using a phrase which had already issued from the lips of His forerunner, "how can ye, being evil, speak good things?" By these words He clearly designates the Pharisees as a brood of "that old serpent, called the Devil and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world." ([clxxxiv]184) Yet again He exclaims;-- "Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of Hell?" ([clxxxv]185) For being the serpent's seed they must share the serpent's fate.
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The reference in both passages is obvious: but, if there could be any doubt, it would be entirely dispelled by a third utterance, in which, throwing aside all figure, the Lord plainly says;-- "Ye are if your father the Devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do?" ([clxxxvi]186)
[The seed of the woman is the Lord Jesus, Who was born of a virgin.] Thus far there is no difficulty; but the significance of the term, "seed of the woman," is not so immediately apparent. The whole human race cannot be meant, as the previous remarks show. Nor would mankind in general be called the seed of the woman, but of the man; and God is here speaking of the seed of the woman exclusively. For she first sinned, and was the cause of sin to her husband and ruin to the world. Therefore she had a double punishment: but lest the blame should rest too heavily upon her, lest she should be swallowed up by over-much sorrow, she was by God's mercy appointed to be the sole human agent in bringing the Deliverer into the world.
Nor is it difficult to discover that Deliverer: for there is none but Christ who could in a strictly literal sense be called the seed of the woman. Here, then, we have a wonderful example of the consistency of Scripture; since in this primeval prophecy, uttered four thousand years before its accomplishment, we find it declared that the Lord Jesus should be born of a virgin. Had our translators perceived this they might have avoided a mistake. For in the well-known prediction of Isaiah, ([clxxxvii]187) as also in the quotation from it in the first chapter of Matthew, ([clxxxviii]188) they have adopted the rendering, "a virgin," in defiance of the original which has "the virgin" in both passages. They did not understand the meaning of the definite article, and, therefore, cut the knot of the difficulty by omitting it from their version. But Isaiah is evidently referring to the sentence passed upon the serpent, and speaks of the particular virgin who should be chosen as the human instrument for the fulfilment of God's purpose.
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Thus Christ is the literal seed of the woman. The predicted enmity between the seeds is being manifested in the ceaseless conflict of the Church and the World. But just as all those who wilfully deny the truth in ungodliness are the seed of the serpent, so there is also a seed that serves the Lord, ([clxxxix]189) is accounted to Him for a generation, and reckoned as one with Him. He and His Church are one, He is the Head and they are the body: He and they together make up the mystical Christ.
And hence we see the enmity of which God spoke in the long vista of estrangement and bitter conflict between the Church and the World. We behold on the one side the alternations of malignant persecution and treacherous flattery; on the other a patient endurance, and a rendering of blessing for cursing. Yet the part of the Church is not altogether confined to suffering, but is also continually aggressive. For the children of light are first found wandering among those that dwell in darkness: the lost sheep are ever straying into the midst of the wolves, and must be boldly sought and let out of danger by those who have been themselves rescued from similar perils.
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[The issue of the conflict. The two advents.] But was there no hope: should the painful and ever-varying struggle go on for ever? No, it should find its end at last: it should be decided after many years by a deadly conflict between the seed of the woman and the old serpent himself. Christ should bruise the serpent's head, should deal a mortal blow: not, however, before the serpent had bruised His heel, had wounded Him sore, but not fatally, not in a vital part.
Here, then we have the germ of all prophecy respecting the two advents of Christ. In the bruising of the heel we recognise His first coming to suffer what appeared to be an utter defeat; to find that His own would not receive Him; to endure the contradiction and insults of the serpent's seed; to be rejected of His generation; and finally, to lay down His life and pass for a short season under the dominion of him that hath the power of death. And the bruising of the serpent's head is in after prophecies developed into the second coming of Christ, with power and great glory, to drive the false king from air and earth, and cast him bound into the abyss. Nay, it even looks beyond this and the post-Millennial rebellion to the final destruction of Satan and his consignment for ever to the Lake of Fire and Brimstone.
So far as God's words to the serpent are concerned the two great events which they foreshadow might have been almost simultaneous. And, indeed, throughout the Old Testament the advents are generally treated as if there were no interval between them. The Israelitish prophets beheld them in the remote future just as we might look upon some far-off mountain peaks, each more distant than the other, which from our first standpoint seem, indeed, to be very near together, but disclose as we journey on an ever-widening breadth of valley between them.
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[The judgment of the serpent was the first outlet of God's mercy to fallen man.] Such was the curse pronounced upon the serpent. And here we cannot but pause in amazement, and render thanks for the great mercy vouchsafed to the fallen parents of our race. God could not, indeed, give Adam a direct promise at a time when the man was waiting as a condemned criminal to receive sentence. Therefore His lovingkindness devised the plan of first pronouncing judgment upon the serpent, and therein implying that the fallen should not sink hopelessly to the condition of their deceiver, but be set in sharp opposition to him; until, after a painful struggle, the woman's conquering seed should bruise him under their feet, and make both the death from which they shrank, but must now undergo, and Hades the dread place of unclothed spirits, to pass away for ever. ([cxc]190) And so a bright ray of hope broke in through their despair, and they were strengthened to hear their own doom of woe.
[The sentence upon the woman.] Having thus passed sentence upon the Tempter the Lord next turned to the woman, who was the first to yield to temptation. For the general sin she was judged in her husband as being one with him; but, because she enticed him to transgress, she was to bear a special curse superadded to that which affected the whole human race. This is signified in the words, "I will greatly multiply thy sorrow"; the force of which will be seen if we notice that Adam also is afterwards doomed to sorrow, the same Hebrew word being used in both cases.
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[The sentence upon the man.] Lastly; the Lord decrees the punishment of the man. Adam had excused himself on the ground that Eve was his temptor; and God begins by showing that this very fact increased the heinousness of his guilt. Had Eve sinned through the influence of her husband she would not have been without a plea; for God had made her subject to him. But that Adam, whose duty as appointed head was to watch over, to restrain, to guide, and to rule, his wife--that he should so far forget his responsibilities as to follow her sinful suggestion, to obey her voice rather than God's, was a serious aggravation of his offence. Therefore the reason of the curse is, "Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it."
The sentence itself is not in the main a direct one, as in the case of the serpent, but strikes Adam through his surroundings. The earth, his dominion, is cursed; and in that fact we see a refutation of all those theories respecting the inherent evil of matter which figure so prominently in the early history of the nominal Church, and are now being revived by the sects of so-called Spiritualists. Evil proceeded, not from matter to spirit, but from spirit to matter. Adam was not cursed on account of the earth which God had declared to be in itself very good; but the earth was cursed because of the sin of Adam, which again originated in the spirit of the Evil One. As a punishment for man's transgression the soil should be henceforth comparatively barren. It should no longer yield spontaneous abundance, but he should be compelled to force out of it, with heavy toil and in the sweat of his face, even the bare necessaries of life.
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[Thorns and thistles. They seem to have resulted naturally from the curse of barrenness.] Nor would this be the end of the trouble. Earth should now be the parent of evil as well as good, and, teeming with thorns and thistles, should baffle and protract the labour of its tillers.
These noxious plants probably existed, though in very different condition, before the curse was pronounced; and then, owing to the sterility of the blighted earth, were no longer able to attain to their proper development and luxuriance, and so became what they are now found to be, abortions. The following remarks of Professor Balfour will illustrate this.
"In looking at the vegetable world in a scientific point of view, we see many evidences of the great plan upon which the all-wise Creator seems to have formed that portion of His works. At the same time there are many marks of what we may call, with reverence, incompleteness. Thus we see that there is in all plants a tendency to a spiral arrangement of leaves and branches, etc., but we rarely see this carried out fully, in consequence of numerous interruptions to growth and abnormalities in development. When branches are arrested in growth they often appear in the form of thorns or spines, and thus thorns may be taken as an indication of an imperfection in the branch.
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"The curse which has been pronounced on the vegetable creation may thus be seen in the production of thorns in place of branches--thorns which, while they are leafless, are at the same time the cause of injury to man. That thorns are abortive branches is well seen in cases where, by cultivation, they disappear. In such cases they are transformed into branches. The wild apple is a thorny plant, but on cultivation it is not so. These changes are the result of a constant high state of cultivation, and may show us what might take place where the curse removed.
"Again; thistles are troublesome and injurious in consequence of the pappus and hairs apprehended to their fruit, which waft it about in all directions, and injure the work of man so far as agricultural operations are concerned. Now it is interesting to remark that this pappus is shown to be an abortive state of the calyx, which is not developed as in ordinary instances, but becomes changed into hairs. Here, then, we see an alteration in the calyx which makes the thistle a source of labour and trouble to man. We could conceive the calyx otherwise developed, and thus preventing the injurious consequences which result to the fields from the presence of thistles.
"I have thus very hurriedly stated to you what occurred to my mind as to the curse of thorns and thistles, and I have endeavoured to show that the spines and hairs are abortive, and, so to speak, imperfect portions of plants. The parts are not developed in full perfection like what may have been the case in Eden, and like what will take place when the curse is removed."
Fit objects, then, are the thorn and the thistle to remind man of the curse. And keeping their origin in view we can see a deep significance in that awful scene when our Lord suffered Himself to be crowned with thorns, so that even His enemies set Him forth as the great Curse-bearer; when He wore on His bleeding brow that which owed its very existence to and was the sign of, the sin which He had come to expiate.
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[Man must return unto the dust from whence he came.] Lastly; man should no longer eat of the fruits of Paradise, but should henceforth find the staff of his fleeting life in the bread-producing herbs of the field, till he himself descended into that dust out of which he obtained his food: for dust he was, and unto dust he should return.
How did the impious vision raised by Satan vanish into blackness at these last words of terror, words which have sunk deeply into the heart of man, and ever rise to the surface when he finds himself in the presence of his God, or when he is brought low and his hopes perish! "Behold now," says Abraham, "I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord, which am but dust and ashes." ([cxci]191)
Hence, doubtless, the custom of bowing to the earth, and the feeling which prompted the casting of dust on the head, in time of bitter affliction, as a sign of broken pride and humble acknowledgment of the truth of the Creator's words, So Jeremiah says of the man who bears the yoke in his youth that "he putteth his mouth in the dust, if so be there may be hope." ([cxcii]192) And in regard to the actual return to the dust, Job mournfully declares of his hopes;-- "They shall go down to the bars of the pit, when our rest together is in the dust." ([cxciii]193) Yet again he says of the prosperous and the miserable;-- "They shall lie down alike in the dust, and the worms shall cover them." ([cxciv]194)
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But as it is to the dust that we go down at death, so it is from the dust we arise at the resurrection. "Thy dead men shall live," is the wondrous proclamation by Isaiah, "together with My dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in the dust: for they dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead." ([cxcv]195) And Daniel also tells us that, at the first resurrection, "many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake." ([cxcvi]196) So, then, even the dust is a resting-place of hope for the people of God.
[The beginning of the night.] Thus was sentence pronounced. Upon the serpent the judgment was eternal; while the man and his wife were doomed to degradation and anguish, but not for ever. God then seems to have departed, the serpent probably slunk away, and Adam and Eve were left alone, like those who have just awakened from a dream of peace to find themselves pressed down and overwhelmed by every kind of misery and fear.
All around them, beyond the precincts of the garden at least, was changing. Earth was reeling under the first stroke of the curse: its flowers were fading, its fruits were blighted; the former luxuriance of its vegetation could not be supported by the now sterile soil and vitiated atmosphere; the living creatures that passed by no longer did homage to their appointed lord, but wore in their eyes the wild look of incipient savagery. Nay, the very sun--as we may, perhaps infer from a previously quoted passage of Isaiah--([cxcvii]197) seems to have withdrawn six-sevenths of its light; so that, although it beams may still have been as bright as ever they are to us, the distraught pair must have felt that the shadow of death had fallen upon their sickening world.
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The darkness, literal and spiritual, of which Scripture so often speaks had set in; that dread season during which the principalities and powers of evil are the world-rulers: that gross darkness which is only illumined by a few light-holders placed here and there in the gloom, whose spirits have been kindled by the Holy Spirit, so that they have become lamps of the Lord: that night of blackness and horror during which weeping must endure, till joy return with the morning: that night in regard to which Paul cheered those of his time with the assurance that it was even then far spent, the four thousand years which had already elapsed being much the greater part of it: that night into the breaking dawn of which the wise and faithful servants are now earnestly gazing in expectation of the appearing of their Lord as the bright and morning Star, before He rises in all His glory as the Sun of righteousness, and restores light and life to the beclouded and death-stricken earth.
[The faith of Adam as displayed in the name which he gave to his wife.] Bewildered by these new sensations the fallen ones remained, perhaps, for a while mute in the torpor of deep and overwhelming sorrow. But at length the light of faith began to steal over the softening countenance of Adam: he had laid hold of the implied promise: he had perceived God's mercy mingled with His judgment, had caught a glimpse of light beyond the darkness, and felt that there was yet hope in his end.
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And so, taking up again the function of naming which God had bestowed upon him, he called his wife Eve, that is, Life; because without cavil or doubt he frankly took God at His word, and believed that by the promised seed of the woman he and his posterity should be delivered from the death to which they had become liable, and live for ever. Thus, is any feeling of estrangement had arisen between the man and his wife, it was now removed; and being through the marvellous ways of the great Peacemaker again united in heart, they were better prepared to face the troubles before them.
[The coats of skins; which typified the righteousness of Christ offered, after His sacrificial death, to sinners for a covering.] Adam had professed a simple trust in God's promise, though he had but a dim apprehension of its meaning, and immediately we find the Lord returning to the mourners, and rewarding their faith by further mercy and further knowledge. He took away their coverings of fig leaves, and clothed them with coats of skins. Most significant was the action: for by it He testified that their shame was not groundless, that there was need of a covering, but that the best the sinners could make for themselves was of no avail. They were as yet unacquainted with corruption and decay, and knew not that the fig leaves would quickly wither and fall off, and apt emblem of every device which man has ever contrived to cover his shame and fit himself for the presence of his Maker. And beyond this, they must learn that only by life can life be redeemed; that if the sinner die not, there must be a Substitute; that the Most High is holiness and justice as well as love, and can by no means clear the guilty.
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Now sacrifice as an expiation must have been ordained by God Himself. Man could never have thought of such a thing, or have dared in his worship to take the life of one of God's creatures, unless he had been commanded to do so. Probably, then, it was at this most appropriate time that the Lord instituted the rite as a type of the great sacrifice to come. He slew the victims, and as He shed their life-blood Adam and Eve for the first time gazed upon death with affrighted eyes. Then He showed them how to lay the carcases upon the altar, that they might be an offering made by fire unto the Lord. Finally He took the skins of the slain beasts, and made of them the coats with which He clothed the trembling pair.
Thus the Gospel was preached from the beginning: the Lamb of God slain from the foundation of the world was revealed as soon as sin had made His death necessary: the robe of His righteousness, which may be put on by every sinner for whom He has died, was shown to be the only garment which will effectually cover the shame of fallen man. And, by comparing the promise of the woman's Seed and the bruising of His heel with the slain sacrifice and the coats made from the skins of the victims, Adam may have been at once able to discern the outline of the great plan of salvation.
[Adam and Eve are expelled from the Garden of Delight.] But a precaution was now necessary. Man had obtained the knowledge of good and evil without the power of resisting evil. Therefore he must no longer remain in the beautiful garden, lest he should put forth his hand, take of the tree of life, and so render his state of sin everlasting. For to be immortal in his fallen condition would be the greatest of all calamities; to continue in sin for ever would be nothing less than the second death. And it was only by passing through the first death that man could be restored to spotless innocence again.
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Hence, after another solemn consultation of the Blessed Trinity, the sorrowful, but no longer hopeless, pair were expelled from the garden of beauty, and driven into the cold world to seek another home. With heavy hearts they wended their way amid the towering pyramids of green brilliant with ruddy fruit or sprinkled with thick blossom, through the bright maze of flowers and verdure, until they had passed the great gate, which immediately closed behind them.
They stood without, exiled from their home, under a comparatively chilling climate, looking upon a vegetation which to them must have seemed stunted and deformed, no longer expecting their food directly from the bounteous hand of God, but doomed to labour for it with wearisome care and toil. Nor was there any hope of deliverance until they had returned to the dust from whence they came, until they had rendered up their spirits unto Him Who gave them, and left their mortal frames motionless and inanimate, even as the slain victims upon whose carcases they had lately gazed with shuddering awe.
And now the Garden of Eden disappears from view, and is scarcely ever mentioned again until we come to the last of the books of revelation. But in the Apocalypse it rises before us once more in all its pristine beauty and we see the sons of Adam walking on the banks of the crystal stream, and no longer excluded from the tree of life.
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How this happy restoration shall be effected is the subject of the whole Bible, which treats--as the significant fact just noticed indicates--of the dealings by which God conducts men round the painful circle from Paradise lost to Paradise regained.
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[In the second age men were restrained neither by government nor law.] Thus the first dispensation ended in failure, yielding as its result a mournful proof that man is a being too weak to retain his innocence even in the most favourable circumstances. It now remained to be seen whether after the experience of the fall, after tasting the bitter consequences of sin, he could recover his position and become again obedient and holy. Of this God made trial in several ways.
And first, in what we may term the age of freedom, during the lapse of which He left Adam and his descendants almost entirely to their own devices. Marriage had indeed been instituted: and they were instructed to approach God by means of typical sacrifices, and commanded to toil for their bread by tilling the earth. But beyond this God would neither Himself issue laws nor suffer men to do so. The sword of the magistrate might not be used for the repression of crime: even the murderer should be unpunished, as we may see by the case of Cain. No government was permitted: every man should go in his own way, and do that which was right in his own eyes.
Thus the fitness of man for a condition of extreme liberty, and the worth of a trust in the innate justice supposed to lie at the bottom of the human heart, have been already tested by the great Creator. Modern philosophers are urging a repetition of the experiment; but the history of the times of old proves the fallacy of their views. For the wickedness of man became great: all flesh corrupted its way upon the earth, and the earth was filled with violence. And as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of Man. ([cxcviii]198)
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Hence a consideration of the second age should be peculiarly interesting to us: for it will help us to understand our own times, and, by the course of events before the Deluge, give us some idea of what may be expected in the present dispensation, the closing scenes of which seem to be already projecting their dark shadows before them.
[The stages of our journey to God are prefigured in Eden, and also in the Tabernacle.] After the expulsion of Adam from Paradise God does not appear to have removed the beautiful garden: but its gates were inexorably closed, and at the east end of it were placed the Cherubim, and the flaming sword which turned itself to and fro and guarded every access to the tree of life. And so we seem to find here also the rudiments of a Tabernacle, just as we found them in the Eden of Satan. The tree of life, with the Cherubim underneath it and the Shechinah or glory around it, is the Holy of Holies; Paradise the Holy Place; and Eden, the district in which the garden was planted, the Court of the Tabernacle.
And both in Paradise and in the Tabernacle we may, perhaps, discern an outline of our way to God. For as the district of Eden was to Adam, so to us is this earth, which was once, like Eden, a realm of delight, but is now blasted with the curse of sin. The fallen Adam prayed and offered up sacrifices before the closed gates of Paradise, in sight of the tree of life and the glory: and so do we with the eye of faith behold the throne of grace beyond the limits of this present world, and casting ourselves before it plead the once offered sacrifice of Christ.
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But at death the Paradise of God will be thrown open to us: for the very word is used in the New Testament of the place in which abide during the intermediate state. "To day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise," ([cxcix]199) said our Lord to the dying thief.
Now the word is of Persian origin, and had a well-defined meaning, which the Saviour surely intended to suggest when He used it. For the Persian kings and nobles were accustomed to surround their palaces with parks of vast magnitude, planted with beautiful trees and shrubs, and stocked with beasts wild and tame. Some suppose these parks to have been reminiscences of a tradition of Eden: at any rate a place of the sort was called a paradise. And so, by adopting the word, Christ appears to indicate that at death we pass, as it were, into the wondrous garden that surrounds the Father's house, but not into the house itself.
For He declared to His disciples that He was going to prepare abodes for them in that glorious palace, and would shortly return to fetch them; ([cc]200) return, as angels subsequently announced, in like manner as He went up, ([cci]201) in actual bodily presence. At death, therefore, we shall enter into the garden: but only at the return of Christ and the resurrection can we obtain access to the tree of life which is in the midst of the Paradise of God, ([ccii]202) and which seems to correspond to the actual place of the presence.
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So also the Court of the Tabernacle seems to represent this present world, during our stay in which we must offer up the slain victim on the brazen altar by thankfully believing in the sacrifice of Christ, and must afterwards be cleansed and sanctified in the laver with the washing of water by the word. ([cciii]203)
Then, being clad in the white robes of Christ's righteousness, we shall, in the intermediate state, enter into the Holy Place, where the implements of our service will be no longer of the baser metals--which are continually subject to the rust of sin--but only of pure gold.
Lastly; at the resurrection we shall be admitted into the Holy of Holies, the dwelling-place of the glory, into the mansions prepared for us in the Father's house.
[The Cherubim.] Of the Cherubim we must speak as briefly as possible; but the subject is very important, since these glorious beings appear to be closely connected with the redemption of creation. In mentioning them for the first time, the Hebrew original nevertheless styles them "the Cherubim," from which we may infer that their forms were familiar to the Israelites of Moses' time; and, therefore, that they were the same as those of the Cherubim represented in the Tabernacle. Indeed, the words by which they are introduced, if literally rendered, are, "And He caused the Cherubim to tabernacle at the east of the Garden of Eden." The most detailed account of their appearance is that which is contained in the first chapter of Ezekiel, which we will now examine.
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[Ezekiel's description of them.]The prophet tells us that he was among the Hebrew captives on the banks of the Chebar, when the heavens were opened to him, and he beheld visions of God. He saw a storm coming from the north, a mighty cloud having an infolding fire within it and a flashing brightness round about it. In the midst of the fire there was, as it were, the glancing of furbished brass: and as he gazed upon this glittering splendour with its terrific surroundings, it drew nearer to him, and he began to distinguish glorious forms. There were four living creatures, each standing beside a wheel dreadful in height. Stretched over the heads of these wondrous beings was the likeness of the firmament, of the colour of the terrible crystal. Above the firmament was a sapphire throne, and upon the throne the likeness of a man radiant with heavenly glory and surrounded with the appearance of a rainbow. It was the chariot of the Lord: it was Jehovah borne upon the Cherubim, and coming forth to judgment.
Each Cherub was in the form of a man, that is, displayed the body and upright position of a man. But every one had four faces: the first face was that of a man, the second that of a lion, the third that of an ox, and the fourth that of an eagle. Now the lion, the ox, and the eagle, are the representatives of the beasts of the field, of cattle, and of the fowls of the air. Hence from this vision arose the Jewish saying;-- "Four are the highest in creation: the lion among the beasts, the ox among cattle, the eagle among the fowls, and man above these; but God is the highest of all."
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In the temple of Ezekiel ([cciv]204) the Cherubim are associated with palm trees, in that of Solomon ([ccv]205) with palm trees and flowers. Now, the palm was considered to be the king of trees. Humboldt calls it "the noblest of plans, to which the nations ever assign the prize of beauty." And the flower is the glory of the herb of the field.
Thus the Cherubim and the accessories with which they were surrounded seem to have been made up of the highest forms of the animal and vegetable kingdoms, and to have been representatives of creature life in its perfection, and in obedience to and union with its Creator.
Each Cherub had also four sides, and, apparently, six wings, through four only are mentioned at first. ([ccvi]206) Of these we are told that two were spread out and joined to the wings of those on either side, while with another pair the Cherubim covered their bodies in reverence. But it quickly becomes evident that in the commencement of the description Ezekiel is speaking only of their appearance from one point of view: for a little later he tells us that "every one had two [wings], which covered on this side, and every one had two, which covered on that side, their bodies." ([ccvii]207) Underneath their wings were the hands of a man, and their feet were straight feet, sparkling like the colour of burnished brass, and the soles of their feet were as the sole of a calf's foot. Lastly; their whole body, their backs, their hands, and their wings, as well as the wheels beside which they stood, were full of eyes, indicative, perhaps, of intense vigilance and intelligence.
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[Description and possible significance of the wheels.] Each of the wheels was, as it were, a wheel within a wheel, that is, one wheel passing transversely through the center of another, so that the chariot might go in the direction of either of the four faces without turning. In appearance the wheels were like to the colour of beryl, or rather of chrysolite: their rings, or felloes, were full of eyes: and the spirit of life, or, perhaps, of the living creature, was in them. Wherever the Spirit of God willed to go, thither would the chariot of the Cherubim speed and return as a the flashing of lightning.
Since the Cherubim appear to be symbols of creature life, it is not improbable that the wheels represent the forces of nature;-- "Fire, and hail; snow, and vapours; stormy wind fulfilling His word." ([ccviii]208)
[The Cherubim are identical with the living creatures in the Apocalypse.] Such were the Cherubim as seen by Ezekiel. And though there are some differences of detail--owing, probably, to differences in the circumstances ([ccix]209) there can be no doubt that they are identical with the living creatures which John saw at the foot of the throne. ([ccx]210) The word used in the Apocalypse is a literal translation of Ezekiel's "living creature," being indeed the very word by which the Hebrew is rendered in that passage of the Septuagint. But, unfortunately, in our version of the New Testament it is translated "beast," though it simply means a living being. It is quite a different term from that used of the ten-horned, and also of the two-horned, beast of the later chapters.
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[And probably also with the Seraphim of Isaiah.] Again; the six-winged Seraphim of Isaiah ([ccxi]211) seem also to be the same as the Cherubim. For the number of their wings corresponds, and they hold the same position in the glory, just beneath the throne. And again; their cry, "Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts," is similar to that of the living creatures which John saw.
The word Seraphim appears to signify the "burning ones," and perhaps the Cherubim were so called from the fervour of their worship. Or it may be that the change of name indicates a different function. For the Cherubim are represented as taking up coals of fire for the execution of the wrath of God: ([ccxii]212) but the Seraph brings a live coal from the altar, and by applying it to Isaiah's lips purifies him from his iniquity and sin. ([ccxiii]213) Thus it may be that the former name is used when the Lord appears as a consuming fire, the latter when His glory is acting as a purifying flame.
[They are not angels, nor do they wield the flaming sword.] The Cherubim are evidently not angels; for if they were, their connection with the animal and vegetable kingdoms would be without a parallel in Scripture. Moreover, they are distinguished from angels in two passages of the Apocalypse, in the first of which we read of "many angels," and in the second of "all the angels," standing round about the Throne, and the Living Creatures, and the Elders. ([ccxiv]214) Wherever, therefore, they appear in Scripture, whether in the Garden of Eden, upon the Ark of the Covenant, or before the Throne, we must remember that they always retain their own peculiar forms.
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Nor did they, according to the popular conception, handle the fiery sword which forbade approach to the Tree of Life. The Hebrew expressly states that the sword turned itself, that is, was a revolving flame, corresponding to the glory which appeared above the Cherubim in the Tabernacle.
[Probable significance of their number.] In the number of the Cherubim we may, perhaps, discern another proof of their connection with the earth, since four is in Scripture, and especially in the Apocalypse, the number of terrestrial creation. Thus, among other instances, we read of "the four quarters of the earth," ([ccxv]215) "the four corners of the earth," and "the four winds of the earth." ([ccxvi]216) Again; created beings are described as "every creature which is in the heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea": ([ccxvii]217) the human race is summed up as "every tribe, and tongue, and people, and nation"; ([ccxviii]218) and there are "four sore judgments" for creation-- "the sword, and the famine, and the noisome beast, and the pestilence." ([ccxix]219) So, too, the destined earth-rulers were directed, when marching through the wilderness, to pitch their tents in four camps, turned towards the four cardinal points. ([ccxx]220) And lastly, the visions of Daniel disclose four world-empires, and the breaking into their number by the fifth changes the dispensation, and causes the glad cry to go forth, "The kingdom of the world is become the kingdom of our God and of His Christ."
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[They appear to stand before God as representatives of the four earth-tribes to which the promises of the Noachian covenant were made.] Passing, then, from these preliminary considerations, we proceed to inquire into the real significance of the Cherubim, the clue to which seems to lie in the terms of the Noachian covenant.
We have already seen that during the Six Days God created six tribes of living creatures to inhabit the earth--the fish, the fowls of the air, the cattle, the creeping things, the beasts of the earth, and man. Of these, the first five were placed under the dominion of man; but three of them were subsequently distinguished from the others on two memorable occasions.
When God brought the living creatures to the father of our race, "Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field": ([ccxxi]221) but he is not said to have done so in the case of the fish and of the creeping things.
And again, there is a similar omission in the Noachian covenant, which is expressed in the following terms;-- "And I, behold, I establish My covenant with you, and with your seed after you, and with every living creature that is with you, of the fowl, of the cattle, and of every beast of the earth with you." ([ccxxii]222)
Now if we observe that the four tribes specially included in the covenant--man, the fowl, the cattle, and the beasts of the earth--are also those which are indicated by the forms of the Cherubim, we shall readily perceive the meaning of the latter. They stand before God as the representatives of the four great earth-tribes with which He has made a covenant that He will never again destroy them utterly from the face of the earth.
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Their representative character appears to be still further set forth by their Hebrew name sybrk] the obvious derivation of which is obtained by separation it into sybr-k] that is, "as the many."
And their connection with the Noachian covenant would seem to be demonstrated by the additional fact that, in two of the three subsequent passages in which their forms are minutely describes, the great sign of that covenant, the rainbow, is seen above them. ([ccxxiii]223) In the third passage, the tenth chapter of Ezekiel, it is not actually mentioned; nevertheless there also its presence is implied, since the prophet observes that the glory of the God of Israel appeared on this occasion, just as he had previously seen it in the plain. ([ccxxiv]224)
[The reason why the tribes of fish and creeping things are neither mentioned nor represented in the covenant is uncertain.] What is signified by the omission of the two tribes, or at least of any special mention of them, in the lists of those which are said to have been included in the Noachian covenant, and why they are not represented in the symbolism of the Cherubim, it is difficult to conjecture. If we also remember that sin entered into our world through the medium of the serpent, and that in the renewed earth there will be no more sea, we may be led to infer that the tribes of creeping things and fish will ultimately disappear. On the other hand, it is possible that they may be included in the higher forms of life. Still, however this may be, it does not interfere with the fact that the Cherubim represent all the creatures which God is pledged to save.
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[God's covenant with the four earth-tribes involves also a promise of their redemption.] But it the great Creator has entered into a covenant that He will never destroy the four earth-tribes, there is also of necessity much more involved in such a promise. Other Scriptures, in drawing back the curtain of futurity, disclose the glad truth that times of refreshing and restitution are approaching, when earth will be freed from the curse, and its inhabitants once more restored to innocence and peace. Since, therefore, the four tribes are to be preserved through this glorious age, they must also participate in its conditions, or, in other words, be redeemed from the consequences of sin.
And such a destiny is certainly implied by the position in which we find the Cherubim on the Ark. For there, each of them displaying the four heads as described by Ezekiel, ([ccxxv]225) they appear in close proximity to the awful Shechinah; while the violated law beneath them is covered by the golden Mercy-seat upon which they rest in security. They thus set forth in wondrous symbol the redemption and reconciliation of man and beast through the merits and death of the Lord Jesus.
But a significant feature of this symbol shows us how exclusively its prophetic fulness looks forward to the future, to the great changes of a coming dispensation. The Cherubim stand in the immediate presence of the Almighty, and yet two of the living beings represented by the heads are unclean. But God shall presently cleanse them, and they will then be no longer common or unclean. They are also creatures of prey; but when the age of rest has come, "the lion shall eat straw like the ox," ([ccxxvi]226) and the eagle shall cease to behold the prey from afar, not shall it any more be said of her that "where the slain are, there is she." ([ccxxvii]227) For, to quote the glowing words of the apostle, "the creation itself also," which is now groaning and travailing in pain together, "shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God." ([ccxxviii]228)
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[Standing, then, in the presence of God as memorials of His promise, the Cherubim also act as the ministers of His will.] Thus the Cherubim stand before the Lord for a purpose similar to that of the Book of Remembrance of which Malachi speaks, as memorials of those earth-tribes which He has pledged Himself to save. Their special office appears to be attendance upon the Lord when He is engaged in the government of the world: they co-operate with Him in all that tends to its redemption: they act as His higher executive, calling forth the powers which inflict His judgments, and furnishing angels with the means of carrying out His will.
Thus, at the successive breaking of the first four seals, each of the Living Creatures in turn cries, "Come!" and instantly the horses and their riders appear. ([ccxxix]229) Our version has "Come and see," as though the cry were addressed to John: but it is now generally admitted that the words "and see" are a gloss entirely destructive of the sense. Again, in Ezekiel's vision of the departure of the glory from the Temple, one of the Cherubim gives to the man clothed in linen coals of fire to scatter over Jerusalem. ([ccxxx]230) Lastly, it is one of the Living Creatures who brings to the seven angels the seven golden bowls full of the wrath of God. ([ccxxxi]231)
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[Significance of the Cherubim to Adam.] It will now be seen that the appearance of the Cherubim in Paradise was a glorious prophecy of hope to the banished Adam. For it told him that although the crown had fallen from his head, and himself and all creation were now subjected to decay and corruption, yet the time would come when he should again have access to the Tree of Life, again draw near to God, and be reinstated in his sovereignty over the world, which should also be brought back to its original perfection and beauty. Thus did the mercy of God support him in his present trouble by glimpses of future restoration.
[The flaming sword.] But, through the emblems of hope were ever before him, there was also a revolving sword of flame, ceaselessly turning with lightning flashes to guard the tree of immortality, a fiery circle which kept him from his God and from life. For Jehovah is a consuming fire to those who are in sin; He dwells in the light unto which no fallen man can approach. ([ccxxxii]232)
That the sword was connected with the Shechinah we can see from its counterpart, the fire infolding itself, in Ezekiel's vision of the glory. Its destructive power was shown when, at the consecration of the tabernacle, it flashed forth and consumed the burnt-offering upon the altar; ([ccxxxiii]233) and when its lightning flame smote Nadab and Abihu, so that they died before the Lord. ([ccxxxiv]234)
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Henceforth, therefore, man's whole attention was to be concentrated upon the means provided by God for the removal of the flaming barrier, that he might at length regain his natural position and be at rest.
[Birth of Cain and Abel. Significance of their names.] Adam now commenced his labour of tilling the ground, the toil of which, owing to the want of implements and experience, must have been doubly distressing. But after a while the first infant was born into the world: and we can imagine the joy of Eve at the thought that the promise was now realised, that the delivering Seed had appeared. In happy exultation she called his name Cain--that is, "acquisition," or "possession," exclaiming, "I have gotten a man with the aid of Jehovah!" The grammar of this sentence admits the rendering, "I have gotten a man, even Jehovah!" but it is, to say the least, uncertain whether this could have been Eve's meaning. For we have no intimation that the great mystery of godliness, God manifest in the flesh, had as yet been revealed. She believed, however, that the promise, as she understood it, had been fulfilled: she thought she had gotten the Deliverer: she would call her son the possession of that which was promised.
Alas! how little did she know of the bitter disappointments, the heart-sickening succession of hopes deferred, which were henceforth to be the lot of herself and of all her descendants. For she was not merely mistaken in supposing Cain to be the Deliverer: nay, the son whom she loved, of whom she hoped so much, was actually the first of the serpent's hostile seed, the first link of a chain which would end, not in Christ, but in Antichrist. But the time of her second son's birth she seems to have had some apprehension of the truth: for her joy had then given way to depression, and she called his name Abel--that is, "a breath," or "that which passes as a breath"--thus showing her consciousness of the speedy mortality of her offspring and the fall of all her high hopes.
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[Their wives.] Now since the birth of Seth must have followed quickly upon the death of Abel, and we are told that Seth was born when Adam was a hundred and thirty years old, ([ccxxxv]235) there was, probably, a lapse of some hundred and twenty-nine years between the birth of Cain and the death of Able. During this time Adam doubtless had many other sons and daughters, and Cain and Abel seem to have been directed to take them wives of their sisters. Such marriages could not be avoided in the beginning of man's history, since the whole race was to be united in descent from a single pair; and it must be remembered that the children of Adam were not merely a family, but the whole human family. As soon, however, as the necessity had disappeared, such connections were discountenanced, and afterwards rigorously prohibited. ([ccxxxvi]236)
[Their pursuits.] As they grew to manhood the brothers adopted different pursuits. Cain became a tiller of the ground, and, therefore, had reason to feel the curse in all its bitterness: but Abel was a keeper of sheep. And, since men were not, at that time, allowed to touch animal food, these sheep must have been kept for sacrificial purposes and for the manufacture of garments. Hence Cain assisted in the production of food for the primeval family, while Abel's duties were concerned with their religious services and clothing.
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[Their sacrifices. Reason of Cain's rejection.] In process of time the brothers brought each an offering unto the Lord, presenting it, probably, at the gate of Paradise. And God had respect unto Abel and to his offering; but unto Cain and to his offering He had not respect.
The reason of this difference is fraught with the deepest interest to us: for there are many in these latter days who, according to the prophecy of Jude, ([ccxxxvii]237) have gone in the way of Cain: the theology of the first murderer is that of a large and perpetually increasing school of our times. He neither denied the existence of God, nor refused to worship Him. Nay, he recognised Him as the Giver of all good things, and brought an offering of the fruits of the ground as an acknowledgment of His bounty. But he went no further than this; and, therefore, though he may have passed among those with whom he dwelt as a good and religious man, he failed to satisfy God. For being yet in his sins he presumed to approach the Holy One without the shedding of blood: he was willing to take the place of a dependent creature, but would not confess himself a sinner guilty of death, who could be saved only by the sacrifice of a Substitute.
He is a type of the many in these times who will descant upon the benevolence and love of the Creator, and are ever ready to laud Him for those attributes, and claim the benefit of them, without any reference to their own unworthiness and sinful condition, without a thought of that perfect holiness and justice which are as much elements of the mind of God as love itself. But the Most High did not accept the sacrifice of Cain; for none may approach to worship Him except through the shedding of blood, even the blood of the Lamb which He has provided: the sin-offering must come first, then the thank-offering: we can enter into the Holy of Holies, and cast ourselves before the Mercy seat, only by passing through the rent veil of Christ'-flesh.
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Abel knew something of this, and confessed it: therefore he brought of the firstlings of his flock, and poured out their life-blood in humble avowal of his own deserts. And God at once accepted his offering; perhaps--as many have thought--by sending forth fire from the Shechinah to consume it, and thus showing in a type that His wrath in regard to Abel would be satiated upon a Substitute.
[God's unavailing remonstrance with Cain.] The murderer. At the sight of this Cain's countenance fell, and he was angry: he committed the appalling sin of judging his Creator, and stirring up human wrath at His just dealings. Nevertheless God would not at once abandon the sinner to his fate. He patiently reasoned with Cain, as with a wilful child: He sought to bring him back to a right mind, pointing out his evil condition, and that a dire sin was crouching at his door ready to spring upon him like some ravenous beast upon its prey. Nor did He cease without promising that, if the offender would repent and do well, he also should be accepted, and preserve that ascendency over his brother to which, as being chosen by his Creator for the position of firstborn, he was lawfully entitled.
But the gracious expostulation was wasted: Cain took his opportunity, and the germ of sin which had been planted in Adam ripened into murder in his eldest son.
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[The conviction and the sentence.] It was not long before God made inquisition for blood. "Where," He asked of Cain, "is Abel thy brother?" And so again, as in the case of Adam, He inquired, though He had full knowledge, to give the transgressor an opportunity of judging himself and confessing his guilt. Had Cain done so he would yet have found hope. But he branded himself a second time with the mark of the serpent by adding lying to murder. "I know not," he replies; "am I my brother's keeper?" So hardened had he become that he would fain deny the truth even in the presence of the omniscient God. Therefore he was instantly dragged forth to judgment: his covering of lies was torn away, and his crime in all its blackness laid bare by the piercing words, "What hast thou done? The voice of thy brother's blood cried unto Me from the ground."
Cain was speechless: he could offer neither defence nor excuse, and God went on to pronounce sentence. The earth, which had drunk up his brother's blood, should be laid under a second curse, and should no longer yield its strength, even in response to the severest toil. Nor should the murderer remain with his parents in Eden: he should be banished from the presence of the Lord, from the sight of the Cherubim and the glory, and go forth as a fugitive and wanderer upon the earth. But no human hand should touch him. Neither the other members of his family nor the descendants of Abel, if there were any, might avenge the crime upon pain of a sevenfold punishment: for magisterial power was not yet entrusted to man.
[Adam and Eve are comforted by the birth of Seth.] Thus were our first parents deprived of both their sons in one day. How appalled must they now have been with the progress of the mischief which their transgression had brought into the world! But the God of all consolation was merciful, and about this time gave them another son, whom Eve called Seth, that is, "appointed." "For God," she said, "hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel whom Cain slew." It is curious to notice that she here attributes the gift to Elohim and not to Jehovah, which is probably an indication that her hope had given place to despondency. After expecting the promised Seed for a hundred and thirty years she had at length lapsed into despair, and, seeing in Seth nothing more than a natural son, pours forth her thanks to Elohim, and not to the covenant-keeping Jehovah. But she was again mistaken. Long and weary had been the time of waiting and bitter the disappointments, but she had at last obtained the first link of the chain that was to end in the promised Seed: from the line of Seth Christ was to spring.
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[Characteristics of the Cainites. The city of Enoch.] Henceforth we find a twofold development in the human race: the Sethites and the banished Cainites remain separated for a while, and represent the Church and the World. The Cainites, with the restlessness of men alienated from God, were ever striving to make the land of their exile a pleasant land; to reproduce Paradise artificially, instead of longing for the real Garden of Delight; were ceaselessly trying by every means to palliate the curse, instead of patiently following God's directions for getting rid of it altogether. Cain himself, who had been condemned to wander, was the first to build a city, which he called Enoch, after the name of his son; the first to attempt to settle comfortably upon the blasted earth.
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Some have wondered where he found inhabitants for his city. But they forget that, for aught we know, he may have built it centuries after his flight from Eden, and do not take into account the prodigious increase of population in an age when an ordinary life extended through eight or nine hundred years, and a man was contemporary with seven or eight generations of his descendants. Besides which, the city of Cain may have been at first nothing more than a fixed and substantial habitation for himself and his family.
[Lamech and his sons. Mention of women among the descendants of Cain.] Beyond a mere enumeration of names, we have no further record of Cain's posterity till we come to his descendant of the fifth generation. But the few particulars concerning Lamech and his family present a vivid picture of human corruption, of the way of the children of this world. We see it beginning in a sensuous life that involves the loss of the God-consciousness, and of all fear of breaking the Divine laws: we trace it as it goes on to make present circumstances as comfortable and as indulgent as possible, substituting arts sciences and intellectual pursuits for spiritual aspirations, and, with the aid of divers amusements and pleasures, banishing thought by excitement: and at last we find it ending in a thorough concentration upon self, and a hardened defiance of God.
Lamech broke the primeval law of marriage, and was the first polygamist, thus giving proof of the utter godlessness into which the Cainites had lapsed. The mention and names of his wives are perhaps suggestive of the state of society in his circle. Adah signifies "ornament," or "beauty"; while Zillah means "shade," in reference, probably, to her rich and, as it were, over-shadowing tresses. His daughter also was called Naamah, that is, "lovely." Now in the genealogy of Seth's family there is no mention by name of either wives or daughters. Here, therefore, we, perhaps, have an intimation that the women among the Cainites were unduly prominent, and that personal beauty and sensuous attractions were the only valued qualities.
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Of the sons of Lamech, Jabal was remarkable as being the first man who accumulated cattle in large numbers and led a normal life. Probably, in defiance of God's injunction, he introduced animal flesh and milk as food, with the view of escaping the labour of tilling the accursed ground. Jubal invented music, and Tubal-cain the mechanical arts.
[Lamech's address to his wives.] The last piece of information which we possess concerning Lamech is contained in his address to his wives. This appears to be a kind of song, which may have been popular among the antediluvians. But it breathes a boasting spirit of self-reliance--arising, perhaps, from the weapons which Tubal-cain had forged--and of proud revenge, which quite prepares us to hear that the earth was shortly afterwards filled with violence. Literally translated it runs as follows;--
"Adah and Zillah, hear my voice;
Ye wives of Lamech, hearken unto my speech:
For I have slain a man in return for my wound,
And a young man in return for my bruise.
For sevenfold shall Cain be avenged,
But Lamech seventy and sevenfold."
The meaning of which appears to be that he had quarrelled with a young man, and, having been wounded and bruised by him, had slain him in revenge. That God chose to proclaim a sevenfold vengeance upon the one who should kill Cain: but let all know that, if any one injure Lamech, the vengeance will be seventy and sevenfold: if any one merely wound or bruise him, he will surely take his life as a recompense.
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And this is the last we hear of the family of Cain as separated from the rest of the world. Its first ancestor was a murderer: and it disappeared in the person of a polygamist, murderer, and open worshipper of the god of forces.
[Characteristics of the Sethites.] But when we turn to Seth's posterity the scene changes. Envyings, strifes, and deeds of license and violence, are no longer before us: our ears cease to be assailed with the lowing of herds, the strains of soft music used for the soothing of uneasy consciences, the clatter of the anvil, the vauntings of proud boasters, and all the mingled din which arises form a world living without God and struggling to overpower His curse.
But we see a people poor and afflicted; toiling day after day to produce food from the ungenial soil, according to their God's appointment; patiently waiting till He should be gracious, and humbly acknowledging His chastening hand upon them. They have no share in earth's history: that is entirely made up by the Cainites. As strangers and pilgrims in the world they invent no arts: they devise no amusements. For they are not mindful of the country in which they live, but seek a better, that is, heavenly. Lastly; as we may see by the allusion to it in the name of Noah, ([ccxxxviii]238) they keep the curse which God laid upon the earth continually before them.
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[Meaning of the expression "to call upon the name of Jehovah."] In contrast to the boastings of the Cainite Lamech, Seth named his first son Enos, that is, "weakness"--a humble confession of the feebleness and helplessness of man, which is naturally followed by the next sentence, "Then began men to call upon the name of Jehovah."
But in what sense are we to understand this phrase, which is henceforth frequently used in Scripture? Jehovah, as we have previously seen, is the name by which God has revealed Himself to those with whom He has made a covenant, to whom He has given promises. When Moses asks what answer he shall return to the Israelites if they inquire the name of the God Who sent him, the Lord replies;-- "I AM THAT I AM": "Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you." ([ccxxxix]239) Now in the Hebrew, not the present, but the future of the verb "to be" is used; and from the future the name Jehovah is derived. But the Hebrew future has a peculiar signification: it is often used to express a permanent state, that which exists and always will exist. Hence the words rendered "I AM THAT I AM" might be more intelligently translated "I EVER SHALL BE THAT WHICH I AM." And thus "Jehovah" signifies the immutable God, the Same yesterday, to-day, and for ever, Whose purpose no circumstances can affect, Whose promises can in no wise fail.
Whenever, therefore, we read of Abraham pitching his tent in some new place, rearing an altar there, and calling upon the name of Jehovah, ([ccxl]240) we must regard him as appealing to God for protection and aid in his apparently aimless wanderings on the ground of the promises made to him.
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Again: "What," asks the Psalmist, "shall I render unto Jehovah for all His benefits toward me?" ([ccxli]241) And the answer is;-- "I will take the cup of salvation, and call upon the name of Jehovah." That is, I will thankfully accept the deliverance which God has wrought for me, and, calling upon Him by His name Jehovah, will thereby glorify Him as the immutable One Who never fails to redeem His promises.
Lastly; Joel tells us that in the dread time, immediately before the appearing of Christ and His Church in glory, when the world is affrighted with signs in the heavens and on the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke; when the sun is withdrawing its light, and the silver moon is reddening to a bloody hue--that, in that awful hour, whosoever shall call upon the name of Jehovah shall be saved. ([ccxlii]242) The reference, as the context plainly shows, is to be the Jewish remnant; and the meaning, that if any man warned by the fearful sights around him shall bethink himself of the promises to Israel, and appeal to his Maker by the covenant name on the ground of those promises, he shall be saved.
It is easy, therefore, to see the meaning of the phrase as applied to the Sethites. The descendants of Cain, worshipping nothing more than the creating and ruling Elohim, and, consequently, having no promises on which to rest, settled themselves as well as they could in the world, and used their best endeavours to do away with the inconveniences of the curse. The Sethites, on the other hand, made no attempt to kick against the pricks, or to avoid the chastisement of God, but looked to Him for relief, relied upon His prediction of the delivering Seed, and began to address Him by His covenant name Jehovah, to keep alive their hope, and to express their trust in His promise.
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Hence they seem to have shown somewhat of the spirit which, many centuries later, actuated the Thessalonian Christians: ([ccxliii]243) they made no idols for themselves upon earth, but served the living and true God, and waited for His Son from heaven.
Enoch the first of the prophets. A curious coincidence strikes us here. In the account of the Cainites, after a few particulars of Cain's history, just intimating the direction in which he guided his posterity, there follows a mere list of names till we come to Lamech, the seventh from Adam. Then we have a momentary glimpse of the first murderer's city, and find lawlessness and violence developing in it, while its inhabitants are making strenuous efforts to attain to happiness without God.
In the same manner we hear of Seth's humble confession of weakness, and that his community then began to call upon the name of Jehovah. And this if followed by a bare register of births and deaths till we come to Enoch, the seventh from Adam in Seth's line. Then the chronicle halts for a moment, and a few words records an event of surpassing importance.
As evil had culminated in Lamech, so had godliness in Enoch: for he walked with God, and had this testimony, that he pleased Him. ([ccxliv]244) But the dark shadow of the end was already beginning to fall upon the world. Wickedness had increased to such an extent that not only was the inability of man to recover himself demonstrated, but even the necessity of bringing the trial to a speedy close. The Lord, therefore, bestowed a new power upon Enoch, and sent him forth as the first prophet to testify against the sin of the world, and to proclaim that the times of forbearance would soon have run their course.
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Filled with the Spirit of God he moved among men preaching of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, and doubtless caused many to tremble. But there was very little permanent result: none save the prophet himself was thought worthy to escape the things which were coming on the earth. He alone was caught up to heaven before the perilous times of the great antediluvian tribulation commenced, being taken out of the world about six hundred and sixty-nine years before the flood. And although so many intervening centuries may seem a long respite, we must remember that, owing to the length of life in those days, the time would not be equivalent to more than fifty or sixty years with us.
[The single extant specimen of Enoch's prophecy is concerned with a yet future event.] The only utterance of this primeval seer which has come down to us is preserved in the Epistle of Jude. It runs as follows;-- "Behold the Lord cometh ([ccxlv]245) 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." ([ccxlvi]246)
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These words do not refer, finally at least, to the Deluge, but concern our times, and point to the appearing of our Lord in glory with His Church. Had the prophecy descended to us without an inspired comment, it would doubtless have been made subservient to the "spiritualising" theory. An exclusive reference to the flood would have been assumed, and we should have been admonished to observe that the coming of the Lord is merely a figurative expression for a mighty judgment, and does not signify a personal advent. But such a perversion of meaning is impossible; for Jude tells us that in his time, after the ascension of Christ to the Father, the prediction was still awaiting its fulfillment. Hence, therefore, the reason of its preservation, because it refers to the personal appearing of the Saviour to close the present age. And Enoch's knowledge of this appearing, some five thousand years before it was to take place, shows us that the secrets of God are ever with them that fear Him; while at the same time it testifies to the vast importance of that event, the first stage of which we should now be hourly expecting.
Doubtless, too, the prophecy was fraught with peculiar consolation to the godly part of Seth's posterity, toiling as they were beneath the curse, and longing for the promised deliverance. For it is at the Lord's appearing that the battle shall at last be turned to the disaster of the serpent and his seed: it is then that the redemption of all creation from sin and death--the price of which was paid to the full upon the cross--shall be at length commenced after all the weary centuries of delay.
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[Enoch's translation is a type of the future rapture of the Church to meet the Lord in the air.] Enoch, then, continued walking with God, and testifying to the world, until his three hundred and sixty-fifth year, when he suddenly vanished: he was not: he had gone, and none could find him. For he had been caught up to the throne of the Most High, a first hint of the great secret that, although God made the earth for men, and intends them to inhabit it for ever, He, nevertheless, purposes to exalt an election from among them to a higher destiny, even to dwell with Christ in the heavenly places.
And in this translation of Enoch before the terrible times of Noah we have a type of the manner in which the waiting Church will be presently summoned to meet Christ in the air, and so to be ever with Him, before the corruption of the world comes to its worst, before the judgments of the day of the Lord commence. For the world heard no sound of a trumpet, saw no lightning flash, when Enoch was suddenly removed: he merely disappeared, and his companions, perhaps, knew not at first whither he had gone. Nay, it may be that they vainly sought him, even as the sons of the prophets sought Elijah for three days amid the mountains and valleys of Jericho. And so, probably, will it be at the translation of the Church; the Saviour will come unexpectedly, as a thief in the night, and steal away His own from the unsuspecting world. Their beds will be found vacant in the morning, or they will vanish from their customary places in the day; there will be no farewells to those whom they love, but have been unable to entice into their own paths: all that may be recorded of their end will be as the record of Enoch's departure, They were not: for God took them.
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[This view appears to be confirmed by the testimony of Scripture.] Perhaps it may be objected to this parallel that, in Paul's description of the rapture of the Church, the Lord is said to descend from the high heavens with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God. ([ccxlvii]247) This, at first sight, seems to intimate that there will be at least a momentary proclamation of what is going on. But we must remember that Paul is writing, not to mankind in general, but only to the waiting Church. It does not, therefore, follow that the whole earth will be disturbed by the summons; but only, of necessity, that those who are concerned will hear.
That this will be the case among the dead is certain; for our Lord Himself tells us that, when He gives the signal for the first resurrection, all those who hear shall live. ([ccxlviii]248) But the rest of the dead will not hear, and, therefore, will not live until the thousand years of the Millennium are ended. And as with the dead, so will it probably be with the living. For although there is ample Scriptural proof that the Church will be removed from earth before the close of the age, there is, nevertheless, no trace in prophetic passage of the world being suddenly alarmed at that time by the voice of Christ and the trump of God. The Lord's own declarations that, although unmistakable signs and wonders shall herald His glorious appearing to the world, He will come for His own as unexpectedly and noiselessly as a their in the night, evidently point in the same direction. So does the fact that the details of the Church's translation seem to correspond to those of Enoch, of Elijah, and of the Lord Himself; neither of which events was seen by, or in any way immediately affected, the world.
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It may be that those who are believers in Christ, and, therefore, a part of His redeemed; who have offered up the sacrifice on the brazen altar, but have not yet been sufficiently cleansed and sanctified in the laver, and are thus not ready to pass into the heavenly Tabernacle--it may be that these will have some intimation of the summons, only to feel their own inability to obey it for the present. They may be as Elisha witnessing the departure of Elijah: or as the disciples on the mount of Olives when they beheld the cloud receiving their Master out of their sight, but were not yet prepared to follow Him.
[Real meaning of kevleusma, which our translators have inadequately rendered "a shout."] It is, however, worth while, before we pass on, to notice that the shout, with which Paul describes the Lord as descending, is no mere sound uttered to be heard generally. For the Greek word kevleusma properly means a "bidding," and was then used technically for the word of command given by either a naval or military officer.
The idea, therefore, to be conveyed is, that the Church resembles an army, the soldiers of which have already received orders to prepare for marching, have already been bidden to fall into rank, and to stand with girded loins and attentive ears ready to move simultaneously the instant the word of command is uttered by its great Leader. But there are some who, although they belong to the host, have neglected the first orders to be ready and watch, and are not expecting the second. These will be thrown into confusion by the sudden signal to march, and, being unable to follow at once, will have to rejoin their comrades by a circuitous and perilous route, the greater part of which will be disputed by powerful bands of the then assembled and doubly malignant foe.
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[The prophecy of Lamech and its fulfilment.] The first prophet thus passed away in a moment from the toils of life into the presence of God, and left behind him his son Methuselah and his grandson Lamech, which last was the father of Noah. The name Noah signifies "rest," and Lamech bestowed it upon his son with the words; -- "This same shall comfort us concerning our work and toil of our hands, because of the ground which the Lord hath cursed." ([ccxlix]249) Now this utterance cannot be a mere vague expression of joy at the birth of the child: for if so, it would scarcely have been recorded. But we know that Lament's grandfather and son were prophets; and, perhaps, the gift, when once bestowed, was transmitted to each head of the family, so that Enoch, Methuselah, Lamech, and Noah, were a line of witnesses appointed by God to testify against the wickedness of the world, and to declare His purpose of judgment.
Hence the words of Lamech were probably prophetic, and found their accomplishment in some alleviation of the curse after the flood. For from the blessing of God when He accepted Noah's sacrifice we may, perhaps, infer that the condition of earth before the Deluge was worse than at any subsequent time. ([ccl]250) The seasons would seem to have been irregular and altogether uncertain; there was no rain, and the mists, by which the earth was watered, may have been scanty and infrequent, so that the antediluvians often spent their strength in vain: their land did not yield its increase; neither did the trees yield their fruit. Dense fogs, too, or other unknown causes, may have interfered with the alternations of day and night. The curse was fresh and in full vigour: or, perhaps, these disasters arose from premonitory disturbances of nature similar to those which will precede the great judgment of our own age.
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But when, after Noah's sacrifice, the Lord smelled a sweet savour, He said;-- "I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake... While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night, shall not cease." ([ccli]251) Man should still toil and struggle against many difficulties; but God would henceforth give him fixed seasons, would allow him, as a rule, to be always sure of some fruit of his labours. And it is not unlikely that the gift of rain contributed still further to mitigate the intense hardship of the curse; while the permission to eat animal food provided an altogether easier way of obtaining a large portion of the necessary sustenance.
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[The history of Noah's times is a subject of great practical importance to us.] The sixth chapter of Genesis contains an account of the days of Noah, a description of momentous interest to us: for our Lord has declared that a similar epoch of worldliness will at length exhaust the forbearance of God towards the present dwellers upon earth, and cause Him to come with fire, and with His chariots like a whirlwind, to render His anger with fury, and His rebuke with flames of fire; to plead with all flesh by fire and by His sword. ([cclii]252)
It becomes, therefore, an obvious duty to consider the progress of wickedness and corruption among the antediluvians, so far as it has pleased God to inform us of it: to acquaint ourselves, not merely with the sowing, but also with the watering, the growth, and the ripening, of that hideous crop against which the gleaming sickle of the Almighty at length flashed forth from heaven; to note the various incentives to evil as they successively appeared, and to observe the particular influence of each upon the rapidly decomposing masses of society. For by so doing we shall arm ourselves against the errors and temptations which are daily multiplying around us, and be enabled to discern the threatening signs of our own times.
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[The characteristics of those times. Increase of population.] Now the first mentioned characteristic of those former days of wickedness and peril is the rapid increase of population; ([ccliii]253) a circumstance which in itself has ever tended, not merely to diffuse, but at the same time to intensify sin. For every form of evil which exists in thinly populated countries, will also be found where men have multiplied; while there are countless vices peculiar to crowded districts. And, if they are numerous, men support each other in rebellion, and are prone to become far more daring and defiant of God. Among ourselves, the strongholds of rationalism and atheism are always to be found in large cities.
[Rapid advance in civilization, art, and science.] But while the families of the earth were thus increasing in number, they were at the same time making vast progress in civilization and knowledge. Cain had taught them to settle in communities and build cities; ([ccliv]254) and the sons of Lamech--speedily followed, no doubt, by many others-- had introduced the mechanical and fine arts, and had devised unlawful means of evading the labour imposed by the curse. ([cclv]255) And in that age, when, instead of being cut off at three score and ten or four score, men lived on for nearly a thousand years, their immense accumulation of knowledge, experience, and skill, must have advanced science, art, and the invention and manufacture of all the appliances of a luxurious civilization, with the rapidity to us almost inconceivable.
The one recorded specimen of antediluvian industry, the ark, was built by a Sethite; and yet it equalled in size the Great Eastern, the ship which but a few years ago afforded such marvel to ourselves, and which has not since been surpassed.
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And doubtless many of the mighty labours accomplished by the earlier descendants of Noah may be considered to have sprung from reminiscences of pristine grandeur, and fragments of lore, handed down by forefathers who had passed a portion of their existence in the previous age of human glory and depravity. Such may have been the daring conception of a literally cloud-capped tower; the stupendous and splendidly decorated edifices of Babylon and Nineveh; and the wondrous structure of the first pyramid, involving, as it apparently does, an accurate knowledge of astronomical truth which would seem to have been at least on a level with the vaunted advances of modern science. For all these great efforts, to be remembered, were in progress during the lifetime of Shem, and probably in that of his brothers also.
Nor must we forget recent discoveries in regard to the primeval civilization of the Accadians, "the stunted and oblique-eyed people of ancient Babylonia," whose very existence was unknown to us fifty years ago. Their language was dying out, and had become a learned dialect, like the Latin of the Middle Ages, in the seventeenth century before Christ. And yet so great had been their intellectual power that the famous library of Agane, founded at that time by Sargon I., was stocked with books "which were either translated from Accadian originals, or else based on Accadian texts, and filled with technical words which belonged to the old language." A catalogue of the astronomical department, which has been preserved, contains a direction to the reader to write down the number of the tablet or book which he requires, and apply for it to the librarian. "The arrangement," says Sayce, "adopted by Sargon's librarians must have been the product of generations of former experience." Could we have a stronger proof "of the development of literature and education, and of the existence of a considerable number of reading people in this remote antiquity"?
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According to Berosus there was an antediluvian "Town of Books" in Babylonia; and Sisuthrus, the Chaldean Noah, "Is made to bury his books at Sippara before the Deluge, and to disentomb them after the descent from the Ark." But, apart from tradition, we have evidence that in very early times there were well-known libraries at Erech, Ur, Cutha, and Larsa, to which observatories and universities were attached. ([cclvi]256)
If, then, we give but their fair weight to these considerations, we seem compelled to admit that the antediluvians may have attained to the perfection in civilization and high culture which has scarcely yet been recovered, much as we pride ourselves upon our own times.
[Union of the families of Cain and Seth.] Since we have no further mention of the Cainites as a separate tribe, and since of the Sethites--who must also have increased in numbers--but one person was translated to God from the evil to come, and only eight were saved through that evil, it is clear that the two families had at length mingled and intermarried. Seduced, probably by the intellectual pursuits, the gay society, and the easy life, of the wicked, the Sethites first found a pleasure in their company, their luxuries, and their many skilful and ingenious inventions; were then enticed to yoke themselves unequally with unbelievers; and, so, being drawn into the vortex of sin, disappeared as a separate people.
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Sad and instructive was the result of this amalgamation: for when the time of dividing came, no true worshippers of Jehovah were to be found save in the single family of Noah. Men seem to have so prized their own wisdom, to have thought so little of God, that their religion had dwindled to a mere hero-worship of their own famous leaders, ([cclvii]257) those who, Prometheus-like, brought to them by their inventions the necessaries and comforts of life, and so enabled them for the time to foil the purposes of the Supreme Power.
[Irruption of fallen angels into the world of men.] Then a new and startling event burst upon the world, and fearfully accelerated the already rapid progress of evil. "The sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose." ([cclviii]258) These words are often explained to signify nothing more than the intermarriage of the descendants of Cain and Seth; but a careful examination of the passage will elicit a far deeper meaning.
When men, we are told, began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, the sons of God saw the daughters of men. ([cclix]259) Now by "men" in each case the whole human race is evidently signified, the descendants of Cain and Seth alike. Hence the "sons of God" are plainly distinguished from the generation of Adam.
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[The "sons of God" are angelic beings.] Again; the expression "sons of God [Elohim]" occurs but four times in other parts of the Old Testament, and is in each of these cases indisputably used of angelic beings.
Twice in the beginning of the Book of Job we read of the sons of God presenting themselves before Him at stated times, and Satan also comes with them as being himself a son of God, though a fallen and rebellious one." ([cclx]260)
For the term sons of Elohim, the mighty Creator, seems to be confined to those who were directly created by the Divine hand, and not born of other beings of their own order. Hence, in Luke's genealogy of our Lord, Adam is called a son of God. ([cclxi]261) And so also Christ is said to give to them that receive Him power to become the sons of God. ([cclxii]262) For these are born again of the Spirit of God as to their inner man even in the present life. And at the resurrection they will be clothed with a spiritual body, a building of God; ([cclxiii]263) so that they will then be in every respect equal to the angels, being altogether a new creation. ([cclxiv]264)
The third repetition of the phrase occurs in a later chapter of Job, where the morning stars are represented as singing together, and the sons of God as shouting for joy, over the creation of our earth. ([cclxv]265)
And lastly; the same expression is found in the Book of Daniel; ([cclxvi]266) but in the singular number, and with the necessary difference that bar is the word used for son instead of ben, the singular of the latter being unknown in Chaldee. Nebuchadnezzar exclaims that he sees four men walking in the midst of the fire, and that the form of the fourth is like a son of God, ([cclxvii]267) by which he evidently means a supernatural or angelic being, distinct as such from the others.
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It appears, therefore, that in the Old Testament the title "sons of God" is restricted to angels. ([cclxviii]268) Several passages are indeed adduced to prove its application to men: but upon examination they will all be found wide of the mark, the words of the original being in every case different, and sometimes signifying sons of Jehovah. This last, as we have already seen, is a very different expression, and would probably have been used by the inspired historian in the verse under our consideration if he had wished to distinguish the godly descendants of Seth from the Cainites. For, while it forms a true description of all saints upon earth, it would have been in this place peculiarly appropriate to the Sethites just after the mention of the fact that they had been wont from the birth of Enos to call upon the name of Jehovah.
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[They are identical with the sinning angels mentioned by Peter and Jude.] It thus appears that the sons of God are angelic beings: and the mysterious statement respecting them in the sixth chapter of Genesis seems to refer to a second and deeper apostacy on the part of some of the High Ones on high. But these more daring rebels are not found among the spirits of darkness which now haunt the air. They no longer retain their position as principalities and powers of the world, or even their liberty; but may be identified with the imprisoned criminals of whom Peter tells us that, after they had sinned, God spared them not, "but cast them down to Hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment." ([cclxix]269) Jude also mentions their present condition in similar terms, ([cclxx]270) and the context of either passage indicates with sufficient clearness the nature of their sin. They chose to leave their own world, and, having broken through God's limits into another, to go after strange flesh; therefore He dashed them down at once to His lowest dungeons as an instant punishment of their impious outrage, and to deprive them for ever of the power of producing further confusion.
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[The Lord look down upon the world.] The verse following the announcement of the angels' sin is a parenthesis of solemn import: ([cclxxi]271) the scene is for a moment shifted from the fearfully increasing wickedness of earth, and transferred to the Heaven of heavens. There the visible God sits enthroned, and, looking down upon the rebellion and sin beneath Him, pronounces sentence of doom upon the unconscious world. The end must come: His spirit shall not always strive with men, seeing that they are irrecoverably overpowered by the desires of the flesh: yet they shall have a further respite of one hundred and twenty years.
[Meaning of the word Nephilim.] Then the history is resumed with a brief hint at the cause which the sons of God and the daughters of men, both before and after the flood. ([cclxxii]272) Our translators have again omitted a definite article in the beginning of this verse, which should be rendered, "The Nephilim--or fallen ones--were on the earth in those days, and also afterwards, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men."
Through a misapprehension of the Septuagint, which we will presently explain, the English version renders Nephilim by "giants." But the form of the Hebrew word indicates a verbal adjective or noun, of passive or neuter signification, from Naphal, to fall: hence it must mean "the fallen ones," that is, probably, the fallen angels. Afterwards, however, the term seems to have been transferred to their offspring, as we may gather from the only other passage in which it occurs. In the evil report which the ten spies give of the land of Canaan, we find them saying;-- "All the people which we saw in it were men of great stature. And there we saw the Nephilim, the sons of Anak, descended from the Nephilim: and we seemed to ourselves as grasshoppers, and so we did to them." ([cclxxiii]273)
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It was doubtless the mention of the great stature of these men, together with the Septuagint rendering givgante", that suggested our translation "giants." The roots of the Greek givga" have, however, no reference to great stature, but point to something very different. The word is merely another form of ghgenhv": it signifies "earth-born," and was used of the Titans, or sons of Heaven and Earth--Coelus and Terra--because, though superior to the human race, they were, nevertheless, of partly terrestrial origin. The meaning of "giants," in our sense of the term, is altogether secondary, and arose from the fact that these beings of mixed birth were said to have displayed a monstrous growth and strength of body. It will, therefore, be apparent that the rendering of the Septuagint correctly expresses the idea which was in the mind of the translator, since he appears to have taken Nephilim in each case to signify the offspring of the sons of God and the daughters of men. We, however, as we have explained above, prefer understanding the word primarily of the fallen angels themselves.
[The residence of the fallen angels upon earth was the immediate cause of their alliances with the daughters of men.] Now, in speaking of the sin of some of these, Jude ([cclxxiv]274) tells us that, despising the position of dignity and responsibility in which God had placed them, they voluntarily left their own home in the Kingdom of the Air, prompted it would seem by earthward desires, and began to exercise an unlawful influence over the human race. And, perhaps, as punishment, their return was prohibited; they were banished altogether from heaven, and confined to the limits of earth; just as Satan and the remainder of his angels will be hereafter, a short time before the appearing of Christ to cast them into the still lower abyss.
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But, however this may be, they were from some cause dwelling upon earth at the time, and the fact is apparently mentioned to account for their intermarriages with the daughters of men. If, then, their continued residence below was voluntary, they soon passed on to a far more frightful sin: if, on the contrary, it was penal, instead of humbling themselves under the mighty hand of God, and patiently enduring until He remitted His just punishment, they did not hesitate to defy Him still more daringly, and to violate the law of their being. ([cclxxv]275)
The assertion of a similar occurrence after the Deluge agrees with the passage in Numbers where the sons of Anak are said to have been Nephilim, or of the Nephilim; ([cclxxvi]276) and seems also to account for God's command that the whole race of the Canaanites should be extirpated. For immediately after the commission of the antediluvian sin, the doom of the world was pronounced: and prophecy intimates that the future confinement of the angels of darkness to earth will be the proximate cause of the great rebellion which will call forth the Lord Jesus in flaming fire to take vengeance. ([cclxxvii]277)
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The children of these unlawful connections before the flood were the renowned heroes of old: the subsequent repetition of the crime doubtless gave rise to the countless legends of the loves of the gods, and explains the numerous passages in the Classics, as well as in the ancient literature of other languages, in which human families are traced to a half Divine origin.
Before passing on, we should, perhaps, notice the most common objection to our interpretation, which is, that angels, as spiritual beings, could not take wives of the daughters of men. We are, however, unable to recognise the cogency of such an argument, because those who advance it lay claim to a more intimate acquaintance with angelic nature than we can concede as possible. On this point, therefore, we will merely quote a passage from Augustine--an opponent of the angel-theory--containing an admission which has been made by many other writers of various ages and climes, and which, absurd as it may have seemed to ourselves some years ago, is now rendered more probable by the disclosures of modern Spiritualism.
After citing the hundred and fourteenth Psalm to prove that angels are spirits, the great theologian proceeds as follows: ([cclxxviii]278)--
"However, that angels have appeared to men in bodies of such a nature that they could not only be seen but even touched, the same most true Scripture declares. Moreover, there is a very general rumour that Silvans and Fauns, who are commonly termed incubi, improbos saepe exstitisse mulieribus et earum appetiss ac peregisse concubitum. Many trustworthy persons assert that they have had personal experience of this, or that they have been informed by those who have experienced it. And that certain demons, whom the Gauls call Dusii, are continually attempting and effecting the crime is so generally affirmed that it would seem impudent to deny it." ([cclxxix]279)
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So Augustine. And that Paul had some such thought in his mind when he bade the woman to worship with covered head "on account of the angels," ([cclxxx]280) is, to say the least, within the limits of possibility.
[The earth becomes corrupt and filled with violence. Simultaneous progress of luxury and refinement. Historical parallels.] The foundations of established order being thus destroyed by the irruption of the fallen angels, the whole world became corrupt, and its morals were inverted. Men no longer recognised a God to Whom personally all obedience and worship is first due, and Whose equal relation to all men as their Creator imperatively demands from each a love for his neighbour as great as that which he bears to himself. But they judged that whatsoever was pleasant to any man was also right for him; and after thus bursting the bands of God asunder and casting His cords from them, it was not long before they went on to believe that the attainment of a desired end justified every means, that the coveted possession must be secured even it if were necessary to use deceit or violence. Blinded by the selfishness of the flesh, which can see nothing beyond itself, they pursued their several objects without consideration or even thought of their fellows, except when any either stood in the way or might be made subservient. And hence there sprang up a thick crop of frauds and assassinations, of open quarrels and violence, till the whole earth was filled with corruption and bloodshed.
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And yet all this seems to have existed side by side with luxury, a refined culture, and a love of art and music. Such minglings of things apparently incongruous have not been infrequent in postdiluvial times. The profligacy, immorality, and sensuous intellectuality of Athens is an example.
A parallel might also be sought in the descriptions given by Tacitus, Juvenal, and others, of the times of the Caesars. For then the whole body of society was corrupted, and even the streets of Rome were accustomed to violence. And yet the worse of vices, the most absolute immorality, the most profligate gluttony, the most wanton cruelty, prevailed in company with a splendid magnificence, a high appreciation of music, sculpture, and art generally, and a taste for literature, and especially for poetry, so great that recitations and readings were a common amusement. A very characteristic production of this age was the philosopher Seneca, who has been lately termed a seeker after God, on account of his books on morals, but who did not find the writing of beautiful sentiments any hindrance to a life of shocking depravity, and who presented to the world, as the fruit of his combined teaching and example, the proverbial monster Nero.
Nor were the times of Leo the Tenth without resemblance to the days of Noah; when that famous Pontiff, seated amid every possible sensuous and intellectual refinement, and surrounded by the most brilliant cluster of stars that has ever adorned the firmament of art, exclaimed;-- "This Christianity! how profitable a farce it has proved to us!" When in a time which produced paintings, sculpture, and architecture, still marvels to the world, the sin as it rose day by day would expose the floating corpses of the assassinated in the Tiber; and infidelity and lawlessness kept such rapid pace with the culture of the beautiful that even Machiavelli, who will not be accused of too tender a conscience, declared that Italy had lost all principles of piety, and all religious feeling; that the Italians had become a nation of impious cut-throats.
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[God looks down a second and a third time, and then reveals to Noah His purpose to destroy all flesh.] Such, though on a far greater scale, was the wickedness of the antediluvian world. But the end was approaching. God looked down a second time upon the spreading demoralization beneath Him. ([cclxxxi]281) and saw that it would be necessary, at the close of the years of respite, to sweep man and beast, creeping thing and fowl, from the face of the earth.
Yet a third time the Creator beheld, and lo! evil had made such fearful progress that all flesh had corrupted it way upon earth. ([cclxxxii]282) Then He foretold the impending ruin to Noah, who alone found grace in His sight, and instructed him how he might avoid the universal doom. The commands laid upon the patriarch were a strong trial of his faith. He was to proclaim the speedy coming of a catastrophe which to unbelievers would appear simply irrational, of an overwhelming flood which should sweep away all life from the face of the whole earth.
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[Unavailing preaching of Noah.] It may be that men felt a momentary uneasiness at the first utterance of this prophecy of woe. Discussions may have taken place similar to those among ourselves, when the conjectured possibility of a collision between the earth and Donati's comet caused a brief anxiety to those who believed in it. But, this qualm over, we can readily picture to ourselves the contempt and derision which must have been poured upon the prophet. Our own times will teach us how the men of science soon proved that such a thing as a universal flood was an absolute impossibility, contrary to all the known laws of nature. And since Noah persisted, the world doubtless settled down into a belief that he was a weak-minded fanatic, void of intellect, and altogether unworthy of notice.
[Noah builds the ark, and is commanded to enter into it. God closes the door behind him.] But Noah was not only directed to foretell the approaching doom: he was also bidden to make open preparations for avoiding it, preparations, too, of vast magnitude, and such as must have attracted general attention. And a grievous burden it undoubtedly was to endure the scoffs and deridings with which he must have been continually assailed while building his immense ship on the dry land, far, it may be, from any water; but by faith he persevered, and at last the days of his trial drew on to their close.
None had listened to his warnings: not one beyond the inner circle of his own family was accounted worthy to be saved. But the ark was now completed, and he was instructed to enter it with his wife, his sons and their wives, and all the creatures which were impelled by God to go with him. He was at no loss to understand the significance of the command; he knew well that the wrath of God was being restrained only till those which should be saved had been taken out of the way; and we can imagine his feelings as he watched the long procession slowing filing into the ark, and at length followed in its rear, leaving the unconscious world, friends and foes alike, in the inexorable grasp of destruction.
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It may be that after entering he returned to the door, appalled at the thought of what was about to happen, and moved to make one more effort, one last impassioned appeal, if perchance he might constrain some few, at least, to flee to the shelter. But, if he did, he found the entrance to the ark closed: God had shut it: there was none that could open. Affrighted crowds might gather around imploring admittance; but Noah had no longer the power to aid them: the separation had been made: eight persons were safe within the ark, and the whole remainder of mankind was shut out for judgment: the acceptable year had passed by, the days of vengeance were come.
[The world continues unconscious to the last.] And yet, as our Lord Himself tells us, the doomed multitudes knew it not. They had often heard, but had refused to listen: the voice of the prophet had seemed to them as the voice of one that mocked. Even on the morning of the fatal day, earth resounded with the noise of revelry and merriment; men were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, they were absorbed in the pleasures of the moment, and discerned not the slowly rising spectre of Death amid the gathering clouds, the destroyer, with uplifted scythe, about to mow down all flesh at one fell stroke.
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[God withdraws His restraints from the element of water, and the flood ensues.] But their dream of security was at length rudely dispelled: the shouts of riotous joy and laughter were first softened into whispers of breathless anxiety, and then exchanged for shrieks of despair. On the day in which Noah entered into the ark the windows of heaven were opened, and the waters that were above the firmament began to descend. The world wondered; and then, remembering the words of Noah, trembled at the fast falling raindrops, the first they had even beheld. ([cclxxxiii]283)
Now was this all. A fearful roaring from the sea announced that some mighty convulsion, equally beyond the calculation of the scientific men of the day, had commenced in the great deep. All its sealed fountains were bursting up: God had removed the bounds of ocean; its proud waves were no longer stayed, but were rising with prodigious tumult, and beginning to advance again upon the dry land.
What scenes of horror must have been presented beneath the dismal rainfall at this awful time! What affrighted groups! What countenances of dismay! What shrieks of terror! What faintings for fear! What headlong flights to any place which appeared to offer safety for the moment!
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Mercy mingled with judgment. Ye the mercy of God seems even then to have been mingled with his judgment. Ordinary means had failed with these sinners. They had received warning after warning; but their eyes were so immovable fixed upon the world and its amusements that they could not be induced to look off to God. Therefore he was compelled to destroy the life which they were abusing: He was constrained to overwhelm before their eyes all their palaces and fair gardens and places of delight, and to hurry the rebels themselves into the prison of disembodied spirits. Yet his mercy devised a doom which, though inexorable and complete, was, nevertheless, not instantaneous, but gave time for repentance before death, that by the destruction of the flesh the spirits of many might be saved.
[Earth is again covered with the waters of destruction.] The waters continued to increase: the ark was upborne upon them: and it may be that for a time its inmates ever and anon heard, mingling with the roar of the elements, the cries and prayers of some still surviving crowd of miserable ones who had taken refuge upon a height near to which they were floating. But this was soon over, and earth was again almost as it had been before the six days of restoration, covered above its highest mountain tops with a shoreless ocean, on the surface of which were drifting the dead bodies of the men who had transgressed against God, and the carcases of the beasts and creeping things and fowls which had been involved in their ruin.
Woful was the proof that man, if unrestrained, if left to his own devices, is not merely incapable of recovering his innocence, but will rush madly down the steep of sensuousness and impious self-will until he finds himself engulphed in the abyss of perdition. The trial of freedom had failed: the second of the ages was ended.
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[Retrospect.] We have thus endeavoured to trace the flow of history from its source to the great catastrophe which swept corruption and violence from the earth. WE have seen its clear spring proceeding from the throne of the Everlasting God, and have then lost sight of it as it wound it way through vast regions that may not be trodden by mortal foot. Once or twice we have climbed an accessible height, and from that far distance gazed with strained eyes upon something which sparkled in the rays of God's Word, and which we supposed to be the waters of the river we were seeking; but we could obtain no certain knowledge of the mysterious stream, until we saw its turbid and foaming torrent emerging in fearful cataract from between the dark mountains which conceal its previous course.
We have followed it into a land of delight, in which it gradually calmed and brightened again, while its banks teemed with all that is beautiful and lovely: we have traced it as it passed the limits of that joyous realm, and hurried through dry and barren tracts, with ever increasing volume and rapidity, till at length its agitated waters were violently engulphed in the great ocean of the flood.
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[The warning of Christ. Does it apply to our times?] We must not, however, dismiss the story of doom which we have just been considering without some reflections on the solemn warning drawn from it by the Saviour. "But as the days of Noah were," is His awful declaration, "so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be. For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be." ([cclxxxiv]284) Thus the closing scenes of this present age will be a reproduction of the day so Noah: the same intense worldliness, and the last positive inability to care for the things of God, which was displayed by the antediluvians, will also be characteristic of our world when Christ begins the judgments that will quickly culminate in the glory of His appearing.
It seems fair, then, to infer that this second manifestation of the spirit that worked in them which were disobedient before the flood will be effected by a conjunction of causes similar to that which formerly produced it. And hence, as we have already remarked, it becomes a matter of the greatest practical importance to comprehend those causes: for whenever they are again found to be simultaneously affecting the masses of the world's population, the fact will afford a strong presumption that we are drifting rapidly to the great consummation of wickedness; that the avenging glory of the Lord is about to be revealed, so that all flesh shall see it together.
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For us, therefore, the great question is, Are these fatal influences now in operation? Are they more universally characteristic of this epoch than of any other? Mature consideration has impelled many to return an affirmative answer: let us see whether facts warrant us in holding the same view. It is impossible to exaggerate our interest in the investigation. If the present times are only beginning to take the complexion of those of Noah, they send forth a piercing cry of warning, admonishing us to stand with our loins girded about and our lamps burning, waiting for the summons of the Lord. For He will remove His Church, as He removed Enoch, before the wickedness of man has come to its worst. He will take away that which He Himself has called the salt of the earth, and then the corruption of all flesh will go on unchecked, and the world speedily ripen for its doom.
[The seven causes of antediluvian corruption.] Are they all in present operation? The seven great causes of the antediluvian apostacy have been already noticed, and may be summed up as follows.
I. A tendency to worship God as Elohim, that is, merely as the Creator and Benefactor, and not as Jehovah the covenant God of mercy, dealing with transgressors who are appointed to destruction, and finding a ransom for them.
II. An undue prominence of the female sex, and a disregard of the primal law of marriage.
III. A rapid progress in the mechanical arts, and the consequent invention of many devices whereby the hardships of the curse were mitigated, and life was rendered more easy and indulgent. Also a proficiency in the fine arts, which captivated the minds of men, and helped to induce an entire oblivion of God.
IV. An alliance between the nominal Church and the World, which speedily resulted in a complete amalgamation.
V. A vast increase of population.
VI. The rejection of the preaching of Enoch, whose warnings thus became a savour of death unto the world, and hardened men beyond recovery.
VII. The appearance upon earth of beings from the Principality of the Air, and their unlawful intercourse with the human race.
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These causes concurred to envelope the world in a sensuous mist which no ray of truth could penetrate. They brought about a total forgetfulness of God and disregard of His will; and thus, by removing the great Centre Who alone is able to attract men from themselves, rendered the dwellers upon earth so selfish and unscrupulous that the world was presently filled with lewdness, injustice, oppression, and bloodshed. It remains, therefore, for us to consider whether similar influences are now acting upon society.
[The first cause may be detected in the universal spread of Deism.] And certainly we cannot but confess that the first mentioned cause is eminently characteristic of our times. For in all the professing Churches of Christendom, as well as among Jews, Mahometans, and Pagans, there are countless and ever-increasing multitudes who go in the way of Cain, ([cclxxxv]285) acknowledging the Supreme Being, but not recognising His holiness and their own depravity, and so denying all necessity of a Mediator between God and man. Many of these are willing to look upon Christ as some great one, and will talk of His wise philosophy and exemplary life; but they neither confess Him to be the Only Begotten Son of the Father, nor feel the need of His atonement. Consequently, they reject His revelation, as an absolute authority at least, trusting rather to the darkness within them which they call light; and thus, closing their eyes to the true relations of man with His Creator, form their own conceptions both of the Deity and of themselves. This involves nothing less than a claim on their part to supreme wisdom and authority: it is moulding an idol out of their own imagination before which to fall down and worship. Nor need we wonder that it leads to a virtual deification of men of transcendent intellect or great renown. Who has not detected the working of this leaven in his own circle? Who has not observed this "pure Theism," as it is called, rising to the surface in all the sects of Christendom?
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[Second cause. Change in the relation of the sexes, and violation of the law of marriage.] If the second cause be rightly inferred from the scanty hints given to us, it is also in operation at the present time: for the female sex has certainly commenced a migration into a new sphere and more prominent position. And the looseness in regard to the marriage tie, which has long obtained on the continent, is now spreading in England also, as we may see from the records of our recently established divorce courts. Nay, there are not wanting those who, instead of fearing to put asunder that which God has joined, openly affirm that wedlock should be a contract, not for life, but only for so long a time as may be agreeable to the contracting parties.
At the close of the previous dispensation the same sin was frequent among the Pharisees, who held that divorce is permissible for any reason; even, as Rabbi Akibah shamelessly says, "if a man sees a woman handsomer than his own wife." Hence the Lord's continual mention of adultery in His denunciations of the Pharisees: for the marriage after divorce which they legalized, He declared to be criminal. In the wonderful sermon contained in the fifteenth sixteenth and seventeenth chapters of Luke, He brings it forward with a starting abruptness, as a most open and undeniable sin, which would at once convict His hearers of having proved as disobedient to the Law and the Prophets as they were to the Gospel. ([cclxxxvi]286) We know the punishment which quickly overtook them for this and their lusts were extinguished in their blood: ;the fair walls and streets of their city were levelled with the ground: their beautiful temple in which they trusted perished in the flames, and the idolatrous shrine of Jupiter rose insultingly upon its ruins.
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[The third cause. Science, art, and luxury.] Of the third cause, the spread of science, art, and luxury, it is unnecessary to speak: for none will deny that this is a great characteristic of our days: nay, the fact is a common subject of boasting. And alas! how many instances have we of the self-deifying arrogance which frequently arises from a little knowledge of the laws of nature, or a marked success in those arts sciences and philosophies which are the delight of cultivated and refined intellects! ([cclxxxvii]287) With what confidence, too, and carelessness do men settle themselves amid the comforts and indulgences of this luxurious age! Seeing good only in the present life, how little thought do they give to God, how deaf are they to any mention of the World to Come! How incredulous, even if their mouths be not filled with mocking, when they hear but a whisper of that tempest of God's fury which will shortly burst upon the apathetic world, and hurry multitudes away from all that they love into the dungeons of His wrath!
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"For the day of the Lord of Hosts shall be upon every one that is proud and lofty, and upon every one that is lifted up, and he shall be brought low; and upon all the cedars of Lebanon, that are high and lifted up, and upon all the oaks of Bashan, and upon all the high mountains, and upon all the hills that are lifted up, and upon every high tower, and upon every fenced wall, and upon all the ships of Tarshish, and upon all pleasant pictures. And the loftiness of man shall be bowed down, and the haughtiness of men shall be made low: and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day." ([cclxxxviii]288) "Tremble, ye women that are at ease; be troubled, ye careless ones: strip you, and make you bare, and gird sackcloth upon your loins." ([cclxxxix]289) "I will send a fire on Magog, and among them that dwell carelessly in the isles: and they shall know that I am the Lord." ([ccxc]290)
The fourth cause. Fraternization of the nominal Church and the World. To reproduce the fourth cause the Prince of this World has long been striving, and certainly now seems near to his victory. It is the natural result of the first error, the denial of our position as sinners before God, as doomed to destruction unless a ransom be found. Let the Church surrender that truth, and what hinders her from living in prefect accord with the World? If the practical teaching of religion be that God is fairly satisfied with our conduct, troubles but little about our sins, highly appreciates our works of virtue, even though pride be their mainspring, and looks with pleasure upon bold deeds and intellectual displays, why should such a theology clash with the cravings of fallen men? How could they hate a deity so like to themselves?
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And have we not been describing the creed of vast numbers in the professing Church? Are not the walls of the city of God thus continually broken down before our eyes, so that the stranger may enter at will? Men do indeed frequent their churches and chapels in crowds: they excite a feeling, which they term religious, by grand buildings, by painted windows, by splendid vestments, by gorgeous ceremonies, by beautiful music, by sentimental or intellectual discourses, and by strong sectarian or political convictions. But if they clothe themselves with the semblance of devotion in their worship, they altogether lose this outward distinction in the world, and bewilder those who are honestly asking what they shall do to be saved by plunging into all the gaieties, frivolities, pursuits, and business, of this life, as if they were to remain among them for ever. They act as though God had promised that they at least should not be hurried out of the world as so many of their fellows are, but should have due warning and ample space and inclination for repentance. ([ccxci]291) They seem to be assured that they will never be unexpectedly startled by the dread sentence, "Thou fool, this night shall thy soul be required of thee"; ([ccxcii]292) nor suddenly appalled by the blast of the archangel's trumpet, and the thunder of the voice of God. They have conceded that it is rational to seek contentment and pleasure in an existence of awful brevity, which was only granted to them for the decision of one stupendous question, whether it shall be followed by everlasting life, or by shame and everlasting contempt. The powers of the World to Come have lost their hold upon them, they are even as other men: so many points have been yielded, amusements permitted, and vices condoned, that it is almost impossible to distinguish them from non-professors unless they recite their creed. Nay, some would appear to be holding a doctrine of the ancient Gnostics, who, denying the resurrection, affirmed that, their spirits being saved, they were at liberty to do what they would with the body, inasmuch as after death they would have no further concern either with it or its deeds. And although many are ready to confess that the Christian must take up his cross, yet being thoroughly satisfied that in these modern times the unwearied zeal of Christ and His apostles would be quite out of place, they can by no means find a cross to bear. If, however, God in His anger smite them with sickness, bereavement, disappointment, or loss, they talk of their trials, and comfort themselves with the thought that they are imitating the Lord by enduring troubles which they cannot in any way avoid.
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Oh that those who are thus blinded by Satan would consider while there is yet time; would earnestly and prayerfully meditate upon the words of the Lord Jesus, and interpret them by His most holy life! Then would they see the inconsistency of their position, and keenly feel they have been fulfilling to the letter the prophecy of the last times, that men should have a form of godliness, but deny the power thereof. ([ccxciii]293) For the world will allow the mere statement of any doctrine, provided no attempt be made to put it into practice. It is only when faith begins to produce works that the Christian is confronted with bitter antagonism; when he feels that he must redeem the time because the days are evil; when, being conscious of a dispensation committed to him, he is impelled to preach the Word in season and out of season, to speak as a dying man to dying men; when he can no longer take part in frivolous gaieties or time-killing pleasures, knowing that such things are but as a painted curtain used by the foul fiend to hide from men the brink of death on which they are walking, until the time comes to tear it away and thrust them over the precipice.
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If any be thus earnestly minded, they will have no difficulty in regard to the line of separation: they will quickly find the cross they have to bear: they will feel that, like their Master, they are not of this world, and will indeed have tribulation in it. But let them be of good cheer: for He is at hand, and great will be their joy at His coming.
Nor are the concessions of the nominal Church in point of doctrine less deplorable than those which concern conduct. We have before seen that men were ever prone to soften and corrupt those parts of God's Word which oppose their own thoughts and aspirations. But a strange and impious idea now prevalent is destroying the last vestiges of Biblical authority, and sweeping away every remaining barrier to peace between the professing Church and the World. This is a rapidly growing objection to what is called dogma. Now did the objection apply only to the too positive assertion by men of their own opinions, the sentiment would be wholesome: but upon inquiry we discover that "dogma" is practically a conventional term for the revelations and commandments of the Most High God. And many who profess a belief in the Bible, instead of strengthening "the things which remain, that are ready to die," ([ccxciv]294) are never weary of admonishing us to be charitable in regard to those who reject every vital doctrine of Scripture, and even deny the Lord Who bought them. We are told that, provided men be "honest," all will be well with them at last: that we must not be narrow minded: that there are other entrances into the fold besides the door: ([ccxcv]295) that those are not necessarily thieves and robbers who climb over the wall; but, it may be, bolder and more manly spirits than their fellows.
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It is easy to see that by such a line of reasoning all power is extracted from the Scriptures. Instead of being recognized as the living Word of Him Who shall hereafter judge the quick and the dead by the things which are written in them, they are regarded merely as an ordinary volume of advice to man, who, in assuming the right to accept or reject them at will, arrogantly places the crown of Deity upon his own head. And thus the great means which God has appointed for the separation of His Church from the World is destroyed: the light which reveals the continual peril and the fearful termination of the broad road is put out, and men go heedlessly on, amused with the trifles of the moment until they fall headlong into the jaws of the pit.
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[The fifth cause. Increase of the world's population.] Upon the fifth cause there is no need to enlarge. For, without troubling the census papers, almost every Englishman could speak of the rapid growth of his own neighbourhood. Nor has the world ever previously beheld so vast an aggregation of human life as that which our metropolis now exhibits. Yet at the same time crowds of emigrants are leaving the country, and filling the solitary places of the earth. And statistics show that the population of almost every part of the world is also increasing.
But, in addition to this, there is a phenomenon of gloomy portent. For, while they multiply, men are also beginning to exhibit impatience of restraint: and, since they are learning to act together, and seem to be growing inflated with reliance on their fancied power, they will probably soon go on to deeds of impious daring. Large organizations, which are no longer confined to the frontiers of one people, forbode a second rebellion of Babel. The time of the shaking of all nations is approaching, and the hearts of many are already failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth. Let believers consider their ways: for the Lord will shortly descend to see what the children of men are doing.
[The sixth cause. Increased callousness of the world consequent upon the rejection of Enoch's testimony.] Whenever the Word of God is faithfully preached it cannot return unto Him void: it will accomplish that which He pleases, and prosper in the thing whereto He sent it; ([ccxcvi]296) some effect must produce upon all who hear. It separates the wheat from the chaff: it either draws men nearer to God, or renders them more callous than before, and prepares them for speedy judgment. "For we are unto God," says Paul, "a sweet savour of Christ, in them that are being saved, and in them that are perishing. To the one we are the savour of death unto death; and to the other the savour of life unto life." ([ccxcvii]297)
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And so the powerful appeals of Enoch, his loud calls to repentance and threatenings of judgment to come, since they were slighted by the world, must have mightily hardened the hearts of men, and caused the Spirit of God to cease striving with them. Very probably many were at first impressed and alarmed: but after a while, when they saw day following day without any sign of the predicted vengeance, they lost their fear: they went back to their favourite sins, as the dog to his vomit: they could no longer be roused as before; they began to be scoffers, and mocked at the most solemn warnings: the demon, who had been for a brief space expelled, returned with seven others more wicked than himself: so that their last state was worse than the first. ([ccxcviii]298)
In this case also history appears to be repeating itself. For some fifty years God has supplied an unbroken stream of evangelical testimony which has been gradually increasing in power; and there is now sounding forth such a proclamation of the Gospel as the world has never, perhaps, heard since the days of the apostles. The Spirit has fallen upon the Church with Pentecostal vigour: revivals, missions at home and abroad, and the efforts of many individuals, have caused the conversion of thousands. Those who are really Christ's, seem to be strenuously urged by a sense of their responsibilities: they are going out into the streets and lanes, into the highways and hedges, constraining men to come in: the wedding-hall is rapidly filling with guests.
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And amid the calls to repentance and offers of grace, amid the mutual exhortations to walk as children of the light, there peals forth, waxing ever louder and louder, the solemn cry, "Behold, the Bridegroom cometh, go ye out to meet Him"; ([ccxcix]299) while the testimony of the faithful to the world is assuming its last form;-- "Fear God, and give glory to Him, for the hour of His judgment is come." ([ccc]300) Indications of this new epoch have been growing more and more apparent for some years, and many papers and periodicals have been devoted to the resuscitation of the long neglected truth so prominently set forth by our Lord and His apostles. Hundreds of books and pamphlets have been written on the same subject; while the majority of the later revival preachers, and a daily increasing number of other witnesses, have promulgated it to such an extent that it would now be difficult to find a moderately intelligent Christian who is ignorant of the great hope, even if he does accept it as his own.
There is also a significant change passing over this testimony, and rendering it far more consistent and powerful. For although but a short time has elapsed since the disagreement of prophetic writers was almost proverbial, the great body of them are now beginning to exhibit a wonderful harmony on all main points, and to proclaim that the solemn event which all should be awaiting is the command that will summon the Church into the presence of her Lord. We may, therefore, in several particulars find a remarkable analogy between the preaching of God's people in the present time and the prophesying of Enoch before the days of Noah.
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But the masses of the world are again rejecting God's more urgent appeals, and, as a natural consequence, His Spirit is ceasing to strive with them: infidelity and superstition are beginning to overshadow even the most favoured countries of Christendom. In our own land, how great an excitement was caused some twenty years ago by the publication of "Essays and Reviews": but that book, though hailed with such delight by those who were unwilling to submit to the Divine revelation, has now been swept out of memory by the flood of more daring infidel literature which has since been continually issuing from the press. How few of our newspapers, reviews, and periodicals, have escaped the contagion! How great a multitude of propagating secularists does our country contain, from the bold blasphemer coarsely inveighing against the Word of God, and either denying His existence or charging Him with injustice, to the refined and subtle reasoner who would fain make the ineffable light of his Creator pale before the flickering lamp of human intellect! It is, however, needless to enlarge on so obvious a matter, or to waste time in proving the simultaneous spread of Ritualism and Popery, which is now sufficiently evident even to the most careless observer; while in regard to the prevalence of sorcery we shall have more to say anon.
Have we not, then, reason to infer both from these apostacies, and from the general resemblance of our days to the perilous times of the end as described by Paul, ([ccci]301) that Christendom, as the inevitable punishment of a general rejection of the Gospel, is being judicially blinded and irremediably hardened?
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[The seventh cause. Unlawful intercourse with the denizens of the air.] The seventh and most fearful characteristic of the days of Noah was the unlawful appearance among men of beings from another sphere. This, many would quickly reply, is certainly an event which has not yet startled our age, strange as our experiences may be: we have still something at least to wait for before the completion of that fatal circle of influences which ruined the old world. But a diligent comparison of Scripture with the things that are now taking place among us will give a very different impression, and induce a strong conviction that the advanced posts of this last terrible foe have already crossed our borders. For it is no longer possible to deny the supernatural character of the apostacy called Spiritualism, which is spreading through the world with unexampled rapidity, and which attracts its votaries, and retains them within its grasp, solely by continual exhibitions of the miraculous. It is vain to speak of that power as mere jugglery which has convinced some of the elite of the literary world, which has caught in its meshes many scientific men, who at first only troubled to investigate for the purpose of refutation. Nor indeed can anything be more dangerous than utter incredulity: for the wholly incredulous, if suddenly brought face to face with the supernatural, is of all men the most likely to yield entire submission to the priests of the new wonder. Better far is it to prayerfully inquire whether these things are possible, and if so, in what light the Bible teaches us to regard them. We shall thus be armed against all the wiles of the Devil.
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But an exposition of the nature and history of Spiritualism of sufficient length to exhibit its apparent identity with the antediluvian sin is a serious matter, and must not be commenced at the end of a chapter.
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[The open interference of evil spirits with our world might be reasonably expected.] The mere mention of the supernatural is often received with a smile of incredulous contempt. And there are not a few professing Christians who manifest great anxiety to limit the number and extent of past miracles, and to obscure the possibility of their recurrence in the present time, though they do not venture upon an absolute denial of God's power to suspend or change His own laws. But that Satan can work wonders they will never allow: nay, in many cases they even refuse him a personal existence.
Surely such a state of mind must proceed either from ignorance or unbelief. For does not Paul speak of the working of Satan as being with all power and signs and wonders wrought in support of a lie? ([cccii]302) And the simple assertion of Scripture, that the air which envelopes our earth swarms with rebellious spirits, ought at least to prepare us for their occasional manifestation and open interference. Undoubtedly God has forbidden them either to communicate directly with man or to influence him for evil. Yet, since they are disobedient, and are not at present restrained by force, it is reasonable to believe that they sometimes break the former commandment even as they are continually defying the latter. And this supposition is confirmed by Scripture: for we find numerous allusions to dealings between men and demons in the Old Testament, while in the New witchcraft is treated as one of the manifest works of the flesh. ([ccciii]303)
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[The Mosaic laws against witchcraft referred to no mere imposture, but to an actual connection with fallen spirits.] "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." ([ccciv]304) was the injunction of the Lord by Moses. And that this law is not concerned with mere superstition or deception, but points to a wilful fellowship with the powers of evil, we may learn from the severity of the punishment. Yet many would persuade us that the numerous Biblical terms applied to the practisers of forbidden arts are merely intended to indicate different forms of imposture. One example will suffice to prove the folly of such an opinion.
In the twentieth chapter of Leviticus we find the following enactment;-- "A man also or woman that hath a familiar spirit, or that is a wizard, shall surely be put to death: they shall stone them with stones: their blood shall be upon them." ([cccv]305) How, then could an Israelitish judge decide in the case of a person arraigned under this law? Would not the whole issue depend upon the proof that the accused really had an attendant spirit? And is not the law an express declaration, not merely of the possibility, but also of the actual occurrence of such connections?
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[Scripture never denies the actual existence of the Heathen gods.] Indeed the Bible, as we have already seen, mentions many things which have no place in modern philosophies, and, among them, one which is of the utmost importance to our subject. Got it plainly recognises spiritual existences behind the idols of Heathenism, and affirms that these existences are demons. An attempt has been made to disprove this statement on the ground that two Hebrew words, the one signifying "nothings" and the other "vanities," are used as appellations of the Pagan gods, and that by such terms their non-existence is necessarily implied. But the fallacy of this inference may be exposed by a glance at the same words in other connections,
"Woe to the shepherd of nothing that forsaketh the flock!" ([cccvi]306) exclaims Zechariah. And certainly he does not speak of a purely imaginary shepherd, but of a worthless one, who is not what he pretends to be. Similarly Job, when he calls his friends "physicians of nothing," ([cccvii]307) does not mean to tell them that they are non-existent, but merely, as our version has expressed it, that they are "physicians of no value." The Jewish idea of the word as applied to Heathen deities may be seen in the Septuagint version of the ninety-sixth Psalm, where it is rendered by daimovnia. Hence the fifth verse is made to mean, "For all the gods of the nations are demons; but the Lord made the heavens." ([cccviii]308)
Again; the singular of the word for "vanities" is Abel, the name which Eve gave to her second son. But she had no intention of thereby denying the reality of his being. Nor when the preacher cries, "Vanity of vanities; all is vanity," ([cccix]309) can we understand him to be affirming the non-existence of the universe.
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It is, therefore, evident that these terms when applied to the Heathen gods do not dispute the fact of their being, but the truth of their pretensions. Real powers they are, but only finite ones; and hence they have no just claim to the title of gods.
[On the contrary, the Old Testament treats them as real potencies.] Scripture, then, contains nothing to disprove the existence of false gods, but, on the contrary, asserts and assumes it as a fact. For instance, when foretelling the death of the first-born of both man and beast, the Lord signified His intention of also punishing the gods of Egypt. ([cccx]310) And, in reference to the same event, Moses subsequently wrote;-- "For the Egyptians buried all their first-born, which the Lord had smitten among them: upon their gods also the Lord executed judgments." ([cccxi]311)
Again; in the tenth chapter of Deuteronomy we have the expression, "For Jehovah your God is the God of gods and the Lord of lords." ([cccxii]312) And numerous are the Scriptural assertions that Jehovah is highly exalted above all gods, to be feared above all gods, and so on.
If then, He executed judgment upon the gods of Egypt, they must have been living beings: if He is contrasted with other gods, they must be real existences.
[And plainly indicates that they are demons. The seirm and shedim.] Nor does the Old Testament omit to hint at the nature of these so-called deities, as the following verses will show.
"And they shall no more offer their sacrifices unto demons (Heb. seirim), after whom they have gone a whoring." ([cccxiii]313)
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"They sacrificed unto demons (Heb. shedim), not to God; to gods whom they knew not, to new gods that came newly up, whom your fathers feared not." ([cccxiv]314)
"And he ordained him priests for the high places, and for the demons (Heb. seirim), and for the calves which he had made." ([cccxv]315)
"Yea, they sacrificed their sons and their daughters unto demons. (Heb. shedim)." ([cccxvi]316)
In the place of the word seirim--which originally signified goats, and was afterwards used of wood-demons or satyrs--the Septuagint has toi'"Çmataivoi", that is, "vanities": but in two passages of Isaiah it translates the same noun by daimovnia, "demons." ([cccxvii]317) And this latter rendering is authoritatively confirmed in the New Testament by the passage in the eighteenth chapter of the Apocalypse which is parallel to that in the thirteenth chapter of Isaiah. ([cccxviii]318) Shedim--literally "mighty ones," "lords"--is invariably interpreted in the Septuagint by daimovnia. Thus, of the two words, the first appears to have been applied either to the Heathen idols or to the spiritual powers behind them, the second only to the demons themselves.
[The teaching of the New Testament is to the same effect. Examination of two remarkable passages.] The testimony of the Greek Scriptures is to the same effect as that of the Hebrew, and we cannot better illustrate this than by examining two statements in the First Epistle to the Corinthians. In the eighth chapter we read as follows;-- We know that there is no idol in the world, and that there is none other God but One. For though there be beings called gods, whether in heaven or upon earth--as there actually (w&sper) are gods many and lords many--yet to us there is one God the Father, of Whom are all things, and we for Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by Whom are all things, and we by Him." ([cccxix]319)
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Now the word idol (ei[dwlon) signifies a creation of the fancy, an idea of the mind. Therefore, by the words, "there is no idol in the world," Paul means that there are no such beings as Jupiter, Mars, or Venus, exactly as they are represented in Heathen mythology: such are not to be found in the universe, but are merely the creatures of man's imagination. Yet, he goes on to say, the gods whom the Heathen worship do exist, and are, moreover, real potencies, though differing altogether in their attributes and characteristics from the ideals of men. But they are falsely called gods: they are not uncreated and self-existent beings: ([cccxx]320) their power, though often great, is finite and subordinate: and, however they may delude the Heathen, we at least know that there is only one God.
The second passage is in the tenth chapter. "What then, am I to say? That a thing sacrificed to an idol is anything--that is, any real sacrifice--or that an idol is anything? Nay, but that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons, and not to God: and I do not wish you to have communion with demons. Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord, and the cup of demons: ye cannot partake of the table of the Lord, and of the table of demons." ([cccxxi]321)
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This quotation involves the same doctrine. An idol, the creation of man's fancy, is nothing; but it is not possible that men could be moved to worship nothing: there is a real power behind. The Heathen think that they are sacrificing to Deity; but their offerings ascend to demons, and by their sacrificial feasts they establish a fellowship with unclean spirits similar to that which exists between Christ and His Church.
[Conclusion of the argument from Scripture.] It is plain, therefore, that the disembodied spirits which haunt the air are the beings whom the Heathen worship, the inspirers of oracles and soothsayers, the originators of all idolatry, whether Pagan or Popish, the powers that are ever striving by divers means to subjugate the human race to their sway.
Hence we may obtain in the important deduction that Paganism, from its most intellectual phase down to the lowest fetichism, is not the mere worship of stocks and stones, but the cultus, whether conscious or unconscious, whether direct or through various mediums, of rebellious spirits. Nor can the converse of the proposition be denied, that the cultus of any such spirit is pure Paganism.
[The great aim of Satan is the spread of absolute scepticism, but the subjugation of the world to demonical power.] Now all idolatrous worship is inseparably connected with magic and the exercise of supernatural power. For it is only by a continual display of such power, or at least by a fixed belief in it, that the human race can be held in the grievous bondage of demon-service. The instant a man loses faith in the possibility of the supernatural, he becomes, in spite of any vague ideas of Divine rule, a virtual sceptic. In the opinion of many such a result would satisfy every desire of the Evil One: but the following considerations deter us from assenting to their conclusion.
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Whenever Scripture lifts the veil, and allows us a momentary glimpse of the Kingdom of Darkness, we behold a community, malignant indeed, but perfect in order and government, and thirsting for the subjugation of the human race. For the empire of Satan cannot be completely organized till men be as obedient to demons as demons are to the rebel principalities and powers, and these last again to their great prince. And so, the denizens of the air are not merely stirring up an aimless revolt against God, but would fain annex the whole of our world to their own orderly dominion.
Therefore, although for the present Satan will allure men from God by any bait which pleases them, he, nevertheless, fosters absolute sceptiscism only as Jesuitical emissaries are said to encourage revolution and anarchy in order to break down the barriers which withstand the advance of their own system. His real plan must be sought in the various false religions, by comparing which the thoughtful student may detect many strange and unsuspected points of contact. Differences indeed they have, arising from peculiarities of race or disposition: they resemble the fragments of a marble block, some of which display more of one coloured vein, some of another: but if the pieces be fitted together again, line meets line, and the variegated pattern appears perfect. Originally they all issued from one centre--Babylon has been the golden cup to make every nation drunken ([cccxxii]322)--and around one centre will they be reunited when the time for its revelation arrives.
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The grand aim, then of Satanic miracles is to bring men under the influence of demons. The Devil would by on means destroy, but rather increase, a belief in the supernatural; he would, however, point out Satan, and not Christ, as the head of thrones, dominions, principalities, and powers, and hasten the time when one shall sit as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God. ([cccxxiii]323) To this end is all the teaching of his signs and wonders directed, however carefully they may be disguised, and whether they be appearances of aerial forms, visions, oracles--which seldom afford real help, and often lure men on to destruction by the ambiguity of their response, sooth-sayings--sometimes strikingly verified, but never reliable, spirit-writing, voices of the unseen, magnetic healings, or any other exhibition of his power. Nor can we examine the many superstitions confirmed by these miracles without astonishment at the skill with which they are adapted to the purpose of enthralling mankind. For is not this the obvious intent of spirit-communications, auguries, omens, tokens, lucky and unlucky days and seasons, purifications, holy water, spells, potions, amulets, charms, fetishes, relics, images, pictures, crosses, crucifixes, and all the countless prescriptions of demoniacal systems?
[There are two ways by which men can acquire superhuman power. The first by an unlawful excitation of their own dormant faculties.] Now the false signs are usually exhibited through human mediums selected by the demons, who perceive, it may be, some affinity to themselves in the objects of their choice. And it appears that there are two methods by which men can acquire unlawful power and knowledge, and gain admittance to a prohibited intercourse.
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He who would follow the first--but comparatively few have hitherto been able--must "so bring his body under the control of his own soul that he can project his soul and spirit, and, while living on this earth, act as if he were a disembodied spirit." The man who attains to this power is called an adept; and, according to a late President of the British Theosophical Society, "can consciously see the minds of others. He can act by his soul-force on external spirits. He can accelerate the growth of plants and quench fire; and, like Daniel, subdue ferocious wild beasts. He can send his soul to a distance, and there not only read the thoughts of others, but speak to and touch these distant objects; and not only so, but he can exhibit to his distant friends his spiritual body in the exact likeness of that of the flesh. Moreover, since the adept acts by the power of his spirit, he can, as a unitive force, create out of the surrounding multiplex atmosphere the likeness of any physical object, or he can command physical objects to come into his presence." ([cccxxiv]324)
The powers of such men are defined by the author of "Isis Unveiled" as "mediatorship, not mediumship." They may be exaggerated, but the existence, in all times of the world's history, of persons with abnormal faculties, initiates of the great mysteries, and depositaries of the secrets of antiquity, has been affirmed by a testimony far too universal and persistent to admit of denial.
The development of these faculties is, doubtless, possible but to few, and even in their case can only be compassed by a long and severe course of training, the object of which is, to break down the body to a complete subjection, and to produce a perfect apathy in regard to all the pleasures, pains, and emotions, of this life, so that no disturbing elements may ruffle the calm of the aspirant's mind and hinder his progress. And two initial rules, laid down as indispensable to the discipline, are--abstinence from flesh and alcohol, and absolute chastity. In other words, he who would be an adept must conform to the teaching of those demons, predicted leaders of the last apostacy, who forbid to marry, and command to abstain from meats.
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Thus, but doubtless not without the aid and instruction of evil spirits as well as of already perfected adepts, those latent powers are educed, which certainly exist in all men, but are as certainly forbidden by God to be used, or even sought out, in this life. For it is every man's duty, for the present, to preserve a clear and undisturbed consciousness of the world in which he is placed, of those material surroundings by dealing with which, in accordance with the Divine laws, it is appointed that he shall find the discipline needful to his sanctification. And for this reason our spiritual independence of time and space, and superhuman power of knowing doing and influencing, are suppressed by the nature of our bodies. Man is a spirit in prison, and so he must be content to abide, until God unlocks the door of his cell. But if he will have instant enjoyment by a premature excitation of potentialities which are reserved for future development, he can only do so by feloniously breaking through his dungeon bars, and thus shattering the harmony of his present nature.
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[The second, by a passive submission to the control of other spirits.] The second method is by a passive submission to the control of foreign intelligence's, who, either by the direct action of their own power, or by guiding the application of certain means, will draw out the spirit of their subject and free it from the body. If this process be effected by demons, ([cccxxv]325) the patient is termed a medium; but he must be a person whose spirit can be easily detached from the body, either because the latter is weak and diseased, or from causes which are not obvious. In such a manner he is brought into intelligent communication with spirits of the Air, and can receive any knowledge which they possess, or any false impressions which they may choose to impart. By practice the facility of this intercourse becomes much greater; and as the fellowship progresses, and men become more enamoured of their aerial visitants, the demons seem permitted to do various wonders at their request, and, finally, to reveal themselves to sight, hearing, and touch. Since, however, the spirits of some persons seem by their very nature to possess powers akin to those of the trained adept, it is at times difficult to decide in which way such phenomena are produced.
As we before remarked, the escape of the medium's spirit may be effected by the unassisted action of the demons. But it is often necessary to supplement that action by various aids--such as the Sukra and Manti of the Hindu Soma-mystery; or a cup of poisonous drugs similar to that which enabled the Chaldean initiate to behold the glittering form of the great goddess passing by at the top of the cave; or a mephitic vapour, like that of the Delphic oracle; or the whirling dance of the dervish; or the long fasting and watching of the Ojibbeway Indian; or the gazing fixedly upon a metal plate or crystal held in the hand; or that fascinating power of a fellow-creature which in modern times is called mesmerism.
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By such and other means the activity of the outward senses is diminished or altogether checked, and the consciousness passes into another sphere, where the spirit gazes upon wondrous visions; is able to hold intercourse with supernatural beings, to reveal secrets, and in some degree to foretell; can travel in a moment to any part of the world, and accurately describe places, houses, and the condition and actions of those who are living in them; has the power of seeing the internal mechanism of its own body or those of others; and will give a diagnosis of disease and prescribe for it. Indeed the spirit seems to leave the body just as at death--save that some silver cord is not yet snapped--and often, as in the case of trance-mediums, another spirit enters it, and speaks with a different voice and with different knowledge.
[All spirits which hold intercourse with men in either of these two ways are evil spirits, from whose influence, if a communication be once opened, it is difficult to escape.] But since all such proceedings as these are a transgression of the limits of humanity as laid down by the Creator, it follows that all supernatural beings who sanction them and hold intercourse with the transgressor must be spirits of evil. And the unlawful confusion brings its own immediate punishment, in addition to the fearful judgment to come. For our body appears to be not only a prison, but also a fortress, and is, not improbably, devised for the very purpose of sheltering us in some degree from the corrupting influence of demons. In its normal condition it effectually repels their more open and violent assaults: but if we once suffer the fence to be broken down, we are no longer able to restore it, and are henceforth exposed to the attacks of malignant enemies.
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It is but seldom that a person can be mesmerised for the first time without his own consent; and when such cases do occur they are probably to be referred to some special weakness, which may not infrequently be traced to a special sin. But if submission be once yielded, it is hard to withdraw it: and every fresh exercise of the power upon the same patient increases its influence.
So, in the case of fellowship with demons, there are but few who can become mediums without perseverance: but when a communication has been once established, the spirits are loth to relinquish it, and are wont to persecute those who, having become conscious of their sin, are determined by the grace of God to transgress no more.
[Examination of the Old Testament words applied to sorcerers.] We will now proceed to examine the Spiritual terms used to describe those who practise supernatural arts, giving in each case the Hebrew word with an attempted explanation.
Chartummim (~yiMUj.rx) "The sacred scribes." ([cccxxvi]326) This is a name given to the magicians of Egypt in the times of Joseph and Moses, ([cccxxvii]327) and also to those of Babylon in the days of Daniel. The word seems to be connected with the Hebrew cheret (j,r,x) a style or pen, and to signify those members of the priestly caste, who, although they also practised other kinds of magic, were mainly concerned with writing. Perhaps they were identical with the writing mediums of our days, who according to the author of "Glimpses of a Brighter Land," are divided into five classes as follows. Those whose passive hand is moved by the demon without any mental volition on their own part: those into whose mind each word is separately insinuated instantaneously with its automatic inscription on the paper: those who write from the dictation of spirit-voices: those who copy words and sentences which they are made to see written upon the air, or upon some suitable object, in letters of light: and, lastly, those in whose presence spirit-hands, sometimes visible, sometimes invisible, will take up the pen and write the communication.
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