creation. God did not mean to mock man by preserving Eden and
these ruins so carefully enclosed and protected? Why are they left thus in half decay? Why care for them so watchfully? Why not allow man to trample on them, or the storm to waste them, or the earthquake to swallow them up? To shew that he had a purpose respecting them, of which purpose they were to be a visible pledge to man. A voice came out from these guarded " walks and bowers," proclaiming, "I have not utterly forsaken the earth, nor the place which I had chosen to put my name there, nor yet the spirits which I have made." And was not this the voice of grace?— grace that mourned over the ruin which sin had made, yet refused to give way to sin, or to allow it utterly to trample down so goodly a creation, by driving out the God that made it, from his dwelling there?
4. To shew that man shall yet return and possess the material creation. God did not mean to mock man by preserving Eden and keeping him within sight of it. He wished to teach him something of his gracious purpose, not only regarding his deliverance from the enemy, but also regarding the inheritance provided for him. Therefore God kept Eden in view, as a type of the coming inheritance, on which man shall enter when all things are made new, and he has passed through death to the glory of the resurrection-life, over which death shall have no power. God was thus saying to man: "There Eden stands, ruined and faded; yet to it thou shalt one day return. Behold the pledge! There shall be a better Eden—an Eden passing through decay to restitution, as thou art to pass through death to resurrection—' a new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.'
" One, in our own day, has been thought to utter deep truth when he said,—
" Earth can never meet the heaven,
Never can the there be here."—SCHILLER.
Yet it is not so. He was uttering but the world's wisdom; he knew not God's purpose when he thus spoke. Heaven and earth are yet to meet: the there shall yet be here.
What lessons of GRACE were here! On how many objects and scenes did God write these lessons, that man might read them everywhere, and learn the fulness of that reconciliation which God was making known to him, and the surpassing glory as well as blessedness which God was keeping in reserve for him! Well might he call himself "the God of all grace; " and well might he swear by himself, " As I live, saith the Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of the sinner." The God who could so affectionately care for the guilty and the hateful, and who could be at such pains to exhibit his care in ways so manifold, in order that man might not misread or mistake his meaning, must be the same God as he who said, "Let the
wicked forsake his ways, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return to the Lord, for he will have mercy on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon."
Are we then reading grace in each object around? Do we see the infinite grace implied in our being kept, even for one day, out of the place of woe ? Are we gathering up new lessons of grace from every leaf-fall as well as from every bud, from each blade of grass, and each drop of dew? Are all these to us messages of grace from a redeeming God? Do we use them to quiet our rising doubts, to re-assure our drooping souls? Is he who gives the temporal not far more willing to give the spiritual? Will he who feeds our bodies famish our souls?
And do not all these things point forward to the wondrous future? Do they not speak of
"the grace that is to be brought to us at the revelation of Jesus Christ"? (1 Pet. i. 13.) Do they not with one voice foretell the "ages to come," when God is "to shew the EXCEEDING RICHES or HIS race in his kindness towards us through Christ Jesus"?
(Eph. ii. 7.)
Yet that future has a dark side too. There is infinite grace to be then brought out to view, but this is only for those who have believed it here, and have fled to this gracious God in this the "day of grace." Their glory and their joy shall know no bounds. But as to the world— the dark, the blinded world—what awaits them? Not grace: they have spurned it.
Not life: they have chosen death. Not "the world to come: " they have preferred this
"present evil world." And as they have sowed, so shall they reap for ever. The " wrath of God abideth upon them." To them " the mist of darkness is reserved for ever." The curse shall burst upon them like a thunder-cloud, and continue throughout the ages to come to discharge its fierceness.
Poor world! Is this the end of thy brief day of mirth ?—the end of all hope, the beginning of all despair? Thy feasts are over; thy gaylighted halls of midnight are dark! The noise of the viol has ceased; lust is quenched, and revelry is dumb; beauty, and rank, and splendour, have vanished like a dream. The trumpet summons thee, but it is not to festival; it is to the judgment-seat! Oh! what a reckoning awaits thee there! And after the reckoning, what a sentence! It invites thee to no open Paradise, but consigns thee to the second death; it writes no "new name" upon thy forehead, nor seals
thee among the blest: it puts into thy hands a scroll whereon is written, within and without, in letters of fire, "
Lamentation, and mourning, and woe." *
* I know not if such warnings were ever clothed in words of greater power than the following :—
" The gay glory of time shall depart, and sportful liberty shall be bound for ever in the chain of obdurate necessity. The green earth, with all her blooming beauty and bowers of peace, shall depart. The morning and evening salutations of kinsmen shall depart; and the ever-welcome voice of friendship, and the tender whispering of fullhearted affection, shall depart, for the sad discord of weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth; and the tender names of children, and father and mother, and wife and husband, with the communion of domestic love and mutual affection, and the inward touches of natural instinct, which family compact, when uninvaded by discord, wraps the live-long day into one swell of tender emotion, making earth's lowly scenes to breathe of heaven itself;--all, all shall pass away, and instead shall come the level lake that burneth, and the solitary dungeon, and the desolate bosom, and the throes and tossings of horror and hopelessness, and the worm that dieth not, and the fire that is not quenched.
Over the blight of Eden we may grieve. For the wreck of this fair world we may take up a lamentation. But for these our grief need not be long or sore. Tears for these, however natural, may soon be dried; for they fade only to re-flourish in fresher beauty.
But over the blight of human joys, the wreck of undying souls, we may well weep as those who have no hope. The lost are lost for ever. They pass away, and return not. The second death yields back no
victims; the lake of fire allows no brand to be plucked from its everlasting burnings.
The Guard
NOW that the worshipper has gone out, the gates of the temple are closed. He is not permitted to re-enter, nor is any other foot to tread the forsaken courts, or any other voice to offer worship there. The
shrine is to stand in loneliness, unentered, untrodden, more desolate in its ruined splendour than Petra, or Palmyra, or Persepolis, in after years.
All access was barred. God himself did this. Yet not by the mere issuing of a command, for Adam could not again be trusted with that, but by placing "a flaming sword, which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life." Such were the precautions taken by God to prevent re-entrance. They were precautions of the most striking kind. A sword, nay, a sword of flame, turning every way, so as to face and arrest every intruder. This was the guard set by God to mark what importance he attached to man's expulsion and exclusion.
The thought may have, perhaps, occurred,—" Why not uproot the tree of life at once?"
This seems the simplest way of preventing man from touching it; but God had a purpose to serve by allowing that tree to remain. He meant to teach man that there was still a tree of life, though it was to be hidden from his eye, or, at least, _placed beyond his reach. That tree he should one day revisit, and of its fruit he should yet be given
to eat; but now it was inaccessible, and death would be the penalty of attempting to force an approach to it.
It was thus distinctly intimated that there was a hindrance in the way of man's re-entering Eden, and partaking of the tree of life. That hindrance must be removed, and towards its removal God was now to direct his efforts, if we may so express it. Yet, till it should be removed, and that in a righteous way, man must remain without. That hindrance was sin, or rather, the righteous law, which alone gave to sin its obstructing power; for "the strength of sin is the law."
The visible hindrance was a flaming sword; that is to say, it was more than a mere fence cast across the way, or a closing of the gate against the sinner. It not only prohibited entrance, but it announced to man that if he endeavoured to enter he should certainly perish—perish under the stroke of him who is a consuming fire. The old way of access was thus shut up, nay, guarded by the sword of the fiery law— the inexorable law, that would abate no jot or tittle of its righteous claims. And woe be to him who should attempt to enter through this 'guarded way! Such an at tempt would not merely be fruitless, but it would be avenged with death, a death which would be but the beginning of the
"everlasting burnings." God in his own time would open a "new and living way;" but, meanwhile, entrance was denied. Man must stand afar off. His former nearness to God is for a time denied.
This flaming sword evidently corresponded to the veil in the temple, which shut out Israel from the Holy of Holies. Paradise was the innermost part of Eden. There God had dwelt, there he had planted the tree of life, there was his presence chamber. It thus resembled the Holy of Holies, which occupied the interior shrine of the temple; and Eden itself would represent the Holy Place, or second court. Out
side of this again, and in front of the gate of Eden, would be placed the altar whereon Adam laid his sacrifice, answering to the Outer Court, where the brazen altar stood. Whether the flaming sword waved before Eden, or merely before Paradise, we are not expressly told. Only we may be led to suppose the latter, from its being said that its object was to guard the way to the tree of life, which was in Paradise, the farthest and most eastern recess of Eden. If this be the case, it answers still more closely to the veil of the temple, which was drawn before the entrance into the holiest of all.
The sword and the veil, then, served the same end. They were meant to teach man that there did exist a hindrance in the way of his return to the presence of God, or, as the apostle states it, "the Holy Ghost thus signified that the way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest" (Heb. ix. 8). There was a mighty difficulty to be overcome; sin must be atoned for, a sacrifice must be provided, and this must be no common victim. The fiery law must be appeased, and removed out of the way. All this could only be done at an infinite cost: it must, moreover, occupy a long period of time; it must be a work of stupendous labour. And, meanwhile, till it was accomplished, the holiest must be shut up—there must be distance between God and man.
In this way, not only was the awful lesson taught of what sin had done, and how much its undoing was to cost, but time was afforded for fully unfolding the real nature of sin, God's estimate of it, as well as the manner in which it was to be taken out of the way. For this end, sacrifice was forthwith instituted. God taught man to bring his burnt-offering to the gate of Eden, in front of the flaming sword, and lay it upon the altar there. Thus man learnt that "without shedding of blood there was no remission of sin." He learnt also that it was by means of blood that the sword was to be withdrawn, its flame
quenched, and the way re-opened for the sinner, or, rather, " a new and living way consecrated for us,"
right through this veil
—this sword of fire.
Man thus saw that salvation was wholly of God, not of or from himself. He had done the evil, but God only could undo it. He had opened the flood-gate, God only could close it.
The hindrance was one which could be removed only by God. He placed the flaming sword there, and he only could withdraw it; he had barred up Paradise, he alone could unbar it. Not man's efforts, or prayers, or tears, or blood, but God alone, could open up the way. " He openeth, and no man can shut; he shutteth, and no man can open."
And there lay the sacrifice, bleeding in front of the flaming sword,— telling of him who is the just God, yet the Saviour; the avenger of sin, yet the redeemer of the sinner. There lay the sacrifice, which fire from the flaming sword was consuming, sending up its smoke, as if wrestling with some mighty adversary, and striving to quench the flame that forbade the sinner's access. There lay the sacrifice, as if knocking at the closed gate of Paradise for man, and pleading for his re-admission, offering to bear his sin and pay his penalty. And each new victim laid upon the altar was a new knock at that awful gate, a new cry of intercession lifted up in man's behalf.
During four thousand years that cry continued ascending from many altars. Yet the gate opened not. The sword still waved, the veil still shut out the holiest from man. For "it was not possible that the blood
of bulls and goats could take away sin" (Heb. x. 4). A nobler sacrifice was needed, and richer 'blood must flow.
At length the flame went out, the sword departed, the " veil was rent in twain from the top to the bottom." The better sacrifice had been found, towards which all the others pointed forward. The better blood had been shed, the blood of the Lamb of God, "the Lamb without blemish and without spot, who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifested in these last times for us"
(1 Pet. i. 19). The only-begotten of the Father, the eternal Son, had taken flesh, and laid himself upon the altar to bear the stroke and receive the fire into his own bosom. God spake and said, "Awake, O sword, against the man that is my fellow " (Zech. xiii. 7). The sword awoke. It smote with fiery edge this divine sacrifice, but, in so doing, it was quenched. The blood which it drew forth from the victim quenched the flame. The hindrance of four thousand years was now removed, and the way into the holiest thrown open to the sinner. Man needs no longer to stand without.
That way stands still open. The sword has not returned to its place, nor the veil been mended or restored. Nay, more, that way has been sprinkled with blood, and made safe for a sinner to tread upon. Nay, more still, that inner sanctuary has been also sprinkled with blood, so that a sinner may go in and worship there with safety to himself, and without defiling the sacred floor and walls. Nay, more still, there is a mercy-seat within, a throne of grace; and on that mercy-seat the Son of God is sitting—Jesus of Nazareth, the woman's seed, the conqueror, the man with the bruised heel, our kinsman, our brother, who took flesh for us. " He has led captivity captive; he has received
gifts for men, even for the rebellious, that the Lord God might dwell among them."
What more can any sinner need to assure him of a welcome? Are we satisfied that the sword is removed, and the veil rent? Then let us go in. Are we satisfied that the way has been opened, and the blood sprinkled, so as to make it safe for us to enter? Then let us go in. Are we satisfied that there is a mercy-seat, that Jesus is there, and that he has done enough to secure our acceptance? Then, though the chief of sinners, let us go in. " Let us come boldly to the find grace to help in time of need." "Having boldness (that is, liberty to come without fear or doubt) to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh; and having an high priest over the house of God; let us draw near with a true heart, in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water " (Heb. x. 19—22).
"But am I to go in just as I am?" Yes. In what other way do you propose to go? Are all these gracious preparations which God has made, by the sprinkling of the blood and the erection of a mercy-seat, not enough? And, if not enough, what would you add to them ?
When the Holy Spirit opens your eye to see the warrant of entrance, does he reveal something new to you, something not contained in what the Son of God has done ? Or is not his object and his office to shew you that finished work as the only thing that can embolden you to come, and the free message of divine love as your only warrant? Nay, and is it not his aim to keep you from seeking any other ground of boldness, any other warrant, any other plea, any other recommendation, either within or without, either in heaven or earth? Does he not open your eyes to see that the work of Christ takes for
granted that you are just what you are, and nothing else? And that, if there is not enough to invite you in just as you are, your case must be for ever hopeless, unless there should come a second Saviour to complete what you seem to sup pose the first has left undone?
"But my sins! They are crimson. They rise mountain-high." Yes, it is even so. They are ten thousand times worse than you imagine them. But shall this bar your entrance? For whom was that mercy-seat erected? For those who could plead fewest sins —sins less dark than others? No. That you will not say. The number of your sins, the blackness of your guilt, only makes it the more suitable for you, and ought to lead you to prize it the more.
"But a soul, guilty like mine, would defile that holy place. These feet would stain its pure pavement—this breath would pollute its air." Nay, but look. See that blood that is sprinkled on its floor and walls. That makes them impervious to defilement. The guiltiest sinner may come in, and still there will be no defilement so long as that blood is there. It cannot be to cleanse that sanctuary that the blood thus lies upon it. The place is holy. It must be to prevent defilement from the sinner who enters. And this it does completely.
Were you far viler than you are, you need not fear. Even you cannot defile it. The sprinkled blood has made that an impossibility.
" But will it not dishonour God to admit and welcome such as I am?" Nay, it will not. He has provided for that. He has made it a righteous thing to receive you; and how can that which is righteous dishonour him? But more than this. The only way in which he can get glory from you is just by your coming and being for given. You cannot glorify him in any other way. You are shut up to this. Your refusal to come dishonours him; but your coming honours him. What strange, yet what blessed tidings, we bring you, when we tell you that the only
way left for you to glorify God is by coming at once to him, and being received into his family as a son!
"But my hard and stony heart! so in sensible, so impenitent!—how can I venture in with it as it is? " What! And is not He who sits upon the mercy-seat exalted a Prince and a Saviour to give repentance? How can you then think of standing without? Besides, what will waiting do for you? Will remaining outside soften your heart or produce repentance?
You know it will not. So that if there be peril and presumption in venturing in, there is far more of these in standing without.
Will you not then at once go in? All things are ready. The sword no longer guards the way. Paradise—Paradise lost is again thrown open to you. The sanctuary of God, with its unfolded gate, stands ready to receive you. A rent veil, a consecrated way, a sprinkled mercy-seat, a gracious high priest—all these, with one voice, beckon you in without delay.
And are the wastes of earth better than the bowers of Paradise, or the house of your God?
And see the symbols of redemption already set up in Paradise, as they were afterwards in the temple. See the cherubim far within, yet not out of sight. They are the types of ransomed men, visible pledges of a redeemed creation. Adam, looking at them, would read in them the assurance of his own entrance upon the inheritance, in due time. They told him that he was one day again to be where they now were. They were placed on the very spot where he had lately been; and thus they announced to him the certainty of his re-entrance, when the hindrances were removed and the flaming sword withdrawn.*
* I take for granted here that the cherubim are the symbols of redemption—the figures of the redeemed. This seems now very generally conceded. For, from the beginning to the end of Scripture, they are always seen in connection with redemption.
They occupy the innermost part of Eden, just as they occupied the holiest in the temple. These, of course, were figures ; but the reality is given us in the Apocalypse, when they sing, "Thou hast redeemed us by thy blood out of every kindred and nation," &c.
(Rev. v. 9). Our notions on many of these points are much at fault. We hear and read in many an author of the " wings of angels," of "angelic harps and crowns," &c. Scripture never speaks thus. No. The wing, the crown, the harp, the palm, belong to the redeemed alone. In the passage in Genesis the cherubim are not holding or wielding flaming sword. They are there for a very different end ; to be a visible pledge of man's re-entrance into, and re-occupation of, Eden.
And would not that bright symbol draw the eye of Adam, and awaken in his heart unutterable longings after the inheritance ? It would make him weary to be there; and earnestly to desire the time when Paradise should be restored to him and he to Paradise. "
How long, O Lord?" would be the burden of his daily prayers. " Come quickly, thou seed of the woman, thou opener of the gates of Eden, thou conqueror of the serpent and of the serpent's seed." It would give him more truly to feel as a stranger and a pilgrim—one who was weary of earth and sin, and who was " hasting to the coming of the day of God,"
when all things should be made new, and the evil which he had brought into the world undone for ever.
Reader, and specially young reader, wilt thou now take one closing message? I speak to those who are still aliens from God. It is a hard and thankless task to which thou art setting thyself,—t0 build for thyself a home in the wilderness, where thou mayest enjoy life while it lasts, and forget the bleak wastes that surround thee. There is no peace for thy soul in scenes where God is not. Apart from him, life is not life, but utter death,—nay, the very death of deaths. Out of him all joy is madness, and in the midst of it the heart is oppressed and unsatisfied. Thy very being seems withered and hollow, even when mirth is flushing the cheek, and fond visions of earthly gaiety are luring thee onward. For none of these can heal thy hidden wound. They cannot quench thy soul's thirst or fill its ever-craving void. They soothe no sorrow, they dry up no tears, they knit no broken bonds.
They assuage not pain, nor calm the throbbing pulse, nor fence thee from disease, nor charm away death, nor light up the tomb. In spite of them, the last trumpet shall sound; and thou shalt hear it, whether in the grave or in the midst of thy revelry. And what will pleasure avail thee in that day?
Wilt thou still madly chase these dreams when the end is so certain and so terrible ? Wilt thou not leave a world that never satisfied thee, and which is so soon to pass away? Wilt thou not quench thy thirst at the well of living water? for is it not said, " Let him that is athirst come"? There is an open paradise and a tree of life, to which no flaming sword denies you access; wilt thou not, then, go boldly in?
What can make thee hesitate? Earth and hell cannot hinder; God invites; his Word bids thee welcome ; enter in.
Thou hast heard the wondrous story of the grace of God. It is grace such as would cover all thy sins, soothe all thy troubles, and gladden thee with an infinite joy. It is grace that would provide thee with a
rich portion here, and a far richer inheritance hereafter. Wilt thou not then retrace thy steps, and seek a home in that bosom whence all that grace is flowing?*
* The following striking extract from a German writer may help to enforce the sentiment above dwelt upon ! -
"I was a spectator a short time since of a gay assembly at N____, some ranging themselves for the dance, others at the card-tables, and numbers attracting notice by their personal decorations. I looked on the motley throng with a tear of thankfulness that I knew something better. At times I felt such compassion for the poor deluded beings, that I was ready to cry aloud among them, 'Seek what ye seek; but it is not where ye seek.' For what were they all seeking'! Lasting enjoyment. What did they find? Fleeting enjoyment with lasting pain. The dancing, especially, seemed to me a. sad and affecting emblem of human life. I watched, in imagination, those engaged in it.
They approach, divide, pass and repass each other, and under the constant excitement of the music prolong the diversion, overwhelmed with heat and dust, till it ends in complete exhaustion. And when, after all the coming and going, joining in the dance, or resting, the day dawns, and the hall is gradually emptied of the jaded crowd, how forcibly are we reminded of the termination of a life squandered in vanity ! The dim and sinking lights shew here and there, through the dusty atmosphere, a. torn riband, or the lost badge of an order, lying on the floor, the only traces of the recent occupants."—
THOLUCK's Guido and Julius, p. 199.
It will be a home for eternity, from which thou shalt go out no more.
The Two Worshippers
HENCEFORTH all worship must be carried on outside of Eden; for that sacred en closure is now forbidden ground. Inter course between God and man is not to cease; but it is restricted. The close intimacy of the unfallen state,—in which there was no veil, no distance, no enter posing medium of communication,—is at an end.
God still permits, nay, commands man, the sinner, to draw near and hold fellowship; but he must stand without. It is only the outer court which the worshipper is at liberty to use.
All within this is care fully fenced off from his intrusion. He may take his place close to the guarded entrance; he may build his altar under the very gleam of the flaming sword; he may pitch his tent within full sight of the cherubim: but not one step farther, even for worship, is he permitted to take.
Yet permission to worship, in any circumstances and under any restrictions, is a declaration of grace on the part of God. Liberty to approach and converse, indicated most distinctly to man the gracious purpose of the divine mind which was now beginning to open. Nothing but free love in God could lead him still to acknowledge man as a worshipper, and to accept his worship. It mattered not that there" were shadows and distance between. The existence of these was not incompatible with grace. For, simply to be recognised as one who, though a sinner, is yet at liberty to come to God and commune with him on any spot of earth, however far from Eden, is as distinct an assurance of grace as could be given. Nor could Adam fail to
understand it as such. Whatever might be the restrictions as to the place and the manner of approach, still, so long as he was at liberty "
to come before the Lord and to bow himself before the High God" as a welcome and accepted worshipper, he could not but see that " there was forgiveness with God that he might be feared" (Ps. cxxx. 4).
The method and the medium of communication were, no doubt, new and strange. It was only with blood in his hand that man could draw near. In no other way would God deal with him. But this indicated no reluctance to receive the sinner. It was no withdrawal of grace, nor did it intimate a desire to throw hindrances in the way of the worshipper.
Neither did it imply any uncertainty in man's warrant to approach; nor encourage anything like doubtfulness on his part respecting his welcome from God, as if grace was hung upon conditions whose fulfilment was still a matter of suspense. Rather the opposite. For while God was pointing man's eye to obstacles of the most formidable kind, he was declaring, at the same time, his willingness to have them all removed; nay, the absolute certainty of his purpose not to rest till they were entirely surmounted, what ever might be the cost, the time, the toil required in the accomplishment of the stupendous work.
Thus Adam worshipped, with Eve, "the mother of all living,"—the mother of the promised seed. And the Being whom he worshipped outside of Eden, was the same Jehovah with whom he had communed within its blessed shades; only it was now as the God of grace that he approached him. Day by day did he lay his lamb upon the altar in token of his belief that it was only grace that had kept him from the same consuming fire that I was devouring his offering;
and also that it was through that blood alone that even grace could reach him and the God of grace accept him.
But time went on, and Adam stood no longer alone at the altar. The children whom God had given him came with him. From their earliest years he had doubtless brought them to that place of sacrifice, and instructed them as to its design. They knelt along with him upon the turf, while he praised and confessed and made supplication to the Lord, as the smoke of the burnt-offering went up to heaven, or fell in wreaths over the trees of Eden.
There seemed to be but "one lip" and one heart, even as there was but one family and one altar. This, however, was not to continue long. The children grew up, and a strange difference began to manifest itself. Hitherto there had seemed to be but one worshipper; now there were two, and these at entire variance with each other, as if there were two Gods, diverse in character, to whom they were paying their homage. Let us look at these two worshippers, and mark the difference between them. It is evidently on no minor point that they differ, and that the views which they entertain, both of God's character and their own, are opposed to each other as noon is to midnight. Nay, it seems to be a different God that they are worshipping.
One thing strikes us much in this narrative respecting Cain and Abel. In them the two great divisions of Adam's race begin to shew themselves; the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent. Very quickly, indeed, has this separation taken place. It arises in the first generation, in the first family. The first man born of a woman is a child of the devil, one of the serpent's brood. This difference is not between two neighbours, or friends, or distant kinsmen, but between two brothers: born of one mother—of that very woman to whom the
promise was made ; born within sight of Eden, and with no example of abounding iniquity to mislead and corrupt.
This difference is not one of birth. By nature they are the same, begotten in the likeness of their fallen father; not like him, in the image of God. In Abel, however, we see a monument of divine power, a specimen of the Holy Spirit's work, a trophy of Jehovah's sovereign choice. It is not the first-born, but the younger, that is chosen; "the last is first, and the first last." " Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight."
Nor are these two brothers without some points of resemblance even in the things of God.
They both profess to acknowledge the same God. They both come to worship him. They bring gifts in their hands. They come to the same altar. They ob serve the same time and place of worship. In these respects they are the same. But there the likeness ends and the difference begins.
In the opinion of the world, these out ward features of resemblance are far greater and more important than the points of contrast. Man, in setting up his religion, looks only at the outward and the visible. If he get these he asks no more; nay, he thinks that God has no right to expect more.
" Mouth honour, breath, Which the poor heart would fain deny, but dare not,"
this is what passes with him under the name of religion! A few prayers and almsdeeds, a reputable life, church-attending decency, "reception of the sacrament" —these are the essential items in the world's religion. But all these items are to be found in Cain's religion,