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The Patriarchs

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Title: The Patriarchs

Creator: J. G. Bellett


        
Release date: July 11, 2012 [eBook #40216]

Language: English

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Produced by Andrew Sly, Al Haines and the Online Distributed
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                            THE PATRIARCHS:

                           Being Meditations

                                  UPON

            ENOCH, NOAH, ABRAHAM, ISAAC, JACOB, JOSEPH, JOB;

                    THE CANTICLES, HEAVEN AND EARTH.


                                   BY

                            _J. G. BELLETT_.




                              New Edition.




                              A. S. ROUSE,

               15 & 16, PATERNOSTER SQUARE, LONDON, E.C.

                                  1895




                            THE PATRIARCHS:

                         BEING MEDITATIONS UPON

            ENOCH, NOAH, ABRAHAM, ISAAC, JACOB, JOSEPH, JOB;

                    THE CANTICLES, HEAVEN AND EARTH.




                                 ENOCH.


It is not so much of Enoch himself that I now purpose, in the Lord's
grace, I would hope, to write a little, but rather of the times and the
saints before the flood. Whether it be of them or of him, the materials,
as we know, are very scanty; but in the way and wisdom of the Spirit of
God, they are full of meaning and of value.


A peculiar attraction has been commonly felt in the Book of Genesis.

The simplicity of the narratives has to account for much of this, I
doubt not. Human life is in its infancy and artlessness. The scenes are
domestic, and the habits and manners such as family duties and
affections were forming. This is a great source of enjoyment to the mind
from this book. Such springs of pleasure are at times tasted in spite of
ourselves. We are spoiled very much by the customs of the world, and we
suppose that we like them. But still we find ourselves naturally at ease
in such scenery as that which this lovely book presents to us. The wife
of one wealthy lord, who numbered his servants by hundreds, and his
flocks by thousands, would knead the cake for the traveller; and the
daughter of another, without practising the language of apology, would
be seen by strangers watering the family herds.

Yet with all this there was the truest courtesy. The honour due to all
men was as well understood as the love of kindred. It was not barbaric
life, though simple and inartificial. It was not rude simplicity; but
that which came from an influence that could mould and adorn life. And
that influence was the knowledge of God. The times of this book were, as
we know they were, unindebted to the advance of civility, or the
regulations of cultivated life; but still the state of things was not
barbarous, just because there was the knowledge of God. The hand of God
was felt, while as yet the conceits of polished life had not time or
liberty either to garnish or soil the scene.

It is this which fashions the manners of these early times. Peculiar
they are, deeply commending themselves to a right mind; but enough,
perhaps, to provoke the smile of many who belong to times like ours. For
strange nowadays would be the confidential friendship of a master and
his servant. And yet such was between Abraham and Eliezer, though all
the while the duties and rights of the relationship were religiously
observed. And how unwarrantable would it now be judged, that the
intended husband of one of the daughters, or the son-in-law himself, as
in the case of Laban and Jacob, should tend the family flocks in the
heat of day and frost of night, getting his wages! And yet in all this
there is no moral offence whatever; nothing but what may charm the
nicest sensibilities of our nature.

But that which ought to lend this book its principal power to engage us
is this: the Lord Himself is seen in it in ways and characters suited to
this simple and primitive style. The action of the book being very much
domestic, plain and unadorned, His way is according. Whether He
communicates His mind, or manifests His presence, it is after this same
pattern. He does not employ prophets, but personally makes His pleasure
known. It may be in a dream, or with a voice, as well as by personal
manifestation; but still it is _Himself_. And even if angels are
employed, they are rather His _companions_ than His _messengers_.

In the cool of the day, or the afternoon, He walked in the garden. In
the field He pleaded with Cain, _personally_ pleaded with him, adding
the weight and authority of His own presence to a moment of awful and
solemn interest. He came down at the cry of Babel, and the cry of the
sin of Sodom, just that He might see, as we would do, whether things
were really as bad as they were said to be. In forms of intimacy He
again and again appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; inviting
confidence, expressing displeasure, or conveying His purpose, in ways of
full personal familiarity. And though, in the progress of the book, this
style may grow a little slack, still it is maintained in measure to the
end, even where we might have least expected it. For to kings, not of
the stock of Abraham, the Lord God appeared in dreams by night, and,
without amazement, warned them of their duty, or told them of their
danger.

The ministry of prophets, as I observed, is not employed. That would
have been too distant, too reserved, to suit the general style. Nor is
the divine pleasure communicated through the Holy Ghost, or by
inspiration. That is not the way either--not the _usual_ way. But it is,
as we have seen, the personal interference of the Lord Himself, coming
in a vision, or by a dream or a word; or in the still nearer way of
taking the forms and attributes of manhood; and that, too, not in mystic
dress, as afterwards to such as Isaiah, Daniel, or John; but as one who
was meeting man in his place and circumstances. As a traveller, needing
hospitality, He eats of a calf and a cake at the tent door with one;
with another He contends and wrestles, as a man with his fellow, having
a quarrel or matter of dispute with him.

See all this style of action in the case of Noah. How interestedly does
the Lord God enter into the whole state of things in that day! Just as
we all feel, His eye affects His heart. And then, just as we all do, He
takes counsel with Himself. He saw the wickedness of man that it was
great; it grieved Him to the heart; and then He said, "I will destroy
man whom I have created from the face of the earth." And after all this,
just as we ourselves would do, having taken His counsel, He communicates
it to a friend, passing it to the ear, and the heart, and the sympathies
of another.

It was _thus_ that the Lord dealt with Noah. He dealt with him as a man
with his friend, as well as like God with an elect sinner. And we
ourselves practise these ways. We love these confidences of friendship.
We love a second self. "The end of all flesh is come before Me," says
the Lord to Noah, telling him what had been passing in His own bosom.
And afterwards, in the day of the waters, in the same way of gracious
friendship, when the ark was about to float upon the scene of the
judgment, "the Lord shut him in." With His own hand He did it.

Here was intimacy. Here was living, palpable nearness of the Lord God to
His creature. And this is in character with His general actings and
communications in this book. The glory was not as yet taking its place
in a dispensation, shrouded in a cloudy chariot, or seated between
cherubim. In all that there was majesty and conscious greatness, and the
distance of holiness, as suited an ordered economy. But in the times of
Genesis this was not so. Things were informal, and the action was
desultory; and the Lord was in person, as the occasion demanded,
according to this.

In this manner do we find the action of this beautiful book. The elect
of God are thus, and thus is the living God Himself. It is as divine as
anything else in the Word. And the soul so receives it. And good reason
have we for blessing the Lord, because He has introduced our hearts to
such a book as this. For we are not always ready for the higher things.
We cannot at all times reach them, or obey a summons to ascend the
heavenly places. But the Spirit of God is tender of our weakness, and
has provided for it. The Scriptures, if I may take leave to speak in a
figure, have change of air and change of scene for our souls.

It is relish and appetite we have to covet, beloved--a holy delight in
the things of God, whether they be the things of the "children" or of
the "fathers;" the pure milk or the strong meat. _Little_ ones in His
school are still _living_ ones. That is the blessed thing. He who liveth
in the mere power of intellect, or in the schools of men, is dead while
he liveth.


There is, however, another thing to be said on the times and on the Book
of Genesis.

In those times, or, as the apostle speaks, "from Adam to Moses," _law_
did not give character to the state of the people of God. Adam was under
law in Eden, and so were the children of Israel after the day of Mount
Sinai. But not so the generations from Adam to Moses. Sin was equally in
the world, but there was no law. Rom. v. 14.

But not only, I may observe, were they not under law; there was also
almost a total absence of moral or preceptive instruction. Much
revelation of the divine pleasure and counsels there was; but scarcely
anything of precept. Under the Spirit, revelation worked its result on
character and conduct, and formed the mind and the ways of the saints.
Evil was resented by them, and judged of God; but without a written
standard of right and wrong. Without any law against murder, Cain is
exposed; without a fifth commandment, Ham's dishonour of his father is
punished. And so Jacob's guile is visited and resented by the Lord; and
the wicked way of Joseph's brethren. And without the light of any
precept the soul of a saint can thus plead with temptation, How can I do
this great wickedness, and sin against God?

All this is so, though neither law nor moral instruction was then
published. It was revelation in matters of faith which, under the
Spirit, formed patriarchal character. Abraham was not enjoined either
his altar or his tent; but his call of God, through the Spirit,
suggested both. No precept required his high, generous treatment of Lot;
but his faith and hope in God dictated and commanded it. Without
direction on the case, his knowledge of God and the mind of Christ that
was in him disposed him, and taught him to let the potsherds of the
earth strive with their fellows, but as soon as his kinsman was a
captive to go forth for his deliverance. No word, no oracle from God,
distinguished for him between the king of Salem and the king of Sodom;
but the light that was in him did.

I might go through other histories in this book, and find these same
things. The holy judgment of the mind that was in them, under the
Spirit, suggested to those early saints conduct by means of revelation,
promise, and calling of God. And this is ever beautiful, when we get
genuine samples or instances of it.


Such then are among the characteristics of this earliest and infant age
of our history, and of the precious book which records it. And this
earliest method in the way of the Lord is to be the last and the abiding
method. In Genesis, as we have seen, the Lord God acted "in the human
guise," being personally present in the scene, and seeking the nearest
intimacy with His creature. And this is to be the eternal thing when
dispensations are over. God in manhood is to be for ever!

Precious mystery! Unfathomable wonder! Blessed to ponder this. The first
is to be the last. The song of salvation--the "song of Moses"--was the
first breath of the ransomed tribes. It was sung on the banks of the Red
Sea, just as they had got beyond the reach of Pharaoh. After experiences
were different. They had then to do with themselves. But at first the
victory of the divine "man of war" was everything to them. And this
first thing is to be the eternal thing. The song of Moses is to fill the
courts of glory. Exodus xv.; Rev. xv. And so in earliest days, in
Genesis days, the divine presence was not deemed strange, or something
which did not suit the earth, or belong to man. The divine courtesies
were then, so to speak, freely given, and unsuspectingly received. And
so at the end, in days of millennial heavens and earth, the Lord God
will be personally again in the scene.


The first five chapters of this book give us an account of antediluvian
times, or, as they have been called, "the world before the flood." And
it is those chapters I now purpose to look at a little particularly.

The whole opens, as of course, with the work of creation. I speak not
particularly of this. But, instructed by the apostle, we may say that it
is only _faith_ which deals justly with this great work. Faith puts God
above all the things that were made, or are seen. "Through faith we
understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that
things which are seen were not made of things which do appear." Faith
treats God worthily--the only principle in the soul which does so. He
dwells "in the light which no man can approach unto." Faith owns this.
The wisdom of men busies itself in seeing or inspecting Him. But though
He will "show" great things of Himself, yet does faith know that no man
hath seen or can see Him. 1 Tim. vi. It enjoys all His manifestations;
but inspects not His dwelling-place in light.

The second chapter exhibits the man made in the image of God, in his
estate in the garden of Eden. All there was tributary to him, all was
for him. He had food for all the faculties and desires of his nature,
and provision of all desirable things. He was made, however, to _impart_
as well as to receive; and that is ever a necessary feature in the
happiness of a well-ordered mind. He was important to the garden, as the
garden was important to him. He had "to dress it and to keep it." And he
saw his dwelling-place the spring-head of a fruitful river, which went
forth with life and refreshing to the whole earth. With all this the
voice of a Sovereign was heard. A command went forth. "Of the tree of
the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat." But this was no
trespass, no discordant note on the ear of Adam. God will not, and
cannot, give His glory to another. And a creature of a right thought,
"made upright," as Adam was, must delight in having it so. All this was
therefore only harmonious and consistent happiness.

To perfect his condition the Lord God celebrates for him a coronation
day, and a day of espousals. But this action has an order in it. The
Lord takes counsel with Himself about Adam's espousals. This is done
_first_. Then He introduces him to the scene of his sovereignty. He
brings the creatures of the field and of the air to Adam, to see what he
would call them, and whatsoever he called every living creature, that
was the name thereof. This was investing him with dominion, setting the
crown royal on his head. Then He prepares the help-meet, and presents
Eve to him, following his coronation with his marriage.

This is the order of these events--an order which has a sacred and
interesting sense in it. It is not the mere progress of independent
facts. It is the design, so to speak, of a great master. For there is,
as we now know, a mystery which had been "hid in God," "purposed in
Himself," before the foundation of the world, His secret (Eph. iii.), of
which this marriage in the garden of Eden was the type. Eph. v. And
according to this the Lord, in the solitude of His own presence, in the
musings of His own bosom, ere He led forth Adam into his kingdom,
prepares his help-meet for him.

This, however, is not merely the _design of a great master_, but the
_well-known way of a perfect love_.

The _richest_ purpose of joy is the _first_ in counsel.

The Lord's earliest thought was about Adam's best blessing. The
help-meet at his side, the one like unto him, his companion, was
destined to be more to him than all beside. And that which was chief in
his enjoyments was the earliest and deepest thought in the mind of his
Lord. His Lord pondered it. He spoke of it to Himself. His coronation
was taken in hand at once and disposed of; but the getting of his
help-meet for him was counselled and talked of beforehand.

This is the way that love would take. We know it ourselves. We like to
dwell in thought over the materials of the happiness of one we love. So
that all this is sweet and important to our hearts; for we read in it
that which may again draw out the admiration and the worship, "Behold,
what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us!"

And Adam at once owns all this. Out of the abundance of the heart the
mouth speaks. "This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh," he
says, as he received the woman from the hand of the Lord God, owning
that all was now complete. The serpent may by-and-by insinuate it to be
otherwise. But he is a liar. There is not a flaw in all this estate. No
lack, and no exception. Nothing that did not in its way contribute to
bless him; and nothing of creature blessedness that was wanting to him.

But all this is at once envied by the great enemy. And he had title to
try the stability of it. The nakedness, the unshamed nakedness, of the
man and the woman was innocency. Yes, but it was also _exposure_. The
creature was to be proved. Strength of creaturehood was to be tried. And
the enemy had title to enter the garden to carry on the trial. He was no
trespasser there. The order and purpose of creation made room for him,
as well as for Adam himself. The very instrument by which he was to
conduct his designs was there already. The tree of knowledge was in the
midst of the garden.

The tempter, this serpent that was "more subtil than any beast of the
field," was the devil. This is directly told us. Rev. xii. 9; xx. 2. And
the scene around us to this hour tells of his victory. "The present evil
world," whether in its moral condition or in its circumstances, we get
in this chapter iii. And we might have expected this; for the world as
it now is has derived itself out of the apostasy of Adam; its character
and condition are formed by that great act of rebellion.

The three master-principles which animate "the course" of it--"the lust
of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life"--are here
seen to become the springs of moral action in the heart of the woman, as
soon as she listened to the devil; for the soul that gives up God must
find out other masters, and other resources. And this is the world. The
world has no confidence in God, nothing to bind it to Him, nothing to
give it rest in Him, no sense of His love and truth. Such has it been
since this hour, when man gave ear to the accuser of God. It has
therefore found out other objects. God made man upright; but he has
sought out many inventions. Eccles. vii. 29.

Conscience, too, is quickened into being. Sin did this. "They knew that
they were naked." And it was then, at the hour of its birth, as it is to
this hour, an _uneasy_ conscience, a conscience that makes cowards of
all who carry it. "I was afraid," says Adam (unable to look at God),
"because I was naked." Conscience in man must be of this quality, for it
owes its existence to sin. There was no sense of good and evil in him
till he sinned; and this sense, thus acquired, must leave him a coward
in the presence of the _righteous_ One.

Instinctively they make themselves aprons. This is our doing still. Our
common state of guilt makes us shun even our fellow-creatures. We cannot
stand inspection even from them. One great and constant effort, in the
scene around us every day, is to escape _full_ notice. The apron is
still invented. The social system understands and allows this. Indeed,
it is maintained by a common consent of this sort. And religion, in its
way and measure, as well as the rules and common understanding of
society, helps in all this. But "the presence of the Lord God" is a
different element from that of the presence of our fellows. No rules
which sustain the social system will make that tolerable for a moment.
The clothing and the ceremony, the inventions of society, or the good
manners that array and adorn it, will be found vanity. All have come
short of _His_ glory. Let but the conscience hear the tread of His foot,
or the sound of His voice in the garden, and no attempt will be equal to
that moment. Even religious inventions will all be vain. They can give
no confidence with God, nor turn the current of the heart. With his
apron upon him, Adam hides himself among the trees of the garden.

This teaches holy and solemn lessons. But with all this cowardice there
is effrontery. "The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of
the tree." Man lays the mischief down at God's door. He says in effect,
"Let God see to it; for the woman is His creature, and He gave her to
me;" as he still, in the spirit of his mind, says, "Let God see to it;
for the world is His, and He made it." A strange and horrible union! The
insolence of the heart charging God, and yet a coward conscience unable
to meet Him. The sinner may talk big, and make a noise; he may reason
upon God and his own condition, and frame speeches and arguments as well
as aprons; but in spite of all he can surround himself with, there he
is, like Adam, ashamed of himself, and afraid of God. Man has wronged
the blessed God, and avoids Him. He charges Him, and yet is afraid to
look in His face while he does so. All this, in spite of himself,
witnesses against him. "Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee," the
Lord has but to say. And then, as again in the parable, he must be
speechless.

Such was the mind of Adam then, and such is human nature still. But if
this were his moral condition, what were his circumstances? Just those
of man to this hour also. By the sweat of his face he was to get bread,
and in the sorrow of his heart to eat of it; and that too in the place
of thorns and thistles. And in like sorrow the woman was to bring forth
children; and all this till they both returned to the dust, out of which
they had been taken. And man is still after this manner, outside the
garden, conversant with toil and sorrow. Dressing and keeping a lovely
surface and a fruitful soil is not the thing or the allotment now.
Thorns and thistles and an unkindly reluctant ground are to be contended
with, and life to be had by the sweat of the face in the contest.

God alone is above this water-flood, able to manage this mighty
catastrophe. And His supremacy is such that He will make even such an
eater yield meat, and get sweetness out of even this strong one.

In a glorious sense, however, redemption is far more than remedy of a
mischief, or relief, even with advantage, for an injured, ruined
creation. Creation, rather, is the servant of redemption; for
"redemption is no afterthought." For the pleasure of Him who sits upon
the throne all things are and were created. But that very throne has
_the rainbow round about it_ (Rev. iv.), the sign of covenant
faithfulness, and that all things were to stand _in redemption_, or in
the value of the blood of Jesus. So that when sin entered, the Lord God
was at once prepared for it (I speak as a man); prepared to meet it by
covenant arrangements made before the world began, as His very first
word to the serpent tells us, "I will put enmity between thee and the
woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and
thou shalt bruise his heel."

Here the great way of God opens upon us. This promised Seed of the
woman, here revealed, is _God's provision for dead and ruined man_, in
the face of all the malice and wrath of the enemy. And He is this _at
all personal cost_; for the serpent was to bruise His heel. But though
bruised, _He was to achieve a glorious victory_; for He was to bruise
the serpent's head.

These are the holy, august characters of this mysterious stranger--this
promised Deliverer or Kinsman. Such was the truth revealed on the first
moment of our sin, and such has been the truth ever since. This gospel,
published in the first promise in the face of the devil himself, is
maintained in these last days by the apostle, in the face of men on
earth and angels in heaven. Gal. i. 8. Whether it be the earliest or the
latest preaching of it, this glorious gospel is still the same. It is
"the witness of God which He hath testified of His Son." It is the
gospel of the bruised and yet victorious Seed of the woman. In the
bright and perfect idea of it man is silent and passive. Abram had only
to _believe_, and righteousness was imputed to him. Israel had but to
_stand by_ and see God's salvation. Joshua in Zechariah iii., the
prodigal, the convicted adulteress, are all in like case. And here, at
the beginning of our sin, and the beginning of God's gospel, it is just
the same. Adam has only to _listen_, and through hearing to believe and
live. The word is nigh us, and we have but to receive it without working
anything in the heights above, or in the depths beneath. The
_activities_ are God's; the _sacrifices_ are God's. The profoundness of
our silence and passiveness in _becoming_ righteousness is only equalled
by the greatness of the divine activity and sacrifice in _acquiring_
righteousness for us. In the sight of such a mystery we may well stand
and say, "What hath God wrought!" "Simple indeed it is to us," as one
once said, "but it cost _Him_ everything."

There is nothing in the heart of man like faith in this gospel. The
faith of a poor sinner in the redeeming grace of God is the most
beautiful condition the soul can be in. As saints, beloved, we may trust
God for our need. We may look to Him for counsel, or for provision. We
may trust Him to vindicate our doings, comfort us in sorrow, and
strengthen us in difficulties. But the faith of a sinner, in the
justifying grace and work of His divine Saviour, transcends them all.
Nothing is so precious, for nothing apprehends God in so glorious a
character, or gives Him to the soul in so wondrous a relationship. This
faith it is which uses the richest resources in God, and acts upon the
most blessed discoveries of Him. For while all the ways of His glory
shine brightly--His strength, and comfort, and wisdom for His needy
saints--yet, that He has grace and salvation for sinners, this excelleth
them all.

The Spirit of God, in these early times, gives us some most precious
samples of this most precious faith; as though (may I say it?)
delighting in such a thing, He produced an impression of the finest
character _at once_, as soon as occasion served.

Thus Adam, in his faith, talked only of life, though in the midst of
death--death, which he himself had brought in, a standing witness
against him. He was doomed to be an outcast in a scene of ruin which his
own sin had produced. He knew this and allowed it. But he had listened
to the story of the conflict between his destroyer and the woman's Seed.
In the very place of judgment--from among the trees of the garden, where
conscience had driven him--his ear had caught the sound of the sweet
gospel, not of mercy merely, but propitiation and victory, and forth he
comes, talking of life. He called his wife "Eve," the mother of all
living. All life was in the promised Kinsman-Redeemer. In creation Adam
himself had been constituted head of life--"Be fruitful, and multiply,
and replenish the earth;" but that, in his esteem, was now forfeited and
gone. Life must flow in a new channel--"He that hath the Son hath life,
and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life."

How grand in its very simplicity all this was! And there was recovery
also of _moral_ glory, in a great sense, in all this. Adam had not
_submitted_ himself to the _majesty_ of God, but affected to be as God.
But now he does _submit_ himself to the _righteousness_ of God. His
shoulders bowed themselves to receive the covering wrought for his
nakedness by God's own hand. See Rom. x. 3. He was now honouring God the
Redeemer, though he had just before been doing all he could to dishonour
God the Creator--so simply was he led by the Spirit to value the divine
provision for a sinner in the promise of our bruised but victorious
Kinsman.

In like manner, Eve. She had listened to the same promise, and
therefore, as soon as she had brought forth her first-born, she gives
witness that this promise lived chief in the thoughts of her heart. "I
have gotten a man from the Lord," said she. She as much overlooked
herself as Adam did. She gloried only in her Seed. She had listened to
the promise with too faithful an ear to mistake herself for her Seed. It
was not over herself, but over him, that she now, in the language of
another mother, was singing, "My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my
spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour!" There was a mistake here, it is
true. But there was witness how the object of faith filled her visions,
and the expectations of faith stirred in her heart. And so soon as
disastrous events manifest her mistake, and prove to her that this
first-born of her womb was anything rather than the promised Seed--that
instead of being the bruiser of the serpent's head, he turned out to be
the murderer of his brother--still is she found on the rock where faith
had fixed her soul. "Let God be true, but every man a liar," was her
triumph. Over Seth she exclaims, "God hath appointed me another seed
instead of Abel, whom Cain slew." Though every cistern fail, she knows
the fountain cannot. One son had been a murderer, and another his
victim; but still God is true. "I will sing of the mercies of the Lord
_for ever_; with my mouth will I make known thy faithfulness to all
generations."

Precious faith, we may say, "like precious faith," with Adam, and with
us, beloved. So Abel. Faith in him had respect to the same promise, the
same gospel. The word had spoken of a _bruised_ Deliverer; and
accordingly it is a victim, a bruised or bloody sacrifice, he lays on
God's altar. But not only so. He brings the _fat_ of the victim
likewise. He knows the delight which God Himself takes in the provisions
of His own grace. He knows that He is pleased with the work of His own
hand. He understands that God is a cheerful giver, that there is no
grudging in the gift of grace. In spirit he hears the music which the
Father's command has awakened in His own house over His returned
prodigal. In the delight with which God Himself had clothed the naked
sinner with coats which His own hand had willingly wrought (a happier
task than even the six days of creation), the faith of Abel seems to
glory. And as thus the richest joy that is felt in all the costly
mystery of redemption is felt by God Himself, he lays the richest part
of the victim, the fat of the animal, on the altar, making _that_ the
Lord's own portion in this feast of love and joy, in His own house, and
at His own table.

This was another most excellent sample of a sinner's faith. Abel, in
spirit, was in Luke xv.--that chapter which tells us that the Lord's own
joy in it may account for the gospel. And all these are _pattern_ works
of the Spirit, forming the faith of sinners. There is no questioning of
God's grace, no uneasy reflections on creature-worthlessness, though
there was plenty of cause for that. The strength, the liberty, the
triumph of the promise live in their souls.

And let me add, that if the confession of Lamech (chapter iv. 23, 24) be
the utterance of a convicted believing sinner (as I believe it is), it
is only another equally fine expression of this same early and excellent
faith. It is of an order worthy to stand with that of Adam, or of Eve,
or of Abel; fervent, strong, unquestioning, and full of liberty.

God's word to Cain had revealed a great truth--that He, and He _alone_,
has to do with a sinner. Others, like Abel, may suffer; but all sin is
directly done against God, and He asserts His title to deal with it
alone. "Whosoever slayeth Cain [the Lord therefore says], vengeance
shall be taken on him sevenfold."

This great truth, so unspeakably precious to faith, Lamech seems to have
received and fed upon, until his whole soul triumphed in it. Not merely
_preservation_ from man, like Cain, does he count upon, but _salvation_,
"the salvation of God." Learning that as a sinner he was _alone_ with
God, he takes that place, and there discovers how God can deal with him,
even in the security and provisions of grace; and that discovery is the
light in which his soul at once walks. Like Job, afterwards, he
publishes his confession far and wide. "Hear my voice, ye wives of
Lamech," he says; "hearken unto my speech." Then in true gospel
intelligence he magnifies sin, and owns that it was his destruction. "I
have slain a man to my wounding, and a young man to my hurt." But then
again, in true gospel simplicity, he much more magnifies grace. "If Cain
be avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy and sevenfold." In his
thoughts, "where sin abounded, grace did much more abound." He is of the
very mind and temper of Paul. His confidence and victory are apostolic.
He seems to sing--

      "I hear the accuser roar
        Of ills that I have done;
      I know them well, and thousands more--
        Jehovah findeth none."


A glorious sight his faith takes of the whole mystery, and of the
boundlessness and riches of grace. He listens to the provisions of grace
(when alone with God), and the charging of the law, the accusings of
Satan, the alarms of conscience, and the self-righteous reproaches of
men, are not heard.[1]

  [1] I do not, however, assume that Lamech was a murderer; but he could
      identify himself with such. With Paul, he could, in the sense of
      what he was before God, speak of himself as chief of sinners. And
      we know also that the repentant Remnant of the latter day will, in
      their confession, quite take the place of blood-guiltiness after
      this manner. They will look to Him whom they pierced. They will,
      in the spirit of Daniel or Nehemiah, make themselves one with the
      guilty nation.

These operations of the Spirit through the promise on the souls of
sinners are truly beautiful. The apron of fig-leaves drops off, or is
rather cast away, when such operations go on. It is found _unnecessary_
now, as it was found _insufficient_ before. And so all the inventions of
men. They are the contrivances of the wrong-doer himself, the efforts of
the creature, the devices of the sinner, and they can _therefore_ never
do. But they are as unnecessary as they are insufficient. The coat of
skin, the work of God Himself, has made them so.

There is, however, something which this glorious relief provided for the
sinner does _not_ accomplish. The thorns and the thistles of the cursed
ground remain; and with them the sweat of the face, and the sorrow of
the heart, and then the return of dust to dust. As to this hour. We
shine in "the righteousness of God," adorned under His own eye, and by
His own hand dressed for His presence; but all the while pressures and
hindrances and sore grievances wait on the tilling of the earth; and
pains bring us into the world, till we return to the dust from whence we
came. Neither does this glorious provision of grace displace the
cherubim. They accompany it rather. They are stationed at the eastern
gate of the garden, with their flaming sword, to keep every way of the
tree of life; and no promise which Adam had listened to, no covering
which Adam had received, changes this. Man's capacity to regain that
tree is gone, and gone for ever. Never will he be anything but a _saved
sinner_, pass he along what paths of glory he may, from "paradise" to
"the kingdom," from the kingdom to "the new heavens and the new earth."
Eating of that tree is only by gift of Jesus, the woman's Seed of the
first promise. Rev. ii. 7.

Such are among the mysteries taught us in this wonderful chapter, full
of mysteries as it is, and of the profoundest secrets of God. But we
have to come down for instruction to learn man and his ways, as well as
to rise, as we learn God and His counsels.

Cain is declared by the Spirit of God in the apostle to have been "of
that wicked one." The first thing we see in him is his religion. He
renders to God, as offering or sacrifice, the fruit of the cursed
ground, the produce of his own toil. But this was unbelief. It was the
denial of all that had happened since the creation, the _religious_
denial of it. It was the direct contradiction of the way of faith, or of
Abel. Abel took the way of the promise to God, the bloody victory of the
woman's Seed, the death and resurrection of Christ, and offered of his
flock; but Cain refused to see man's ruin and God's redemption, giving
God the fruit of the earth; in effect saying, that He was to be read and
known in the thorns and the thistles, the sweat, and the sorrow, and the
death; and by the solemn services of his altar he was denying all truth.

This was the way of a heart deeply departed from God. He was laying the
scene of ruin at God's door, as Adam, ere he repented, had laid down the
sin itself there.

His next way is in terrible keeping with all this. He hates his brother,
being of that wicked one who is a murderer (John viii. 44), and in
process of time he slays him.

Tremendous fruit of the apostate, departed nature. He was the first of
that generation who delivered Jesus to be crucified--self-righteous and
murderous. For envy the Jews delivered Jesus; and Cain slew Abel because
his own works were evil and his brother's righteous. It is the world.
"Marvel not, my brethren, if the world hate you. We know that we have
passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. He that
loveth not his brother abideth in death. Whosoever hateth his brother is
a murderer, and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in
him." The Lord pleaded with him. See iv. 6, 7. His heart had conceived
the sin, but his hand had not brought forth fruit unto death; and with a
voice of long-suffering grace and warning the Lord pleaded with him. The
grace was despised; this grace of pleading with him at the last hour, as
the grace of the promise had been despised before.

"This is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men
loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil." The
light which the Lord Jesus was bringing with Him was the light of life
or salvation. Isa. xlix. 6; John viii. 12. And _this_ was the light
which Cain hated and refused.

There is the light of righteousness or holiness. But the refusal of it
is not without remedy. In that light the Lord God had come into the
garden and called, "Adam, where art thou?" Adam could not stand it; for
he had sinned. It was intolerable to him. He had come short of that
glory. He retreats from it. And then the Lord God shines in another
light. The promise is made. The character of the glory is changed. God
seats Himself in a light which the sinner can approach, and, believing,
Adam comes forth.

_This_ was the light which Cain despised, the light of salvation, the
light of the promise, the light in which God shines before men outside
the garden. And Cain is therefore cursed as Adam had not been. As it is
said of another generation, "Behold, ye despisers, and wonder, and
perish."

All this is the solemn history of the first unbeliever. But the treasury
of corrupt nature that was in him spends itself in further ways of
wickedness. In him was rising that spring which was to give out "its
superfluity of naughtiness." He lies after all this, and justifies
himself. "I know not," says he; "am I my brother's keeper?" For "the
lusts of his father he would do;" and when the devil "speaketh a lie, he
speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it."

All this, however, and even more than this, was _man_, and not Cain
merely. It was the ruined heart of man exposing itself. And because it
was this, because it was the common nature that was thus disclosing
itself, the Lord takes the judgment of it away from man. "Whosoever
slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold;" for none are
without sin. "Thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that
judgest; for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself." All
are in the like condemnation. No one can take up the stone and cast it
at another. And in order to express this great principle of truth, and
that God alone has either title or competency to deal with sin, the Lord
will not allow any man to touch the fratricide. By this divine writing
on the case, all are to go out convicted, one by one, and leave the
sinner with God. John viii.

For the ends of government, when government in the earth becomes the
divine purpose, it shall be said, Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man
shall his blood be shed. ix. 6. But this is not so as yet. And for the
teaching of the common pravity, that all of us may be humbled by the
common conviction, that "we have all sinned, and come short of the glory
of God," not one of the whole human family is allowed to touch this
wicked Cain. And so to this day, when government has been divinely set
up, it is not sin that it deals with. _Crimes_, or offences against
public order, and _wrongs_ done to individuals, may be judged by man;
but to take vengeance on _sin_ would be the assuming of personal
guiltlessness. "He that is _without sin_ among you, let _him_ first cast
a stone at her." God has to deal with sin _alone_.[2]

  [2] Some have spoken of the Jews, as guilty of the blood of Christ, so
      as to have betrayed the principle of self-righteousness condemned
      here. And yet I doubt not that there is a sense in which the Jews
      are--in a special sense--connected with that sin in the divine
      judgment. The land of the Jews is the distinguished field of
      blood; the blood of Jesus, in a great sense, is specially on them
      and their children. And so, like Cain, that people are under the
      special securities of God. And further; that blood is to be
      cleansed from off their land, though it now so stains it. Joel
      iii. 21.

      And still further; the language of Lamech, I also judge, is
      mystical or typical, intimating the repentance of the Jews who
      shed the blood, after generations of unbelief and hardness of
      heart. See note, p. 20.

But, further, as to this awful history. Man will not always be making
this terrible exhibition of himself. He will not at all times appear as
the liar and the murderer. Legion will not be found on every journey we
take. There are restraints. The law, in one sense, was given to that
end. So there are the checks and improvements of education. And there is
the control of God's hand, and the fear of His providence and judgment.
And there is "the law of opinion," as it has been called, the verdict of
society. These and the like influences produce an order in the social
scene, which has therefore become not only tolerable, but full of vast
accommodations and large entertainments. A new _scene_ is thus produced,
though not a new _creature_. Man is man still, the same creature in
God's esteem, or in all divine reckoning, though he appears in the
character of a respectable citizen of the world, and not as the murderer
of his brother. Cain builds a city. He has a thriving, prosperous
family. Through their skill and industry the face of the world
flourishes and looks well. All is respectable; and pleasant and friendly
the people are one with another. The murder is forgotten. Man does not
hear the cry of blood, but the sound of the harp and the organ. His
inventions have stifled his convictions. Cain is an honourable man. But
as to the presence of God, he is as thoroughly separated from it as when
his hand was freshly stained with the blood of his brother.

This is solemn. Man, as a respectable citizen of the world, may be as
separated from God as a murderer. "The remnant of them," as the parable
speaks, "took his servants ... and slew them." The remnant! a word which
lets us know that the refusers of the supper were of _one_ class with
those who shed the blood of the innocent.

The ease and indifference with which Cain could turn his back upon the
Lord, and upon the recollection of his brother's blood, are dreadful. He
got a promise of security, and that was all he cared for. And quickly,
under his hand, accommodations and delights of all sorts fill the scene.

In some sense this is principally shocking. This exceeds. But is not
this the "course of the world"? Was it not man that slew Jesus? Does not
the guilt of that deed lie at every man's door? And what is the course
of the world but the ease and indifference of Cain in this highest state
of guilt? The earth has borne the cross of Christ; and yet man can busy
himself with garnishing and furnishing it, and making life in it
convenient and pleasurable without God. This is shocking when we look at
it in full divine light. A respectable citizen of the world Cain was,
but all the while a heartless forgetter of the sorrows of Abel! His ease
and respectability are the blackest features of his history. He went
away as soon as he got a promise of security; and that promise he uses,
not to soften his heart, and overwhelm him with convictions of all that
had happened, but as giving him full occasion to indulge and magnify
himself.

We read in the New Testament of "the way of Cain." It may be, nay, it
is, run by others. Jude 11. And what a way does this chapter show it to
be! He was an infidel, or a man of his own religion; not obedient in
faith to God's revelation. He practised the works of the liar and the
murderer; he hated the light; he was proof against God's word in mercy
and in warning; he cares nothing for the presence of God which his sin
had forfeited, or for the sorrow of his brother which his hand had
inflicted. And, as such an one, he can take pains to make himself happy
and honourable in the very place which thus witnessed against him.

Is this the "way of Cain"? Is this man still? Yes; and nature outlives a
thousand restraints and improvements. For at the end of Christendom's
career it will even then be said of a generation, "They have gone in the
way of Cain."

This is deeply solemn, beloved, had we but hearts to feel it. There is,
however, a rescued, separated people. Seth's family are after another
order altogether. They are not seen in cities, furnished with
accommodations and pleasures, apart, like Cain, "from the presence of
the Lord;" but as the household of God, separated from that world that
lay in the wicked one, to the faith and worship of His name.


It is the sight of this elect family that has principally at this time
drawn me to this portion of the precious oracles of God. There is much,
I believe, in their standing and testimony which has instruction for our
souls. Like all else in these chapters, it is but short notices we get;
but great things are to be found in them.

This family of Seth may generally be thus spoken of: _They are
strikingly opposed to the way of Cain, and remarkably apprehensive of
the way of God_.

I speak not here again of their _faith_, but of their _standing and
testimony_. Their faith, or the character of their religion, may be read
in that of Adam, who re-appears here at the head of these antediluvian
saints; and his faith (kindred with that of Eve and Abel, or of all who
receive the gospel of the grace of God) I have already considered. But I
speak now of their standing as a household of God, and of their
testimony in the world.

The Lord had set a mark on Cain, that no one finding him should slay
him. He would not have the blood of Abel avenged. This we have already
seen.

The family of Seth are strictly observant of this. No attempt, or
anything like it, is made by them to answer the cry of innocent blood.
They know that it is heard in the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth; but,
under this word of God, they are deaf to it themselves. Vengeance does
not belong to them. The harvest has not come. They are not reapers. In
obedience they heard, not the cry of blood, but the voice of the Lord
countermanding vengeance. And they suffer it. They take the wrong done
to their brother, and are acceptable with God.

Express charge demanded this, and this was consequently simple
obedience. But the mind of a saint is full of light. It is the mind of
Christ (1 Cor. ii.); in us, it is true, darkened in a thousand actings
of it, by the coarseness and blindness of nature with which it is now
linked; but still, in itself it is full of light. Even angelic nature is
all life. Torpidity and dulness do not belong to it. "Winds" and "flames
of fire" express that nature, and such things act constantly and
fervently; and in like virtue the mind of Christ, the divine nature in
the saint, is full of affection and intelligence.

We get some of its fine ways of acting in this household of God.

The innocent blood is to remain unavenged. Its cry from the earth is not
to be answered, at least for the present. _That_ is enough to teach the
saint his pilgrim, heavenly calling. The family of Seth are therefore as
pilgrims and strangers here, and all their habits are those of heavenly
citizens. If the earth be not to be cleansed, the elect are to be
strangers in it with a heavenly calling.

Beautifully true to the mind of God is this! For this is the way of God;
and it was apprehended by these saints, more in the light and knowledge
of His most perfect and beautiful ways than many of us, beloved, who, in
the fuller revelations of this present age, have been so much nourished
and instructed. But it is not the much schooling we get, but the
capacity which sits at the lesson. David wanted capacity for this same
lesson, when he talked of building a house of cedars, a fixed
habitation, for the Lord, while the land was still defiled with blood.
But the Lord (may I say?) would be, like the antediluvian saints, a
stranger on the earth, a dweller in tents, while blood was staining it;
and that very night rebuked the purpose of the king of Israel. 1 Chron.
xvii.

We have many exhibitions of this way of God in different forms of it.
The Lord, for instance, would have no altar in Egypt, uncircumcised as
that land was. He would not have a throne in the land (in the full glory
of it) till the day of Solomon, when all was sanctified for His royal
presence. Afterwards the glory was grieved away by the abominations
which were done in the temple. The captives, in like spirit, hang their
harps on the willows of the Euphrates; for how could they sing in a
strange land, or let the songs of Zion be heard in Babylon? Separation
was the rule of the divine mind. Separation was holiness. Pollution
demanded it, and faith rose at the bidding. And with all this the Seth
family, the household of God in earliest days--days before the
flood--are in company. They are one in spirit with Jehovah Himself in
Egypt, with the glory in the defiled temple, with the harps of the
captives in Babylon, and with the Church of God in "this present evil
world."

We have to distinguish between these two things: _God's assertion of His
title to the earth, and God's call of a people out of the earth_.

These different things have been again and again exhibited in the
progress of the dispensations. And they have been exhibited, as I have
long judged, alternately.

The Lord began, in Adam, to claim and display His rights on the earth.
The man in the garden was to own the sovereignty of God, and the earth
was the rest and the delight of the Lord, and the place of His glory.

Sin entering and polluting all, and the pollution being left uncleansed,
in Seth God called a people away from the earth to an inheritance in
heaven.

Then in Noah the Lord God re-asserted His rights here, and took up the
earth as the place where His elect might find a home, and His own
presence be known again.

After this Abraham is separated from kindred, and from country, and from
father's house, to be a heavenly stranger on the earth, with his altar
and his tent, looking for a city whose builder and maker was God.

Israel, in their day, then take up this mystic tale of the heavens and
the earth, and in the land of Canaan become the witness of the scene of
God's sovereignty. The ark passes over the river as "the ark of the
covenant of the Lord of all the earth."

And now the Church is set for the full testimony of heavenly mysteries
again; and strangership here is the divine idea, till our being taken to
meet the Lord in the air.

This wondrous tale these dispensations of God, like day and night
alternate, have thus been telling from the beginning; and still are
telling. And millennial days ere long will make these pledges good, and
be the glorious substance of these foreshadowings.[3]

  [3] Such passages as Eph. i. 10 and Col. i. 20 tell us that both the
      heavens and the earth are equally the scene of divine purposes.
      And the great argument in Rom. xi. instructs us about those
      purposes, and the ways and times of their accomplishment.

Now let me observe, that whenever God arises in this progress of His
counsels to _assert title to the earth_, He begins by judging and
cleansing it. And this, I may say, _of course_; because, the scene of
His purposed glory and presence being corrupted, He must take the
offence away, for His presence could not brook defilement. Noah's
lordship of the earth was, accordingly, preceded by the flood carrying
away the world of the ungodly. Israel's inheritance of Canaan under
Jehovah, as the God of all the earth, was prepared by the judgment of
the Amorites and the sword of Joshua. And the future millennial kingdom,
when the earth is to be the place of the glory again, is (as all
Scripture tells us) to be ushered in by that great action called "the
day of the Lord," with a clearing out of all that offend, and all that
do iniquity.

But the _call of God_ is quite of another character. It proceeds on the
principle, that God Himself is apart from the earth, and is not seeking
to have it as the home of His glory, or the place of His presence; but
seeking a people out of it, to be His, away from it, and above it. The
earth is altogether a stranger to such a purpose. It is left just as it
is found. No judgment, no visitation of the scene here from the hand of
God, accompanies it.

This was exhibited in Abraham. Abraham was the object of the call of
God; and accordingly the Canaanites find no rival in him. He does not
dispute with them the title or possession of the soil. He finds them,
and he leaves them, lords of it. He desires only to pitch his tent and
raise his altar on the surface of it for a season; and then, for another
season, to have his bones laid in the bowels of it.

So with the Church in this age. She is likewise under the call of God.
But her call leaves the Gentiles in power, as it found them. "Let every
soul be subject to the higher powers." The saints have only to obey them
unreluctantly, or to suffer from them patiently, according as the demand
made by them is or is not consistent with their subjection to Christ and
the call of God. They cannot strive with the potsherds of the earth.
Peter's sword is to be put up, and Pilate is to learn that the servants
of Jesus cannot fight. Their warfare is not with flesh and blood. They
are defeated the moment they begin it. The call of God has marshalled
the hosts of God against principalities and powers on high, and the
battle is there. It does not connect us with the earth. Our
_necessities_ do, but not our _call_. We need the fruit of the ground,
the toil of the hand, and the skill of the heart, to provide things
needful for the body. Our necessities thus connect us with it, and we
have to do with it for their supply; but our call separates us from it.
Joshua went into the possession of the Gentiles, that his sword might
make it the possession of the Lord; Paul went into the places of the
Gentiles, to take out of them a people unto God, linked with the
disallowed Stone, despised and rejected of men.

The family of Seth were, in like manner, under this call of God. It was
intimated to them by the charge to leave the blood of Abel unavenged,
and they understood the intimation. If the earth be left in its
defilement, God is not seeking it (as we have now seen all His ways
declare), and this family of faith are in that secret. They will not
seek it either. Cain's house was in possession of it, and Seth's family
will leave them there, without a rival or a struggle. The mind of God in
them took this knowledge of the way of God, and of His pleasure touching
them; and they acted on heavenly principles in a blood-stained earth,
whose judgment was now for a time to linger and to slumber.

I own, beloved, that I greatly admire this fine expression of the mind
of Christ in these earliest saints. They take the only way which the
holiness of God could sanction. They are "partakers of _His_ holiness."
The light they walked in was _God's_; the holiness they partook of was
_God's_. 1 John i. 7; Heb. xii. 10. This is a peculiar thing. That light
is not merely righteousness. It is the light of grace also. Yea, and the
light of heavenly strangership in a polluted world. It is a light which
reproves the course of this world, and makes manifest other principles
and hopes altogether. There may be righteousness, and the watching and
praying which escapes temptation; but there must be a walk according to
these principles and hopes, to form a walk "in the light, as He is the
light." These earliest believers beautifully shine there, I believe.
They were not under law. They come between Adam and Moses. They had not
precepts, as I have already shown. But they were in the light, as God is
in the light. And if afterwards Abram did not need to be told to have
his altar and his tent--if he needed no precept from the Lord how to
order the marriage of his son, or how to answer the king of Sodom--so
these saints of still earlier days understood the holiness of the call
of God, and took their journey for a heavenly country at the bidding of
the pollution of the earth.

I own indeed, again, that I greatly admire this. It is the beauty of the
Spirit's workmanship in His elect vessels. All is His. "How great is His
goodness, and how great is His beauty!" They learn the word in spirit
ere the voice of the Spirit uttered it--"Arise, depart, for this is not
your rest; it is polluted."

The details about these antediluvian believers are very scanty; but
through it all there is this heavenly character. They do not supply
history for the world; but they do supply instruction for the Church.
This is heavenly. No spirit of burning or spirit of judgment had purged
the blood of the earth, and they shrink instinctively from it. In the
spirit of their minds they leave it. "What communion has light with
darkness? what fellowship has righteousness with unrighteousness?" their
conduct asks. Their _religion_ is that of separation from the world, and
so are _their habits_.

They call on the name of the Lord. The name of the Lord is the
revelation He has been pleased to make of Himself. Immanuel, Jesus, "the
Lord our righteousness," Jehovah, God Almighty, the Father, the Son, and
the Holy Ghost--these are among His names graciously and gloriously
published by Himself. And "to call on the name of the Lord" was service
or worship of God in spirit and in truth.

This was the religion of these earliest saints. It was simply the
religion of faith and hope. They worshipped God, and, apart from the
world, they waited in hope. "The work of faith" and "the patience of
hope" are seen in them. Something of the Thessalonian spirit breathes in
them. For they served the living and true God, and waited for the Son
from heaven, who had already delivered them. 1 Thess. i. To "call on the
name of the Lord" is faith, and salvation, and worship. It bespeaks the
standing of a saint, and his spiritual service. It shall come to pass,
that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved. Joel
ii.; Rom. x. I will offer to thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving, and
will call upon the name of the Lord. Psalm cxvi. And such was their
religion, such was their worship. It was worship in spirit. No temples,
or costly carnal services, or institutions of man appear.

And in their ways and habits they are only seen as a people walking
across the surface of the earth, till their bodies are either laid under
it, or are translated to heaven above it. They rejoice, as though they
rejoiced not; they buy, as though they possessed not; they have wives,
as though they had none. All around them is as Babylon to them, and
their harps are on the willows. Cain's family have all the music to
themselves. But Seth's family are a risen people. Their conversation is
in heaven. They look for no estates or cities. All they take is an
earlier Machpelah. Nothing is told us of their place or their business.
They are strangers where even Adam was once at home, and, much more,
where Cain still was. We may follow them, and in spirit abide with them
for a day; but where they dwelt we know not--like the disciples who
followed the glorious Stranger from heaven in the day of His sojourn
here. John i. 38, 39. They are without a place or a name. The earth knew
them not. Like the stranger Rechabites, they are, throughout their
generations, one after another, of the wilderness, and not of the city
(Judges i. 16); or in Levitical language, they were a standing order of
Nazarites, more separated to God than even Israel themselves.

They are the earliest witnesses of this heavenly strangership. Such a
life is exhibited afterwards in other saints of God in its fuller,
beautiful details; but we have it here in spirit.

For instance, in Isaac. The world was against him. But he strives not
with it either in deed or in word. He neither answers nor resists. The
Philistines tell him to go from them. He goes at their bidding. They
spoil him of his labours. He yields and takes it patiently, as Esek and
Sitnah tell us. Gen. xxvi.

So his father Abraham before him. Only, sad to tell it, it is a
_brother_ who acts the part of the world in the scene. Lot chooses, as
the world chooses, the well-watered plain. Abraham suffers, and takes it
patiently--though it was something more galling than the wrong of a
Philistine--the unthankful, selfish way of one who should have known
better, and who owed him everything. Gen. xiii.

So Israel, in still later days, accepts the insult of Edom in like
spirit. They pleaded for a passage through their land by the claims of
kindred, by reason of their common origin, by their many toils and
afflictions, by the tokens of the divine favour toward them, and by
their present need as toiling, way-worn pilgrims through a desert land.
But Edom despised them and threatened. They pleaded again, but they were
insulted again; they suffered it, and took another road. Num. xx. And so
their Lord in the day of His pilgrimage. He sought another village when
other Edomites of Samaria refused Him. Luke ix. Precious and happy, thus
to put Him at the head of all that is excellent! The good that is done
is _like_ Him, as well as _of_ Him. Isaac suffers wrong from _the
world_, and takes it patiently. Abraham suffers wrong from _one who owed
him everything_, and takes it patiently. Israel suffers likewise from
their _kindred_; but Jesus from those whom _He was serving and blessing
at the cost of everything to Himself_, from the world which He had made,
and from that people whom He had adopted. And yet "He lays His thunder
by," and goes on His pilgrimage of love and service still.

In like spirit the family of God, in days before the flood pursue their
pilgrim path. They leave the world to Cain. There is not the symptom of
a struggle, nor the breath of a complaint. They say not, nor think of
saying, "Master, speak to my brother, that he divide the inheritance
with me." In habits of life and principles of conduct, they are as
distinct from their injurious brother as though they were of another
race, or in another world. Cain's family make _all_ the world's history.
They build its cities, they promote its arts, they conduct its trade,
they invent its pleasures and pastimes. But in all this Seth's family
are not seen. The one generation call their cities after their own
names; the other call themselves by the name of the Lord. The one do all
they can to make the world their own, and not the Lord's; the other do
all they can to shew themselves to be the Lord's, and not their own.
Cain writes his own name on the earth; Seth writes the Lord's name on
himself.

We may bless the Lord for this vigorous delineation of heavenly
strangership on earth, and ask for grace to know some of its living
power in our souls. It is this which has drawn me to this portion of the
Word at this time. It reads us a lesson, beloved. And well indeed, if
the instincts of our renewed minds suggest the same heavenly path with
like certainty and clearness. The call of God leads that way, and all
His teaching demands it. The pastimes and the purposes, the interests
and the pleasures, of the children of Cain are nothing to these
pilgrims. They declare plainly that they refuse the thought, that there
is any capacity in the earth, as it is now, to give them satisfaction.
They are discontented with it, and make no attempts to have it
otherwise. There lay their moral separation from the way of Cain and his
household. They were not mindful of the country around them, but sought
a better, that is, a heavenly.[4] May I not therefore say of them, as I
have said, that they are strikingly opposed to the way of Cain, and
remarkably apprehensive of the way of God?

  [4] What I say of this antediluvian family is only as we see them in
      Genesis v. I doubt not, as under every trial of man, failure and
      corruption are witnessed. But I speak merely of their standing and
      testimony as given to us here. Sons and daughters, as we are told,
      were born to them, generation after generation, and seeds of
      apostasy were sown and sprang up among them, I doubt not. But this
      does not at all affect the lesson we get from this fifth chapter.

After this pattern the Lord would have us: in the world, but not of it;
of heaven, though not as yet (except in Christ) in it. Paul, in the Holy
Ghost, would so have us, taking example from those whose "conversation
is in heaven." Peter, in the same Spirit, would so have us "as strangers
and pilgrims" abstaining from fleshly lusts. James summons us, in the
same Spirit, to know that "the friendship of the world is enmity with
God." And John separates us as by a stroke: "We are of God, and the
whole world lieth in wickedness."

It is for the Church surely, beloved, to walk in this elevation and
separateness. What is according to the call of God, and what worthy of
heavenly hopes, but this? We breathe but feebly, and glow but faintly,
in company with those and like witnesses. What a temper of soul, it has
just struck me, we get in such a chapter as Phil. iv.! What a glow is
felt throughout it! What depth and fervency of affection! What a shout
of triumph the spirit raises! What elevation in the midst of changes,
perplexities, and depressions! The apostle's whole temper of soul
throughout that chapter is uncommon. But if one may speak for others, it
is to us little more than the tale of a distant land, or the warmth and
brilliancy of other climes reported to our souls by travellers.

Lead us, Lord, we pray thee! Teach us indeed to sing--

      "We're bound for yonder land,
        Where Jesus reigns supreme;
      We leave the shore at His command,
        Forsaking all for Him.

      "'T were easy, did we choose,
        Again to reach the shore--
      But that is what our souls refuse,
        We'll never touch it more."


But surely it is one thing to be the advocate of Christianity, and
another to be the disciple of it. And though it may sound strange at
first, far easier is it to _teach_ its lessons than to _learn_ them. But
so our souls know full well.

We have, however, still to look at the _destiny_ and _endowments_ of
these saints, as we have already looked at their _faith_, their
_virtues_, and their _religion_.

The translation of Enoch was the first formal testimony of the great
divine secret, that _man was to have a place and inheritance in the
heavens_. By creation he was formed for the earth. The garden was his
habitation, Eden his demesne, and all the earth his estate. But now is
brought forth the deeper purpose, that God has an election from among
men, destined, in the everlasting counsels of abounding grace, for
heaven.

In the course of ages and dispensations after this, this high purpose of
God was only dimly and occasionally, slowly and gradually, manifested.
But in the person of Enoch it is made to shine out at once. The heavenly
calling at this early moment, and in the bosom of his elect and favoured
household, declares itself in its full lustre. This great fact among the
antediluvian patriarchs anticipates in spirit the hour of Mount Tabor,
the vision of the martyred Stephen, and the taking up of the saints in
the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.

Such was the high destiny of the elect people.

The prophecies of Enoch and of Lamech are samples of their endowments.
And rich indeed, worthy of their dignity, these endowments were. For
those prophecies under the Holy Ghost tell us that glorious secrets had
been entrusted to them. They were treated as in the place of friends.
"Shall I hide from them," the Lord was saying to them, as afterwards to
Abraham, "that thing which I do?" For such privileges belong only to
dignity. See Gen. xviii. 18. And if Abraham knew the doom of Sodom
beforehand, Enoch, in a deeper, larger sense, knew the doom of the whole
world beforehand. And his prophecy lets out a mystery of solemn and
wondrous glory--that the heavenly saints are to accompany the Lord in
the day of His power and judgment. And, as of a character equal with
this, Lamech's, which comes after, in its turn, with happier
anticipations, sketches the scene that lies beyond the judgment, days of
millennial blessedness, "the days of heaven upon the earth." The Lord
has not given up the earth for ever. And these saints before the flood
can speak of that great mystery even before the bow in the cloud becomes
the token of it. But they know the judgment of it must come first; and
they can speak of that mystery also before the fountains of the great
deep were broken up.

Rich endowments in the Spirit thus attach to their high personal dignity
with God. As with the Church now. "Stewards" they were "of the mysteries
of God." They could "sing of mercy and of judgment;" unto God and of His
counsels they could sing. Profoundest secrets feed their souls. "The
deep things of God," the things both of prophets and apostles, the
things of the epistles and the apocalypse, are theirs. Paul was
entrusted with the circumstances of the heavenly calling. He speaks of
our being caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and of
that great expectation as being our comfort and relief against the day
of the Lord and its terrors; Enoch in himself, long before, illustrated
that very thing. John speaks of the raptured saints accompanying the
Lord in the day of His power, joining in the breaking of the potter's
vessel, and in the warfare of the Rider on the white horse; Enoch in his
prophecy, long before, testified the same. Jude 14, 15. Prophets tell of
the wilderness by-and-by rejoicing, and of the desert blossoming, of the
blessed One renewing the face of the earth, and instead of the brier,
the myrtle flourishing; but long before Lamech had told of this same
comfort in the earth again, and this rest for man from the curse of the
ground. Gen. v. 29.

Rich indeed were these endowments in the Holy Ghost. There is even
peculiar vividness in these earliest utterances of the prophetic spirit.
There is commonly a haze over the distance. It is not clear, as if it
were the foreground. Indistinctness invests it. And this, in contrast
with the nearer landscape, only heightens the impression of the whole.
So the notices of the prophets, and the things reported by apostles.
They are delivered in different style. Properly so. The haze of distance
commonly invests the communications we get of the future. Such is the
perfectness of the way of the Spirit. The very drapery under which the
distant or the future appears sets it off fitly. Clearness, or literal
definiteness, would be offensive, as glare or nakedness. This is
commonly so, and this is all admirable. But if _at times_ the distance
is illuminated, we can delight in it; and in these earliest notices the
latest scenes of divine action are thus set off in strange and beautiful
distinctness.

Such was the heavenly calling, its virtues, its dignity, and its
endowments, of this antediluvian family of God. The end of their path
was heavenly also, as heavenly as any feature of it. I speak not of the
_fact_ of its ending in heaven, but of the very _style_ in which it so
ended. No sign among the nations gave notice of it. No times or seasons
had to mark or measure it. No stated age or numbered years had to spend
themselves. No voice of prophecy had so much as hinted the blessed,
rapturous moment. "Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took
him." Nothing peculiar ushered forth that glorious hour. No big
expectations or strange events gave token of its coming. It was the
natural heavenly close of an undeviating heavenly journey.

It was otherwise with Noah afterwards. Great preparation was made for
his deliverance. Years also spent themselves--appointed years. But not
so our heavenly patriarch. Noah was carried through the judgment; but
Enoch, before it came, was borne to the place out of which it came.[5]

  [5] I am not careful to apply all this, as I believe it may be
      applied. I rather leave it in the way of a suggestion. But it does
      seem to me that the Lord, _speaking of the Jewish election_, takes
      Noah for His text or type (Matt. xxiv.); while the apostle,
      _addressing the Church_, takes his language the rather from the
      translation of Enoch. 1 Thess. iv. 17; 2 Thess. ii. 1. For the
      Jewish remnant, like Noah, will be carried through the
      judgment---the saints now gathering will be in the sphere out of
      which the judgment is to be poured. For we are taught again and
      again, as I have noticed before, that exercise of power in that
      day, in company with the Lord, is part of the glory of the saints.
      See Col. iii. 4; Rev. ii. 26; xvii. 14; xix. 14.

And if the days and years did not measure it, nor signs announce it, did
the world, I ask, witness it? Or was it, though so glorious and great,
silent and secret?

The language of the apostle seems to give me my answer, and so does all
the analogy of Scripture. He "was not found, because God had translated
him." This sounds as though man had been a stranger to that glorious
hour. The world seems to have inquired and searched after him, like the
sons of the prophets after Elijah; but in vain. 2 Kings ii. 17; Heb. xi.
5. And this tells us that the translation had been a secret to man; for
they would not have searched, had they seen it.

All scriptural or divine analogy answers me in like manner. Glory, in
none of its forms or actions, is for the eye or ear of mere man.

Horses and chariots filled the mountain; but the prophet's servant had
to get his eye opened ere he could see them. Daniel saw a glorious
stranger, and heard his voice as the voice of a multitude; but the men
who stood with him saw nothing--only a terror fell on them. The glory on
"the holy hill" shone only in the sight of Peter, James, and John,
though the brightness there at that moment (night as it was) might have
lighted up all the land; for the divine face "did shine as the sun."
Many bodies of saints arose, attendants on the Lord's rising; but it was
only to some in the holy city they showed themselves. The heaven was
opened over the head of the martyr of Jesus, in the very midst of a
multitude; but the glory was seen only by him. Paul went to Paradise,
and Philip to Azotus; but no eye of man tracked either the flight or the
journey. And beyond all, when Jesus rose, and that, too, from a tomb of
hewn stone, and from amid a guard of wakeful soldiers, no ear or eye was
in the secret. It was a lie, that the keepers of the stone slept; but it
is a truth, that they saw no more of the resurrection than had they done
so. Silence and secrecy thus mark all these glorious transactions.
Visions, audiences, resurrections, flights, ascensions, the glory down
here, and the heaven opened up there, all these go on, and yet mere man
is a stranger to all. And the translation of Enoch takes company with
all these, I assuredly judge; and so, I further judge, will another
glorious hour soon to come, in which "they that are Christ's" are _all_
to be interested.


I have now reached and closed the fifth chapter. The first part of the
Book of Genesis will be found to end here. For these chapters (i.-v.)
constitute a little volume.

I.  This chapter opens the volume with the work of creation.

II.  Creation being complete, the Lord, the Creator, takes His delight
in it; and in the midst of it, and over it, places the man whom He had
formed in His own image, with all endowments and possessions to make his
condition perfect.

III.  Man, thus made perfect, being tried and overcome, we see the
_ruin_ which he wrought, and the _redemption_ which God provided.

IV.  V.  These chapters then show us one branch of this ruined, redeemed
family choosing the ruins, and another branch of it delighting in the
redemption.

This is simple, and yet perfect. The tale is told--a tale of other days;
but in the results and sympathies of which we live at this hour.

It is the sight of the elect, believing, heavenly household, which we
get in this little volume, which has at this time drawn my thoughts to
it. They walked on earth as we should walk; but they were, by their
faith, hope, and destiny, all the while, very near heaven, as we are.

Are we touching the skirts of such glory with unaffected hearts,
beloved? Does anything more humble you in His presence, I ask you (for
my own soul has already given its answer), than the conviction we have
of the little estimation in which the heart holds His promised glory? It
is terrible discovery to make of oneself. That we have but small delight
in the provisions of His goodness, is more terrible than that we have no
answer to the demands of His righteousness. And yet both stand in proof
against us. After Israel had left Egypt, they were tested by the voice
of the law; but the golden calf tells that they had no answer for it. In
the progress of their journey, they are tested by the firstfruits of
Canaan; but the desired captain tells that they had no relish for the
feast. And what is the heart of man still? What was it in Christ's day?
The parable of the marriage of the king's son, like the captain of the
wilderness, tells us that there is no relish there for the table which
God spreads. What are singing men and singing women to a heavy ear? The
pleasant land is despised still. Canaan is not worth the scaling of a
single wall, or an encounter with one Amalekite. The farm, the
merchandise, and the wife, are made the captain to take us back, in
spite of the invitations of love and the treasures of glory.

Terrible discovery! And yet it is not hard to make it. The proof of it
clings pretty close to us. We know how quickly present interests move
us; how loss depresses and profit elates us; and then, again, we know
how dull the glory glitters, if but a difficulty or a hazard lie this
side of it.

Are we sorry because of this, beloved? Does it ever break the heart into
sighs and groans before our God? Sad and solemn, if we feel it not
thus--and terrible, when we deliberately talk to ourselves of making a
captain again. And this we do when the pastime and the pleasures of the
sons of men again give animation to our hearts, or when their honours or
their pursuits become again our objects. Lot's wife, beloved, had got
beyond Sodom, and that, too, in company with the elect, when it was
found that she was still there, in such a sense as to perish with the
city. Israel was as far as the wilderness of Paran, and that, too, in
company with the ark of God, when it was proved that they were still
amid the flesh-pots of Egypt. Serious remembrances for us all! holy
warnings, that we wanton not with those lusts and enjoyments, which once
we watched and mortified.


"Of that day and hour knoweth no man"--are the solemn words by which the
Lord refuses to pledge the moment of His return to His Jewish remnant.
Matt. xxiv. 36. That moment is to be to them as the thief of the night,
or as the hour of the woman in travail. So as to death. If it come on
any of us without a moment's warning, the Lord has not been untrue to
any pledge He has given. And so as to the rapture. In no case is the day
or the hour pledged or made known. All is included in _one_ word of deep
and holy import--"Watch"--and that one word is addressed to all: "What I
say unto you, I say unto all, Watch."

Whether the close to us be by death or rapture--whether it be to Israel
by being taken or left--the day and the hour remain alike untold; no
pledge of it is promised at all. Each and all are set on the
watch-tower. _We_ wait for "the Son from heaven;" _they_ will have to
wait for "the days of the Son of man;" but neither of us know the hour
that closes the waiting.

That is common to them and to us. We stand in equal condition with them
as to this. But together with this there is a difference.

The Jewish Remnant are given signs. That is, they are told of certain
things which _must_ precede "the days of the Son of man," though they
are left ignorant of the day or the hour of that appearing. See Matt.
xxiv. 32-36. The saints now gathering to the hope of the "Son from
heaven" are, on the contrary, not given any such signs, or told of any
necessary precursory events.

The Lord communicated His _purpose_ of judgment to Noah, but said
nothing to him of the _time_ of it. But Noah knew that it could not be
till his ark was built. He knew not the time when the waters were to
rise; but he knew they could not rise till he and his were lodged in
safety. This was a sign, or an event necessarily forerunning the close
of his history. And so with the earthly Israel. Circumstances must take
place, though the day or the hour of it be not known, ere the Son of man
can be here on earth again. But not so with Enoch. No circumstance
necessarily delayed his translation. His walk with God was not a
circumstance. And that was all that led the way to his ascension. And so
with the Church now gathering. She waits for no circumstance--no years
measure her sojourn here; no events prepare her heavenward way. She is
not put, like the Jewish election, under the restraint of any signs or
preceding circumstances.

The Lord treats it as _deceit_ to say "the time draweth nigh;" while the
apostle _expressly puts us under those words_. Luke xxi. 8; James v. 8.
_After certain signs or events_, the Lord tells the remnant that their
expectation is near; the apostle tells us that ours is _always so_.
Matt. xxiv. 33; Phil. iv. 5. The Lord exhorts the remnant to watch,
because the day may otherwise overtake them; the apostle exhorts us to
watch, because we are already of the day, and it is fit that we should
act as day-men. Matt. xxiv. 43; 1 Thess. v. 5, 6.

Here lies a difference. But still, all are equally commanded to
watch--we in this our day, as ever knowing that "the end of all things
is at hand," and the remnant, in their coming day, even though they know
that some events must go before.

And beautiful and just this is. For if the things threatened be
profoundly solemn, as they are, and the things promised be unspeakably
glorious, as they are, it is but little to require of us to _treat them
as supreme_--and that, in other words, is _watching_.

And the sense of the nearness of the glory should be cherished by us. I
mean its nearness in _place_ as well as time. And we need be at no
effort to persuade ourselves of it. It is taught us very clearly and
surely. The congregation of Israel were set at the door of the
tabernacle, and as soon as the appointed moment came the glory was
before them. See Lev. viii. ix. So at the erection of the tabernacle,
and so at the introduction of the ark into the temple. Ex. xl.; 2 Chron.
v. So when it had business to do (though of different characters) with
the company on Mount Tabor, with the dying Stephen, or with Saul on the
road to Damascus--wherever it may have to act, and whatever it may be
called to do, to convict, to cheer, or to transfigure--to smite to the
earth the persecutor, to give triumph to the martyr, or to conform an
elect Vessel to itself, it can be present in a moment, in the twinkling
of an eye. It is but a thin veil, which either hides it or distances it.
The path is short, and the journey rapidly accomplished. We should
cherish the thought of this, beloved. It has its power as well as its
consolation. And so ere long, when the time of 1 Cor. xv. 51 arrives,
that moment of the general transfiguration, as soon as the voice of the
archangel summons it, the glory will be here again, as in the twinkling
of an eye, to do its business with us, and in the image of the heavenly
to bear us up, like Enoch, to the heavenly country.

Then shall the Lord be glorified in His saints--not as now, in their
obedience and service, their holiness and fruitfulness, but in their
_personal_ beauty. Arrayed in white, and shining in our glories, we
shall be the wondrous witness of what He has done for the sinner that
trusts in Him. And as one much loved and honoured in the Lord has just
written to me, so I write to you, beloved: "No lark ever sprang up on a
dewy morning to sing its sweet song with such alacrity as you and I
shall spring up to meet our Lord in the air." And his exhortation to me
I would make mine to you (though feebly echoed from my heart): "Oh, my
brother, set it before your mind's eye as a living reality, and then let
hope patiently wait for the fulfilment!"


                   "Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus."




                                 NOAH.

                            GENESIS VI.-XI.


How changed is the whole condition of things since the day of Genesis!

Were I to read the opening of this fine scripture, and just expose my
heart to the simpler earliest impression of what I get there, it is this
thought which would engage my mind; and yet with all ease we can account
for this strange and wondrous revolution. In chapter i. God was alone,
producing the fruit of His own handiwork, in wisdom, goodness, and
skill; and then all was good and desirable. On the return of every
evening and morning the divine delights lingered over what the divine
hand was working out, and behold all was very good; and the seventh day
was sanctified for the celebration of this rest and enjoyment. But now,
it is not God's hand presenting a perfect work to God's thoughts and
affections, but it is man, the apostate artificer, spreading out a wide
scene of corruption and violence for the grief and repentings of the
divine mind. The secret of the change lies there. Man has been at work;
man has been fashioning and furnishing the scene, and not the living,
blessed God. The earth is therefore filled with violence; giants there
are, mighty men, men of renown; and the imaginations of that heart which
was now making "this present evil world" are only evil, and that
continually.

Here lies the secret. The change was complete because of the new potter
that had been at the wheel; the change could not be less. The song of
the morning stars, the shout of the sons of God, had no echo in the
scene of creation now; man was now abroad--not as a part of the work,
but as a reprobate workman.

It is just this which gives character to the opening of chapter vi. And
there is no relief for all this in the creature--the best sample and
portion it could offer is itself defiled. The sons of God themselves are
dragged into the mire--their will, their desire, their taste, are
supreme with them. The daughters of Moab have seduced to fornication;
and the Nazarites, who were purer than snow and whiter than milk, whose
polishing was of sapphire, are become blacker than a coal. The witness
against them is, "he also is flesh."

If Adam was seduced by the subtilest of enemies, and followed the sight
of his eye and the desire of his heart, the sons of God are now seduced
by an enemy equally successful. He works, it is true, from within rather
than without--"he also is flesh"--but the sight of the eye and the
desire of the heart are again followed. Wives are taken of all "whom
they choose;" other lords are listened to, for God is not in all their
thoughts, and then it matters not whether it be the promise of the
serpent, or the fairness of the daughters of men. Gen. iii. 4, 5.

The multiplying of men on the face of the earth is noticed as connected
with all this corruption--just as in the history of the Church. Acts vi.
1. It was when the number of disciples was multiplied that murmurings
and disputings began to arise; and these kindred cases in Genesis vi.
and Acts vi. tell us that man is never to be trusted, and that the more
we get of him the worse things are. "Jesus did not commit Himself to
them, for He knew all men, and needed not that any should testify of
man, for He knew what was in man."

Such was the condition of the scene from one end to the other; and
against all this corruption and violence which now overspread the earth,
the judgment of God is marked--"My spirit shall not _always_ strive with
man." There may be, and there shall be, a term of long-suffering--as it
is said, "his days shall be one hundred and twenty years"--but still
judgment is marked, and the day of visitation will come--the Spirit will
not _always_ strive.

But there is resource in God, as well as judgment with Him. If man, the
work of His _hand_, have "grieved" Him, still, drawing from Himself, He
will (may I say?) go deeper, and find His joy in the counsels of His
_heart_.

"Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord." Man, as a sinner, shall
become the object of electing, pardoning, justifying love--he shall
engage the _heart_ now, as of old, at creation, he engaged the _hand_ of
the Lord.

Thus from Himself the Lord draws, but from Himself in a deeper sense and
way than before. This was to be no more repairing of the creature--such
a thing would have been no fit work for God. As to man, God had to
repent that He had made him on the earth; and as to the scene around
him, the mind of God was changed--changed unalterably, and for ever.
Man, as a thing formed of the dust, was never to be the divine delight
again--mere man. But grace can make a new thing--not repairing the work
marred on the wheel, but making it another vessel, as it seem good to
the potter to make it. In its old estate it was ruined, but in its ruins
grace will take it up to make it a goodly and a pleasant vessel of
richest treasures and all-desirable beauty.

We admire a ruin; and some, as they have thought of this, have suspected
the _moral_ of such a sentiment, and been ready to condemn the heart and
eye that could linger with pleasure over what was the witness of decay
and death, and the entrance of the power of sin. But I would venture to
embolden such, and to tell them that they may still admire a ruin, and
do so without fear or self-judgment. The redeemed thing is a vast, and
precious, and beautiful ruin; it will bespeak the power of sin and death
for ever, while displaying the boundless, glorious victory of death's
Destroyer. And the thoughts of the Spirit of God, the mind of Christ, as
well as heaven itself and all its hosts, will linger over that ruin for
a happy eternity. It will be the ornament and the delight of the
creation of God. "Sing, O ye heavens; for the Lord hath done it! Shout,
ye lower parts of the earth; break forth into singing, ye mountains, O
forest, and every tree therein; for the Lord hath redeemed Jacob!" And
again, "Joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than
over ninety-and-nine just persons which need no repentance."

This is heaven's admiration of a beautiful ruin; and these are the ways
of God. The operations of His hands were, of old, His delight, and the
counsels of His grace are now His delight, and the attending angels have
their music, and their dancing in the house of the prodigal's Father.

Noah, having thus found grace in the eyes of the Lord, becomes the
subject of divine teaching. An elect vessel is always the vessel for the
handiwork of God, through the Spirit. The Lord communicates His mind to
him; He tells him that the judgment of an evil world, which had now
filled up its measure, was marked before Him, but that for him and his
house there was safety, and a great deliverance.

This communication has a very precious character in it--_it is strictly
according to the previous counsel of His own bosom_. This is very much
to be prized. God tells His elect one, that the end of all flesh was
come before Him--as, in His own secret counsels He had already said, "My
spirit shall not _always_ strive with man;" He tells him of the sense
and judgment He had of the _moral_ condition of the earth--just such as
He had uttered in secret before; and, further, He tells him to get ready
an ark for the saving of his house, as, in the counsels of His electing
love and sovereign purpose, Noah had already found grace in His eyes.

It is very establishing to the heart to notice this. It lets us
understand how _exactly_ the revelation made to us puts us into
possession of the divine mind, "Shall I hide from Abraham that thing
which I do?" says the Lord, on another occasion, when He was, as here,
speaking to Himself. And a _fulness_, as well as exactness, I may say,
distinguishes these revelations. Jesus says to His disciples, "_All_
things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you"--with,
however, one exception. The Lord God had fixed 120 years as the term of
His longsuffering. Noah's preaching, as well as ark-building, was to be
for that period. Such was the purpose of God. But Noah was told nothing
of this predestinated interval. The Lord kept back all mention of the
120 years. Noah knew, indeed, that the waters could not prevail till he
and his were safe in the ark, but how long that might be preparing, or
whether or not, after it was finished, any time should pass ere the
waters should begin to rise, he knew not. This part of the divine
counsel the Father kept in His own power; this was the exception to the
fulness of the communication. Events were to take place, signs were to
precede "the day of the Lord"--such, at least, as the finishing and
filling of the ark. In the language of the prophet, the bud was to
become tender, and to put forth its leaves. Had any one talked to Noah
about the waters rising ere the ark was ready, Noah would not have been
shaken in mind, or in anywise troubled. That could not be. "The time
draweth nigh" would have been deceit then, as it will be by-and-by, when
the earthly remnant, or election, are, like Noah, waiting for
redemption. Luke xxi. 8. But still, the period itself, the term of the
divine longsuffering, was put in the Father's power, and no one knew the
day nor the hour. So rich and full are those harmonies in earlier and
latter days, in typical and closing actions of God's hand. Noah was at
this time an _earthly_ man--that is an elect one destined for
inheritance in the earth, as the nation of Israel, by-and-by, will be;
and both of them, in their several days, are provided, by divine
instructions, against the deceits which might alarm them, or the
promises which might seduce them; but the day and hour of their
deliverance are not told.

The ark, in the size, fashion, and material of it, is entirely the
prescription of God. Noah has but to make it--the Lord plans it as well
as appoints it. The making of it is only the trial and the proof of
faith--"by faith Noah, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of
his house." Israel fashioning the sanctuary, in after days, was a like
act of faith. They had to make it, and make it they did, with willing
hearts and ready service, yielding their brass, and their silver, and
their gold, their fine linen, badgers' skins, shittim-wood, oil, spices,
and precious stones. But all this was only the obedience of faith to the
way of deliverance and peace, which God Himself had planned and
revealed. They made the sanctuary as Noah made the ark; but neither was
his act nor their act anything more than faith in the provisions of God.
And what is the gospel, and faith in the gospel, to this hour, but such
a revelation of the provisions of grace, and such obedience to that
revelation? The religion of the elect has ever been the same--"It is of
faith, that it might be by grace." Faith in God's sovereign provisions
was Adam's religion at the beginning, then it was Noah's, afterwards it
was the religion of Abraham, and of every true Israelite; and so at this
day it is ours. We all, as well as Adam, come forth from our shame, and
fear, and confusion of conscience, at the tidings of the bruised and
bruising Seed of the woman. We all, as well as Noah, prepare an ark for
salvation, and become heirs of the righteousness which is by faith; we
all as well as Israel, betake us from the fiery hill to the sanctuary of
enthroned mercy--and Jesus, Jesus, is the name borne along the line,
from one end of it to the other, of patriarchs, prophets, apostles, and
saints, Gentile and Jewish, small and great, in the deep-toned melody
that is to charm the eternity of heaven.

It is not merely mercy. Heaven knows no such thought. Neither is it
simple, naked promise. It is _propitiation_ and victory, and _purchased_
as well as promised blessings.

Inspect the sanctuary of God and you will find that it is not mere mercy
that is there. It is enthroned mercy, mercy on the ark of the covenant,
mercy sustained by the work and on the person of the Son of God. And
faith has respect only to such a mystery as that. Faith never talks of
mere mercy. It could not. It could no more talk of mere mercy in God
than it could of moral righteousness in man. The gospel does not know
such ideas, and therefore faith cannot apprehend them. The gospel
reveals One who is just, while justifying the ungodly. Mercy and truth
have met together. It is glory to God in the highest while it is peace
and good will to men. This is the way of the gospel.

Abraham is in the faith of this, as we see in Genesis xv. The Lord had
said to him, "I will give thee this land to inherit it." This was a
promise, the promise too of One that could not lie. It was an immutable
thing. And Abraham rightly listened to this. As a sinner, who knew full
well and full justly, that promises to such an one must have foundations
and warranty, he listened to it; therefore he at once says, "Whereby
shall I know that I shall inherit it?" Is this a challenge of the
promise? Is this a question of the divine truthfulness? No, indeed. It
is only faith letting God know, that it was a conscious sinner who was
listening to His promise, which needed therefore some warranty, or
consideration, to carry it with certainty to the heart. And the Lord was
well pleased with this. Faith always pleases Him, as without it nothing
does. And at once He prepares to let Abraham know that _sacrifice
sustained the promise_.

Our patriarch, before Abraham, was in the like faith. And walking in the
steps of the same faith he takes an advanced character. He attains
righteousness. "Thee have I seen righteous before me in this
generation," is now the word of God to him. "By faith Noah, being warned
of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to
the saving of his house; by the which he condemned the world, _and
became heir of the righteousness which is by faith_."

Love, and faith, and the patience of hope were, however, each to animate
his soul, and form his life, for that solemn interval of 120 years.
While the ark was preparing, the Spirit, in Noah's preaching, was
striving with that generation. Nothing can be more beautifully replete
with meaning than all this. Noah was in the work of faith, the labour of
love, and the patience of hope--a true Thessalonian saint. He was
preparing the ark in that faith which had received the divine
warning--in love he was telling his generation of righteousness. 2 Peter
ii. 5. Just like a saint of this day. His own safety is settled and
sure--_that_ he knows; but he is careful that his neighbours should
share it with him. The Spirit then strove in the testimony as now He
strives; but every stroke of Noah's hammer day by day told that He would
not _always_ strive.

At the close of this predestinated but undisclosed period, Noah enters
the ark. This was the great salvation in a mystery. It was as the night
of Egypt's doom and Israel's rescue. Nothing less than safety and
deliverance under the fullest securities and dearest title in an hour of
most solemn judgment, was now the story of Noah. And this is the
salvation of the gospel. In Egypt afterwards, the very hand which
carried the sword of destruction along the land had appointed the
sheltering blood. Could the sword strike? Impossible! And now it was He,
who took counsel with Himself about the judgment of the world, who had
also counselled His elect about the way of escape. It was the hand which
was about to let the waters out which was now shutting Noah in. Could
they then prevail against him! Just, in like manner, impossible!

      "The voice that speaks in thunder
      Says, 'Sinner, I am thine.'"

The One to whom vengeance belongs has settled all the plan of safety. He
that is bearing the sword into the land has appointed the scarlet line
in the window. But a solemn scene of judgment accompanies all this. The
sun was risen on the earth, as, after this, Lot entered into Zoar. And
yet that sunny hour was the very time for the rain of brimstone and fire
to fall. Nothing could be done till Lot entered the city, but then
nothing remained to be done ere the fire came down.

How deeply was the moment of visitation hid! They might well have said,
"Peace and safety," when they saw that morning sun, as he was wont,
gilding the bright and happy surface of the scene around them. But even
then the "sudden destruction" fell.

Noah's generation was eating, and drinking, and marrying, just as the
water began to rise. There was no harbinger, save, like Lot's escape to
Zoar, Noah's entrance into the ark. But that was folly. To imprison
himself and all that he had in the sides of a ship aground, that _was_
folly. But the flood came in the moment of fancied security, and took
them all away. They were "willingly ignorant" of the word of God, the
testimony of the "preacher of righteousness;" one who addressed them in
the power and on the principle of a resurrection hope. 1 Peter iii.

Sudden and sure destruction on all outside, but divine, infallible
security on all within. The city of refuge was _appointed of God_, and
its walls must be salvation. Impossible to be less. The same
righteousness which has pronounced a curse on every one that continueth
not in all things written in the book of the law to do them, has
likewise pronounced a curse on every one that hangeth on a tree. Gal.
iii. Can He then deny His own remedy to the sinner, cursed under the
law, when he pleads, by faith, the Saviour cursed on the tree? Alike,
impossible.

"The Lord shut him in." The hand of the Lord imparted its own strength
and security to Noah's condition. It is not too bold to say, that all
within the door of the ark were as safe as the Lord Himself. The Lord
returned, we may say, to His own heavens, or to His throne, which is
established for ever, and Noah was left on the earth, in the place and
day of judgment. But Noah was as safe as the Lord. "We may have boldness
in the day of judgment: because as He is, so are we in this world."
Jesus has gone back to heaven, and we are still in this world, the
judgment of which is marked before God; but we have the boldness which
is proper to Jesus. Wonderful to utter it! And yet is all that
mysterious, glorious security figured in that little action, "The Lord
shut him in." God's own hand imparted its strength to Noah's condition
ere He returned to the heavens.

Some of every sort are borne with Noah from the place of death into the
ark of salvation. The "eight souls," as Peter speaks, but with them,
remnants of the beasts of the earth, small and great, winged fowl and
creeping things, all are housed and redeemed together with Noah.

So was it afterwards in Egypt. Not a hoof was left behind. The great
redemption of that day, in like manner, provided for all--Moses and the
600,000, with their wives and little ones, and also all their cattle;
all again knew and manifested the saving strength of God. As in the day
of Nineveh, long after, "the much cattle" are the Lord's thought, as the
six-score thousand persons that could not discern between their right
hand and their left.

And in the coming day of the inheritance of Christ, His dominions will
measure all the works of God's hand, "All sheep and oxen, yea, and the
beasts of the field; the fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea;" and
the fields and the floods, and the hills and trees of the wood, shall be
joyful before Him. Psalm xcviii.

Welcome mystery! Are they not all His creatures? Did not His hand of old
form them, and His eyes and His heart rest and delight in them? And is
this lost to Him? May Jonah grieve for his withered gourd, and the Lord
not spare the works of His own hand for His abiding joy? He will renew
the face of the earth, as it is written--The glory of the Lord shall
endure for ever, the Lord shall rejoice in His works. Psalm civ. 31.
"The earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation
of the sons of God. For the creature was made subject to vanity, not
willingly, but by reason of Him who hath subjected the same in hope,
because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of
corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God."

But it is here that I may pause for a moment, to notice the
dispensational character of these days of Noah.


The earth, as the scene of God's delight, and of His people's
citizenship, had been lost by the apostasy of Adam; and the hopes and
inheritance of the saints, all through the days before the flood, were
heavenly--the Lord thereby disclosing, though faintly, certain portions
of the great secrets of His own bosom--the secrets of the good pleasure
purposed in Himself ere worlds were, that heaven, as well as earth,
should be connected with the destinies of man. The heavens were opened
to man, when Adam, the man of the earth, failed. Gen. v. 24.

That was so. But earth was not shut because heaven was thus opened. The
divine counsel ran otherwise. It was this--that God would "gather
together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and
which are on earth." And the heavenly calling having been already
revealed in the story of the saints before the flood, the due season had
now come for the revelation of God's great purpose concerning the earth,
and to make it known that He had not given it up, because, in His
dispensational ways, He had taken up the heavens.

As in Rev. iv. When the heavenly saints, "the fulness of the Gentiles,"
the mystic elders and living creatures, are seated in their heavenly
places, the thoughts of Him who sat on the throne there return to the
earth. The rainbow is _at once_ seen around the throne--the witness of
this, that the covenant which gives security _to the earth_ was about to
be the spring of action in heaven. And so now in these days of Noah.
When the heavenly family had ended their course, and Enoch was
translated, the Lord's thoughts returned to the earth, and that, I may
say, _at once_; for the next thing of character in the progress of the
hand, or the Spirit of God, is the prophecy of Lamech, pledging God and
His mercies to the earth again, and introducing Noah--"This same [Noah]
shall comfort us concerning our work and toil of our hands, because of
the ground which the Lord hath cursed."

This is all simple--scarcely capable of being misunderstood. The
prophecy of Lamech, which introduces it, tells us what we are to expect
and find in the mystery of Noah. "The key of the parable lies at the
door." The recovery of the earth, the return of God's rest and delight
in it, all this will be made good in the coming times of the true Noah,
in whom, and in whom alone, all the promises of God are yea and amen.

A great action, however, must usher in those times. The call of the
heavenly people is quite otherwise, as in the call of the antediluvian
saints. There was in those days no interference with the scene around.
Cain's family was left in possession--quiet, undisputed possession--of
their cities and their wealth. The visitation of God then, as always
under such a call, only separated a people without affecting either to
regulate or judge the world. It left it as it found it. But God's claim
to the earth, and His purpose to take it up again, is necessarily
otherwise. There He is as _thoroughly interfering with every thing_, as
in the other way of His "manifold wisdom" He was _utterly leaving all
alone_. For by judgment He must purge the earth, and get it fit to be
His footstool.

All this is the dispensational truth we learn here, in this parable, or
in these times of Noah. The earth has been remembered, and is now
resumed, but through purifying judgments. All takes the sentence of
death into itself, that it may stand as a new thing, in the strength and
grace of Him who quickens the dead. The earth itself was in the water,
or under the water, and the elect remnant were saved--as in the
appointed city of refuge--from the hand of the avenger; and all
therefore appears again, as in resurrection.

Beasts, and fowl, and creeping things, some of every sort, go into the
ark; and there, within that refuge, which kept its charge in peace from
fear of evil, the ransomed passed the days of their patience.

But they were more than safe. They were _remembered_--"God remembered
Noah, and every living thing, and all the cattle that was with him in
the ark." So did Joshua, in other days, remember Rahab. The scene of
death and judgment lay all around our patriarch. It was one vast, and
deep, and mighty ruin--an extended Jericho the accursed--another and a
wider land of Pharaoh, with the doom of the Lord resting darkly and
heavily upon it. But He who had already shut His remnant in, now
remembers them; and in that remembrance there was present life, and, in
prospect, a goodly inheritance.

It will be so with another elect remnant, in coming days. Before the
same covenant God, who was now keeping Noah in mind, a book of
remembrance will be written for them that fear the Lord and think upon
His name. Mal. iii. And of them the Lord says, "They shall be mine in
that day when I make up my jewels;" as now, in virtue of this
covenant-remembrance, the Lord causes a wind to pass over the earth, the
waters abate, and the ark rests on the mountains of Ararat.

This remembrance of God was most precious. But Noah, in his city of
refuge, had other consolations. The divine remembrance was the hidden
comfort of faith; but he had also blessed, conscious exercises of
spirit.

The ark had a window in it. The door was in the keeping of the Lord, but
the window was for Noah's use. He who had shut him in, alone could let
him out--the times and the seasons were in _His_ hand. But while the
time of his pilgrimage, as a prisoner of hope, cannot be shortened, yet
may the hopes of such a prisoner be very preciously nourished, and his
spirit within him blessedly exercised. Noah may open the window, remove
the covering, look out, and send forth his messengers, his Caleb and
Joshua and their companions, to spy out the land, and report to him what
it is, whether it be fat or lean, good or bad, and to bring him the
fruit of it.

What beauty and what wisdom strike the eye and the heart in all this!
This window in the ark, and its uses, are so significant! The divine
_methods_ are so worthy of the divine _communications_! "Apples of gold
in pictures of silver" are the Spirit's words.

Typical, symbolic, parabolic teaching is very acceptable to the heart,
and makes ready entrance there. We all prove this, just as children like
pictures and stories. Not only, I would here observe, are doctrines thus
taught--not only the great mysteries of the glory, but experiences of
the soul, the personal inworkings of the Spirit, are illustrated by
these same methods. Conviction of sin, for instance, was expressed in
Adam retreating from the voice of the Lord God, amongst the trees of the
garden. The longings and inquiries of a soul awakened to a sense of its
condition, if haply it might find its path, are given to us in the
Israelite standing at his tent door stripped of his ornaments, and
looking after the Mediator as he entered the Tabernacle. Ex. xxxiii. And
Moses, with his veiled and unveiled face, might have spoken of exercises
and experiences of heart to us, even had not the Spirit, by His light in
the Apostle, helped our understandings. 2 Cor. iii.

We might go through a thousand such instances. And by this method the
great things of God are pressed home upon the heart. By these figures
the Lord is standing very near the heart, and knocking there. It is not
His grace displaying itself in the distance, or shining from afar, but
it is the Lord Himself, and His blessing, coming very near for our full
acceptance. We may _admire_, but if we do not also _enjoy_, the purpose
of the revelation is not answered.

Now this method is beautifully preserved in these days of Noah. Indeed
the whole of Genesis is full of it. It is a book of "allegories," as St.
Paul speaks--divine stories written for the school of God.

The ark, as I have already noticed, had its door and its window, and
Noah had his spies to send into the promised land--and the mission of
these spies, the raven and the dove, express the experience of the saint
in the contrary workings of the flesh and spirit, which contend in him.

The raven never returns. The earth may be still unpurged, but the
unclean nature can take up with it. The "present evil world" will do
well enough for fallen, degraded man. Indeed, the ark was rather a place
of captivity than security, to the unclean raven. She never returns to
it when once escaped. But Noah will not trust her. Beautiful saintly
intelligence! The raven may remain outside; but that is no proof to Noah
that the earth is clean, or fit for the sole of his foot. Noah will not
trust her, but sends out a clean creature after her. And different
indeed are the tidings which she bears. It is, in principle, the contest
of Caleb and Joshua with their companion spies. The dove returns
instinctively. There was no rest for her in a place still under judgment
of God, and unpurged. And Noah, conscious that he can trust her and
commit the question to her settlement, sends her out a second and a
third time. And well indeed he may trust her. Her only sympathy is with
the pledges of peace and of a new creation. On her second return she
bears an olive-leaf in her mouth, and after her third mission she never
comes back.

Beautiful mystery! The earth was redeemed from the curse now, and in its
new-creation state the dove can delight. All is native air to her. It is
now the land of the turtle and the olive, and Noah understands the
absence of this clean creature. He at once removes the covering from the
ark, and looks out; and the God of glory shortly lets him out, as the
God of all grace had before shut him in.

Surely the ways of a saint, the ways of the mind of Christ, are here! I
know not that any action can be more pregnant with meaning. There was
the ark, and its window, and its door. The ark itself was for safety,
the window for a prospect, and the door for an exodus, in due season.
All this was faith and hope ending their pilgrimage in the place of
promised glory.

Noah suspected not the ark; he did not occupy himself in feeling its
timbers, whether indeed they were keeping the waters outside--he had no
doubt of that. He had no pump in his ship, if I may be allowed the
figure; and I may utter it, since, homely as it is, it glorifies Jesus
in the security He gives the sinner; for such is the very style of
Scripture itself.

The lesson taught us may be the profoundest in the mind of the Spirit,
but the school where it is learnt may be a despised place. Look, for
instance, at Genesis xlviii. You are there at the bedside of a dying old
man--a common homely spot. But there, some of the deepest and richest
secrets of the mind of God are, in a figure, conveyed to us--the great
mystery of our adoption, according to divine good pleasure; and then our
welcome into the family of God, in the day of our manifestation, or
conversion. And what richer counsels of grace are there than those? And
yet in what more common or homely school could they have been taught us?

As in still earlier days, in Genesis xvi. There you are introduced to
the domestic arrangement of Abraham's family as to the servant and her
mistress, and their disputes; and yet, in all that, you get the profound
mystery of the two covenants. Gal. iv. And again, in the act, the
ordinary act, of discharging a servant, another feature in the same
mystery is presented to us, in chapter xxi. The wisdom of God delights
in these scenes and materials; they rebuke the erring thought of man's
heart, that important things must be done or said by imposing
methods--that the prophet must come forth and strike his hand over the
place. 2 Kings v. 11. But it is with rude and inartificial instruments
that both the wisdom of God and the power of God are commonly seen.
Rams' horns blew down Jericho, and fishermen turned the world upside
down, as was said of them. But these homely methods of God's wisdom aid
in carrying the instruction home, and lodging it deep in the intimacies
and recollections of the heart. I may therefore still say that Noah's
ship had no pump in it. Indeed it could not. Such a thing would have
witnessed against it. God's provisions would have declared their own
insufficiency. That could never have been. God's provisions and God's
works always tell _whose_ they are by being _what_ they are. Simplicity,
and yet sufficiency, give them their character. "Let there be light, and
there was light." "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be
saved;" and the sinner, believing, rejoiced in God with all his house.

So, in like simplicity, in these earlier days. The heart of Noah was not
soiled by a suspicion. He rested in the sea-worthiness of his vessel,
because of God's appointment and approval of it--nay, I may say, because
of God's building of it. Faith keeping his heart quiet and assured as to
the judgment, hope fills it as to the coming glory.

Such is the beautiful way of this "prisoner of hope." _A prisoner of
hope_ is one of the Spirit's titles, I may say, for all the saints of
God. Jeremiah was such an one in his day. Jeremiah was shut up in "the
court of the prison, which was in the king of Judah's house," and this,
too, for Christ's sake. He was God's prisoner, and such an one is always
hope's prisoner. Jeremiah is told to purchase Hananiah's field, and that
was food for hope, like the olive-leaf in the mouth of the dove. It told
the prophet of good days to come, though at that moment he was in a
prison, the Chaldean army at the city gates, and all the land deserted.
The waters were again all around and abroad; but the ark of the prophet,
like that of the patriarch, had a window in it.

So was Israel a prisoner of hope in the night of the passover. With shoe
on foot, staff in hand, and girded loins, Israel waited in the very
midst of the judgments of the Lord; but, like our patriarch, they waited
there only to pass out to the inheritance of the Lord. And having the
pre-eminence in all things, Jesus again and again shows us the perfect
way of a prisoner of hope, looking for a resurrection portion. As when
He entered Jerusalem, in John xii., the Jewish multitudes and the
Gentile strangers being drawn thither to inquire after Him, and all the
dignities and joys of the Son of David seeming to wait on Him, His heart
waits on the resurrection hope still, "the joy set before him," and
forth from that attitude of soul, or place of expectation, He speaks of
the corn of wheat falling into the ground and dying. Steadily and
desirously did His eye rest on the glory which lay, not _in_ that hour,
but _beyond_ it. In a spirit of entire consecration and sacrifice, He
surrenders _that_ hour (bright to Him in the world as it was, and big
with the promise of all its kingdoms and the glory thereof) to the
Father: and the voice from heaven then visits this perfect, blessed
"prisoner of hope," with assurances that, in due season, even
resurrection times, His name and victory and honour should all be
provided for and secured.

Matchless Jesus!--This voice from heaven was again the food of hope's
prisoner. And what was the transfiguration on the holy hill but the
same? Jesus had been speaking to the disciples of His death, and
encouraging them (as He would us, beloved) not to love their lives in
this world, when, soon after, six or eight days, as we read, the holy
hill shines suddenly with the light of resurrection or millennial
regions. And what was all that visitation of glory, but the grapes of
Eshcol brought from Canaan to the camp of God in the desert; or as the
return of the dove to Noah, with the olive-leaf in her mouth?


The time, however, for "rendering double" to this "prisoner of hope"
(Zech. ix. 12), comes in due course. "And God spake unto Noah, saying,
Go forth of the ark, thou, and thy wife, and thy sons, and thy sons'
wives with thee! bring forth with thee every living thing that is with
thee, of all flesh, both of fowl and of cattle, and of every creeping
thing that creepeth upon the earth." And Noah went forth. He landed on
the renewed earth, where, at that mystic moment, all was, in a great
sense, according to God's mind again; no longer corrupt, as when he had
last trod it in its old estate, but clean, under the refining of the
judgment.

Not a thing had gone into the ark thirteen months before, which did not
now come forth. The small and the great had been in it, and the small
were as safe as the great; the creeping thing of the ditch or the hedge,
as free of all danger or harm as Noah himself. Precious mystery! We may
be little, and we are little, as the heart knows full well; but heaven,
or the coming system of glory, has fitted itself like the ark, for the
receiving of the small as well as the great. "A voice came out of the
throne, saying, Praise our God, all ye His servants, and ye that fear
Him, both small and great." We may be calm, though we know ourselves to
be "small" in every way, even as the creeping thing that went in with
Noah--for such a little one was equally in the covenant, or "the family
settlement," which made each and all, in their way and measure,
inheritors of the new world. The Father's house on high has surely made
its reckoning according to these differences of "small and great." As in
ancient days of typical glory, all the congregation of Israel, the
distant ones of Dan and Naphtali, as well as the princes of Judah,
joined in the shout of triumph when the fire came down, and in mystery,
the kingdom was entered. Lev. ix. Clement and others were not Paul in
the measure of their labours, or in the energy of the Spirit; but they
were Paul as having their names, alike with his, in the book of life.
Phil. iv. 3. The Father has built His house in the heavens, on the very
plan of its receiving the saints as well as Jesus Himself. It was part
of the original design. Ere foundations were laid, that plan and purpose
were laid. In counsels of everlasting love it was provided that the
house should be a large one, a many-roomed or mansioned house, that all
the children might be there.

What say we, beloved? Do our thoughts of it and glances at it do justice
to this love of God? As well might you say, your prospect from the
highest of the hills could do justice to God's creation. Could your
glance then measure the ten thousandth part of the earth? The length,
the depth, the breadth, the height--the love of Christ which passeth
knowledge!


"And Noah builded an altar unto the Lord; and took of every clean beast,
and every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the altar. And the
Lord smelled a sweet savour: and the Lord said in His heart, I will not
again curse the ground any more for man's sake; for the imagination of
man's heart is evil from his youth: neither will I again smite any more
every thing living, as I have done. While the earth remaineth, seed time
and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and
night, shall not cease." The cleansing of the waters of judgment had
made no change in the imaginations of the thoughts of man's heart. They
were still evil, and that only. The heart was uncured, for "that which
is born of the flesh is flesh," though there be water to cleanse or fire
to refine. It was no change there which gave the Lord thoughts of peace
and not of evil towards men.

"Faith eyes the blood of Christ, and not victory over corruptions," as
one has said, even where there is such victory. But here, _in spite of
corruptions_, that blood awakens thoughts of peace and not of evil, to
give the sinner an expected end. Christ was under the eye of God, and
that was enough; as in the day of atonement. The blood of sprinkling is
then seen everywhere. That was the great secret, the great principle, of
that mystic day in Israel. The blood of the lamb (Lev. xvi.) went into
the presence of God, attended by a cloud of incense; so that Aaron
himself was hid, and there was no man in the tabernacle of the
congregation, as the holy service of putting the blood on every thing
proceeded. Christ in mystery was seen, and nothing else--and the fruit
of that was the bearing away of sins into the wilderness, a land not
inhabited, a place of forgetfulness, where there was no voice to accuse,
to judge, or to condemn, where nothing _could_ be heard but the voice of
that blood which speaketh better things than the blood of Abel.

That blood, now under the eye of the Lord God, had moved His heart. Do I
speak as a man? No, the word is, "The Lord said in His heart, I will not
again curse the ground." As the Saviour Himself says (in spirit bound
for the altar), "Therefore doth my Father _love_ me, because I lay down
my life." The heart of the Lord God has sealed the acceptance of the
sacrifice. It did so here, in the times of Noah.

This word that broke from the heart of the Lord God in Noah's day, the
passage of the burning lamp in Abraham's day (Gen. xv.), and the answer
of God to Solomon (2 Chron. i.), all witness to the value of the cross
of Christ with God established. The rending of the veil from top to
bottom, the breaking of the rocks, and the bursting of the graves,
witness the same, when the true offering was once and for ever
accomplished. In rich variety of form and character is the acceptance of
the work done in "the place that is called Calvary" testified and
published--in every tongue and language, as it were, in Hebrew, and
Greek, and Latin.

And Noah becomes at once the object of fresh and multiplied blessings,
blessings in glory and inheritance now, as already he had blessings in
election, an acceptance of grace and the righteousness which is by
faith. "God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful,
and multiply, and replenish the earth. And the fear of you, and the
dread of you, shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every
fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the
fishes of the sea: into your hand they are delivered."

Noah was blessed in the new world. That blessing conveyed to him
property and dominion in the earth, and the use or enjoyment of the
creatures good for food. "Every moving thing that liveth" was given to
him, that it might be meat for him.

Here was a large grant, as wide as the scene which lay around him. He
was monarch of all he surveyed, lord, like Adam in the garden, of the
new world. Instructed, however, as well as honoured and enriched--taught
that the _blood_ of the animal was not to be eaten with its _flesh_:
"the flesh with the blood thereof, which is the life thereof, thou shalt
not eat"--a principle which involves all the thoughts and counsels of
God in His way with sinners--as suited a prohibition, or limitation to
the grant made to Noah now, as had been the prohibition of the tree in
the midst of the garden, to the grant of all things else made to Adam.

The blood was the life, and man was not to eat it. It would have been a
bold re-assuming of that which through sin he had lost, a challenge to
regain life by forcing the passage kept by the sword of the cherubim.
For this ordinance told the sinner, that having lost his title to the
tree of life, he can never return to it in his own strength. The life
has reverted to God. Blood is His. And the gospel comes to tell us how
He has used it, even providing with it and through it new, eternal,
infallible life for the dead sinner.

The way of God in the gospel was, therefore, rehearsed to Noah in this
ordinance: "The flesh with the blood thereof, which is the life thereof,
thou shalt not eat." His altar had already told us that he stood with
Adam in the faith of the woman's Seed, and that that mystery was the
principle of his religion and his worship. But here, while making over
every thing to him for property, dominion, and use, the Lord will not
pass by this great exception out of the grant; conveying, as it does,
the great secret or principle of His gospel. In the changed
circumstances of Adam and Noah, in the difference between an upright
creature and a ruined sinner, this exception was as fitting and
necessary, as I have said, as that of the tree of knowledge out of the
grant of all with which the Lord, the Creator, had of old, furnished and
filled the scene.

We take life from Christ who has made atonement by His blood. But we
deeply own we can get it nowhere else. _We do not look for it elsewhere,
but we refuse it not from Him._ We know we were dead in trespasses and
sins, but we know that we have life in Him, though only in Him. Adam
learnt these things in the promise of the woman's Seed, and in the sword
of the cherubim; Noah learnt them or witnessed them in his altar and in
this ordinance; these things the whole book of God declares; and
eternity will celebrate them.

Further, however, still--for in this blessing we find Noah with the
sword of justice in his hand. His fellow-man was to be both protected
and avenged. Man's person was sacred; and his life or blood, if shed by
either man or beast, would be required. "And surely your blood of your
lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and
at the hand of man; at the hand of every man's brother, will I require
the life of man. Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be
shed."[6]

  [6] It has been justly said by another, that the principle of
      _government_ was represented in Noah; that Adam had been the
      representative head of _creation_, and that Noah is the same now
      of _government_. And I doubt not, that after the judicial
      scattering from Babel, the nations became associations in which
      God still recognized the sword of justice and the seat of
      government, which therefore are still to be exercised, and ought
      still to be religiously owned and reverenced.

Who does not instinctively approve of this? All that we feel judges the
fitness of thus treating the person of man as sacred. While every other
moving thing that lived was submitted to the use of man, his fellow-man
was to be sacred in his eyes.

We instinctively approve this. But this scripture accounts for this
instinct. The reason lies here--"in the image of God made He man." There
is a dignity in man that is entirely his own. He is the natural head of
creation. Man is the possessor and governor, and not part of the
conveyed inheritance, or of the delegated dominion. He is the object and
not the subject of the divine grant. The instinctive verdict of our own
hearts is thus divinely accounted for.

After this, however, a great subject opens before us. "With thee will I
establish my covenant" had been God's word to Noah, before the ark was
made, or the waters had come. vi. 18. Now that the judgment is past, and
the new earth is inherited, that covenant is fully detailed, as well as
pledged again to God's elect. ix. 8-17. And it is here that the word
"covenant" is first used. The covenants of which we read in Scripture
are all specific, having their parties and their objects well defined
and plainly declared. There is no mistaking of them. Whether it be this
covenant of the earth with Noah, the covenant with Abraham and his seed,
the covenant of priesthood with Phinehas, or that of the throne with
David, all is defined--the parties are declared and the objects set
forth. Nor do these, nor any of them, I surely judge, contemplate the
peculiar calling of the Church. Spiritual calling in heavenly places,
and the results of oneness with Christ, are neither described nor
conveyed by them. But the Scriptures of the New Testament abundantly
declare a _purpose_, or a counsel, of God according to the good pleasure
of His will; a mystery hid in God, before the foundation of the world,
in which the Church is directly interested. See Romans xvi. 25; 1 Cor.
ii. 7; Eph. i. 9; iii. 8-11; Col. i. 26; 1 Tim. ii. 9.

The inquiry may arise, Does this purpose or counsel take the form of a
covenant? Let us call it covenant, or simply a purpose taken of God;
still the great and holy and august transaction itself is richly found
in the New Testament. But has it, we may still ask, the character of a
covenant?

I would not be careful to say that it is ever called so; but I believe
we may say, that many things of a covenant nature are intimated as
attaching to it. Promises are made, consideration or price contemplated,
arrangements formed and fixed, and all this as between distinct parties.
"In the volume of the book it is written of Me"--"I was set up from
everlasting"--and such words of deepest and holiest import have their
place in settling these thoughts that arise. And not only were our
election, and appointment to our peculiar glory, as in predestination,
matters before the world (Rom. viii. 28, 29; Eph. i. 4, 5; 1 Peter i.
2), but we were then formally or virtually given by the Father to
Christ. John vi. 37, 39; x. 29; xvii. 1, 6, 8, 9, 11.

And eternal life is declared to have been promised before the world
was--language which intimates Christ as a party to a blessed transaction
then, and one that has covenant character in it. Titus i. 2.

I do not, then, say that this transaction is called a covenant, as God's
dealing with Noah is, and His dealing with Abraham, with David, and with
Phinehas; but it has these qualities, or this form of a covenant; the
presence of distinct parties, considerations and purposes all settled,
and the whole confirmed and acted on. And how does the spirit of a saint
welcome the blessed truth of this great eternal transaction, engaging
all the Godhead in the behalf of our souls!--as we read, among other
passages, "elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father,
through sanctification of the Spirit unto obedience and sprinkling of
the blood of Jesus Christ."[7]

  [7] As intimating blessed and distinct actions among the Persons of
      the Godhead, according to covenant arrangements, we may remember
      Messiah's words in Isa. xlviii.--"And now hath the Lord God and
      His Spirit sent me." What words! how full of deep, counselled, and
      ordered grace towards sinners! And they are quite according to the
      structure of things in the Gospels--for there not only does the
      baptism of Jesus but many passages tell us or show us, according
      to this word of the prophet, that the mission and ministry of the
      Lord Jesus were under the ordaining of God and the anointing of
      the Holy Ghost;--the Lord God and His Spirit sent the Son, the
      Christ or Messiah.

But what strong foundations are these! what wondrous discoveries of
grace! God Himself, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, in counsel and in
action for us! In the Gospel, man is in the place of _vision and
audience only_. It is _God_ that is active. The activities and
sacrifices are _God's_, and the sinner has but to hear and live, to look
and be saved. But these doings of God in the gospel of His grace, are
the fruit (as we thus see) of precious and wondrous counsels, taken in
Himself ere worlds were framed. And what, I ask, can surpass this? Can
title or stability for a sinner, such as may allay all motion and
uneasiness of conscience, be conceived beyond what he gets in this?
Doings for him by God, and sacrifices made for him, and all this
according to counsels ere worlds began! A sinner made happy (may I use
this word?) at God's expense!

It is covenant or counselled service that Jesus has rendered us. A
promise is made to Noah, that the waters shall not again prevail to
destroy the earth, but this promise rests on the strong foundation of
the blood of a covenant. Noah's altar had already sent up a sweet
savour, a savour of rest, to God, and in the satisfaction and delight of
that the Lord had said, I will not again curse the ground for man's
sake. That blood was the foundation of the promise. Just as with Abraham
afterwards. The land is promised to him, but it is by the covenant of
Him who passes through the pieces of the sacrifice. No _promised_
blessing that is not a _purchased_ blessing also--no throne of grace, as
we have said before, that does not stay itself on the ark of the
covenant. Gen. xv. 17.

But the covenant comes with its seal, as well as with its blood. As
here. There is _the bow which witnesses it_ as well as _the blood which
sustains it_. Wondrous thoughts keep themselves before the soul in all
this! The foundation and the witness, the blood and the token, the
consideration and the attestation of the great act and deed of God come
to mind here. The like figure whereunto even circumcision afterwards;
for as the bow in the cloud, so circumcision in the flesh, is a sign of
covenant engagements.

All such signs, however, beautiful and sure as they may be, are lost
when we think of the great original. For it is the Holy Ghost Himself
that is now given as the great sign, the seal of our adoption, the
earnest of our inheritance, the witness of the accomplished work of
Jesus, and of the acceptance of it in all its sufficiency and
preciousness.

What thoughts are these! The promise of God sustained by the blood of
the Son, and witnessed by the presence of the Spirit! How has God
imparted Himself to us in this marvellous act and deed for sinners! The
soul can conceive nothing richer. In divine activities we are
interested, but such activities as are founded on everlasting counsels,
and which make manifest to us and for us the name of God, "Father, Son,
and Holy Ghost."

How should it take us out of ourselves, to stand in sight of this! What
a mystery it is; and what have we to do, but with Moses to "turn aside
and see this great sight," turn aside from all else! The grander "this
great sight" presents itself to our eye, the more commanding will it be.
Let us get rich thoughts of this mystery. "The secret of the Lord is
with them that fear Him, and He will shew them His covenant." Let us see
this great transaction settled ere worlds began, see it calling forth
all the energies of divine love and power in Father, Son, and Holy
Ghost, see it undertaking the most deep and marvellous purposes of grace
and glory for the elect, keep the eye on it, like Moses, till, like him,
we discover Him who dwells in the midst of it, and whose name explains
it all.

      "Oh, all ye rich, ye wise, ye just,
      Who the blood's doctrine have discussed
        And judge it mean and slight--
      Grant that I may, the rest's your own,
      In shame and poverty sit down
        At this one well-spring of delight!"


If it be but a man's covenant, there is both the consideration and the
deed, the purchase money and the muniments, the price and the witness of
its payment. God treats with our souls in language thus well understood,
and tells us thus of the _consideration_ and the _deed_, or that which
_sustains_ and that which _witnesses_ the counsels of His sovereign good
pleasure. It is a deed of gift to the elect, but it is nothing less than
the blood of the Son which sustains it, and the presence of the Spirit
which witnesses it.

What a secret! By nature I am at a great distance from God, an alien and
a foreigner. I am also shut up, so that I cannot come forth. But in this
great transaction God Himself undertook to travel this unmeasured
distance, and assail the house of my strong enemy; and in His
incarnation, sorrows, and victory all this mighty doing of love is
accomplished, and I am "compassed about with songs of deliverance."

Can it be, as I gaze at such a mystery, that I fear lest the distant one
be not brought nigh, or the captive one be not delivered? "Surely in the
floods of great waters they shall not come nigh unto me." I may
say--"_Thou_ art my hiding-place; thou shalt preserve me from trouble;
thou shalt compass me about with songs of deliverance."

        "Strong Deliverer!
      Be Thou still our strength and shield!"


This may well be our confidence in the faith of such truth. But to these
general thoughts on the covenants and their signs, I might add, the
token given to Noah has a beautiful significancy. The bow, as it were,
rode triumphant on the cloud. It rolled away the stone and sat upon it.
Its form and bearing were those of a conqueror. It said to the cloud,
"Hitherto shalt thou come and no further, and here shall thy proud waves
be stayed." It gave the angel of death his measure, and said to him, "It
is enough, stay now thine hand."

And all this lives in the divine remembrance. The earth and the covenant
that secures it are there. "The bow shall be in the cloud, and I will
look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God
and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth."
Accordingly this promise to the earth is remembered, the bow in the
cloud is looked at, through every stage and variety of the
dispensational actings of the Lord.

It was remembered, of course, all the time the Lord had His seat in
Zion, for then the glory made _the earth_ its residence. The Lord then
dwelt between the cherubim, in the temple at Jerusalem, in the land of
Israel. But when the throne of the Lord leaves that city, and the
sanctuary loses the glory, because abominations had grieved and
disturbed it, the throne and the glory are accompanied by the rainbow to
heaven. Ezek. i. 28. Though the earth then ceased, for a while, to be
the dwelling-place of God, still it was before Him in counsel. He would
be mindful of it, as the object of His faithful care, according to the
promise.[8]

  [8] Just like the throne of David. That throne is for the present in
      the dust--the crown of Judah is cast down--but the promise of the
      Lord to it is remembered, as is His promise to the earth. This
      analogy Scripture giveth us in Jer. xxxiii. Dishonoured now or
      made the sport of the wicked, the promises to the earth and to
      David's throne are still in full remembrance, and, in their
      season, will be accomplished.

And therefore when heaven is opened to our view, we see the faithful and
remembered bow encompassing the throne. Rev. iv. And further still. The
rainbow is seen when the Lord is presented as coming down for the
direct, immediate execution of judgment. The mighty angel, the divine
executor of the day of the Lord, comes down to the earth clothed with a
cloud, the symbol of judgment, and the fearful vessel of wrath. Gen. ix.
14; Rev. i. 7. But even then the rainbow is with Him (Rev. x.); as much
as to tell us, that to the end, and at the end, God remembers His
promise to the earth, and will debate with judgment. The cloud is to
descend, it is true--"They shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds
of heaven." The judgment must sit--the books must be opened--the vials
must be emptied; but it is only to take out of the kingdom them that
offend--to destroy them that destroy the earth. The cloud, as it
executes its commission, must stay itself at the beginning of the bow.
The _day_ of the Lord, or the judgment, must give place to the
_presence_ of the Lord, or the refreshment and restoration. Time shall
be no longer, the mighty angel may cry; the present course of things may
cease again, as once it did in the days of Noah; but the bow shines, in
the eye of the Lord, as brightly as ever, and His promise lives in His
heart. The earth is still beloved, for Noah's sake, as Israel is for the
fathers' sake--that true Noah, in whom (but in whom alone) all the
promises of God are yea and amen; and of whom it shall be said, in all
its fulness and truth, "This same shall comfort us concerning our work
and toil of our hands, because of the ground which the Lord hath
cursed."

This earth of ours, given to the children of men, therefore outlives the
judgment. It stands the shock of the descent of the mighty angel, though
clothed with a cloud, planting his right foot on the sea, and his left
on the earth, and crying aloud, as when a lion roareth. Rev. x.

And what is it reserved for? For more than the bow had promised it. It
is not only preserved--with its seed time and harvest, its summer and
winter, its day and night, its cold and heat--but it is to be delivered
into "the liberty of the glory of the children of God." This is more
than had been promised.

Such was the token, and such will be its acknowledgment--such was the
pledge, and such will be its redemption. Beautiful mystery! The
covenant, with its blood and its sign! God's promise, with the sacrifice
of the Son as its foundation, and the presence of the Spirit as its
witness!

But here this thought occurs to me: Are we, beloved, to stand before
such ways and revelations of God in the same calmness in which they are
delivered to us? Is that the thing that becomes us? The Queen of Sheba
did not stand before the glories of Solomon in the same way that Solomon
himself dwelt among them. Solomon was at home in the midst of them. They
were all his own. It was _his_ wisdom, and _his_ house that he had
built. The meat of the table, and the sitting of the servants, with
their apparel, were all _his_. The ascent by which he went into the
house of God was his. But the Queen of Sheba, from the distant south,
was but introduced to it all. Fitting it was that he should be at ease
there; and fitting it was that she should be all rapture. So with the
book of God and the disciple. All the profound and precious mysteries
which the Spirit is unfolding there are His own--the thoughts and
counsels of the divine mind. There is no effort to produce effect in the
communication of them; the tale of the wonders of grace and glory is
told artlessly. But is the soul, introduced to them, to be, in like
manner, unmoved? Such an one may rather gaze with more of rapture than
she who came from the uttermost parts of the earth, for "a greater than
Solomon is here."

And it is more of this Sheba-rapture we want. We too easily afford to
talk of God's things as though there were no more preciousness and
excellency in them than our hearts could measure; but as secret after
secret comes forth from the wisdom of the greater than Solomon, surely
our souls should say, "Happy are thy men, and happy are these thy
servants, which stand continually before thee, and hear thy wisdom."


Endowed and blessed, enriched and honoured--instructed too, and ordained
as "the power" under God, and with all this, at ease, in conscious
safety, "no evil or enemy occurrent," Noah is seated in the new world. A
new trial of man, under new circumstances, was proceeding; and, as with
Adam in Eden, nothing is left undone on God's part. The oxen and
fatlings were killed, and all things were ready. But where is man's
sufficiency? If Adam failed before him, and lost the garden; if Israel
failed after him, and lost their land of milk and honey; it may be said
to Noah, "Lovest thou me more than these?" In Christ, and in Him only,
are unfailing fidelity and strength. And Noah, like the rest, fails, and
the virgin soil of the new world is quickly tarnished by the very first
foot that trod it.

"And Noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard, and
drank of the vine, and was drunken, and he was uncovered within the
tent."

Noah himself is put to shame; the very first man, the Adam of this new
system, begins the history of this second apostasy, like his first
father.

The "little fire" is thus kindled; but it is for "a greater matter."
Noah is put to shame; but Ham, his son, glories in the shame. That was a
terrible advance in the progress of evil. "Ham, the father of Canaan,
saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without."

It was a terrible advance in evil; this was not simply the being
"overtaken in a fault," but "rejoicing in iniquity." The common moral
sense rejects this--"Shem and Japheth took a garment, laid it on their
shoulders, went backwards, and covered the nakedness of their father."
And the saint himself is soon restored. Noah awakens from his wine. He
that was overtaken recovers himself, through the Spirit, and the grace
of God gives him a great triumph--a very precious and glorious triumph
indeed, for the restored one judges his judge, and condemns his
accuser--"Cursed be Canaan, a servant of servants shall he be unto his
brethren." This is something more than recovery--it is triumphant
recovery. Even the apostle's fine word, "Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect?" scarcely measures it; for that is only the
silencing of the accuser, while this is turning back on the pursuer.
"Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy: when I fall, I shall rise....
Then she that is mine enemy shall be trodden down as the mire of the
streets."

Here, however, we may stand for a moment--the rich and interesting
prospects of the Spirit of prophecy here spread themselves out before
us.

This curse upon Canaan is part of Noah's prophecy. Noah, in spirit,
looked out from the renewed earth, but anticipated the return of
corruption and violence, though the grace of God were to have its
witness in the midst of it. In detail, he saw that one branch of the
human family (now about to re-people the earth) was to be distinguished
by the revelation and presence of God among them; another by their
success and advancement in the world--a people to be enlarged and made
honourable in the earth; another, by the constant, unchanging token, in
their flesh, of degradation and servitude. His prophecy contemplated, as
we may say, the Asiatic, the European, and the African man; or, the
Hebrew in the East, with whom was to be the sanctuary of God--the
Gentile of the West, who was, under the hand or providence of God, to
make himself great in borders beyond his own--and the slave of the
South, who might know a change of masters, but who was to be a slave
still.

Short is the notice of the world's history, but just and perfect as far
as it goes, and enough to answer the purpose of the Spirit in Noah, who
was taking his son Ham for his text.

The three prophecies, which we get in these earliest times, that of
Enoch, that of Lamech, and this of Noah, all touching the earth and its
history, though respecting different stages or parts of that history,
together present a very perfect outline of the whole thing. We must take
them in this order--Noah's, Enoch's, Lamech's.

Noah's prophecy has been accomplishing from of old, and is still getting
its seal and witness in all the changes of the world's solemn and
interesting story. Enoch's (Jude 14), which spoke of judgment, will have
its answer, its full answer, when the present course of things is
closing, and the day of the Lord comes to convince the ungodly. Lamech's
(Genesis v. 29), which spoke of rest, will be made good afterwards,
when, "the day of the Lord" having fulfilled the judgment, "the presence
of the Lord" will bring its restitution and refreshing.

The present and the future of the world's history, the varied good and
evil of the present, and the judgment and the glory that are to share
the future, are thus sketched before us in these prophecies. It is easy
to discern these things, and to give these early patriarchal oracles
their order and character.

It is Noah's, however, that I must look at more particularly, as what we
have more properly to do with here. It was delivered on the discovery of
the evil of his son Ham, and the onward course of evil is then detailed
to its close and maturity, ere we leave these chapters.

We have already watched the infant springing of it in Noah himself, and
the advanced form of it in Ham. Its further growth is next to be seen in
the builders of Babel, some hundred years after the flood. And an awful
exhibition it is.

At the birth-time of this new world, Noah's altar was raised, witnessing
faith and worship--but now the city and the tower are reared, witnessing
defiance of God and the affected independency of man. And the answer of
heaven to these things is just as different. Noah's altar brought down
words and tokens of peace and security--the cry of the city and the
tower now bring down judgment. Corruption here, and vengeance from on
high, mark the scene, instead of worship here, and blessing from God.
Then it was, that the Lord hung the bright token of His covenant in the
heavens, but now He is sending abroad over the earth the witnesses of
His righteous anger.

But this is not all. The tower is over-topped, high and proud as it was.
The builders may be scattered, but their principles survive. Judgment
does not cure. All the apostate mind that quickened that proud and
rebellious confederacy, gathers itself rapidly for its perfect work and
display in one man. For soon after the scattering (it may be about
thirty years) Nimrod, a grandson of Ham, plants his standard on the very
spot which had witnessed the judgment of God. The beginning of his
kingdom was Babel. x. 10. He unfurls his banner in the very face of Him
"to whom vengeance belongs," and cries, "Where is the God of judgment?"
He was as the fool of Ps. xiv.--"The fool hath said in his heart, There
is no God." He begins to be a mighty one in the earth. "Before the Lord
he hunted." In defiance of God he sought conquest and power. He added
house to house and field to field, in the desire to be lord alone. Erech
and Accad and Calneh are mother-cities, and mighty Nineveh with Rehoboth
and Calah, and that great city Resen, are but colonies in the system of
this vaunting apostate. He had no heart for any portion which God could
give him. He undertook to provide for himself, to be the maker of his
own fortune, that his dignity and honour should proceed from himself.
And such an one is the man of the world to this day. His intellect or
his industry, his skill or his courage, makes him what he is, and
provides him what he cares for. Such was this distinguished apostate,
this earliest representative and type of that one who, in closing days,
is to do according to his will, and fill the measure of man's iniquity.

It is a serious sight for the watching and observance of our souls. Are
we, beloved, waiting for other and purer scenes? and are our hearts upon
such enjoyments as God can sanction, and Jesus share with us?

These chapters properly close with this--these scenes of evil and proud
rebellion pass from before us, with a faint and distant view of the call
of another heavenly stranger apart from the world. But all that is the
dawn of another era in the ways of God, and our present subject only
looks at it in the distance.

The second part of the book of Genesis, I may say, ends here. It
presents a complete, distinct action, suitably following what had
preceded it, and as suitably (were it my purpose to show it) introducing
what is to follow it.

In this portion, Gen. vi.-xi., the scene is laid in the earth. The
heavenly family have already been before us, Gen. i.-v., and their
course ended in the translation of Enoch; now the scene is laid in the
earth again, as at the beginning in the garden of Eden.

The contents of this little volume, which I have now closed, might be
given in the following order:

vi.-viii. These chapters present the sin and judgment of the earth, with
the election, faith, and deliverance of the saints in the midst of it
all, and out of it all.

ix. This chapter shows us the new condition of man in the new world,
endowed and enriched there by the God of heaven and earth, secured in
the covenant mercy, and made the representative and executor of divine
authority.

x. xi. These chapters unfold great portions of the history of the new
world, the springs, workings, progress, and maturity of evil, leaving or
rendering the earth such a place as that the Lord must again, a second
time, retire from it (at least for the present) and bring out from it,
also a second time, a people to be heavenly strangers in the midst of
it, like the antediluvian saints.

Heaven and earth have thus, in their season, been rehearsing the
mystery, till together, in coming days, the days of the glory, they
shall display it, when "at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, of
things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; and
every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the
Father."


"The land shall not be sold for ever," says the Lord; "for the land is
mine." Lev. xxv. 23. Man has a term of years granted him, in which it is
left in his power to disturb the divine order. For forty-nine years in
Israel disturbing traffic might go on, but in the fiftieth year the Lord
asserted His right, and restored all things according to His own mind;
for it was a time of "refreshing" and of "restitution" as from His own
"presence."

Bright and happy expectation! "The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness
thereof," is the proclamation of Psalm xxiv. And then the challenge goes
forth, "Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord?"--that is, Who shall
take the government of this earth and its fulness? And the answer is
made by another challenge to the city gates, to lift up their heads to
the Lord of hosts, the King of glory; a fervent form of words whereby to
convey the truth, that the Lord, as in strength and victory, the Lord as
Redeemer and Avenger, should take the government. As again in Rev. v. a
like proclamation is heard, "Who is worthy to open the book, and to
loose the seals thereof?" And the answer from every region is this, "The
Lamb that was slain, the Lion of the tribe of Judah." He who sat on the
throne gave that answer by letting the Book pass from His hand into the
hand of the Lamb. The living creatures and crowned elders joined in that
answer by singing their song over the prospect of their reign over the
earth. The hosts of angels add to it, by ascribing all wisdom and
strength and honour and faculty of dominion unto the Lamb--and every
creature in heaven, on earth, under the earth and in the seas, in their
order and measure, join in uttering this same answer. The title of the
Lamb to take dominion in the earth is thus owned and verified in the
very place where alone all lordship or office could be rightly
attested--the presence of the throne in heaven.

And so it is. The nobleman has now gone into the distant country to get
for himself a kingdom. Jesus, who refused all power from the god of this
world (Matt. iv.), or from the desire of the multitude (John vi.), takes
it from God, as He owns in Psalm lxii. that to Him it belongs. And in
due season He will return, and those who have owned Him in the day of
His rejection shall shine with Him in the day of His glory; those who
have served Him now shall take another city with Him then.

In the prospect of such a day, Paul says to Timothy, "Keep this
commandment without spot, unrebukeable, until the appearing of our Lord
Jesus Christ: which in His time He shall show, who is the blessed and
only potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords." And in the like
prospect the same dear apostle could say of himself, "I have fought a
good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith; henceforth
there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the
righteous Judge, shall give me at that day; and not to me only, but unto
all them also that love His appearing."

May the Lord give our poor hearts--for they need it much--more of the
like spirit of faith and power of hope! Amen.




                                ABRAHAM.

                           GENESIS XII.-XXV.


In earlier parts of the book of Genesis, I have already traced two
distinct histories--that of the antediluvian saints, or the times from
Adam to Enoch; and that of Noah and of those who followed him, down to
the scattering of the nations.

The first of these histories occupies chapters i.-v., the second,
vi.-xi.

In the chapter which follows--xii.--the story of Abraham begins, and is
continued down to chap. xxv. This forms the third portion or section of
the book of Genesis, and presents to us a new era in the ways of God.
And in all this, I am sure, there is beautiful moral order, and an
unfolding of the dispensational wisdom of God. For in these things the
heavens and the earth are made, by turns, to take up the wondrous tale
of that wisdom, and to rehearse divine mysteries--such mysteries as, "in
the fulness of time," will be accomplished, when, as we know, He shall
gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven
and which are on earth. Eph. i. 10.


Adam in innocency was a man of the earth. He had to enjoy it, knowing it
all as his, but knowing nothing as his beside. But when he was sent out
of Eden, he became a stranger in the earth. He received no commission to
improve or furnish it. He had simply to till the ground for a living,
and the translation of Enoch tells us, that the destiny and inheritance
of that earliest household of God was _heavenly_.[9]

  [9] The family of Cain was the contradiction of this, in those
      antediluvian days. They tilled the ground for something more than
      livelihood. Their tillage led to the culture and advancement of
      the world as a system of gain and pleasure. And thus were the two
      families distinguished--the one was formed by faith, or by
      obedience to the revelation of God; the other by the despite of
      it, as the world is to this day.

In Noah, however, in process of time, the purpose of God is different.
Noah is a man of the earth again. He leaves the ark in a character very
different from that in which Adam had left the garden. Noah left the ark
under commission to keep the world in order, as judge and ruler. It was
not strangership on it, but citizenship in it, and government of it,
that was now again the divine thought. But a second apostasy was
witnessed in the midst of Noah's descendants. In process of time, they
affected independency in the earth, casting off the fear of God, and
seeking to do for themselves without Him, as Adam had (seeking to be as
God) in the garden of old.

Abraham, upon all this, finds grace in the eyes of the Lord. He is
called out from this apostate scene; and, as we might expect, from this
alternate telling of heavenly and earthly mysteries, after Noah the man
of the earth, Abraham is called to be a heavenly man.

The Lord said to him, "Get thee out of thy country, and from thy
kindred, and from thy father's house." This was the character of the
call of Abraham. It was not a call from moral pollution, or from
idolatry, or the like; it was a call from the associations of nature and
of the earth. There were idols to be left, I doubt not. See Joshua xxiv.
2, 3. But it was not the leaving of them that constituted the nature of
the call. Yet Abraham, touching the earth, was to be like Adam outside
the garden. He leaves Ur of the Chaldees, as Adam left Eden. He received
no commission to cultivate the land of Canaan for the Lord, or to
conquer and govern the people there. The arrangements of the world were
left just as they were. Abraham had nothing to say to the nations
through which he passed on his way to Canaan; and when he reached that
land, he found the Canaanite there, and there he left him as he found
him.

Government had been set up in Noah, and nations had been organized; as
natural relationships had been instituted at the beginning, or in Adam.
But Abraham is called from all this. God Himself is received by faith;
and the things of nature which Adam might have conveyed to him, or the
things of government which Noah might have secured to him, are left
behind.[10]

 [10] In their day, Abraham's seed, or the nation of Israel, are again
      an _earthly_ people; and they exhibit the very opposite of all
      this. They _smite_ the nations of Canaan; and instead of being
      called _from_ kindred and country, they are called _to_ all such
      things; men, women, children, and even cattle (for not a hoof was
      to be left behind), journeyed from Egypt to Canaan--from a land of
      strangers to their own inheritance.

In our patriarch, then, we see the election and the call of God. He was
of the corrupt, departed family of man, without a single claim on God.
But sovereign grace (in the virtue of which all the redeemed, according
to eternal counsel, stand) had made him its object; and under such grace
he is, in due time, manifested as a chosen one, and is called of God to
be a heavenly stranger in the world. Scripture speaks of him as the
father of all them that believe. Rom. iv. We may, therefore, expect to
find the life of faith exhibited in him; and so we do find it, as this
little book designs to show.

But in this "life of faith" we do not merely look for the principle of
dependence on God, or of confidence in Him, though that may be the
thought immediately suggested by such words. It signifies much more. It
is a life of large and various energies; for according to God, or
Scripture, faith is that principle in the soul which not only trusts Him
and believes Him; it is also that which apprehends His way, acts in
concert with His principles and purposes, receives His promises, enjoys
His favour, does His bidding, looks for His kingdom, in His strength
gains victories, and by His light walks in light; and thus it is ever,
though variously, exhibiting a life according to Him, or formed by
communion with Him.

All this is strongly marked for our observation.

Heb. xi. shows us all this--the life of faith in its vast diversity of
exercise and action. Accordingly, we shall find, in the life of Abraham,
occasions where confidence in God was the virtue exercised; occasions,
too, where strength was put forth and conflict endured; and again, where
surrender of rights and submission to wrongs were the virtues. And the
life of faith is beautiful in its variety; for this variety is but the
changeful glowing of the same mind, the mind of Christ, in the saint.

But again. We are not to understand that we get _nothing else_ than this
light and power of faith in the believer or saint. Perfectness in this
variety of the life of faith is not to be found save in Him who is set
before us as "the Author and Finisher of faith," and whose way, from
beginning to end, and in every incident of it, was the great exemplar of
this life in full unsullied brightness. Still, however, the life of
Abraham, or of David, or of Joseph, or of Paul, is to be called the life
of faith; for it was the life of those in whom that principle was,
though betraying again and again, and that too in different ways, the
pravity of nature, the workings of unbelief, and the counsels of a heart
prone to converse with flesh and blood, and to take the way of a
revolted world.


This life of faith our Abraham entered upon with beautiful simplicity
and earnestness. "He went forth to go into the land of Canaan, and into
the land of Canaan he came." He went out, not knowing whither he went.
He took God for his security and his portion; and, as another has said,
"it is in this that the Spirit of God rests, as characteristic of his
approved faith; for, by separation from the world, on the ground of
implicit confidence in God, he lost everything, and got nothing but _the
word of God_."

We do not like such conditions. The heart resents them; but the renewed
mind approves them, and justifies God in them. The _sufferings_ of
Christ are first, and then the _glories_. 1 Peter i. 11. Job was nearer
his good thing in God, when he lay in ashes amid the potsherds, than
when he was happy in his nest. Israel did not descend Mount Lebanon, and
enter Canaan after a fruitful journey, through a land of cities and
villages, and corn and wine, and rivers and vineyards; but they paced it
slowly, through one desert after another. And so Abraham was called out
from all, to go he knew not whither; but this he knew, that it was God
who had called him. And this was faith's beginning. "He went forth to go
into the land of Canaan, and into the land of Canaan he came."

He came, however, rather to sojourn than to dwell there. He moves from
place to place, and in every place it is but a tent he pitches. He had
been told by the God of glory, that the land should be _shown_ him. He
should _have_ it in _his seed_ for ever, but in _his own person_ he was
but to _see_ it. And, accordingly, we find him _surveying it carefully_,
but not _occupying any of it_. For this was the right answer of such a
promise. He _looked_ on the land, because the promise was that it should
be _shown_ him. He went first to Sichem and to the plain of Moreh; from
thence, southward, to the neighbourhood of Bethel and Ai. But he was a
man of the tent, and of the tent only, wherever he went. The Canaanite
was then in the land, and he was the occupier of the soil; and Abraham
did not dispute with him for a foot's breadth of it. He surveyed it, and
had such possession of it as faith and hope imparted; but he sought no
personal, present inheritance there. The promise lived in his heart, and
the promise was his measure as well as his joy. Chapter xii.

Quickly, however, another man in our Abraham is before us; for, like all
of us, beloved, he was a man of _nature_, as he was a man of God; and
there is none perfect in the life of faith, as we said before, but the
Master Himself. Famine touches the land into which the call of God had
brought him. A strange surprise this may well be thought to have been.
But faith would have been equal to it. Faith in Paul was equal to a like
surprise. Called into Macedonia by the voice of God, a prison awaited
him. But Paul stands the shock, though Abraham falls before it. Paul and
his companion sing hymns in the prison in Macedonia; but Abraham
practises a lie, seeking help from the famine of Canaan in another land,
of which his call under the God of glory had made no mention whatever.

Such things have been, and still are, found among the saints. There are
"Little Faith" and "Great Heart" among the elect, as well as flesh and
spirit--nature and the new mind in each of them. But this we may know:
that if nature _rule_ us, nature will _expose_ us. Even the man of the
earth, Pharaoh of Egypt, puts Abraham to shame; and his journey, instead
of being onward in the witness of his tent and in the joy of his altar,
was that of a wearied foot, because it was that of a rebuking heart. He
has to "do his first works," to retrace his steps, and regain his
standing--sorrowful works at all times. He has to leave "by-path meadow"
for the King's highway again, betaking himself back from Egypt to the
place between Ai and Bethel, where he had raised his altar at the first.

What say we to this, beloved? The flocks got in Egypt accompany him
home. The glitter of the gold and the silver--the offerings of a land
that lay beyond where the God of glory had called him--adorn and set off
his return. All this is so indeed. But what say we to all this? again I
ask. Is the bleating and the lowing of such flocks and herds in our ears
like the soft music of an approving conscience? or this glittering
wealth like the brightness of the divine presence which was now lost to
Abraham? I am bold to answer for Abraham, though I may not for myself,
that his spirit knew the difference. The wearied heart was but feebly
relieved by all that he brought with him from the land of Egypt, or out
of the house of Pharaoh. Sure I am of this. It could not but be so with
such a man. "He that sinneth against me wrongeth his own soul," must
have been his experience; and his action in the scene which immediately
succeeds, as I judge, tells us something of this.

Lot, his younger brother, or his brother's son, who had come with him
out of Ur into Canaan, now becomes the occasion of trial to Abraham, as
the famine had lately been. But faith in Abraham triumphs, I may say, to
admiration. The very style in which he gives this trial its answer seems
to say, that he will return fourfold to the life of faith for that which
nature had so lately, as it were, taken away from it. The herdmen of the
two brothers, the elder and the younger, cannot feed their flocks
together. They must separate. This was the occasion of trial which had
now arisen. But "let Lot choose," is Abraham's language. In a fine
sense, he will act on the divine oracle, "the elder shall serve the
younger." Lot may choose, and leave Abraham what portion he please. The
well-watered plains may be his; Abraham can trust the Lord of the
country, though he lose them. He may have to _dig_ wells instead of
_finding_ them; but it is better to dig for them in the strength of God,
than to find them in the way of covetousness; better, as it were, to
wait for them in Canaan, than to go after them again down to Egypt.
xiii.

This is beautiful recovery. And in this way will faith, at times,
exercise judgment on unbelief, and clear itself again. And now the Lord
visits him, as He had not, as He could not, have done in Egypt. The God
of glory, who had called Abraham into Canaan, could not go with him into
Egypt: but to the man who was surrendering the best of the land to his
younger brother, in the joy of restored confidence in God, He will
delight to show Himself.

Where, then, are we, beloved? I will ask. Where is our spirit? On which
road with Abraham are we, as at this moment, travelling? Are we knowing
Egypt in the bitterness of self-reproach, or a regained Canaan in the
joy of God's countenance? Is it a walk with God we are taking every day?
The life of faith knows the difference between the checks of the worldly
mind and the enlargements of the believing mind. Abraham knew these
things. He knew, in spirit, what Egypt was--the place of gold and of
silver, and of rebuke and death; he knew what it was to regain Ai
without an altar on the road; and he knew what it was to rest again,
with altar and tent, in the plains of Mamre.


Thus the chequered life of faith begins. But there is vastly more in it
than this. And in this variety of action in the life of faith, we notice
its _intelligence_, the exercise of the mind of Christ, or of the
spiritual sense, which discerns things that differ, which has capacity
to know times and seasons according to God. This fine endowment of the
saint we find in Abraham, in the next passage of his history.

The battle of the kings is recorded in chap. xiv. While that was a mere
contest between such, Abraham has nothing to say to it. Let the
potsherds strive with the potsherds. But as soon as he hears that his
kinsman Lot is involved in that struggle, he stirs himself.

Everything, as we read, is beautiful in its season. There is a time to
build, and a time to pull down. There was a time for Abraham to be
still, and a time for Abraham to be active; a time to be silent, and a
time to break silence. And he understood the time. Like the men of
Issachar afterwards, he knew the time, and what Israel ought to do.
God's principles were Abraham's rules. Lot was taken prisoner, and the
kinsman's part was now Abraham's duty. The battle-field in the vale of
Siddim shall be his now, as the tent had been his till now in the plains
of Mamre. The mind of God had another lesson for him than that which he
learnt while the potsherds of the earth were alone in the conflict; and
a time to break silence calls him out at the head of his trained
servants.

Excellent and beautiful indeed in a saint is this intelligence of the
mind of Christ, and beautiful is everything in its season. Out of season
the very same action is defiled and disfigured. For the _material_ of an
action is not enough to determine the _character_ of an action. It must
be _seasonable_ likewise. Elijah, from his elevation, may call down fire
from heaven on the captains and their fifties; and so, the two
witnesses, in the day of Rev. xi. But it will not do for the companions
of the lowly, rejected Jesus to act thus on the Samaritan villagers.
Luke ix. It is only in its season that anything is really right. How was
the garden of Gethsemane (made sacred as it was by the sorrows of the
Lord Jesus) disfigured by the blood which Peter's sword drew there! What
a stain on that soil, though the power of Christ was present to remove
it! But another sword was doing right service when it hewed Agag in
pieces. For when vengeance is demanded, when the trumpet of the
sanctuary sounds an alarm for war, vengeance or war will be as perfect
as grace and suffering. It is for God to determine the dispensational
way, and to make known the dispensational truth. That being done, all
life of faith is just that manner or order or character of life that is
according to it. "The duties and services of faith flow from truths
entrusted. If the truths be neglected, the duties or services cannot be
fulfilled." And the good pleasure of God, or His revealed and dispensed
wisdom, varies in changing and advancing ages. Noah, in a few
generations before Abraham, would have avenged the blood of one made in
the likeness or image of God, in the same spirit of faith, as Abraham
allowed one army of confederate kings to slay another. It is neither the
"sword" nor the "garment," as the Lord speaks in Luke xxii., that must
needs be the due instrument of service, or symbol of faith; but either
of them, according as it severally expresses the dispensational good
pleasure of God at the time.

This is much to be observed; for the distinguishing of things that
differ, and the rightly dividing of the word of God or of truth, is
expected, among other virtues, in the life of faith. Abraham was endowed
with this fine faculty. He walked in the light of that day, as God was
in the light. He knew the voice of the silver trumpet; when, as it were,
to gather to the tabernacle, and when to go forth to the battle.


But there is more than this in our patriarch at this time. Two victories
distinguish him--one over the armies of the kings, and one over the
offers of the king of Sodom.

The first of these Abraham gained, because he struck the blow exactly in
God's time. He went out to the battle neither sooner nor later than God
would have had him. He waited, as it were, till "he heard the going in
the mulberry trees." Victory was therefore sure; for the battle was the
Lord's, not his. His arm was braced by the Lord; and this victory of
Abraham's was that of an earlier sling and stone, or of the jaw-bone of
an ass, or of a Jonathan and his armour-bearer against a Philistine
host; for Abraham's was but a _band of trained servants against the
armies of four confederated kings_.

The second, still brighter than the first, was achieved in virtue of
fellowship with the very springs of divine strength. The _spirit_ of the
patriarch was in victory here, as his _arm_ had been before. He had so
drunk in the communication of the King of Salem--had so fed on the bread
and wine of that royal, priestly stranger--that the king of Sodom spread
out his feast in vain. The soul of Abraham _had been in heaven_, and he
could not return to the world.

That was his blessed experience in the valley of Shaveh. Happy soul
indeed! Oh for something more than to trace the image of it in the book!
Zaccheus, in his day, was a son of Abraham in this generation, or
according to this life and power. Zaccheus so drank in the joy and
strength that are to be known in the presence of Christ, that the world
became a dead thing to him. He had sat at table with the true
Melchizedek, and had eaten of His bread and drunk of His wine. Jesus had
spread a feast for His host at Jericho as He had in other days for
Abraham in the valley of Shaveh; and, strengthened and refreshed, this
son of Abraham, like his father of old, was able to surrender the world.
Behold, Lord, says he, the half of my goods I give to the poor, and if I
have wronged any man of anything by false accusation, I restore him
fourfold. He could give Abraham's answer to the king of Sodom, for he
had had Abraham's refreshment from the King of Salem.

Surely, beloved, this is the way of victory in all the saints. The
springs of strength and joy are found in Jesus. May you and I be able to
look at Him and say, "All my fresh springs are in thee." "This is the
victory that overcometh the world, even our faith." And what are all
conquests in God's account but such?--

        "'Tis within
      The fervent spirit labours. There he gains
      Fresh conquests o'er himself, compared with which
      The laurels that a Caesar wears are weeds."


Such, then, are the victories of faith.

But we have more still; and in the next scene, in chapter xv. we see
faith's _boldness_.

And let me ask, for our common comfort, what more precious with God
Himself than this? The intelligence of faith is bright, and its
victories glorious; but in the accounting of the God of all grace, its
boldness surpasses all.

After Abraham's victory over the world, or over the offers of the king
of Sodom, the Lord comes to him with some great pledges and promises.
After these things the word of the Lord came unto Abram in a vision,
saying, Fear not, Abram: I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great
reward. xv. 1. After the heat of the preceding day, it was meet, in the
ways of grace, that Abraham should be owned again, and encouraged again.
But faith is bold, very bold, apparently aiming higher than the purposes
and undertakings of grace. And this is a wonderful moment to
contemplate. Abraham seems to throw back the words of the Lord. "I am
thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward," says the Lord. "What wilt
thou give me?" Abraham replies--"What wilt thou give me, seeing I go
childless, and the steward of my house is this Eliezer of Damascus?"

This was bold; but, blessed to say it, not too bold for the ear of the
Lord who finds His richest joy in the language of faith like this.

Good it is to have a _portion_; but Abraham sought an _object_, an
object for the heart; something far more important to us. Adam found it
so. Eden was not to him what Eve was. The garden with all its tributes
did not do for him what the helpmeet did. Eve opened his mouth; she
alone did that, because she alone had filled his heart. Christ finds it
so. The Church is more to Him than all the glory of the kingdom--as the
pearl and the treasure were more to the men who found them, than all
their possessions, for they sold all to get them. The strayed sheep, the
lost piece of silver, the prodigal son, are more to heaven--to the
Father, to the Shepherd, to the Spirit, and to angels--as occasions of
joy, than all else; just because the heart has got its object--love has
found its answer. _This_ is the mind of Christ. Affection puts the heart
on a journey; and it cannot rest, in the midst of all beside, without
its object; and it says even to the Lord and His pledges, "What wilt
thou give me, seeing I go childless?"

But bold faith this was indeed, appearing thus to throw back the words
of God. But it was precious to Him. Yea, it was precious to Him on the
highest kind of title; for faith, acting thus and craving after this
manner, spoke the way and the taste of the divine mind itself. For God
Himself looks for children, as Abraham did. It is not the spirit of
bondage that is to fill His house, but that of adoption; it is not
servants but children He will have round Him. He has "predestinated us
unto the adoption of children, by Jesus Christ, _to Himself_." He has
found in His children an object for _Himself_; and Abraham was,
therefore, but telling out the _common_ secret of his own heart, and of
the bosom of God. And at once his desire is answered; and the sight of
the starry heavens is made to pledge to the patriarch something better
than all portions and all conditions; for the Lord says to him, "So
shall thy _seed_ be."

How truly may we say, never does faith aim more justly than when it aims
high, and draws with a bold hand. Never is the mark it sets before it
more God's own purpose. "Ask thee a sign of the Lord thy God," says the
prophet to the king, "ask it either in the depth, or in the height
above;" range through the divine resources, and use them. What king Ahaz
would not do, wearying the Lord by his reserve, and unbelief, and
slowness of heart, Abraham does and continues to do. His soul continues
in the same power of faith to the end of this action. He holds on in the
same track. "I'll give thee this land to inherit it," says the Lord to
him shortly afterwards. "Whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it?"
is his reply to the Lord. This is of the same fine character; and being
so--bespeaking the boldness of faith--it is still infinitely acceptable
with the Lord. Abraham seeks something beyond a promise. Not that he
doubted the promise. He was sure of it. It could never fail. Heaven and
earth would pass away, ere it could pass away. But "oath and blood" to
seal it were desired by Abraham. He loved _covenant_ title, and his
faith sought it; but sought no more than grace and purpose and sovereign
good-pleasure had already designed to give him.

And there lies the richest, fullest consolation. _Faith is never too
bold to please the Lord._ In the days of His flesh, He often rebuked the
reserves and suspicions of little faith, but never the strength and
decision of a faith that aimed as at everything, and would not go
without a blessing. So, the very style in which, in this fine chapter
(xv.), He answers the faith of His servant, tells us of the delight with
which He had entertained His servant's boldness. The very _style_ of the
answer speaks this in our ears; as afterwards in the case of the palsied
man in Luke v.; for there the words, "Man, thy sins be forgiven thee,"
tell how the heart of the same Lord, the God of Abraham, had been
refreshed by the faith which broke up the roof of the house without
apology, in order to reach Him. And it is the same here. When a fine,
bold, unquestioning faith sought for a child, the Lord God took Abraham
forth that very night, and, showing him the starry heavens, said to him,
"So shall thy seed be." When like faith would have the land secured by
something more than a word of promise, the same Lord pledges the
covenant by the passage of a burning lamp between the pieces of the
sacrifice.

This _style_, as I said, is full of meaning. It eloquently (may I say?)
bespeaks the divine mind. The Lord does not content Himself by merely
promising a child, as by word of mouth, or by merely giving some other
assurances to Abraham that the land shall be the inheritance of his
seed; but, in each case, He enters on certain actions, and conducts them
with such august and striking solemnities, as lets us know
instinctively, the delight with which He had listened to these demands
of faith.

Would that we knew our God as He is to be known, for His praise and our
comfort! Love delights to be used. Love is wearied with ceremoniousness.
It is, in its way, a trespasser on love's very nature, and on its
essential mode of acting. Family affection, for instance, puts ceremony
aside all the day long. Intimacy is there, and not form. Form would be
too cumbrous for it, as Saul's armour was for David. It has not proved
it, and cannot therefore wear it. Love is doing the business of the
house in one and another, and the common confidence of all allows it to
be done in love's way. So will the Lord have it with Himself. The
intimacy of faith is according to His grace, and ceremony is but a
weariness to Him.

Grace, as we sing at times, is "a sea without a shore," and we are
encouraged to launch forth with full-spread sails. The pot of oil would
have been without a bottom, had the woman's faith _still_ drawn from it;
and the king of Israel's victories would have been in quick succession,
till not a Syrian had been left to tell the tale, had his faith trod the
field of battle as one who knew it only as a field of conquest. 2 Kings
iv. and xiii. But we are straitened. The boldness of faith is too fine
an element for the niggard heart of man that cannot trust the Lord:
though, blessed to tell it, it is that which _answers_, as well as
_uses_, the boundless grace of God.

The believing mind is the happy mind; and it is the obedient mind also,
the God-glorifying mind. It is the thankful and the worshipping mind;
the mind too that keeps the saint the most in readiness for service, and
in separation from pollutions. We may be watchful, and it is right; we
may be self-judging, and it is right; we may be careful to observe the
rule of righteousness in all that we do, and it is right: but withal, to
hold the heart up in the light of the favour of God, by the exercise of
a simple, child-like, believing mind, this is what glorifies Him, this
is what answers His grace, this is what above all proves itself grateful
to Him with whom we have to do. "We have access by faith into this grace
wherein we stand." It is not attainment, it is not watchfulness, it is
not services or duties, which entitle us to take that journey, that
gives the soul entrance into that wealthy place of the divine
favour--_by faith_ we have access into this grace wherein we stand.

But we go onward still in this history, and find it rich in other
instructions and illustrations of the life of faith.

Sarah now comes forth for the first time in independent action. Chapters
xvi. xvii.

The famine had already, as we saw, tempted Abraham to seek the _land_ of
Egypt, and he got the resources of that land, with shame and sorrow, and
a wearisome journey back again to Canaan. Sarah now tempts him to seek
the _bondmaid_ of Egypt.

We know what this Egyptian bondmaid is, from the divine teaching of the
epistle to the Galatians. She is the covenant from mount Sinai, the law,
the religion of ordinances; and Sarah, in her suggestions to Abraham,
that he should take this Egyptian, represents _nature_, which always
finds its relief and its resources in flesh and blood, finds its
_religion_ there also, as well as everything else.

The Spirit had not as yet dealt with Sarah's soul. At least, we have had
no manifestation of this. She was an elect one surely; but our election
goes long before we become the subject of divine workmanship; and, as
yet, spiritual life, the life of faith, the operation of the truth on
Sarah through the Holy Ghost, had not been witnessed. She had not as yet
been spoken of by the Lord. She had not been the companion of her
husband in the exercise of his spirit before God, nor his
fellow-disciple in God's school. She was not called out with Abraham to
number the stars, or to watch the sacrifice. She was still, I may say,
in the place of _nature_; and accordingly she invites her husband to
give her seed by her Egyptian handmaid.

That is her place in this action; and Abraham becomes the saint
_betrayed by nature_, led in nature's path, surprised by a temptation
from that quarter now, as he had been before by the pressure of famine.

But all this is unbelief and departure from God. It is the way of man,
the way of nature; not of faith or of the Spirit. We naturally resort to
the law, the bondwoman, the religion of ordinances, when the _soul_
feels its need; as we naturally go down to Egypt, or seek the world,
when our _circumstances_ are needy. It is unbelief and departure from
God, as is seen even in Abraham; but to leave God and the restorings of
His grace, when the soul has need, is a more grievous offence and wrong
against Him, than to seek help as from Egypt, when our circumstances
have need. My poverty may tempt me to use shifts and contrivances, which
is bad enough; but if my conscience want healing, if breaches within
need repairing, that I may walk again in the enjoyed light of His
countenance, and I go to mere religion, or to ordinances, or to anything
but the provisions of His own sanctuary, this is still worse.

The Hagars and the Pharaohs, the bondmaids and the wealth of Egypt, are
poor resorts for the Abrahams of God. But so it has been, and so it is,
through the working of nature. But Abraham (we will now see for our
comfort) is under God's eye, though led by Sarah's suggestions. God has
His place in him as well as nature; and He will assert it for his
restoring. He rises on his soul in a fresh revelation of Himself,
demanding of His saint the fresh obedience of faith. "I am the almighty
God; walk before me, and be thou perfect." For Abraham's soul had lost
this truth, the almightiness or the all-sufficiency of God. He had gone
in to Hagar; he had taken up confidence in the flesh; he had left the
ground he had stood upon in chap. xv.; but the Lord will not and cannot
allow this; and therefore rises, in a renewed revelation of Himself, on
the spirit of His saint; and it is a rising "with healing in its wings;"
for Abraham falls on his face, convicted and abashed, and the soul is
led again in paths of righteousness.

Surely there are to this hour such moments in the history of "them that
believe," as well as of their "father Abraham." Abraham had not fallen
on his face, when the Lord appeared to him and spoke to him in chap. xv.
There he stood, conscious that he was in the light with the Lord. But
darkness had now come over his soul, and he is not ready for the Lord.
He is on his face, silent and amazed. He is not standing, urging the
suits of faith, as there; but on his face, silent and confounded. The
change in his experience is great; but there is no change in the Lord;
for it is the same love, whether He rebuke or comfort. If we walk in the
light, we have fellowship with Him; if we confess our sins, we have
forgiveness with Him; if we be able to stand before Him, He will feed
and strengthen us; if we must needs fall convicted in His presence, He
will raise us up again.

This is a fine, earnest path of the spirit of a saint. There is a deep
reality here. Departure from God proves itself to be bitterness; but God
proves Himself to the soul to be restoration and peace; and under His
gracious hand faith is afresh emboldened, and Abraham plies his suit, as
one that was again in the vigour of chap. xv., and seeks of God that
Ishmael might live before Him.

How one longs to have one's own soul formed by these blessed revelations
of grace, and the inwrought work of faith which answers them. The scene
changes; but God and the soul are together still. There is
reality--reality in the sadness and in the joy, in the light of the
divine countenance and in the hiding of our own face as in the dust.

All this may be said of the life of faith, as seen in chapters xvi.
xvii. But on entering upon the next scene of action, in chapters xviii.
xix., I would observe, that in the life of Abraham we get something
beside these exercises and illustrations of faith. _We get exhibitions
of certain divine mysteries also._


All the facts in this history are simple truths. They happened just as
recorded. But there is this twofold design in them: either to give
samples of the life of faith in a saint, or to give illustrations of
some great ways and purposes of God.

And such illustrations of the divine counsels and mysteries is the
common way of divine wisdom throughout Scripture. What was the
tabernacle or the temple but a place for the constant rehearsal of
mysteries, such as atonement and intercession, and the varied order of
God in the worship and services of His house, or in the ministry of
grace? For such were the sacrifices and the services there, the feasts,
and the holy days, and the jubilees. What, in like manner, were the
exodus, and the journey through the wilderness, and the entrance into
Canaan, the wars there, and then the throne of the peaceful one? Were
not all these, whether institutes of the sanctuary, or facts in the
history, exhibitions of the hidden, eternal counsels of the divine
bosom?

Now chapters xviii. xix. of this history suggest this recollection.
These chapters are to be read together, and afford us a large and vivid
exhibition of certain great truths, which concern us at this moment, in
as full a sense as ever the facts themselves, which convey them to us as
in a parable, concerned Abraham and his generation.

Sodom, in that day, was the _world_. It had been warned, but had refused
instruction. It had proved incurably departed from God, and beyond
correction. Sodom had been visited and chastened in the day of the
victory of the confederated kings--as we saw in chapter xiv.; but it was
Sodom still, and was, at this time, in advanced iniquity, in a state of
ripened apostasy, her last state worse than her first.

Sodom was the _world_ in this day. The Lord Jesus, in His teaching,
gives it morally that place, just as another generation had been the
world in Noah's day. See Matt. xxiv.; Luke xvii. They are like figures,
presenting to our thoughts "this present evil world," which 

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