communications. It is then a reasonable and almost inevitable supposition, that the same mercy which had given them a glimmering of hope in the memorable promise, would support that hope, would furnish further nutriment to faith, and would direct to exercises of piety. The great institution of sacrifices, for instance, we have every fair reason, short of direct information, to believe now originated. To say the least that a reasonable probability will allow, our first parents must have had their minds directed habitually and with strong feelings of interest towards the promised Seed, which was to triumph over the destroyer of their happiness.

2. The parturiency of Eve must have been productive of the deepest impressions on their minds. Notwithstanding what they might have observed in animals, the want of science, skill, and preparation, and the severe, perhaps unexpected pains endured, could not but occasion great distress and alarm.

3. Equally great would be the delight, when pain suddenly ceased, and a new human creature was brought to view. Let any tender mother recollect her own feelings on her first enjoyment of this blessing and let her then try to imagine what must have been the feelings of the first mother, on the first occasion of a child being born into the world! The most vivid imagination must probably fall short of conceiving the reality of this most impressive

case.

4. It would seem to have been an idea, not merely probable but inevitable, to Adam and Eve, that the beauteous and lovely creature thus presented to them by the providence of their God, was indeed the

destined Deliverer. We need not impute to them the gross conception that their infant was actually their great Creator and Sovereign: but, putting together all the circumstances, I would ask any reflecting person whether an indefinite idea of something connected with the Divine Being, in a way utterly unexampled and unknown, was not likely to arise in the mind of "the mother of all living;" and whether she might not, from natural feelings of hope and exultation, and especially considering the extreme paucity of words which must then have belonged to language, give utterance to this obscure, yet most precious and joyous idea, in the remarkable manner that is recorded. We cannot but conclude from the fact of its being thus recorded, and without any observation or elucidating of the exclamation, that by Moses and the men of the earliest times before him, it was considered as a most memorable and important declaration; and, still more, that to the Spirit of wisdom and truth it appeared worthy of imperishable preservation.

A reason for the divine conduct in this presents itself at once. The whole connexion of the Old Testament contains evidence of the systematic counsel of heavenly grace, to maintain and strengthen among men the expectation of the glorious Deliverer. The fond exclamation of Eve, bitterly mistaken as she was in its immediate application, was not the less the language of faith in the word of Jehovah. As a monument therefore of her faith, and as a link in the chain of notices and encouragements, it was worthy of being recorded.

The inference from this fact, in reference to our

present inquiry, is that Adam and Eve looked for the Deliverer from sin and evil with deep anxiety and sanguine hope, that they believed that he would be a child of man, and that they had an obscure but yet strong impression, that, in some unknown and mysterious sense, he would be described as "the man, Jehovah."

SECTION III.

GIVER OF REST.

Gen. v. 28, 29. "And he called his name Noah [i. e. Repose,] saying, This "shall console us from our toil, and from the pain of our labours [Heb. hands,] "from the ground which Jehovah hath cursed."

LAMECH, worn down with toils and griefs, and having, from some cause unknown to us, the idea that his child was destined to an extraordinary station in the economy of providence, expresses a fond hope that the child would prove the promised Deliverer from the difficulties and sorrows of the world, the curse denounced on the fall of our first parents. Such a hope, and for the reasons which may be inferred from the preceding Section, was natural and laudable; and it coincides with the great principle that an efficient plan of providence was in constant progress, to keep alive the attention and desires of mankind to the future Deliverer. If the words be admitted to have reference to this object, we can infer only that the patriarchs looked for the Saviour promised as a human being, one of their own descendants, and who should relieve them from the pressure of immediate suffering which the first sin had induced.

SECTION IV.

DESCENDANT OF ABRAHAM, CONFERRING BLESSINGS ON THE

WORLD.

Gen. xxii. 18. "And in thy SEED all the nations of the earth shall be "blessed."

THE chain of desire and hope for the Deliverer of mankind, was not allowed to be broken. For its strengthening and preservation, the Father of mercies laid the basis of a new and peculiar constitution with

1 Michaelis, with a just observance of the force of the Hithpael form, in which the verb here is, translates it, "sollen sich für gesegnet halten," shall esteem or judge themselves blessed. I select some parts of his Annotation. To esteem one's self blessed

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in any one, is an expression equivalent to this, to hope for all divine blessings through the person referred to, and to believe that God has such an especial love to that person, that he will bless us for his sake, and through our obedience to him.-It is of precisely the same meaning as the expression usually employed by the Apostle Paul, to believe on him.――The word seed may be properly understood of an individual or a descendant."- After showing, by particular induction, that neither to the national posterity of Abraham, nor to any single person recorded in the Jewish history, could the prediction be applied, he proceeds to say, "In the whole history of the Israelites, — no one can be represented as thus rich in blessing, till we arrive at Jesus of Nazareth. That in him has been verified what was here promised to Abraham, is undeniable from historical evidence. Even an enemy to the Christian religion cannot question that the faith in this Jesus has spread itself to a great extent over the earth, and that great and numerous nations of men expect, through him, all blessings and favour from God."— Uebersetz. u. Anmerk.