evangelical promise, that the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head. S. How did they know that they had done evil and offended God? T. They were immediately filled with remorse. Their eyes were opened indeed, but it was to behold their own folly, and impending miseries. They had acquired knowledge, but it was of the good they had lost, and of the evil they began to feel. They found themselves stripped of all their intellectual and moral ornaments, and subject to strange irregular appetites, and inordinate lusts; and blushing to see their external glory so debased, they strive to conceal their shame with fig-leaves sewed together, and tremble and flee at the voice of God. S. Were they cast out of para dise immediately? T. Yes had they in this complicated misery been permitted to eat also of the tree of life, it would have been perpetuated; therefore, God in his great mercy presently removed them from paradise, to that part of the country it is thought lying towards the east, where at first he had created them. This is the received interpretation, and most consonant to the letter of the text. S. What means were used to keep them from attempting a reentrance? T. God secured every passage with a guard of angels, who flying to and fro, in bright refulgent bodies, seemed to flash out fire on every side, or to resemble the vibra Aions of a flaming sword. S. Is sorrow in conception, and pain in child bearing, peculiar to the woman? T. The woman is said to be the only creature, who has any sorrow in conception; for other creatures are found to be in more perfect health, and vigour at that time, than before. Aristotle enumerates ten different maladies, to which the woman is then naturally subject she breeds with daily sickness; and is delivered with more pain and agony than any other creature, tho' she has some advantages in her make that might promise some alleviation in this particular; and consequently, it is probable, God had no sooner said to the woman, in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children, but a real effect immediately followed, and such a change took place in the woman's body, that caused the extraordinary pain from the time she was condemned. The same word was also executive as well as declarative in the sentence against the serpent, the earth and the man. God never speaks but the effect accompanies the word spoken, Now let me observe that, in this account of the fall, we have the plain and obvious rise of the origin of evil; the depravation of man's will; the pains of child-bearing women, beyond other females; the barrenness of the earth, without due culture; and many other things, which the heathen philosophers could never truly find out; and here we see how early the hopes of the salvation of fallen man by the pro mised seed, our Redeemer, were ashered into the world. C2 [ 30 ] CHAP. II. The Murder of Abel and Punishment of Cain. Of the Land of Nod. Of Seth, and his Family. The Translation of Enoch. Of the Antediluvian Fathers, their Chronology, Religion, Government, Learning, and Longevity. Scholar. ed the intquity of such a resolution, WHAT followed the expulsion and threatened his punishment, Cain paradise? Tutor. Our first parents being banished paradise, found a woeful change in themselves, and in every thing about them; the earth no longer smiled upon them as before, but yielded slowly to Adam's painful labours ; and Eve conceived and bare him a son, whose name was Cain, whom she vainly expected to be the promised seed to bruise the serpent's head. This Cain soon discovered that he was rather the only waited a proper opportunity to put it in execution: so that under the pretence of friendship, having seduced him into the fields, Cain picked a quarrel with his brother, which ended with the death of Abel, This murder gave death the first fruits; and as it proceeded purely from Abel's acceptance with God, he may not improperly be recorded as the first martyr for the cause of God. seed of the wicked one, by killing sacrifices unto God? his younger brother Abel. S. For what end did they offer S. What was the occasion of this murder? T. Cain, who was of a morose, stubborn, cruel and envious temper, betook himself to the tilling of the ground: Abel, who was of a more gentle and ingenious disposition, followed the employment of a shepherd. These brothers, according to their education, offered up to the Lord something suitable to their respective callings; but as the disposition of their minds were very different, their offerings were not accepted with equal favour. God gave some visible token of his acceptance of Abel's sacrifice, preferably to that of Cain; which so euraged him with envy against his brother, that he resolved to take away his life; and though God expostulated with him, and represent T. To implore his reconciliation by hastening the promised seed: and thus it was, that Abel by faith offered a better sacrifice than Cain; because he believed what God had promised, that the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head; and in consequence of this belief, offered such a sacrifice for his sin, as God had appointed to be offered, until the seed should come. S. Be pleased to explain what you conceive to be the defect of Cain's offering, for the scriptures are not explicit on that head. T. Cain, we may presume, was sensible of his duty to offer such a sacrifice; but that, while he was offering, gave no attention to what he was about, nor reflected upon the promise of God, made in paradise; nor placed any confidence in the merits of a Saviour, to recommend his services; but puffed up with self-conceit, and the ridiculous notion of his own righteousness, vainly imagining that his bare oblation was all that was required to his justification, took no care to preserve his soul pure and unpolluted, or to constitute his members, as instruments of righteousness unto God. Thus his oblation was no better than the service of an hypocrite, lying unto God, and using the external means of grace for a cloak of maliciousness. Whereas Abel's sacrifice it is probable was attended with awful meditations on that seed of the woman, which was to become the Redeemer of mankind, with warm applications to him for mercy and forgiveness, and with holy resolutions of better obedience, of abandoning all sin, and always abounding in the work of the Lord; and therefore, there can be no wonder that their services met with so different a reception from the Almighty, who knoweth our hearts and thoughts long before, and will not be mocked. sense to work all iniquity, and compelled him to live as a fugitive and vagabond in some distant and desolate part of the earth, as an abominable person not worthy to live, nor fit to be endured in any civil community; but at the same time, took him under his providential protection from all outward violence, that he might live in his wretched state as a monument of his vengeance to deter future ages from the like offence. S. How did Cain behave upon this sentence? T. He complains of its rigour and severity, and like all hardened sinners seemed more concerned for his punishment than his crime; he separated himself from the religious assemblies of the people of God; forsook the family and altar of his father, with all the pretensions to the fear of God; and like your freethinkers, was willing to disclaim the privileges of the church, that he might not be subject to her precepts; all which is emphatically included in this scripture phrase. Cain went out from the presence of S. What did Cain do with his the Lord: which some have thought dead brother? was either that particular place where Adam dwelt after his expulsion from paradise; or, it means the divine Shechinah, from which he was for ever banished. T. He buried him in the ground to prevent all discovery. But as nothing can be hid from the Almighty, the Lord pursues Cain; and after a just representation of his unpardonable crime, sentenced him, that the ground should not yield him her strength, that he thence forward should gain little by husbandry and tillage, or in the way of his calling, and banished him and his family from the society of those whom he intended to favour with his presence; gave him up to a reprobate S. What means the Shechinah? T. It was the appearance of God in a visible glorious majesty, or a very shining flame, or in an amaz ing splendor of light breaking out of a thick cloud, which shewed itself to Adam and to his posterity, on sundry extraordinary occasions, in these early days of the world, for their comfort and support. S. Where did Cain go? year of the world, then Cain was T. Into the land of Nod, on the banished in the 128th year of the cast side of Eden. S. I cannot rightly comprehend this account. Was that land called Nod before he went into it? T. No; the land took its name from Cain. For the terrors of his spirit, occasioned by a guilty conscience, made him a terror to himself and to all about him. It shall come to pass, says he, that every one that findeth me, shall slay me. Therefore the place where he dwelt was called the land of Nod, or of exile and wandering. S. What was the mark which God set upon Cain to prevent his being slain? T. If there was any such mark, it was that outward behaviour, which indicated his disturbed mind; but I am of opinion that we should read this text according to the Septuagent translation, that God set a sign or wonder before Cain, to persuade him, that whosoever should find him should not kill him. Thus God did set signs before the Egyptians, which were the wonders he wrought in Egypt to oblige Pharaoh to let his people go. S. But my greatest difficulty lies here. Hitherto we have an account of no more than four people, Adam, Eve, Cain, and Abel, and yet Moses says, that the Lord set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him? Who were these any, he needed to be afraid of? creation; at which time, though it did not suit with the compendious account of Moses to record all the children of Adam and Eve, but only such persons by whom in a right line the succession was continued down to Noah, and thence to Abraham the founder of the Jews, there may well be supposed to have been many sons and daughters on the earth descended from Adam. Besides, Cain his future safety from those whom had grounds to be apprehensive of he knew would grow up hereafter to revenge Abel's death. Josephus understands the death he feared would be from the beasts of the field, S. Does it appear what Cain did in the land of Nod? T. The scriptures only relate that he abode there with his wife, by whom he had a son called Enoch, and built a city of the same name. But if we may credit the great Josephus: 'He there grew worse and worse, abandoning himself to his lusts and all manner of outrage, without any regard to common justice. He enriched himself by Irapine and violence, and made choice of the most profligate of 'monsters for his companions, in'structing them in the very mystery of their own professions: he corrupted the simplicity and plain 'dealing of former times with the ' novel invention of weights and measures, and exchanged the innocency of that primitive gene rosity and candour, for the new tricks of policy and craft. He 'was the first who invaded the com T. As this murder of Abel must be supposed to have happened not more than two years before the birth of Seth, and it is certain that his birth happened in the 130th and inclosures; and the first, who mon rights of mankind by bounds 'built, peopled, and fortified a city,' S. Had not Adam more sons? T. Yes: our first parents being deprived of Cain and Abel, God promised to give them another son, who should be a lasting consolation to them. Accordingly Eve conecived and bare a son, whom she called Seth, which is interpreted appointed. seed of Adam afterwards. The decendants of Cain were Enoch, Irad, Mehujael, Methusael, and Lamech, and his sons Jabal, Jubal and Tubal-Cain, with one daughter, whose name was Naamah. There is nothing more than a short men of Lamech, who boasted of his own cruelty, and married two wives at had 77 sons; but the scriptures once; by whom, says Josephus, he only mention three, distinguishing them on account of their several in tion of the other names till we read S. How old was Adam, when ventions; for here we have, in the Seth was born? T. Only one hundred and thirty years, he lived 800 years longer and had many more children. S. Did the family of Seth reject all communication with the family of Cain. T. Yes; till the days of Mahalaleel, when some of the sons of Seth, who where distinguished by the title of sons or servants of God, on account of their piety and godly zeal, indulging themselves in too great liberties, entertained a more free and familiar conversation with the wicked offspring of Cain; whose children, being full of wickedness and impicty, where called the sons and daughters of men, till at last they took some of their daughters in marriage. S. I should be glad to know the genealogy of these two families. T. Cain was the elder brother; but as his offspring were a wicked and ungodly race of men, who all perished in the flood, Moses records only such of Cain's postertity, as distinguished themselves by inventing certain arts or trades, or were strumental in corrupting the better person of his son Jabal, the father of such as dwell in tents, in the fields, and follow the occupation of shepherds. In the person of Jubal, music takes its date, for he was the inventer of the harp and organ. And in the person of Tubal-Cain, we have the first account of work done in iron and brass. His daughter be the inventer of spinning, knitting, Naamah or Noema, is thought to and weaving of cloth; and the same as the Minerva of the ancients, who is sometimes called Nemanoun. In which account it is natural to ob serve, that as the first instance of cruelty or violence was acted by Cain upon his brother Abel, so the first act of incontinence is recorded in his grandson Lamech; one of whose sons you hear invented the instru instruments of violence and war. ments of luxury, and another the S. Who where the decendants of Seth? T. Moses only intended to shew the lineal descent of the promised $ ed, or the messiah, according to e flesh, from Adam to Noah, has only recorded the patriarchs or principals of that line, namely Seth, Euos, Cainan, Mahalaleel, Jared |