SACRED HISTORY.

CHAPTER I.

FROM THE CREATION OF THE WORLD TO THE FLOOD, A. M. 1-1656.

Introduction-A Particular Account of the several days' Work of Creation-The First Sabbath-Our First Parents in their State of Innocence Their Fall- The Birth of Cain and Abel-The Murder of Abel-The Genealogy of the Patriarchs-Cause of the FloodGod's Covenant with Noah, &c.

1. INTRODUCTION.- -"The mind of man delights to go back to the origin of things. Not content with surveying the present or prying into the future, it plunges into the dark and shadowy regions of remote antiquity. Hence it is that the first step in any great undertaking, the first circumstance leading to some important discovery, the first event giving rise to the foundation of some vast empire, the laying of the first stone in some splendid edifice, the first bubbling spring in which originates some mighty river, are all invested with a deep and peculiar interest.

In ordinary cases, however, the researches of the antiquary are subject to this disadvantage, that they are attended with great uncertainty. They lie in a quarter of dim obscurity, where the fragments of truth are apt to be deeply buried amid the rubbish of fiction, and where he must often push his way by the faint glimmerings of conjecture rather than the clear light of history.

It is otherwise with the student of Scripture. He prosecutes his investigations with this double advantage, that the record he consults, while carrying him back to the remotest antiquity, even to the very first step in the march of time,' is divinely inspired; so that he proceeds under the guidance of HIM who is at once the Author of all things, and the Light of the world. The initial chapters of the book of Genesis derive not a little

of their interest from the circumstance now stated. They place everything connected with the commencement of the present system of things in the clear sunshine of heaven. They make us acquainted with the first step in the creation of a material universe; with the first man and the first woman, the original progenitors of the vast family of mankind; with the first moral constitution under which it pleased God to place human beings; with the first transgression, by which guilt, corruption, misery, and death, with all their desolating effects, were introduced into our world; with the first promise of mercy to fallen man, welling in spontaneous effusion from the fountain of redeeming love in the bosom of God !"*

Let us now proceed to unfold the sacred volume.

2. CREATION.—“In the beginning," that is, at some period in the immeasurable depths of the abyss of that eternity which is the dwelling-place of Deity, God exerted the act of creation, and gave birth to what we call matter, which, in the revolutions of ages, he framed and fashioned into separate worlds. The Lord was "before his works of old." He was "from everlasting, or ever the earth was." "When there were no depths," he existed;" before the mountains and hills,-while as yet he had not made the earth, nor the fields, nor (even) the dust (or matter) of the world." This is the sublime and awful truth which the Scriptures teach as to the primary relation of God to the universe, and on the ground of which they ascribe to Him successive acts of formative power,-often in language highly figurative, but always meant to convey the idea of the exercise of the wisdom, goodness, foresight, and similar attributes of a personal agent in the Maker of the world. "The Lord by wisdom hath founded the earth, by understanding hath he established the heavens. By his knowledge the depths are broken up, and the clouds drop down dew." "Of old thou hast laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the work of thy hands." "Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance;”—" I have made the earth the man and the beast that are upon the ground, by my great power and my outstretched arm.' See how God challenged Job to give an account of the works of Creation." "Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding. Whereupon are the foun

* Rev. Dr W. Symington, Glasgow.

dations thereof fastened? or who laid the corner-stone thereof? Hast thou commanded the morning since thy days? and caused the day-spring to know his place? Hast thou entered into the springs of the sea?" &c.-Job xxxviii. 4-41.

"Such are some of the statements of Scripture respecting the creation of the world and man. To admit these, it is not necessary to deny the revelations of science as to the physical antiquity of the globe, and the successive phenomena that distinguished the history of the pre-Adamite earth;--the point to be kept in view is, that all these were intelligently presided over by the Author of nature; and that they all followed in obedience to laws, which He not only ordained, but administered." "God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night: And the evening and the morning were the first day.

And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters: and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament; and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven: And the evening and the morning were the second day. And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was

SO.

And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good. And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth and it was so.-And God saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the third day.

And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven, to divide the day from the night.—And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.-And God saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.

And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the

*The Rev. T. Binney, London.

earth in the open firmament of heaven. And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly after their kind.-And God saw that it was good. And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth. And the evening and the morning were the fifth day. And.God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind and it was so.-And God saw that it was good. And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image ;-male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

And God said, Behold I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed: to you it shall be for meat. And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to everything that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so. And God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.'

3. THE FIRST SABBATH.-"Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made. And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: but of the tree of