^ 
 
 ^1 
 
 POPULAR MISCONCEPTIONS 
 
 AKOUT THE 
 
 FIRST ELEVEN CHAPTERS OF GENESIS 
 
 ScronC) jL ui.ii. 
 CONTINUED TO THE DEATH OF JOSEPH 
 
 REV. EDWARD RUNTINGFORD, D.C.i 
 
 I.ATF. FELLOW OF NKW COLLF.GE, OXFORD 
 HCN. CANON OF VVINCHF.STKR 
 
 Prove all things. Hold fust tlr . which is good.-i TheSS. v. 
 
 ■BS1255 
 .8.H94 
 
 LONDON 
 
 IIICKERS & SON, I LEICESTER SQUARE 
 
 1891 
 
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POPULAR MISCONCEPTIONS. 
 
BALLANTYNE, HANSON AND CO. 
 EDINBURGH AND LONDON 
 
Popular Misconceptions 
 
 ABOUT THE 
 
 FIRST ELEVEN CHAPTERS OF GENESIS 
 SeconD BDltfon 
 
 CONTINUED TO THE DEATH OF JOSEPH 
 
 BY THE 
 
 REV. EDWARD ■rUNTINGFORD, D.C.L. 
 
 LATE FELLOW OF NEW COLLEGE, OXFORD 
 HON. CANON OF WINCHESTER 
 
 " Prove all things. Hold fast that which is good. "— i The.ss. v. 21 
 
 LONDON 
 BICKERS & SON, i LEICESTER SQUARE 
 
 1891 
 
^bis IDolume is 2)cC>icatet), 
 
 HIS LORDSHIPS KIND PERMISSION, 
 
 The Right Rev. EDWARD HAROLD BROWNE, 
 
 WHO SO LONG PRESIDED OVER THE IMPORTANT DIOCESE 
 
 OF WINCHESTER, REVERED AND LOVED BY ALL 
 
 WHO CAME UNDER HIS PASTORAL CARE. 
 
PREFACE, 
 
 Many of the difficulties of the Bible have arisen from tradi- 
 tional misconceptions of its meaning. 
 
 Some of them are due to the teachings of the nursery, 
 and others can be traced to the imagination of poets, the 
 conceptions of painters, the unbridled fancy of theologians, 
 or the glosses of those Jews whom our Saviour accused of 
 making void the Word of God by their traditions. 
 
 To these we naturally cling with marvellous and often 
 commendable tenacity. 
 
 The very style, also, of the Bible, especially of the 
 Old Testament, addressed, as it was, to highly imaginative 
 Orientals, who, even now, usually clothe what they have to 
 say in the language of symbol and metaphor, has suggested 
 difficulties to the colder reason of Western believers. 
 
 Theology, therefore, during the present century, and 
 especially during the last thirty or forty years, has had to 
 go through the same process as that to which many other 
 branches of human knowledge have been subjected, and 
 with a similar result — the removal of many popular errors 
 and the establishment of the truth upon more solid and 
 enduring foundations. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 It was naturally to be expected, however deeply we may 
 regret it, that the faith of some would suffer shipwreck 
 amid the tossing waves of ever-fluctuating human opinion ; 
 but the gain to the cause of truth itself has been great and 
 lasting. 
 
 The wonderful discoveries which have been made by the 
 geologist, the astronomer, the anatomist, and the archaeo- 
 logist during the last half-century have confirmed in a very 
 remarkable manner the substantial truthfulness of Holy 
 Scripture, although they have at the same time helped us 
 to form more just and reasonable views of the nature and 
 extent of its inspiration, and of the amount of knowledge 
 of the phenomena of the material universe which we have 
 a right to expect from its authors. 
 
 These observations apply with especial force to the first 
 eleven chapters of Genesis, from which most of the mis- 
 conceptions referred to in the following pages have arisen. 
 
 They treat of the creation of all things ; the original 
 condition and fall of man ; his prospects of recovery ; his 
 early struggles ; his rapid increase ; his progress in civilisa- 
 tion ; his hopeless moral corruption ; the judgment of the 
 Flood ; the founding of Babylon ; and the distribution of 
 the different races of mankind over the world. And all 
 this vast amount of information is compressed into eleven 
 short chapters. 
 
 The solution of the difficulties which they suggest is not 
 to be found in any attempt to explain away the obvious 
 meaning of the statements of the sacred writer, or to recon- 
 cile them with the well-established facts of science, but in 
 a more close attention to the actual words of Moses and a 
 more rational view of the nature and extent of his inspiration. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 That Moses, or the prophet who composed or compiled 
 this introduction to Genesis, was guided by a Hght im- 
 measurably brighter than that given to any other ancient 
 author is evident : — 
 
 1. Because he attributes the creation and the ordering of 
 the whole universe to the One Living and True God. 
 
 2. Because he alone, in his description of the beginning 
 of things, avoids all attempts to account for the origin of 
 God Himself, and keeps clear of all the mythological and 
 impossible nonsense which is found in other writings on the 
 subject. 
 
 3. Because he shows the profoundest wisdom in his 
 account of the original constitution of man's body and 
 soul ; of moral freedom ; of conscience ; of the motives of 
 the human heart ; of the nature of temptation, and of the 
 natural and hereditary consequences of sin. 
 
 4. Because he teaches the purest morality, pointing out 
 the blessedness and reward of "walking with God;" the 
 certainty of the punishment of sin ; and the great value of 
 modesty and filial reverence. 
 
 5. Because he records two prophecies, of which the first 
 was literally fulfilled in Christ, and the second has been 
 fulfilled, and is still being conspicuously fulfilled, in the 
 history of the world. 
 
 The enemies of our holy religion are well aware of the 
 importance of this introduction to the Bible. Hence their 
 ceaseless efforts to undermine this foundation of Christian 
 truth. But this part of the Bible, like many others, has 
 suffered more from rash and injudicious defenders than 
 from open enemies ; and just now the truth is exposed to 
 a new and even greater danger than before. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 It is impossible to read the sermons, university lectures, 
 and other works which have been pubHshed during the last 
 few years without fearing that many clergymen, after having 
 too long insisted upon the literal interpretation of many 
 parts of Scripture against the strong and increasing light 
 of science, are now going to the opposite extreme, and are 
 prepared to concede far more to the enemies of the truth 
 than any present or conceivable future discoveries can 
 render necessary. 
 
 We shall avoid both these extremes by going to the Bible 
 itself, and studying with unprejudiced minds what it actu- 
 ally says, and not what men, either in these or former days, 
 have represented it as saying. 
 
 This the author has attempted to do, and now gives the 
 reader the conclusions at which he has arrived by this process. 
 
 They are the result of the thought and general reading 
 of more than forty years, during which he has watched with 
 deepest interest the progress of opinion, especially on ques- 
 tions connected with these early chapters of the Bible, and 
 has studied with great care the works of many of those able 
 thinkers who have lately thrown so much light on both 
 Science and Theology. 
 
 To them he acknowledges himself deeply indebted, even 
 when he cannot fully agree with their conclusions, for much 
 assistance in this attempt to remove some unnecessary 
 stumbling-blocks out of the path of the thoughtful and 
 humble believer. 
 
 Winchester, 
 
 October, 1 89 1. 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 TO THE SECOND EDITION. 
 
 Encouraged by the reception which his attempt to remove 
 some of the popular misconceptions about the earher 
 chapters of Genesis has met with, the author of the following 
 pages has ventured to add to the present edition some 
 remarks concerning the structure of the whole book, and 
 the probable chronological order of the events recorded in 
 it, which he hopes his readers will consider rather as sugges- 
 tions to aid them in forming their opinions than as attempts 
 to settle finally these perplexing questions. 
 
 It was to be expected that such a book as Genesis, 
 coming down to us from such a remote age and through so 
 many vicissitudes of fortune in the nation to whose care it 
 was entrusted, should, so to speak, bristle with difficulties. 
 It is scarcely less than miraculous that it should contain so 
 few, and it must not be forgotten that we have no external 
 aid whatever to help us to remove them. The student who 
 can read the book m the Hebrew has before him all the 
 data on which any solid argument can be founded, as dis- 
 tinguished from mere speculative theories. 
 
 In examining any period of Greek, Roman, or later 
 European history we have contemporary records of some 
 kind to guide us, but in studying Genesis we have abso- 
 lutely none. It is a very simple but extremely compressed 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 narrative of events which happened centuries before the 
 dawn of the eariiest history. It is pre-historic in the truest 
 sense of that word, and yet it is free from every kind of 
 myth or legend, and introduces us to men and women much 
 Hke ourselves, but in many instances morally very much 
 better than the ordinary modern Christian. It would be 
 well, indeed, if we could all, or many of us, equal the faith 
 and loving obedience of Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, and 
 Joseph. 
 
 It is possible that the discoveries of the explorer of ruins 
 and the decipherer of Egyptian and Assyrian inscriptions 
 may soon throw much light upon the narrative, and already 
 they have met with indications of legends about the Creation, 
 the Fall, and the Deluge, which, though much distorted and 
 full of absurdities, are yet evidently traditions of events 
 which really happened, and of which a more simple descrip- 
 tion is given in Genesis. 
 
 But, unfortunately, there is a school of critics who have 
 made up their minds that a work so free as Genesis is 
 from mythological nonsense and from erroneous conceptions 
 of God, could not have been written much earlier than 
 about 500 B.C., and therefore that the composer of Genesis 
 must have got his ideas from these legends, and reproduced 
 them in his composition stripped of their absurdities. But the 
 behever in the authenticity of the Bible will think it much 
 more probable, as a matter of common-sense, that the 
 documents in the possession of Moses should have con- 
 tained the original records, and that the Assyrian priests 
 should have been the corrupters of the story of the Creation, 
 the Temptation, and the Flood. 
 
 The unique position, also, which Genesis holds in the Old 
 Testament is rarely sufficiently considered by the ordinary 
 reader, or even by the theological student ; and it is mis- 
 leading to regard it simply as the first book of the Penta- 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 teuch. Of course, it is the first of those five books which 
 have come down to us as the books of Moses; but if we 
 would understand it, we must learn to look at it quite by 
 itself. 
 
 It is cut off from the rest of the Pentateuch by a silent 
 interval of two or, more probably, of four centuries. It is 
 important to realise this. It is as though a modern his- 
 torian were to write a History of England up to the reign of 
 Henry VIL, and then continue his work with a description 
 of the events and legislation of the last half-century, with 
 little or no notice of anything which took place in the 
 interval. Or as though a writer towards the close of the 
 last century were to describe the discovery of America and 
 the first settlements of the pilgrim fathers in the Northern 
 Continent, and then pass at once to the War of Indepen- 
 dence and the formation of the Constitution of the United 
 States. 
 
 But Genesis stands out in strong contrast with the rest of 
 the Old Testament, not only because the writer is dealing 
 with events which happened ages before his own time, but 
 also because those events and the state of society when they 
 occurred differ so widely from anything mentioned in the 
 subsequent books of the Bible. And it is this circumstance 
 which proves it to be the most ancient document or collec- 
 tion of documents which has come down to us through the 
 instrumentality of the Hebrew race. 
 
 The proofs of the extreme antiquity of Genesis are quite 
 independent of any linguistic characteristics or supposed 
 varying authorship of its component parts. If it could be 
 proved that the Hebrew is that of the age of Ezra — which, 
 in the absence of all contemporary writings, is not possible — 
 or that one chapter was written by the Elohist and another 
 by the Jehovist — which, as we hope to show, is a modern 
 fiction entirely destitute of proof— we should still have to 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 account for the fact that the author or compiler of Genesis, 
 quite undesignedly, and by recording the simple annals of 
 a family, gives us a view of a state of society and religion 
 markedly different from anything with which a later Jew, 
 except from these writings, could have been acquainted. 
 
 If the historical events which are so simply narrated in 
 Genesis did not happen, or were not recorded, their inven- 
 tion by any Jew of an age between Moses and Christ, or 
 indeed in any age, is quite inconceivable. 
 
 But there is another and a more important reason for 
 looking at Genesis as standing quite by itself in the Old 
 Testament. 
 
 It is in truth the Primeval Gospel, the record of a primeval 
 revelation, of a pure spiritual and universal religion, a reli- 
 gion the very essence of which consisted in a state of 
 heart towards God, a firm and undoubting trust in Him 
 and obedience to His moral law. As such it stands out 
 in quite as strong contrast as the Gospel of Christ with the 
 Mosaic Law. 
 
 That law, as we are told by one who knew it well, was 
 "added because of transgressions" (Gal. iii. 19). Its ap- 
 pointment was a very stringent remedial measure, to reduce 
 men, no longer willing to be sons, to the state of servants ; 
 to isolate a chosen people ; to check the downward 
 tendency to superstition and idolatry ; and to prepare the 
 way for Christ, the seed promised first to Adam and then 
 to Abraham. 
 
 And so Christ and His apostles entirely overleap the 
 parenthetical law of Moses, and by sayings such as "It was 
 not so from the beginning," send us back to Eden and to 
 Abraham for a true conception of the sanctity of marriage, 
 of Divine worship, and of the faith working by love, by 
 which alone we can be justified. 
 
 The modern fiction, also, that the knowledge of the One 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Living God is the result of a kind of mental evolution, 
 and has been gradually thought out for himself by man — a 
 theory opposed to all known facts — is plainly contradicted 
 by the author of Genesis, who teaches us that this great 
 truth was revealed from the beginning, and kept alive by 
 subsequent revelations imparted to one chosen man and his 
 descendants — a small, isolated, and despised nation. 
 
 And then, as regards that other modern fiction of hyper- 
 criticism, that we may distinguish the authorship of parts of 
 the Old Testament from the preference shown by the writers 
 for one or other of the sacred names, Elohim, God; or 
 Jehovah, Lord ; a careful examination of the way in which 
 those names are used will show that it is a groundless 
 assumption. 
 
 It is probable that the Book of Genesis, in part at any 
 rate, is a compilation from wTitten materials which had 
 come down to Moses. But no solid argument for a later 
 date or other authorship of these writings can be founded on 
 the writer's use of the sacred names, Elohim or Jehovah. 
 
 It is also a popular misconception to imagine that a great 
 amount of Hebrew scholarship is necessary to justify the 
 formation of an opinion of the grounds on which this 
 modern theory rests. Any careful reader of the Greek or 
 English versions can easily decide the question for himself, 
 so far at least as the sacred names are concerned. The 
 Greek equivalent for Elohim in the Septuagint and New 
 Testament is 6coc, and the English, God; and xvpiog, Lord, 
 usually stands for Jehovah in the Septuagint, and is used 
 of Jesus in the New Testament as the Jehovah Incarnate, 
 Jehovah-Saviour. 
 
 There are a few passages, indeed, in which Elohim only 
 occurs as the name of God ; and there are also a few in 
 which the writer speaks of Jehovah exclusively. But to 
 argue from this that the authors in each instance knew or 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 commonly spoke of God by one of these names only, 
 would be to reject the evidence afforded by a hundred 
 other passages in which these sacred names are used 
 indifferently by the Hebrews for the One True God. And 
 yet they have not the same meaning. They differ in the 
 Hebrew Bible as much as dsog and ^Irisov;, God and Jesus, 
 in the New Testament. Elohim is the generic name for 
 God. It is a plural noun, signifying probably " the strong 
 ones," equivalent to our English expression, " the Higher 
 Powers," and so used sometimes of angels or even of rulers. 
 But the Hebrews, being profound believers in the Unity of 
 God, unite it with a singular verb, and rarely allow a plural 
 verb or participle in agreement with it except when it is 
 used of heathen gods, angels, or princes. As the generic 
 name of God, therefore, it is a majestic plural, involving the 
 idea of universal power. 
 
 The name Jehovah, on the other hand, is the name of 
 God as personally revealing Himself to man, as He Whom 
 we Christians know as the Second Person of the Trinity, 
 the only One Person of the Trinity Who, either before or 
 after the Incarnation, can be brought under the observation 
 of the human senses. " No man hath seen God at any 
 time ; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the 
 Father, He hath declared Him" (St. John i. i8). "He 
 that hath seen Me hath seen the Father " (St. John 
 xiv. 9). 
 
 As such, Jehovah is used exclusively in the Old Testa- 
 ment for God, as the God of His people ; and eventually 
 as the Theocratic King of Israel, and so cannot be used, 
 like Elohim, for any other than the True God. This is 
 clearly proved by the words of Elijah : " If Jehovah be the 
 Elohim, follow Him ; and if Baal (be the Elohim), then fol- 
 low him" (i Kings xviii. 21). 
 
 And here we have the article prefixed, the Elohim, the 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 God, />., the True God, as distinguished from all those 
 called Elohim by the heathen. 
 
 Bearing in mind this distinction in the meaning of the 
 names, we see how fitting is the exclusive use of Elohim in 
 the great drama of Creation, Gen. i. and ii. 3 ; and how 
 equally fitting is the introduction of the name Jehovah 
 in the following passages in which God is represented as 
 holding communion with man. 
 
 But this combination of the names Jehovah-Elohim in 
 Gen. ii. 4 and iii. does not fall in with the preconceived theory 
 of some critics that this passage is the work of one whom 
 they call the Jehovist, from his use of the name Jehovah. 
 Therefore, rather than give up their theory, they suggest that 
 the Text has been tampered with. Jehovah-Elohim, they 
 say, is not a Hebraic expression, and so Elohim must have 
 been added to Jehovah by some later editor of Genesis to 
 soften the abrupt transition of the Elohim of one narrator 
 to the Jehovah of the other ! ! That is to say, if the Hebrew 
 Text is against our theory, so much the worse for the 
 Hebrew Text ; it must have been altered ! (See article on 
 the Pentateuch in the EncydopcBdia Britannica.) 
 
 Such reasoning will not incline the ordinary reader to 
 accept without considerable caution other conclusions of 
 such critics. But this is only one out of many similar 
 attempts which have been made by critics of this school to 
 maintain their a priori theories at any cost. For example, 
 they have determined that Deuteronomy was a production 
 of the age of Josiah. If so, we must consider the Deutero- 
 nomist to have been one of the cleverest writers of fiction 
 ever known. They admit that he never makes a slip. He 
 never betrays ignorance of Egypt, or the wilderness, or in 
 any way proves himself an impostor. But they give as the 
 chief reason why the book cannot have been written by 
 Moses that from beginning to end it teaches the purest 
 
 b 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Monotheism ! They having made up their minds that such 
 knowledge of the One True God was in advance of the age 
 of Moses ! 
 
 And what, then, is the meaning and origin of the name 
 Jehovah ? 
 
 No satisfactory account of it has yet been given, unless 
 we accept the suggestion of the American Hebraist, Mac- 
 Whorter, which certainly seems consistent with the words of 
 Scripture. Jewish superstition, forbidding its pronuncia- 
 tion or even correct pointing, and Alexandrian philosophy, 
 suggesting an abstract and metaphysical sense, have stood 
 in the way of any attempt to elicit its meaning and origin 
 from the actual words of the Bible. 
 
 Having first mentioned that on which all Hebraists are 
 agreed, that the name should be pronounced Jahveh, as 
 being evidently derived from the most absolute form of 
 the future tense of the ancient verb Havah, which means 
 " to be " or " to become," this writer directs our attention 
 to the historical origin of the name suggested by the narra- 
 tives of Gen. iv. and Exod. iii. 13-15. 
 
 The verb from which Jehovah is formed is not a mere 
 auxiliary like our verb " to be," but signifies " to become," 
 and "in the future He will be," and so when made into a 
 noun, " He Who will be," paraphrased for us in the Apo- 
 calypse as the ujv Kal 6 rjv zai s^^o/Msvog, *' Who is, and was, 
 and Cometh." How is it used then, in Gen iv. ? 
 
 God had promised that one of Eve's children should 
 destroy the serpent's power. How natural that she should 
 expect her first-born to be that child, and so should exclaim 
 at his birth, " I have gotten a man, even he who will be," 
 our predicted deliverer ! Some of the old commentators, 
 observing that the translation, " I have gotten a man, even 
 Jehovah," is a more natural rendering of the Hebrew than 
 "with Jehovah " or "by the help of Jehovah," fancied that 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 it had been revealed to Eve that the destroyer of man's 
 enemy would be not only her child, but also Divine, and 
 so that she expected her first-born to be that Incarnate 
 Saviour. But this is extremely improbable, and it is much 
 more likely that she thought her first-born was the human 
 deliverer who was to come, and so exclaimed, " I have 
 gotten a man, even he will be, or he who will be, who was 
 to come." The impossibility of any man being their de- 
 liverer becoming soon apparent, men began to look to God 
 alone as their future helper ; and so in process of time in 
 the days of Enos " men began to call upon the name of the 
 Lord :" literally translated, "Then it was begun to invoke 
 {i.e. J to call upon God) by the name Jehovah ; " not now any 
 longer "the man who is to come," but "the God who is 
 to come." 
 
 From this time Jehovah, " He who cometh," became the 
 name of God to all who still looked for the fulfilment of the 
 original promise, although hope long deferred and familiar 
 use soon caused its true meaning to be forgotten, just as 
 few Christians, for the same reason, realise the original mean- 
 ing of the name Jesus, or Joshua, Jehovah the Saviour. 
 And so its origin and deep meaning were revealed again to 
 Moses in the wilderness, and grammatically traced out for 
 him. Moses asks God for His name, and the name is 
 given, not in the present tense, but in the most absolute 
 form of the future: "I will be, that I will be." "Thou 
 shalt say unto the children of Israel, I will be hath sent me 
 unto you." Here the verb is in the first person of the 
 future tense. But immediately after it is explained to 
 Moses that he is to use the third person of the future, as a 
 noun, giving to Israel the old familiar name so constantly 
 used by their forefathers, although they had quite lost sight 
 of its true significance, which was now to begin to be 
 realised by their deliverance from Egyptian bondage. They 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 had looked up to God always as the Almighty ; but they 
 had not known the full meaning of His name, Jehovah ; 
 they had ceased to regard Him as their Great Deliverer 
 Who was to come. From this time through all their 
 generations Jehovah, " He who will come," was to be the 
 special name of God as the God of the hope of Israel, the 
 6 so-^6fM€vog of the Baptist. "Thus shalt thou say unto the 
 children of Israel : Jehovah, the Elohim of Abraham, the 
 Elohim of Isaac, the Elohim of Jacob, hath sent me unto 
 you ; this is my name for ever, my memorial unto all genera- 
 tions " (Exod. iii. 14, 15). (See Article iv. in the Bibliotheca 
 Sacra for January 1857 : John Wiley, New York.) 
 
 But whatever may be the origin or meaning of the name, 
 it is very precarious to found any theory of the different 
 authorship of passages upon the use of Jehovah or Elohim. 
 The names, though used of the same One God, are not more 
 synonymous than Jesus and Christ, or than Jesus Christ 
 and God. And so the exclusive use of one or other of 
 the sacred names is sometimes intentional, but more often 
 purely accidental, as in the case of modern sermon- 
 writers. 
 
 Out of the numberless passages which prove that every 
 Hebrew writer must have been familiar with these two 
 names, the following may be selected in which Elohim, the 
 Angel of Elohim, Jehovah, and the Angel of Jehovah are 
 used indifferently of the same Divine Person : — 
 
 " The Angel of Jehovah appeared unto him (to Moses) 
 in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush." Moses turns 
 to look at the bush. "And when Jehovah saw that he 
 turned aside to see, Elohim called unto him out of the 
 midst of the bush." (Exod. iii. 2-4.) 
 
 In Judges vi. 11-24 we have an account of God's 
 appearing to Gideon, in the course of which we read : 
 "The Angel of Jehovah came and sat under the oak" (ver. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 II.) . . . '-And Jehovah looked upon him" (ver. 14). Not 
 now the Angel of Jehovah, but Jehovah. But in ver. 20 
 we read : " And the Angel of Elohim said unto him." And 
 then Gideon exclaims, ver. 22, "Alas ! O Adonai, Jehovah, 
 for I have seen the Angel of Jehovah face to face." Thus 
 the same visible messenger is called indifferently the Angel 
 of Jehovah and the Angel of Elohim, and is recognised by 
 Gideon as Divine. 
 
 The same is the case in Judges xiii. 3. " The Angel 
 of Jehovah appeared unto the woman " (to the wife of 
 Manoah). She tells her husband that "a man of Elohim" 
 came to her, looking hke " the Angel of Elohim." Then, 
 ver. 8, Manoah prays to "Jehovah" that "the man of 
 Elohim " may appear again. Then, ver. 9, " Elohim heark- 
 ened to the voice of Manoah (who had prayed to Jehovah) ; 
 and the Angel of Elohim came again unto the woman." 
 Ver. 13, the Angel of Jehovah speaks. And finally, when 
 the Angel has departed, Manoah says, "We shall surely 
 die, for we have seen Elohim." 
 
 In Gen. xvii. i Jehovah appears to Abraham ; ver. 3, 
 Abraham falls on his face and Elohim speaks to him. 
 Ver. 7, He promises to be an Elohim to him and his 
 children. And when the interview is over, commenced by 
 Jehovah, we read, ver. 22, "And Elohim went up from 
 Abraham." 
 
 In Gen. xviii. Abraham pleads with Jehovah for Sodom • 
 but in chap. xix. 29 it is Elohim who destroys Sodom, 
 remembers Abraham, and rescues Lot. 
 
 In Gen. xx. 6 Elohim rescues Abimelech ; ver. 17, 
 Elohim heals Abimelech's servants; but, ver. 18, it was 
 Jehovah who had closed their wombs. 
 
 In Gen. xxi. Jehovah visits Sarah at the time which 
 Elohim had appointed. 
 
 In Gen. xxii. Elohim tries Abraham ; but it is the Angel 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 of Jehovah who calls to him out of heaven and stays his 
 hand, shows him the ram, and blesses him. 
 
 In Gen. xxiv. Abraham's servant swears by Jehovah the 
 Elohim of heaven and earth, and blesses Jehovah the 
 Elohim of his master. 
 
 In Gen. xxviii. Jacob sees the Angels of Elohim on the 
 ladder in his dream ; but it is Jehovah that stands above it, 
 and calls Himself Jehovah, the Elohim of Abraham and Isaac. 
 
 In Gen. xxxi. Laban says to Jacob, " Jehovah watch 
 between me and thee;" but immediately after adds, " Elo- 
 him is witness between me and thee." 
 
 In Gen. xxxii. the Angels of Elohim meet Jacob ; but 
 he prays to the Elohim of his fathers, Jehovah, who told 
 him to return. 
 
 In Gen. xxxix. Jehovah is with Joseph ; but he will not 
 sin against Elohim. He could not call his God Jehovah 
 when speaking to Potiphar's wife. And, in the same way, 
 Joseph as well as his father and brethren call God Elohim 
 when with the Egyptians. 
 
 With these and other passages before him, the reader 
 who has no theory to support about the varying dates and 
 authorship of different parts of the Bible will no longer feel 
 disturbed in mind by the imposing capitals E or J standing 
 for the Elohist, or the Jehovist, as the author of this or 
 that passage of an historical book of the Old Testament or 
 of the Psalms. 
 
 There is something truly alarming to the ordinary 
 Christian in these capital letters, which seem to imply that 
 the authorship of the Old Testament has been quite settled 
 by a profound criticism the conclusions of which it is 
 impossible, and a ])roof of being behind the times, to 
 question ; that E must have written this, and J must have 
 written that ; or, at any rate, when there appears to be some 
 difficulty, that J. E. was the editor of the passage. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The capitals P. C. also frequently occur in the works of 
 negative critics. They stand for Priestly Code, or rather 
 for the inventor or inventors of the Priestly Code, or that 
 elaborate ritual of the Tabernacle and the sacrificial and 
 ceremonial laws which we commonly attribute to Moses, 
 and which are written in the Pentateuch. 
 
 These they feel confident are the inventions of a later age, 
 an 1 were framed, to support their high sacerdotal claims, by 
 the priests w^ho were the originators of that which they call 
 Judaism, the system of Temple-worship and rigid ceremonial 
 observances existing in the time of Christ, and the gradual 
 growth, as they affirm, of a few preceding centuries. The 
 mention of these supposed authors of portions of the Mosaic 
 Law would have been out of place in a work on Genesis, had 
 not some parts of that book also been attributed by critics 
 to P. C. 
 
 The principal argument (supported, we must admit, by a 
 vast amount of cumulative evidence) upon which this novel 
 theory rests, when summed up in a few words, appears to be 
 the assumption that the neglect of a law, and the universal 
 prevalence of practices forbidden by it, and yet condoned if 
 not commended by the highest authorities, prove that that 
 law did not at that time exist, or that it was unknown. 
 This, it must be allowed, would be a very convincing argu- 
 ment if we did not know that the Christian Church for 
 many ages treated the New Testament in the same way. 
 
 These writers forget that the Book of Judges reveals a 
 state of things existing for many centuries which has only 
 been equalled since by the entire blotting out of European 
 civilisation and the fearful corruption of Christianity which 
 followed upon the disruption of the Roman Empire. Neither 
 do they remember that the Books of Samuel and the Kings 
 give us a very compressed account of the gradual recovery 
 of Israel from their apostasy, greatly impeded by the schism 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 of Jeroboam, and by the crimes, idolatry, and fierce per- 
 secutions of the prophets by many of the kings of Israel 
 and Judah ; which also finds its modern counterpart in 
 the gradual recovery of Christianity from its corruptions in 
 spite of many obstacles, and the growing recognition of the 
 claims of the New Testament upon the obedience of the 
 Christian Church. 
 
 It is indeed well for us that we have the most certain 
 proofs that the New Testament, as we now have it, existed 
 in the second century after Christ, if not earlier, and was 
 then acknowledged to be the work of the Apostles, 
 for otherwise Macaulay's New Zealander two thousand 
 years hence would be able to disprove the authenticity and 
 genuineness of the Christian Scriptures by arguments far 
 less capable of being answered than any brought by the 
 critics of this age against the early date of the Pentateuch. 
 
 That we may feel the force of this, let us try to imagine 
 how a professor of English and other dead languages in a 
 university in Korea, China, or Central Africa in the year 
 3891 A.D. might sum up the result of his inquiries about 
 tlie date and genuineness of the writings of the New Testa- 
 ment. 
 
 It requires no great stretch of imagination to suppose ti>at 
 in 2000 years our civilisation and much of our literature 
 may have shared the fate of all previous civilisations, such 
 as those of Egypt, Babylon, Assyria, Greece, and Rome. 
 Let us hope this will not be the case ; but it will be con- 
 trary to all past experience if it is not so. At any rate it 
 will suit the purpose of our present argument to imagine 
 the following to be an extract from an article in, we will say, 
 the Thirty-ninth Century\ written by the above-mentioned 
 learned professor of English, Greek, and Hebrew — an article 
 intended for the learned, and therefore written in English : — 
 
 "We may venture to state as the result at which, in spite 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 of considerable differences of opinion, the higher criticism 
 of our enhghtened age has arrived, that the New Testament, 
 as we now have it in its integrity, can scarcely be dated 
 much earlier than about the middle of the nineteenth 
 century a.d. 
 
 " We find, indeed, many traces of the existence of at least 
 some portions of this book all through the history of the 
 dark continent of Europe during that long period of 
 violence, disorder, and ignorance which followed the dis- 
 ruption of the Roman Empire. But it is inconceivable 
 that the record of the sublime and humane teaching of 
 Him Who is represented as praying for His murderers 
 could have been known in those days ; although it would 
 appear probable that subsequent editors of the scanty 
 histories of those times may have inserted here and there 
 notices of the book to support their own theory of the early 
 date of the whole volume. 
 
 "We find, for example, practices most abhorrent to the 
 literal words and whole spirit of the humane doctrines of 
 Christ, not only prevailing widely throughout the length 
 and breadth of Christendom, almost from the age of Con- 
 stantine to that of Louis XIV. of France, but condoned, 
 nay, rather, commended and enforced by the very highest 
 authorities in Church and State. 
 
 " Is it conceivable, we ask, that those large portions of the 
 New Testament, as we now have it, which in spirit if not in 
 word utterly condemn such practices as the punishment of a 
 man for his conscientious religious opinions by the horrors of 
 the torture-chamber, the rack, or the stake, could have been 
 known to the rulers of Europe in those days, and not only 
 known, but, as we are required to believe, acknowledged 
 by them to be inspired ? 
 
 "And then we trace through the fourth and following 
 centuries a gradual change passing over that organised 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 society called the Church, which the Founder of Christianity 
 is supposed to have declared to be 'a kingdom not of this 
 world,' resulting in the formation of that long-dominant 
 hierarchy of which the Bishops of Rome and the Western 
 Emperors were the acknowledged heads. 
 
 " We see that this kingdom was most intensely worldly : 
 that its priests and kings ruled men with rods of iron, com- 
 pelling the obedience not only of the body but of the mind 
 and of the convictions of heart at the risk of tortures and 
 death. 
 
 '•' And yet we are required to believe that the framers of 
 this imitation of the worst forms of Judaism had in their 
 possession and regarded as inspired the prophecies of 
 Christ and His Apostles, which are supposed to predict 
 and condemn this state of things. 
 
 "Can we, then, it may be asked, form any idea of the 
 probable dates of the various portions of this remarkable 
 book? 
 
 " I. First, we may fairly assume that it rests on a sound 
 historical basis. Jesus Christ lived, taught, and died by 
 crucifixion in the reign of Tiberius. He proved Himself to 
 be Divine by rising again from the dead ; and He founded 
 that organised society which soon came to be called the 
 Christian Church. 
 
 " These facts, we may be sure, were handed down to 
 succeeding generations, and perhaps recorded in writings 
 which formed the nucleus of the present new Testament. 
 
 " 2. Secondly, there can be little doubt that the prophetical 
 portions of the book, such as parts of the Epistles to the 
 Thessalonians and to Timothy, and especially the whole of 
 the Apocalypse, could scarcely have existed, or at least have 
 been known, much earlier than the fifteenth or sixteenth 
 centuries. 
 
 "These prophecies were evidently invented by the Re- 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 formers, for they were extensively used by them in their 
 long struggle with the Roman Hierarchy, which they 
 believed to be plainly predicted and condemned in these 
 mysterious visions, so like those of Daniel, from which they 
 were probably copied. 
 
 "It is interesting to observe that these prophecies, 
 whether genuine or spurious, so plainly pointed to Rome 
 and predicted God's judgment upon it, that even the Roman 
 priests, such was their incapacity as critics, found it neces- 
 sary to meet this awkward argument of the Reformers 
 by asserting that the visions referred to the fate of pagan 
 Rome. Many of them, however, seeing that the prophecy 
 could not have been exhausted by that judgment, main- 
 tained that their complete fulfilment was to be looked for 
 in an infidel Rome of the future. 
 
 " 3. But, thirdly, what must we think of the Sermon on 
 the Mount, and many similar passages which have had, we 
 know, such an amazing influence in softening the manners 
 of men, improving the condition of the lower classes, and 
 entirely putting an end to all wars and persecutions of men 
 for religious opinions ? We need not suppose them to be 
 wholly fictitious, but we can scarcely assign them a date 
 much earlier than about the middle of the nineteenth cen- 
 tury, when we find that there was a great and most con- 
 spicuous revival, or rather, we should say, the beginning 
 of Christianity as we now understand that humane religion. 
 
 "These doctrines were doubdess the product of truly 
 spiritual minds, early in that century, meditating on the 
 Historical Christ, and forming more just conceptions of 
 what must have been the principles of such a Divine 
 Teacher. 
 
 " We, in these days of more strict literary morality, may 
 seem to see something approaching to conscious fraud in 
 this attempt to support their sublime philosophy of humanity 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 by the name of that Great Prophet. But to the men of 
 those days we may be sure it was far otherwise ; and they 
 felt that they were only doing honour to the Founder of 
 the Christian religion by representing what they conceived 
 must have been His teaching in all the grandeur of its 
 purity, truthfulness, and love." 
 
 We may congratulate ourselves that we are better off 
 than the perplexed supporter of orthodox views concerning 
 the authenticity and genuineness of the New Testament is 
 likely to find himself in the year 3891. Possessing, as we 
 do, the literary remains of the ancient Roman world, we 
 have still needed our Paleys, Butlers, and Lightfoots to 
 establish by their researches and arguments the authenticity 
 of the Gospel narratives. What will be the position of the 
 student 2000 years hence, when, deprived of these helps, 
 he has to meet the criticisms of the writer of the above- 
 mentioned article? 
 
 May we not learn, then, from this supposed case, that 
 the universal neglect by the Israelites of the laws of Moses 
 is no proof whatever of their non-existence, or even of 
 their not being acknowledged by them to have been the 
 institutions of the Founder of their religion ? 
 
 But it is supposed by some that the date or genuineness 
 of the Hebrew Bible may be rendered doubtful by the style 
 of the language in which it has come down to us. 
 
 But here we must remember that, as regards language 
 and style, we have absolutely nothing to guide us outside 
 the Old Testament itself. If we except the Moabite stone 
 and an inscription in the Aqueduct made in Jerusalem in 
 the reign of Hezekiah, scarcely a line of original ancient 
 Hebrew exists except that of the Bible. And then, as 
 regards the kindred Aramaic dialect or Chaldee, we know 
 nothing whatever of its date or origin. It was certainly 
 spoken by the educated, but unknown to the common 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 people in Jerusalem, in the reign of Hezekiah. " Speak to 
 thy servants in the Syrian language (Aramith, in Aramaic) ; 
 for we understand it : and speak not with us in the Jews' 
 language, in the ears of the people that are on the wall " 
 (2 Kings xviii. 26). 
 
 Did Aramaic, then, begin to be spoken only in the reign 
 of Hezekiah ? A language used as the lingua Franca of 
 the nations of Western Asia in the reign of Hezekiah must 
 have been very ancient and widely known. Whose language 
 was it originally ? It is called the language of Aram. But 
 Padan-Aram, and, earlier, Ur of the Chaldees, was the 
 cradle of the Hebrew race. Aramaic is a mere dialect of 
 Hebrew ; far closer to the Hebrew than Italian is to Latin, 
 or modern Greek to the language of Xenophon. 
 
 May it not, then, have been originally Hebrew ? The 
 language of Abraham greatly modified by constant admix- 
 ture with other tongues, whereas many causes naturally 
 rendered more permanent the speech of a race so exclu- 
 sive as that of the Hebrews ? 
 
 That a language akin to Hebrew was widely known in 
 Western Asia when the Semitic Assyrians gained the mastery 
 over the Accadian races has been proved by Professor 
 Sayce and others from the cuneiform inscriptions. ^ 
 
 ^ "The term 'Chaldee' is derived from the belief that it represented 
 the language of Babylonia, which the Jews are supposed to have adopted 
 during the Exile. The decipherment of the cuneiform inscriptions has 
 shown that this was not the case. The language of Babylonia was the 
 same as that of Assyria. . . . Assyrian resembled Hebrew much more 
 than it resembled ' Chaldee.' Chaldee, or Aramaic, as we ought to 
 term it, was really spoken by the Aramean tribes of Syria and Meso- 
 potamia. ... A lingtta Franca . . . understood wherever mercantile 
 transactions were carried on, ... In Babylonia the Jews were forced 
 to learn either Assyrian or the mutually intelligible Aramaic, in order 
 to be understood by their masters" — Sayce on Ezra and Nehemiah, 
 PP- 34, 35- 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Let us suppose, then, for the sake of argument, that Terah 
 and his son Abraham spoke the language of the Chaldees 
 and of Padan-Aram about 2000 B.C., and that that language 
 was Hebrew. What, in this case, would happen.^ 
 
 A few centuries after the call of Abraham and subse- 
 quent isolation of his children, other dialects of his language 
 would begin to form themselves, becoming eventually the 
 Hebrew and the kindred forms of Aramaic. 
 
 This divergence must have become more complete when 
 the Israelites went into Egypt, and still more when they 
 were made the bondsmen of Pharaoh, and when they must 
 have become bilinguists, speaking their own beloved Hebrew 
 amongst themselves, but compelled to learn the language of 
 their masters. 
 
 No nation in the history of the world has been so ex- 
 clusively and intensely national as Israel. " It is a people 
 that dwell alone, and shall not be reckoned among the 
 nations " (Num. xxiii. 9). 
 
 Besides this, they were Orientals, and as such conserva- 
 tive beyond all Western experience. They were also jealous 
 preservers of a body of sacred writings, the charter of 
 high religious privileges and the ground of the national 
 hope. 
 
 What wonder if their language should be far more per- 
 manent than that of any other people ! And yet what 
 wonder if a word or expression, afterwards more common 
 in the kindred Aramaic, should occasionally appear even in 
 their earlier books ! 
 
 And then these exclusive people, with their fixed language, 
 find themselves again in Chaldsea, after an interval of per- 
 haps fourteen or fifteen centuries, among a nation speaking 
 a dialect of their own Hebrew tongue and the language of 
 the educated world. 
 
 Here again they were obliged to become bilinguists. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 cherishing their native Hebrew, yet compelled to speak 
 Aramaic. 
 
 It is a mistake, however, to imagine that Hebrew became 
 a dead language even after tlie return from Babylon. A 
 language dies hard, and especially the language of sacred 
 writings and of a people full of national enthusiasm. But 
 the best proof of this is the fact that the post- Exilic prophets 
 wrote in Hebrew, and the prophets of Israel did not speak 
 only to the more educated, but wished to be understood by 
 the common people. Thus Hebrew would only gradually 
 become to the Jews after the age of Malachi what Latin 
 became to the Christians of the West — the language of the 
 learned, the language of the Bible and the Synagogue. 
 
 It was only natural under these circumstances that 
 Hebrew should share the fate of Latin and become as 
 much debased as the barbarous ecclesiastical Latin of the 
 ^liddle Ages of Christianity. 
 
 The important bearing of these historical facts upon the 
 style of the language of the Bible can be appreciated by any 
 intellectual reader though unacquainted with the Hebrew 
 and Aramaic languages. 
 
 But a careful comparison by a most competent judge of 
 the language of Ecclesiasticus and the Targums with that of 
 Daniel seems likely to set at rest at any rate the all-impor- 
 tant question of the date of that prophet ; and we may hope 
 that the same learned writer will settle for us many other 
 linguistic difficulties, or supposed difficulties, of the earlier 
 books of the Old Testament — 
 
 We may, therefore, close this introduction with an extract 
 from the Expositor of 1890, No. 4, p. 299, where Professor 
 Margoliouth thus writes of Ecclesiastes. 
 
 "In the case of Ecclesiastes (or Koheleth), that their 
 absence (the absence of certain words of constant occur- 
 rence in the Rabbinic writings, having their equivalents of 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 equally frequent occurrence in the Biblical writings) is 
 significant of period, can be proved by as cogent evidence 
 as it is possible in such matters to adduce. For there is a 
 Targum to Koheleth, written unquestionably many genera- 
 tions after the original, in which both the words and ideas 
 of Koheleth are translated into those of the Targumist's 
 time. Now, this Targumist employs, in dealing with the 
 matter of Koheleth, the very technicalities of which 
 Koheleth is ignorant, but with which Ben-Sira is familiar. 
 . . . The Targumist of Koheleth is beyond question 
 later than Koheleth — later, probably, by ages ; the tech- 
 nicalities and phrases which he introduces into his para- 
 phrase in order to make Koheleth intelligible must be 
 those of a later age, else why should Koheleth not have 
 employed them himself ? Many of these technicalities are 
 found to recur in Ben-Sira as often as they recur in the 
 Targum of Koheleth ; and yet we are told that Koheleth 
 and Ben-Sira are contemporaries ! 
 
 " But the date of Daniel is, after all, more important 
 than that of Koheleth ; and here the evidence is yet more 
 forcible. The date of Daniel is fixed by modern scholars 
 at 165 B.C., and Ewald, as is well known, finds an allusion 
 in Daniel to Lucius Cornelius Scipio. Ben-Sira certainly 
 wrote no later than 165, and probably a generation earlier; 
 and he now rises from his grave to state that the languages 
 which are distinct in Daniel are in his time mixed. . . . 
 Nay, more, the Chaldee of Ben-Sira is later than Daniel's. 
 ... If, therefore, language can prove anything, it proves 
 that Daniel was not written in 165." He then gives a list 
 of fifty phrases occurring in Ben-Sira, but unknown, or 
 almost unknown, to the BibUcal dialect; and then adds, 
 '' This will not exhaust the stock, but if it is not sufficient 
 to prove our thesis, what number will be ? " 
 
 We may well, then, leave all linguistic difficulties in 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Genesis, whether real or supposed, in the hands of experts, 
 and study the book with the conviction that its antiquity 
 and truthfulness are capable of proof far more from the 
 historical matter which it contains than from the character 
 of the language in which it records those events which lie at 
 the very foundation of our Christian faith, and whose reality 
 has been established by the authority of Him Who said, 
 when questioned concerning the lawfulness of divorce, " In 
 the beginning it was not so ; " Who verified the narratives 
 of the Flood and the destruction of Sodom, and said of 
 Abraham that he " rejoiced to see His day and was glad." 
 
 After the above Introduction had been sent to the press, 
 I happened to meet with an article entitled " The Aramaic 
 Gospel," in T/ie Expositor^ No. i, 1891, in which the fol- 
 lowing passage occurs : — 
 
 " The Science of Comparative Philology has made many 
 interesting disclosures as to primitive culture and local 
 origin, by examining what words the members of a class of 
 languages possess in common, and in what they differ. 
 The former denote, of course, the words in common use 
 before the dispersion; the latter, the words which each people 
 required to invent or borrow after the dispersion." 
 
 After giving a list of such words, especially those marking 
 the natural features and geographical position of Palestine, 
 such as "mountain," "hill," "valley," "ravine," "cliff," and 
 "sea-ward," for the west, and "desert-ward," for the south; 
 the WTiter continues, speaking first of the words marking 
 the points of the compass : — 
 
 " The Aramaic of course does not use these words, but 
 designates the east, south, and west by terms which denote 
 
 c 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 respectively the rising, brilliancy, and setting of the sun. 
 .... As we have seen, then, the evidence indicates that 
 the common home of the Hebrew and Aramaean was a great 
 plain, and that it was the Hebrew who emigrated. It is 
 probable that this plain was that of the Euphrates." 
 
 It is impossible to determine whether the language of 
 Terah and Abraham resembled most the Hebrew or 
 Aramaic ; but the subsequent history of the descendants 
 of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and their very remarkable 
 isolation and exclusiveness, render it probable that their 
 language would be less hable to change than that of other 
 Semites, who mixed more freely with the neighbouring 
 nations, although it would of course require additional 
 words to describe the physical characteristics of the land of 
 their possession, " a land of hills and valleys, that drinketh 
 the water of the rain of heaven," (Deut. xi. ii). 
 
CONTENTS, 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 I. THE INTRODUCTORY CHAPTERS OF GENESIS 
 II. THE CREATION OF THE WORLD . 
 
 III. THE STORY OF EDEN 
 
 IV. THE FALL OF MAN 
 
 V. THE EXPULSION FROM EDEN 
 
 VI. THE HUMAN RACE BEFORE THE FLOOD 
 VII. THE GENEALOGIES OF NOAH AND ABRAHAM 
 VIII. THE NARRATIVE OF THE FLOOD . 
 
 IX. THE PROPHECY OF NOAH AND THE TOWER OF 
 
 BABEL 
 
 X. REMARKS ON GENESIS XI. 27— L. 
 XI. THE VISIONS OF ABRAHAM .... 
 XII. THE TRIALS OF ABRAHAM .... 
 
 XIII. THE ANTIQUITY OF GENESIS. 
 
 XIV. ABRAHAM, ISAAC, AND JACOB 
 XV. THE HISTORY OF JACOB .... 
 
 XVI. THE STORY OF JOSEPH 
 
 XVII. MORAL DIFFICULTIES OF THE BIBLE . 
 XVIII. THE WITNESS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 
 XIX. CREATION OR EVOLUTION .... 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I 
 
 19 
 
 33 
 
 47 
 64 
 
 74 
 86 
 
 95 
 
 106 
 117 
 130 
 
 135 
 142 
 152 
 
 159 
 172 
 177 
 200 
 212 
 
POPULAR MISCONCEPTIONS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE INTRODUCTORY CHAPTERS OF GENESIS. 
 
 We cannot read the Book of Genesis without perceiving 
 that the first eleven chapters form a sort of preface or 
 introduction to the main portion of the book, which may 
 be called the family history of Abraham and his descen- 
 dants, down to the death of Joseph and the settlement of 
 the Israelites in Egypt ; and that the latest events recorded 
 in those chapters are separated from the call of Abraham 
 by a vast interval of time. 
 
 Neither can we read these eleven introductory chapters 
 without observing that they are naturally divided into sec- 
 tions by the nature of the subjects of which they treat, and 
 by the heading of each section, such as, "These are the 
 generations of the heavens and the earth ; " " This is the 
 book of the generations of Adam ; " the original word being 
 used in a wider sense than that of the English expression 
 "generations." Thus the heading, "These are the gene- 
 rations of Noah," evidently signifies, "This is the whole 
 account of Noah and of the Flood, and of his deliverance 
 from it." 
 
 But although these sections are clearly distinct from one 
 another, there is a remarkable unity of purpose in them 
 
 A 
 
THE FIRST ELEVEN CHAPTERS 
 
 all, showing that one mind has either composed them, or 
 selected them and put them together. 
 
 An extraordinary amount of time has been wasted by our 
 modern critics in searching out what sentences or parts of 
 sentences were written by the Elohist, and what by the 
 Jehovist, — that is, as it has been explained in the intro- 
 duction to this edition, by those who use the name Elohim 
 for God, and those who call him Jehovah or The Lord ; as 
 if it mattered in the least from what sources Moses derived 
 his information, so long as it is correct. 
 
 Moses, no doubt, did what we expect every historian to 
 do in these days. He examined all existing traditions or 
 documents bearing on his subject ; rejected the false and 
 recorded the true, often possibly even in the very words of 
 previous writers. Moses, however, had an advantage which 
 our modern historians have not. He was filled with wisdom 
 and judgment by the Spirit of the God of truth. 
 
 It is clear, notwithstanding, that there are marked divi- 
 sions in these eleven chapters, and that each of these may 
 be regarded as a sort of monograph in itself 
 
 The division of the Bible into chapters and verses has 
 no authority whatever, being a comparatively modern ar- 
 rangement for the convenience of reference. But their 
 subjects mark out the following as sections of these intro- 
 ductory chapters : — 
 
 I. The account of the creation, ending with the third 
 verse of chapter ii. 
 
 n. " The book of the generations of the heaven and of 
 the earth," beginning with chapter ii. 4, and ending with 
 chapter iv., and comprising three subdivisions : — 
 
 a. The description of Paradise and man's original 
 
 condition. 
 I?. The account of the temptation and fall of man, 
 and his expulsion from the garden of Eden. 
 
DIVIDED INTO SECTIONS. 
 
 c. The story of Cain and Abel, the genealogy of Cain, 
 and the birth of Seth and Enos. 
 
 III. The third division is called "The book of the 
 generations of Adam," and contains little more than a list 
 of names down to the age of Noah, and ends with a very 
 general description of the rapid increase of the human 
 race, their universal corruption, and God's determina- 
 tion to destroy all except Noah and his family by the 
 Flood. 
 
 IV. With chapter vi. 9 commences another division, 
 giving a detailed account of the Flood, and ending with 
 the death of Noah, 
 
 V. The fifth section is called " The book of the gene- 
 rations of the sons of Noah," and describes the origin 
 of nations, and the cause of their dispersion over the earth. 
 It begins with chapter x. i, and ends with xi. 9. 
 
 VI. The last section of these introductory chapters is the 
 book of "The generations of Shem," and contains little 
 more than a list of some of the direct ancestors of Abraham. 
 
 VII. With chapter xi. 27 the principal subject of the 
 history begins, and it is called '' The generations of 
 Terah." 
 
 The first section, then, contains the account of the crea- 
 tion of the world, and we cannot read it without seeing 
 that the writer affirms that the whole world, if not the whole 
 material universe, was created in six natural days of twenty- 
 four hours each. Was this the case ? Did God make all 
 things in six days ? 
 
 No one who believes in His existence and Almighty 
 power can doubt for a moment that He might have done 
 so even in one day. But the question is not what He 
 might have done, but what He evidently has done. How 
 are we to determine this ? 
 
 Clearly by examining the work itself. And various causes 
 
THE WORLD WAS NOT MADE 
 
 during the present century have given us more leisure and 
 better opportunities of thoroughly doing this than men have 
 ever yet had since the world began. 
 
 We have in these days carefully and reverently examined 
 the surface of this globe, the work which God made, and we 
 find infaUible proofs that it did not come into its present 
 state suddenly, but gradually, and after very many changes 
 of surface, condition, and climate. 
 
 The conclusion at which we arrive is as certain as that 
 of a man who digs up the remains of some great city which 
 has been buried under the sand for ages. 
 
 Let us suppose that the ignorant tribes in the neighbour- 
 hood have a tradition that it was the work of an hour, or 
 that it all came into being in a few days. Our explorer can- 
 not believe this, because his own eyes and his own experience 
 teach him that each brick must have been formed out of the 
 clay by the workman's hands and then burnt in the kiln ; 
 that each block of granite must have been taken from the 
 quarry and hewn into its shape by human labour, and that 
 each strange figure upon it must have been invented by 
 man's imagination and graven by the tool in his hand ; and 
 therefore that all this work must have occupied some con- 
 siderable time. 
 
 Those who examine the remains of this exhumed city 
 will very probably differ widely from one another in their 
 opinions as to the age when it was first founded, as to the 
 time when various additions were made to the original 
 buildings, or about the meaning and use of some of its 
 details ; but they will all certainly agree in rejecting the 
 supposed local tradition that it came suddenly into being 
 without any human labour ; they will all be absolutely cer- 
 tain that the whole city was the work of men's hands, and 
 that the materials were brought together and the buildings 
 erected by processes much the same as those which men 
 
IN SIX NATURAL DAYS. 
 
 adopt for similar purposes in the present day, and which 
 must necessarily occupy time. 
 
 Now all educated people in these days who have looked 
 with their own eyes upon the present state of the earth's 
 surface, or who have considered the facts which the re- 
 searches of geology have brought to light, and have fairly 
 weighed the conclusions which necessarily follow from them, 
 feel equally certain that the old traditional idea that our 
 world was made in six natural days is a misconception. 
 
 We are not surprised to find geologists differing widely 
 from one another as to the antiquity of the earth, as to the 
 time and mode in which many of its strata were formed, 
 and as to many other like details of inquiry. These are 
 matters of very little moment compared with the general 
 conclusion at which we have one and all arrived, that the 
 God who made this world did not bring it into its present 
 condition without the employment of secondary causes, or 
 in six natural days of twenty- four hours each. 
 
 How, then, are we to interpret this first chapter of 
 Genesis? and what are we to think of the inspiration of 
 the writer and the character of his composition ? 
 
 First we must try to get a clear idea what we are to 
 understand by inspiration, and then we must carefully 
 examine the writing, and endeavour to determine its char- 
 acter as a composition. 
 
 First, then, we must consider carefully what the Bible 
 teaches us upon the general question of its inspiration, from 
 which we shall see what we ought to think about the in- 
 spiration of Moses. 
 
 Our Lord told His disciples that it is the work of the 
 Spirit to teach His messengers all things — all things, that 
 is, which it is necessary for them to know — and that He 
 does this by guiding them " into all the truth " (St. John 
 xvi. 13). He did not say " all truth," that is, truth of every 
 
THE NATURE AND EXTENT 
 
 kind and upon every subject under the sun, which would 
 mean Httle less than universal knowledge like His own ; but 
 *'all the truth, — all that special truth which He came to 
 teach. And to this truth the Spirit is to guide them ; and 
 such guiding implies their own co-operation with the Spirit, 
 following the guidance, but using their own natural faculties, 
 and availing themselves of all natural means of acquiring 
 knowledge. 
 
 Now we have no reason to think that the inspiration of 
 Moses was more perfect than that of Christ's Apostles ; 
 but we may safely assume it to have been the same. We 
 may assume that he was equally guided by the Spirit, but 
 equally required to use his own natural faculties, and avail 
 himself of all the means of acquiring knowledge within his 
 reach. What do we mean, then, by calling the Bible in- 
 spired ? 
 
 We mean that it was written by men whose minds were 
 strengthened and enlightened by the Spirit of God in an 
 unusual and supernatural manner, in order that they might 
 be sure witnesses of the things which they had seen or 
 heard, and infallible exponents of the truths which God 
 commanded them to communicate to men. 
 
 There is not a single word in the Bible to warrant the 
 belief that God imparted universal knowledge to any one of 
 His messengers, or that He promised to give them informa- 
 tion superior to that of other men of their age on any 
 subjects disconnected with religion. They therefore, of 
 course, always speak of natural phenomena in the popular 
 language of their day. 
 
 One faculty, however, and that the most important of all, 
 inspiration invariably gave them : the power to speak the 
 truth. 
 
 There is nothing for which the sacred writers are more 
 conspicuous than their fearless love of truth, and simple, 
 
OF INSPIRATION. 
 
 Straightforward earnestness in stating what they beheve to 
 be true, without fear of blame, love of praise, or respect ot 
 persons. It is impossible to read the Bible without feehng 
 persuaded that nothing would have induced its writers to 
 make a wilful mis-statement of facts on any subject what- 
 ever, or wilfully to give them a wrong colour from their 
 mode of describing them ; though we may at the same time 
 regard it as in no way lessening the value of their message 
 of salvation to admit the possibility of their feeling and 
 speaking as men of like passions with ourselves on indif- 
 ferent subjects, or on those on which we are not told that 
 God gave them any superhuman information. 
 
 Let us try to get some idea of an inspired man, and then 
 we shall see that we may place implicit confidence in him 
 as our guide to heaven, even though he should seem to 
 tell us things about the creation and age of the world or 
 the movements of the heavenly bodies which we know to 
 be inconsistent with proved and universally acknowledged 
 facts. 
 
 What, then, do we mean by an inspired man? Not 
 necessarily a man to whom God has given any superhuman 
 knowledge, but one to whom He has imparted superhuman 
 power. To many of the wTiters of the Bible God gave 
 superhuman knowledge. He told them things which they 
 could not have found out for themselves. But to others 
 He gave no such knowledge, but only superhuman power. 
 And so by inspiration we mean superhuman power imparted 
 to the natural faculties of a man by the Spirit of God. 
 
 Besides this, it often happened that God gave His 
 messengers the power of working miracles in His Name, 
 to prove that He had sent them. But we must not confuse 
 this with inspiration, which is clearly a distinct gift, a power 
 imparted by the Spirit of God to the mental faculties of 
 the man. 
 
INSPIRATION GUIDES THE MIND, 
 
 Let us bear this in mind, then, that inspiration does not 
 necessarily give superhuman knowledge, but superhuman 
 energy, infused by the Spirit of God into the natural mental 
 faculties of a man. 
 
 Our Saviour's promise to His Apostles, referred to above, 
 gives us a clear idea of what inspiration must have been. 
 
 He told them that the Holy Spirit would give such a 
 superhuman energy to their memory, judgment, and under- 
 standing, making their memory so tenacious and accurate, 
 their judgment so clear, and their understanding so enlarged, 
 that they should not only be infaUible witnesses to the fact 
 of His Resurrection, but also capable of grasping in all its 
 bearings the message of salvation, of explaining it to others, 
 and of defending themselves by irresistible arguments when 
 brought before kings and rulers for His Name's sake. In 
 fact, that they should be able thoroughly to understand the 
 truth themselves, and to impart it clearly to others. 
 
 Can we conceive a higher view of inspiration than this ? 
 It raises all the mental faculties of the man to a level more 
 than human, to a level far higher than that which he could 
 reach by becoming merely the mechanical instrument, as 
 it were, of a spirit external to himself, even though it were 
 the Spirit of God. 
 
 In what light, then, ought we to regard the spoken or 
 written words of such a man ? Surely not as the word of 
 man, but as the word of God. And in this light the Thes- 
 salonian Christians received the spoken words of St. Paul, 
 who thus writes to them, " For this cause also thank we 
 God without ceasing, because when ye received the word 
 of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word 
 of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God" (i Thess. 
 ii. 13). 
 
 Any one who will carefully read the Epistles of St. Paul 
 will see that his words flow quite naturally from the thoughts 
 
REVELATION GIVES KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 of his own mind, and are clearly not dictated to him by any 
 spirit external to his own. But he will also see that those 
 thoughts spring from a mind upon which influences more 
 than human have been brought to bear ; that they are the 
 thoughts of one who has been brought closer to God than 
 ordinary men, and filled with a superhuman power of grasp- 
 ing Divine truth by the Spirit of God Himself 
 
 But St. Paul, besides being inspired, was also a man who 
 had received his knowledge of the Gospel by Divine revela- 
 tion, which is a very different thing from Divine inspiration, 
 and must not be confused in our minds with it. 
 
 It is a very common misconception to look upon revela- 
 tion and inspiration as the same thing. But they are not 
 so. A man might receive information about superhuman 
 truths without being inspired ; or, on the other hand, he 
 might be inspired, and yet be left to gain all his knowledge 
 of facts from natural sources of information. 
 
 St. Luke, for example, was an inspired man ; and yet we 
 have no reason to think that the facts which he records 
 in his Gospel and in the Acts of the Apostles were made 
 known to him by any superhuman revelation. Indeed, he 
 tells us himself that he got his knowledge of them by obser- 
 vation and careful inquiry of other faithful witnesses (St. 
 Luke i. 1-3). 
 
 He was inspired — that is to say, his mental faculties, his 
 memory, judgment, and understanding, were raised to a 
 level more than human by the energy of the Holy Spirit, 
 and therefore we can trust him as an infallible witness to 
 the truth of those facts on which our religion is founded. 
 Like Theophilus, when we read his words, we know the cer- 
 tainty of those things in which we have been instructed. 
 
 And thus we clear our minds of the common misconcep- 
 tion which regards revelation and inspiration as the same 
 thinfr. In the case of St. Paul we see the results of both 
 
THE WORDS OF HIS PROPHET 
 
 revelation and inspiration; in the case of St. Luke, the 
 results of inspiration alone. St. Paul both received his 
 knowledge of Divine truth from God and also his power 
 of understanding and imparting it. St. Luke gained his 
 information from natural sources, but the Spirit of God 
 helped him to remember, to understand, and to select from 
 the mass of materials before him what to narrate and what 
 to leave unnarrated of the things which he had seen and 
 heard. 
 
 We must not leave this subject until we have thoroughly 
 cleared our ideas as to the source from which the actual 
 written words of the Bible come. It is possible that some 
 of them may be the very words which the Spirit of God 
 dictated to the writer ; it is possible that Isaiah may have 
 been told to say to the rebellious Jews, "I have nourished 
 and brought up children, and they have rebelled against 
 Me" (Isa. i. 2) ; although even here it is far more probable 
 that the prophet, having received by revelation his message, 
 delivers it as the natural outflow of his own inspired imagi- 
 nation. His whole being is so possessed with the Spirit 
 of God, he so completely realises the relation which exists 
 between God and His people, and he so deeply feels the 
 baseness of their ingratitude, that he cannot help speaking 
 as it were in the very person of God. And this will account 
 for the abrupt and otherwise unaccountable changes of 
 person which w^e find in the more imaginative and enthu- 
 siastic outpourings of the inspired writers. They seem 
 quite carried away by the enthusiasm of inspiration, and so 
 to throw their message into a dramatic form, and boldly to 
 introduce God Himself earnestly pleading with His ungrate- 
 ful people. 
 
 But putting aside such cases, we do not find in the 
 more sober historical narratives or in the argumentative 
 and didactic portions of Holy Scripture any traces whatever 
 
ARE THE WORDS OF GOD. 
 
 of the dictation of words by any one external to the mind 
 of the sacred writer. The words evidently flow freely and 
 naturally from the mind of the writer, the written words in 
 which he makes known to others the thoughts of his own 
 heart. But then that mind, from which these thoughts and 
 words flow just as naturally as they do from any other 
 mind, is not like any other mind. It is the mind of an 
 inspired man. It is a mind whose faculties have been 
 raised above the mere human level, above any level which 
 unaided Nature can reach. From whatever source the man 
 has obtained his information, whether from Divine revela- 
 tion or natural observation and inquiry, the energy of 
 God's Spirit has so strengthened his memory, cleared his 
 judgment, and enlightened his understanding that he has 
 a grasp of Divine knowledge to which no unaided mind 
 can attain, and an insight as it were into the very mind 
 of God, which only the Spirit of God can give. "What 
 man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man 
 which is in him ? Even so the things of God knoweth no 
 man, but the Spirit of God. Now we have received . . . 
 the spirit which is of God, that we might know the things 
 that are freely given to us of God. Which things also we 
 speak not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but 
 which the Holy Ghost teacheth" (i Cor. ii. 11-13). 
 
 It is clear from this passage that however freely and 
 naturally the actual words may flow from the mind of an 
 inspired man, they really express not any human wisdom, 
 but that wisdom which only the Spirit of God can imT)art 
 to man's understanding, and that therefore we may regard 
 them as indeed the inspired words of God. The words 
 flow freely and naturally from the mind of the writer ; but 
 that mind is not in the natural state ; it is filled with wisdom 
 by the Spirit of God, and so its thoughts and words are the 
 thoughts and words of God. 
 
PROPHETS KNOWLEDGE LIMITED. 
 
 Such being the conditions under which the Bible was 
 written, we are not surprised to find in it some traces of the 
 human infirmity or ignorance of the writers ; for we have 
 no reason for thinking that they received any information 
 on common subjects beyond that which they could gain by 
 observation and inquiry. 
 
 For example, their knowledge of history and chronology 
 must have been obtained by searching diligently amongst 
 the records existing in their day ; and of many of the facts 
 with which we are familiar in these days, such as the 
 immense antiquity of the world, the shape, size, weight, 
 and movements of the heavenly bodies, they were pro- 
 bably ignorant. The Omniscient Creator might have 
 given them any amount of information on these or any 
 other subjects of a like kind, but their own writings seem 
 to prove that He did not ; and we can see no reason why 
 He should have done so. 
 
 There are some facts which men can discover by the use 
 of their unaided faculties, and there are others which, from 
 the very nature of the case, they cannot possibly know 
 unless God tells them. The inspired writers of the Bible 
 give us the results of their own observation and inquiry, 
 and speak of physical facts in the common language of 
 their day, and with absolute truthfulness to the extent of 
 their knowledge. And when God has revealed to them 
 truths which could not be discovered by the unaided human 
 mind, then inspiration enables them sufficiently to com- 
 prehend these truths, and to make them known to others 
 in language which we may justly call the inspired word 
 of God. 
 
 It is, then, a misconception which places the believer at 
 a great and unnecessary disadvantage in defending the 
 truth that he should think himself bound to show that 
 inspiration gave to the writers of the Bible not only the 
 
yUST VIEWS OF INSPIRATION. 13 
 
 power to teach us all necessary truth concerning God and 
 our duty to Him, but also to make us acquainted with the 
 results of modern scientific research. 
 
 We do not hold either that God imparted universal know- 
 ledge to the sacred writers, or dictated to them by His 
 Omniscient Spirit the words which they wrote. 
 
 We have in the Bible, as in the sphere of providence 
 and grace, God and man working together and jointly 
 producing a result. God has stamped upon that result 
 unmistakable marks of Divine Omniscience. We are not 
 surprised to find in it some few traces of the infirmity and 
 ignorance of man. 
 
 The great importance of holding just views of inspiration 
 becomes the more apparent when w^e consider the lament- 
 able consequences which have followed from the common 
 misconception about the absolute infallibility of Scripture 
 upon all subjects. 
 
 It has been one of the principal causes of the infidelity 
 which prevails in these days. Many have been brought 
 up from their childhood \vith the idea that every single 
 word of the Bible was dictated to the writer by the Holy 
 Spirit. More than this, they have been taught that the 
 popular interpretation of the Bible must be true ; and this 
 is a far more dangerous error than the first. Half the 
 supposed difficulties of Scripture would disappear if men 
 would carefully examine and find out for themselves the 
 exact meaning of the words of the Bible. But they rarely 
 do this. They regard as the real meaning of Scripture that 
 human interpretation of it with which they have been 
 familiar from their childhood. Increasing knowledge and 
 the discoveries of scientific men prove that interpretation 
 to be inconsistent with well-known and universally acknow- 
 ledged facts. Thus they are perplexed in mind, and tempted 
 to disbelieve the inspiration of the book which they suppose 
 
14 THE UNREASONABLE CONTEST 
 
 to contain such a mis-statement of facts. Some few men, 
 under these circumstances, go to the original, expecting to 
 find there at least the solution of their difficulties. But 
 even this will not always help them unless they first get rid 
 of the erroneous idea that God imparted universal know- 
 ledge to the sacred writers, or that His Omniscient Spirit 
 dictated to them the very words which they wrote. 
 
 We have no right to look for certain information in the 
 Bible about anything which man can discover by the use of 
 his natural faculties, unless we have reason to believe one 
 of these two things : either that God imparted universal 
 knowledge to His messengers, or that their words were not 
 their own, but the words of the Spirit of Omniscience. 
 
 They claim no such knowledge, and it is impossible to 
 read their words without seeing that they flow naturally 
 from their own minds. 
 
 Why then should we expect them to speak of the pheno- 
 mena of Nature in any other than the popular language 
 of their day, or to show a better acquaintance with those 
 phenomena than the men of their own time ? 
 
 The removal of this misconception should put a stop 
 to all controversy between theologians and men of science. 
 What both want to discover is truth, but not the same kind 
 of truth. The theologian wants to know what God is. His 
 nature and attributes ; what is the relation between God 
 and man ; what are God's promises and threatenings ; what 
 are man's duties, responsibilities, hopes, and fears. With 
 this view he diligently studies the books which he has 
 reason to believe have been written by men inspired by 
 God with power to teach him the truth on all these points. 
 His axioms are the words of the sacred writers, and he is 
 required to prove that his conclusions are fairly drawn from 
 these words. 
 
 The scientific man, on the other hand, searches for truth 
 
BETWEEN SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY. 15 
 
 of an entirely different character. The data from which he 
 draws his conclusions are the existing positive facts of the 
 material universe ; and what he wants to know is the nature 
 and constitution of that universe, its present state, its pro- 
 bable history, its elements, laws, and forces. 
 
 How comes it, then, that scientific men are so often the 
 antagonists of theologians ? 
 
 Chiefly because theologians, from a mistaken view of the 
 nature of inspiration, have refused to leave them free to 
 follow out their inquiries to the end. The words of Scripture 
 have, until quite lately, been regarded, sometimes even by 
 men of science, as axioms from which to draw scientific 
 conclusions. And the man who has been compelled by the 
 force of known facts to suggest theories supposed to be 
 inconsistent with the literal words of Scripture has been 
 called an atheist or an infidel, and thereby too often driven 
 to become one. 
 
 It is high time that theologians and men of science should 
 make common cause in searching after truth, remembering 
 that truth is not opinion or theory, but that which is objec- 
 tively true ; remembering, also, that any apparent inconsis- 
 tency between the statements of Scripture and the conclu- 
 sions of science must arise either from the fact that these 
 conclusions are wrongly drawn, or that the nature of the 
 statements of Scripture and their claims to our assent are 
 misunderstood. 
 
 It has been the object of these remarks to prove the 
 latter, and thereby to show that the foundations of our faith 
 cannot be in any way affected by the results of scientific 
 inquiry or the changes of the opinions of men. 
 
 What shall we think, then, of the inspiration of Moses ? 
 and how shall we account for the circumstance that he has 
 given a more sublime and rational narrative of the creation 
 than any other ancient writer, and yet has made statements 
 
THE INSPIRATION AND 
 
 in it which are inconsistent with facts as certain as that 
 St. Paul's Cathedral was not built in six days. 
 
 The explanation is easy if we bear in mind the distinction 
 drawn above between revelation and inspiration. Moses 
 was in the highest sense of the word an inspired man ; his 
 mind was filled with wisdom by the Spirit of God. He 
 also received many revelations, and he tells us himself that 
 he had more direct communion with God than any other 
 prophet. " If there be a prophet among you, I, the Lord, 
 will make myself known to him in a vision ; I will speak 
 with him in a dream. My servant Moses is not so : he 
 is faithful in all mine house ; with him will I speak mouth 
 to mouth, even manifestly, and not in dark speeches " 
 (Num. xii. 6-8). 
 
 It is conceivable, therefore, as many have supposed, that 
 some dream or vision, or some succession of dreams or 
 visions, may have been seen by Moses, and, that this may 
 have been God's method of revealing all that man need 
 know of the origin of the universe. 
 
 It is conceivable also that God might have given him 
 direct information about the creation of all things, and, in 
 the absence of all evidence to the contrary, we should 
 perhaps naturally infer this from reading his narrative. 
 But there is abundant evidence to the contrary, and he 
 does not say that God told him anything about it. 
 
 And if any communication had been made to him in 
 a vision or dream, it is difficult to see why God should 
 have impressed him with the idea that the world was made 
 in six natural days. Why not in six ages? Surely this 
 would have been equally simple and more true. The 
 division into six ages would, of course, have been arbitrary 
 in any case, and artificial, but not more so than the division 
 of the year into seasons, or that of the phases of the moon 
 or the periods of human life. 
 
KNOWLEDGE OF MOSES. 
 
 17 
 
 Then there is not a single word about any such visions 
 or dreams. Nor does Moses tell us that he received any 
 supernatural information at all on the subject. And when 
 we examine the narrative, we see many reasons for thinking 
 that he did not, but that its composition is to be regarded 
 as the product of his own or some other prophet's inspired 
 imagination. 
 
 In all other cases he tells us when he received informa- 
 tion or direction from God, but he claims no such assistance 
 in the composition or compilation of the Book of Genesis 
 or its introductory chapters. 
 
 As an inspired man, however, whose natural faculties by 
 the energy of God's Spirit had been raised above the level 
 of ordinary men, and especially as a profound believer in 
 the One Living God, the Maker and Ruler of all things, he 
 looked upon the natural world with eyes very different from 
 those of the wisest men of Egypt, to say nothing of his less 
 instructed brethren. 
 
 The Spirit of God had not given him universal know- 
 ledge, but profound wisdom ; and his human imagination, 
 and judgment, and powers of observation were quickened 
 to a miraculous extent. 
 
 The principal work to which he was called, and for the 
 performance of which he received direct revelations and 
 instructions from the Angel of the Lord, was that of deliver- 
 ing God's people from Egypt, forming them into a nation, 
 and giving them laws and institutions, which should keep 
 them distinct from all other nations, until Christ came to 
 establish the universal kingdom of God. 
 
 But it was necessary that he should preface this with just 
 such an amount of information about the origin of the 
 world and man, and the previous dealings of God with 
 him, as would be sufficient to give men worthy views of 
 God and their relation to Him. And so he begins his 
 
 B 
 
WORTHY VIEWS OF GOD. 
 
 work with a description of the creation of the world and of 
 man. 
 
 In what form did he give this description ? and what is 
 the character of this first section of Genesis regarded simply 
 as a composition ? These questions we will endeavour to 
 answer in the following chapter. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE CREATION OF THE WORLD. 
 
 It is impossible to understand the narrative of the crea- 
 tion rightly, whether it was miraculously communicated to 
 Moses by God or was the product of his own inspired, 
 but still human, imagination, without discovering first by 
 a careful examination of its contents what sort of composi- 
 tion it is. 
 
 God spoke to our fathers, says the Apostle, by the pro- 
 phets, by divers portions and in divers manners ; which 
 words mean, " with many varying degrees of clearness and 
 in many different ways" (Heb. i. i). With what amount 
 of clearness and by what manner of composition did He 
 speak through the mouth or the imagination of Moses in 
 his description of the creation of the world ? 
 
 It was important that man should have some knowledge 
 of the creation of all things, but it was not necessary to 
 reveal to him any of the secondary causes employed in their 
 production. A form of composition, therefore, was adopted 
 admirably suited for this purpose, teaching the truth, but 
 veiled under the symbolic language of a drama. Tiie first 
 chapter of Genesis evidently bears upon its face the char- 
 acter of a sublime drama, requiring therefore to be inter- 
 preted like all other similar compositions. 
 
 God's ojreat work of creation is so described as to become 
 
20 THE NECESSARY LIMITS 
 
 a model for man to imitate in his own labours, and with a 
 special view to his need of weekly rest. It is described, 
 too, in language and under figures accommodated to the 
 ignorance and infirmity of man, conveying to him the 
 essential elements of truth through the medium of ideas 
 only partially true, but within the limited range of his own 
 experience. 
 
 It is one of the necessities of our condition here that 
 even a divinely inspired teacher can never in this life 
 receive himself or impart to others anything more than a 
 partial knowledge of God and His works. This truth is 
 beautifully expressed by St. Paul to the Corinthian converts. 
 He points out to them that even in attempting to form an 
 estimate of the relative value of charity or Christian love as 
 compared with other virtues, graces, and talents, the mind 
 of both teacher and taught is like that of a Httle child, or of 
 a man looking at things in a mirror, or as represented to 
 his mind in an enigma, riddle, or allegory. " We know in 
 part, and we prophesy in part." Our knowledge here is 
 partial, and therefore our teaching, though true, is partial 
 also and imperfect — true as far as it goes and as far as we 
 can receive it, but after all only partially true, only the 
 shadow or reflection of the real substance. " But when 
 that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part 
 shall be done away." When, in the more perfect state 
 hereafter, we become capable of beholding the substance 
 itself, then the shadow will be no longer of any use to us. 
 " When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a 
 child, I thought as a child ; but when I became a man, I 
 put away childish things." 
 
 God treats us here as we treat our children, and as Jesus 
 treated the ignorant of His day, imparting to them the 
 truth as they were able to receive it. The circumstances 
 of the parable are imaginary, but the doctrine it teaches is 
 
OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 true. "These things have I spoken unto you in proverbs" 
 or parables (St. John xvi. 25). 
 
 When we are children, our attention is attracted by 
 fiction, fables, and allegories ; but when we become men, 
 we see their deep inner meaning, and lay aside the fable to 
 grasp more firmly the truth which it contains. " For now 
 we see by means of a mirror in an enigma or riddle, but 
 then face to face." (i Cor. xiii. 9-12). 
 
 Great care is of course required in the application of this 
 principle to the interpretation of Holy Scripture ; but we 
 must never forget that the inspired Apostle lays down this 
 principle for us. 
 
 Now it stands to reason that, as increasing knowledge 
 and wider experience enable the growing child to see more 
 clearly the unreality of the circumstances of the fable, but 
 to comprehend and appreciate better the reality and vast 
 importance of the truth which it teaches, so the increase of 
 human knowledge, and especially a better acquaintance 
 with the works of God in Nature, must enable us to under- 
 stand better His words, especially His modes of conveying 
 Divine truth to our minds, and the nature and extent of 
 the supernatural assistance which He has given to His 
 inspired messengers. 
 
 The minds of men are not more acute in these days than 
 they were formerly, neither is their judgment naturally less 
 fallible, but they have more opportunities of conferring 
 together, and therefore they have more real knowledge and 
 wider experience to assist their judgment. 
 
 The prediction of the prophet Daniel concerning the 
 latter days of the world is being fulfilled. " Many shall run 
 to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased" (Dan. xii. 4). 
 Since the world began there never has been a time when 
 the researches and the thoughts of thousands of individual 
 minds have been so brousfht at once into the common stock 
 
THE ACCOUNT OF CREATION 
 
 and utilised for the general increase of human knowledge 
 and experience, or when the writings and monuments of 
 former generations of men have been more thoroughly 
 examined and carefully compared together. 
 
 We are therefore in a better position than men have ever 
 been before to form an opinion as to the character of a 
 written composition coming down to us from ancient times, 
 whether it be divine or human. A far more exact and 
 extensive knowledge of the works of God must help us to 
 form a much more correct opinion upon the meaning of 
 His words. 
 
 Now the drama is a mode of imparting truth which is 
 singularly fascinating to the imagination, instructive to the 
 mind, and exciting to the best feelings of the heart. 
 
 In such a composition it is quite possible, as we know 
 from many examples in our own language, for the characters, 
 the scenery, and the transactions to be all real, the persons 
 historical, the scenery truly described, and the actions those 
 which were really performed, and yet the composition to be 
 plainly a drama and not real history. 
 
 We are pleased with such a composition if it is truthful. 
 We expect it to be true to Nature. We object to the intro- 
 duction of a real historical character so represented as to 
 give the reader a wrong impression of him ; we object to 
 familiar scenery incorrectly drawn or the representation of 
 actions inconsistent with the known characters of the actors. 
 But so long as he is careful not to err in these points, we 
 allow the freest scope to the imagination of the writer, even 
 when he is dealing with the characters and the transactions 
 of real history. 
 
 There can scarcely be a doubt that we have such a com- 
 position in the first chapter of Genesis, whether we believe 
 it to have been written at the express suggestion of the Spirit, 
 or, as seems more probable, by one enlightened by the 
 
A SUBLIME DRAMA. 23 
 
 Spirit with sufficient knowledge, but then left free to follow 
 his own imagination in all matters of detail. 
 
 The whole structure of the chapter is dramatic, and 
 strongly marked off from the rest of Genesis by this char- 
 acter. God is introduced as speaking with human voice 
 and giving Hebrew names to night and day, to the firma- 
 ment, and to land and sea, as taking counsel about the 
 creation of man, and then resting when His work is over. 
 
 Our miagination is fascinated with the sublime simplicity 
 of this great drama, and our minds cannot fail to gather 
 from it the deepest and most truthful impressions of the 
 power and wisdom and goodness of God. But we cannot 
 help seeing that in its form it is dramatic, represented in 
 this form expressly for our sakes, in consideration of our 
 infirmity, and for the promotion of our comfort. 
 
 The prophet represents in a drama Him, Who ever 
 worketii and sleepeth not, as working for His week and 
 then resting, that man too may alternately work and rest, 
 and also be encouraged to hope for an eternal day of rest 
 hereafter. 
 
 Neither is there anything untrue in this statement, that 
 the Great Creator worked for six days and then rested on 
 the seventh. It is true when rightly understood. It is not 
 meant to be taken literally. It is natural that we should 
 take it literally when very ignorant of the nature and im- 
 mensity of the Creator's works, and of the unmistakable 
 evidences which they contain that He brought our world 
 into its present state gradually and through the operation 
 of secondary causes, which have manifestly occupied a con- 
 siderable amount of time. 
 
 With increasing knowledge we see more clearly that 
 God could not have meant us to take the words of His 
 servant Moses literally, as though He were, like a man, 
 needing rest after His labours. The mere mention of 
 
24 THE EARTH IS KEEPING SABBA TH, 
 
 God's resting ought to be quite enough to suggest to us 
 that He is speaking to us, through Moses, as a father to his 
 young children, teUing us the truth, but in language suited 
 to our ignorance, and by means of ideas connected with 
 our own daily experiences. 
 
 And what is there untrue in this? In describing the 
 Creator as resting, Moses must have meant pretty much 
 what he said afterwards of the promise made to Noah. 
 " While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and 
 cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night, 
 shall not cease" (Gen. viii. 22). 
 
 This earth has indeed enjoyed a Sabbath since man first 
 came upon it, and increasing knowledge enables us better 
 to appreciate this. 
 
 We know now upon what a marvellously delicate adjust- 
 ment of natural forces our comfort, and even our very life, 
 depend. We have reason to conjecture that there have 
 been ages when life of any kind was impossible upon this 
 globe. And, for anything we know to the contrary, there 
 may be forces now in operation which may bring back such 
 a state of things again. 
 
 The wonder is rather that our globe remains so long 
 habitable. We know very little about volcanoes, but a 
 very slight increase of present volcanic action would destroy 
 every living thing upon the surface of the earth. There 
 are a great number of volcanoes in the world. We have 
 about three thousand earthquakes recorded in history up 
 to the beginning of the present century, and doubtless 
 there must have been very many more of which no record 
 has come down to us. But there have been more than two 
 thousand during the present century, and it is estimated 
 that there are now about sixty earthquakes every year, and 
 one of considerable violence in some part of the earth 
 every eight months. 
 
THAT MAN MAY LIVE UPON IT. 25 
 
 Surely, then, if it were not that the Great Creator is, in a 
 figurative sense, keeping a day of rest as regards this earth, 
 for the sake of man, we could not live many hours upon it ; 
 and who can say, in the face of these facts, that the words 
 of the Christian prophet may not one day prove literally 
 true ? '•' Beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that 
 one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a 
 thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slack con- 
 cerning His promise, as some men count slackness ; but is 
 long-suffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, 
 but that all should come to repentance. But the day of 
 the Lord; will come as a thief in the night, in the which 
 the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the 
 elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and 
 the works that are therein shall be burned up'' (2 Peter iii. 
 8-10). 
 
 When we learn to look at the first chapter of Genesis in 
 this light, there is more reason to be amazed at the amount 
 of positive scientific truth which it contains than to feel 
 disappointed that it does not supply us with axioms from 
 which to start upon some geological inquiry, or support by 
 Divine authority any one of the many theories about the 
 origin of things which have been suggested in these days. 
 
 As regards its authenticity, it matters comparatively little 
 whether we believe it to have been written for the first time 
 by Moses in the wilderness, or selected by him from the 
 various then existing traditions with which, as a highly- 
 educated man, he must have been acquainted. At what- 
 ever time, by whatever person, or under whatever circum- 
 stances it was written, it is manifestly of a highly dramatic 
 character, and is composed with such marvellous skill as 
 to state in the most unmistakable language every great 
 natural truth which has anything to do with man's relation 
 and duties to God as the Great Creator and Ruler of the 
 
26 THE DRAMA OF CREATION 
 
 universe, and yet to leave every field of scientific inquiry 
 completely open to the freest research, and to abstain 
 altogether from defining the modus operandi of Him who 
 made the world. 
 
 What are the great truths which it states ? 
 
 That God made all things visible and invisible, the whole 
 universe, the heaven and the earth, and all things in them. 
 It by no means excludes the use by the Creator of secondary 
 physical causes. It speaks of the earth as employed to 
 bring forth grass ; of the sun and moon as ruhng over day 
 and night, which must mean putting forth their natural 
 influences during the day and the night, giving light and 
 heat, and, we may also add, producing many chemical 
 changes on the face of the earth. 
 
 It speaks of the agency of the earth and the waters in 
 the production of fishes, fowls, and living creatures ; it pre- 
 dicts also how in each instance life, once existing, should 
 be continued by inherent powers of reproduction. 
 
 Thus the whole field of human inquiry into the opera- 
 tion of secondary physical causes is left completely open. 
 But while thus the theories of modern inquirers are neither 
 affirmed nor denied, causation of every kind and degree is 
 attributed to Him who is thus declared to be the Cause of 
 all causes. 
 
 What more have we a right to expect from such a com- 
 position ? But we have more. 
 
 If we once admit the dramatic character of the great 
 week of the Creator's work, we cannot fail to see how truth- 
 fully the words of Moses represent the work of that week. 
 The division into six periods is of course an arbitrary divi- 
 sion, specially chosen for man's sake. It might as well have 
 been divided into sixty. Let a man sit down to describe 
 the progress and succession of the seasons or the phases of 
 the moon. His description may be equally true to Nature, 
 
A TRUTHFUL PICTURE. 
 
 wheiher he divides the year with reference to the changes 
 of its condition and outward appearance into two, four, six, 
 or even twelve periods, and the phases of the moon might 
 as truly be called twenty-seven as four. 
 
 Let us imagine, then, some observer to have been watch- 
 ing for millions of years the gradual formation of this world 
 from the hour when it first had a separate existence as a 
 globe up to the time when man came into being upon it ; 
 and let him be required to describe the changes of its 
 condition and outward appearance during that vast period 
 of years, not with scientific accuracy or in the technical 
 terms of science, with which we will suppose him wholly 
 unacquainted, but in the common language of men, and 
 according to the outward appearance of things ; and let 
 him further be required to classify his facts, and to divide 
 his whole description of them into six periods ; and let him 
 still further be required to give his description in the form 
 and character of a dramatic composition. 
 
 Does our present knowledge give us any reason to think 
 that such a man's popular description of the original con- 
 dition, changes, and progressive development of our globe 
 and its inhabitants would have been very different from that 
 of Moses ? 
 
 Must not such an observer have marked the gradual 
 growth and development of vegetable and animal life, 
 always proceeding from lower to higher organic forms ? 
 Could he, so far as we can judge by the light of modern 
 scientific conjecture, have classified phenomena on any 
 much better or more simple and intelligible system than 
 that of Moses ? 
 
 There are two things here to be considered: — (i.) I'he 
 facts stated; (2.) The order in which the successive acts of 
 creation are placed. 
 
 I. The summary of tlie facts is singularly lucid, consis- 
 
28 THE ORDER OF THE DAYS. 
 
 tent, and exhaustive. We read of no monstrosities, as in 
 most other traditions of the kind ; and vegetation and 
 animal Hfe are very briefly, indeed, but clearly distinguished 
 from one another and described. 
 
 2. That the order of the days, as well as their number, 
 is arbitrary, seems to be implied by the mention of the 
 sun after the creation of light. This has always been a 
 crux for interpreters of Genesis, long before geology was 
 heard of. 
 
 The order of the days is either the true order, or it is not. 
 If it is the true order in which the phenomena of creation 
 would have presented themselves to such an observer as 
 we have supposed, then we must conclude, as many have 
 thought, that the sun was not visible for many ages ; that 
 the earth must for a long time have been enveloped in 
 clouds, at first so obscure as to cause total darkness, and 
 then only so far attenuated as to allow the alternations 
 of night and day, and eventually to stimulate the growth 
 of vegetation and low forms of life. 
 
 Whether this was the case or not, we have to account for 
 the remarkable statement of the appearance of light before 
 the sun ; and the common suggestion of interpreters seems 
 very unsatisfactory. 
 
 It is highly improbable, though possible, that light should 
 have been created independently of the sun ; that there 
 should have been, as it were, a general agitation of the 
 luminiferous ether, uncaused, as at present, by light-giving 
 centres of energy, and it seems still more improbable that 
 Moses, if he had received no revelation on the subject, and 
 we have no reason to believe that he had, would have 
 described the creation of light and the phenomena of day 
 and night before that of the sun. 
 
 If it was his object to place the successive acts of crea- 
 tion in the exact order in which he believed them to have 
 
THE FRAMEWORK OF THE DRAMA. 29 
 
 occurred, it is almost certain that he would have intro- 
 duced the sun on the first day. 
 
 On the whole, it seems reasonable that in such a popular 
 description of creation (even if suggested to Moses by 
 revelation, which is improbable, or coming from his own 
 mind, guided so far as to reject all mythical fancies by the 
 Spirit of Truth), both the number and order of the days 
 should be arbitrary, and should be regarded by us as the 
 framework of the drama, the best means of classifying the 
 works of creation, and producing a lively impression on 
 our minds of the power and wisdom and condescending 
 goodness of God. 
 
 Let us, then, imagine Moses, a highly-educated man 
 learned in all the wisdom of Egypt, after a long period of 
 solitary meditation amongst the flocks of his father-in-law 
 and the stirring events of the Exodus, sitting down in his tent 
 in the wilderness to compose this great Drama of Creation. 
 
 He has before him a vast amount of materials, the tradi- 
 tions of his Chaldean forefathers, and the speculations and 
 fables of Egyptian mythology. 
 
 But he is inspired with the Spirit of Truth, and, like any 
 other educated observer of Nature in these days, he has 
 before his mind all the obvious facts of the existing system 
 of the world. 
 
 He meditates upon these, and then he examines all the 
 mythical systems, and sees that they are contradicted by the 
 plainest facts, and are utterly inconsistent with that great truth 
 that there is One Living God, the Maker and Preserver of 
 all things in heaven and earth — the simple creed of his race. 
 
 He has recently been commanded to institute the Sab- 
 bath, to appoint the seventh day in every week as a day of 
 sacred rest.* 
 
 * It seems not improbable that the closing words of the fourth com- 
 mandment may have been added by Moses to the original table of the 
 
30 GOD IS REPRESENTED AS 
 
 Thus prepared and guided by the Spirit of Truth, the 
 great Lawgiver sits down to write the introduction to 
 Genesis. 
 
 His first sentence expresses the very purest monotheism, 
 and lays down the sohd foundation of all true religion. 
 " In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.'"' 
 There is no theogony, no attempt to account for the exist- 
 ence of God, no conjecture of any origin of Him beside 
 Himself. The stamp of Divine truth is thus set upon the 
 very first words of Moses, and every fiction of polytheism 
 is implicitly denied. 
 
 His second statement strongly confirms this, and excludes 
 all causes of any of the phenomena of the natural world 
 which have not their origin in God Himself. 
 
 It denies the existence of anything from which the pre- 
 sent state of things could be evolved without the exertion of 
 
 law. I. Because there is no allusion to the Sabbath either in Genesis, 
 after the second chapter, or in the Book of Job, but every reason to 
 believe that it was first instituted in the wilderness. The Israelites 
 clearly knew nothing about a Sabbath until Moses explained to them 
 the significance of the fact that their gathering of manna on the sixth 
 day was doubled. And Ezekiel speaks of the Sabbath as given in the 
 wilderness as a sign of the covenant (Exod, xvi. 22-26 ; Ezek. xx. 12). 
 2. Because he rests the duty of keeping the fourth commandment on a 
 totally different ground in the Book of Deuteronomy. The Israelite is 
 there commanded to keep the Sabbath that his man-servant and maid- 
 servant may rest, and not because God had rested. And he is to 
 remember that he was a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord 
 his God had brought him out thence through a mighty hand and a 
 stretched-out arm ; and therefore that the Lord his God commanded 
 him to keep the Sabbath-day (Deut. v. 14, 15). But on the other hand 
 it is not improbable that the division of time into weeks took place 
 very early from the observation of the phases of the moon, and that 
 the seventh day was observed as a day of rest, but that, like other 
 customs incidentally mentioned as existing in the pre-Mosaic ages, it 
 was not as a Sabbath made a matter of religious obligation until the 
 giving of the laws of Sinai. 
 
SPEAKING WITH HUMAN VOICE. 
 
 the power of God. " And the earth was waste and empty, 
 and darkness was upon tlie face of the deep, and the Spirit 
 of God brooded over the face of the waters." 
 
 There is httle doubt about the meaning of this word 
 " brooded," and it could scarcely be used, as some suggest, of 
 the wind moving over the surface of the water. Its original 
 signification is to be soft or tender, and it is used of the 
 bird as a loving mother hovering over its young. 
 
 Moses meant by this statement not only to exclude all 
 other causes of light and life on the earth, but also to 
 represent them as coming solely from the vivifying power 
 and loving spirit of God, impregnating, as it were, t'ne 
 desolate world with the germs of every kind of life. 
 
 And now he has to classify the phenomena of the natural 
 world. 
 
 Having attributed the creation of the w'hole universe to 
 God, and represented His Spirit as vivifying the earth, while 
 yet involved in darkness, covered with water, and wholly 
 destitute of life, he proceeds to unfold the details of the 
 great work. 
 
 He introduces the Greater giving His command with 
 human voice, seeing the result to be good, and giving it 
 a Hebrew name. 
 
 The order of the successive acts of creation is extremely 
 simple and natural, as well as being exactly suited to the 
 intelligence of those for whom it was intended. I. Night 
 and day. II. The atmosphere spreading over the universal 
 deluge and holding up the dense clouds above it. Ill 
 The upheaval of the dry land, and consequent gathering 
 together of the seas, and the clothing of the dry land with 
 vegetation of every kind. IV. The dispersion of the clouds 
 and the appearance of the sun and moon and stars in the 
 deep blue abyss of heaven. V. The waters teeming with 
 fishes and the air with birds. VI. Tlie earth filled with 
 
32 THE FIRST CHAPTER OF GENESIS. 
 
 living creatures, and man created to be their ruler in the 
 likeness of God. 
 
 The attempt to prove that this was the real order of the 
 successive acts of creation, and to regard this sublime drama 
 as an anticipation of the discoveries of the geologist, is, 
 to say the least, injudicious and wholly unnecessary for the 
 vindication of the veracity or inspiration of the Bible. 
 
 And, on the other hand, the objections to this order so 
 often made by scientific men are not seldom merely cap- 
 tious. If they object to this account of the origin of things, 
 we may fairly ask them to show us a better one. 
 
 We have a right to ask how Moses, if he was unaided by 
 the Spirit, came to avoid so much error and to reveal so 
 much truth ? 
 
 Did he learn what God is, and how that, unaided by the 
 idols of Egypt, He made the world and man to dwell upon 
 it, from Pharaoh's daughter or from the Egyptian priests ? 
 
 Who will believe this who is not wilfully determined to 
 deny the reality of a Divine revelation or the supernatural 
 guidance of the minds of prophets by the Spirit of the God 
 of truth ? 
 
 The first chapter of Genesis is a sublime drama, which 
 we are bound to interpret as such ; but whether it was 
 written and handed down to Moses by some more ancient 
 prophet, or whether, as seems more probable on the whole, 
 it was composed by Moses in the wilderness, it bears upon 
 its very face, when rightly understood, the stamp of truth. 
 As well by the fables which it omits as by the truths which 
 it reveals it proves itself to be the work of one speaking 
 indeed as a man and in accommodation to the ignorance 
 and the necessities of man, but being in reality a prophet of 
 God, a man whose mental faculties had been raised by the 
 Spirit of God to a height which the unaided mind of man 
 can never reach. 
 
CHAPTER HI. 
 
 THE STORY OF EDEN. 
 
 We have next to consider the story of Eden, a narrative 
 which fascinates our imagination by its freshness, simplicity, 
 and beauty, while it gives us, as in a mirror, a most truthful 
 image of human nature, and the profoundest insight into 
 the secrets of our own hearts. 
 
 There are probably few thoughtful men who read the 
 second and third chapters of Genesis without asking them- 
 selves some such question as this: Am I reading a narrative 
 of facts which really happened exactly as they are here 
 described ? or is this wholly or in part an allegory intended 
 to teach me all I need know of the mysterious origin and 
 nature of man, of his present relation to his Creator, and 
 of his future destiny ? 
 
 Such a question evidently passed through the mind even 
 of so profound a believer as the poet Wordsworth. 
 
 Speaking of man's original goodness and subsequent fall, 
 he writes thus : — 
 
 " He sat and talked 
 With winged messengers, who daily brought 
 To his small island in the ethereal deep 
 Tidings of joy and love. — From these pure heights 
 (Whether of actual vision, sensible 
 To sight and feeling, or that in this sort 
 Have condescendingly been shadowed forth 
 Communications spiritually maintained 
 
 33 C 
 
34 IS IT AN ALLEGORY? 
 
 And intuitions moral and divine) 
 
 Fell humankind." — T/ie Excursion^ Book iv. 
 
 With such an example before us, we need not feel anxious 
 to determine this question either one way or the other ; and 
 we may regard it as wholly unnecessary, for the defence of 
 the Bible as an inspired book, to maintain that every word 
 of the narrative of Eden is to be understood as true in letter 
 as well as in spirit. 
 
 Neither is this a new question. It is almost as old as 
 the Bible itself. Both Jewish and Christian writers, pro- 
 foundest believers in the inspiration of Holy Scripture, have 
 treated the story of Eden as an allegory. Neither have 
 modern discoveries in the slightest degree affected this 
 question, or raised any doubts on the subject which had 
 not suggested themselves again and again to thoughtful 
 men in every age. We need not feel bound, therefore, even 
 to make up our own minds, much less to dogmatise to 
 others, about this story. So long as we accept the pro- 
 found truths which it teaches as coming to us from the 
 Spirit of God, we may fairly regard it as an open question 
 whether it is a literal narrative or a divine allegory. 
 
 There is no reason why the events should not have 
 happened exactly as they are described ; but, on the other 
 hand, there is no reason why it should not have pleased 
 God to impart to Moses, or to some previous saint, a 
 knowledge of the profound mysteries of man's origin, fall,, 
 and future hopes, by a very beautiful and intelligible alle- 
 gorical story. 
 
 Neither is there any reason why there should not be in 
 this case, as in the account of creation, an intermixture of 
 literal fact with allegorical figure ; for this interpenetration 
 of fact and figure is one of the characteristics of the allegory, 
 as distinguished from the parable and the fable. (See 
 '' Trench on the Parables," chap. i. pp. 8, 9.) 
 
THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN. 35 
 
 We shall have a better prospect of understanding this 
 wonderfully interesting story if, divesting our minds as far 
 as possible of all traditional ideas which have gathered 
 round it, we examine carefully the actual words which 
 Moses either wrote himself or received by tradition from 
 his fathers. 
 
 One great difficulty is immediately removed by this pro- 
 cess — the question of the antiquity of man. 
 
 If we confine ourselves to the text of this narrative, we 
 shall not find a single word in it about the time of man's 
 appearance upon the earth. 
 
 In the more artistic account of creation given in the 
 previous chapter, man is mentioned last as the most perfect 
 and most important of the works of God in this world ; but 
 even there nothing whatever is said about his antiquity; 
 and so far as the narrative of Eden is concerned, the years 
 of man's existence on this earth might be reckoned by 
 millions instead of thousands. 
 
 That man was created scarcely six thousand years ago 
 was a natural inference from the genealogies of Moses ; but 
 many well-established facts connected with the history even 
 of civilised man render it probable, if not certain, that his 
 antiquity is much greater than this. 
 
 There is reason to hope that much light will be thrown 
 upon this subject before long from the labours of explorers 
 in many parts of the world, especially in Assyria and 
 Egypt. 
 
 The existence of civilisations of vast antiquity are being 
 discovered in these days, as well as the rude weapons of 
 races not more advanced in the arts than the savages of the 
 present time. 
 
 That highly civilised men and rude savages may have 
 existed at the very same time in different parts of the world 
 is obvious from the fact that they do so now, and always 
 
36 THERE ARE SAVAGES NOW. 
 
 have done in previous historical ages. In our Indian 
 empire at the present time we have men existing in every 
 stage of civilisation, from the half-naked savage of the hills, 
 using flint - headed arrows, up to the highly - cultivated 
 European. Moreover, we are not at all obliged to infer 
 from this that the arrow - heads and bone needles found 
 in geological formations of immense antiquity were made 
 and used by any beings from whom the present human 
 race are descended. 
 
 No solid reason can be given why this earth should not 
 have been the home and hunting-ground of many races, 
 more or less human, who have become as extinct as the 
 ichthyosaurus, the pterodactyle, and the mammoth. 
 
 Neither, upon the Evolutionist's principles, can it be 
 denied that races scarcely yet sufficiently advanced to be 
 called men may yet have had sufficient intelligence to make 
 and use a piece of flint as a rude weapon. 
 
 Some naturalists assume, without a particle of evidence, 
 the former existence of successive races of creatures, as- 
 cending gradually in the scale of being, until they reached 
 the platform of him who has weighed the earth, measured 
 its distance from the sun, and estimated the speed of light. 
 
 The absurdity of such a supposition will be apparent to 
 most readers, especially when they consider that not a single 
 connecting link has been discovered out of that countless 
 succession of creatures which must have been improved off 
 the face of the earth before the descendants of the noblest 
 ape had become men. 
 
 But to return to our narrative, there is not a word in the 
 first four chapters of Genesis about the time of man's crea- 
 tion ; and his knowledge of the arts when first expelled from 
 Eden must have been less than that of those who made the 
 rudest v^eapons which the geologist has discovered in ancient 
 caves and gravel-beds. 
 
MAN'S ORIGINAL CONDITION. 37 
 
 It is, therefore, most important to observe how very little 
 we are told about the original condition of man either before 
 or after his fall. 
 
 It would waste our time to attempt an enumeration of 
 the baseless fancies of the human imagination on this sub- 
 ject. It will be more useful to consider exactly what we are 
 told in these chapters of Genesis. 
 
 Man's origin, to begin with this, is represented as just the 
 same as that of the other animals. He is made of the dust 
 of the earth, and the breath of animal life is imparted to 
 him. For such is the meaning of the words, " 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." The Hebrew words rendered " living soul " are 
 exactly the same as those used of the other animals in 
 verse 19, and there translated "living creature." We are 
 told, in fact, that man was made an animal, a living creature. 
 
 But although his origin is thus described as precisely the 
 same as that of the other animals, he is shown to have 
 faculties vastly superior to theirs. 
 
 He is declared to be their ruler, and the narrative implies 
 that he has the power of observing and learning their nature, 
 reflecting upon his own nature, and holding communion with 
 God. He is therefore called God's image or shadow. 
 
 Such a being, partly animal and partly divine, having an 
 animal body, but a mind a shadow of that of God, such a 
 being, the possessor of these noble faculties as yet unexer- 
 cised, is placed by his Maker in a highly favoured position, 
 where he is abundantly supplied with food for his body and 
 objects on which to exercise his understanding. 
 
 We are not told, and therefore do not know, how long 
 he remained in this place alone, simply enjoying existence 
 and studying with wondering interest the abundance of 
 vegetable and animal life by which he was surrounded. 
 
38 ADAM AN ADULT INFANT. 
 
 But whether it was for a long or a short time, we can 
 scarcely help believing that God during that time held 
 intercourse with him. 
 
 If we believe that God has manifested Himself to us, in 
 these latter days, in the Person of His Incarnate Son, it 
 is far easier to believe that He should have in some way 
 manifested Himself by Him Who is called the Angel of 
 Jehovah to man in his first guileless and helpless state of 
 adult infancy. 
 
 For such must have been his condition — a state of adult 
 infancy. And this supplies an answer to another modern 
 question of considerable importance. 
 
 It is the fashion in these days to deny not only the fact, 
 but even the possibility of a primeval revelation, upon the 
 grounds that such a revelation could not be given until 
 man had arrived by some process of observation and 
 reason at the conception of an Infinite Being, and had 
 also acquired a language in which the nature of that Being 
 and his own relation to Him could be explained. 
 
 But why need this new-created man, this adult infant, 
 have either a conception of the Infinite or a language by 
 which to express it in order to receive a revelation and to 
 become acquainted with his Maker? 
 
 It is absurd to affirm that He Who made all visible things 
 is incapable of making Himself visible to His creatures. 
 
 Our Positivists and others like them will allow us nothing 
 more than eyes and ears to start with upon the ladder of 
 human progress. We ask no more in the present instance, 
 and our narrative gives us nothing more. Adam has eyes 
 and ears, the power of speech, but no language. And this 
 was all he needed to enable him to receive that primeval 
 revelation here described as the foundation of the religion 
 of the world. 
 
 " How did man know that there is a God ? Because 
 
THE PRIMEVAL REVELATION. 39 
 
 God told him." This is how the infidel puts it in order to 
 perplex the believer. How could God tell him, he urges, 
 until man had a conception of God, and a language by 
 which to express it ? 
 
 Our narrative gives us a simple answer. Because he saw 
 Him, and because he heard Him. 
 
 All through the Old Testament God is represented as 
 revealing Himself and communicating with men by One 
 Who is called The Angel of the Lord, and Who is wor- 
 shipped as Divine. This was, in truth, none other than 
 the Son of God, that Person of the Trinity Who alone 
 reveals the invisible God, the Word Who was in the 
 beginning with God, ^Vho was God, and Who in the last 
 days was made flesh to dwell with us. 
 
 Again it is asked, How could he understand Him without 
 a language? We answer: Our narrative describes the pro- 
 cess by which he acquired a language, that is to say, by 
 giving names to the animals and objects by which he was 
 surrounded, a process to which all students of languages 
 trace their origin, and which has left its mark upon them all, 
 and even upon the earliest forms of written speech ; every 
 letter of the alphabet having once been the imitation of the 
 form of some animal, implement, or natural object. 
 
 It is the fashion to represent religion, and especially the 
 belief in One Supreme Being, the Maker of all things, as 
 something which man has reasoned out for himself. But 
 if this is the case, we have a right to ask why the worship 
 of many gods should have been the practice of all, even 
 the most highly gifted nations, except the Israelites? Why 
 the Israelites themselves should have been preserved with 
 so much difficulty from falling away from the sound teach- 
 ing of their great lawgiver? and, finally why these chap- 
 ters of Genesis, the oldest written account of man's 
 ideas on this subject, should teach, in the very purest 
 
40 MONOTHEISM REVEALED. 
 
 possible form, the great truth that there is One Eternal 
 God, the Maker of heaven and earth and of all things in 
 them ? 
 
 To this we may add the historical fact, brought out by 
 those who have made the religions of the world a special 
 study, that they all, or nearly all, contain evident proofs of 
 an original belief in One God, and show that the belief in 
 many gods is the result of the falling away from a purer 
 form of religious worship ; that monotheism has not been 
 evolved from polytheism, but that the latter has come from 
 the gradual corruption of the former. 
 
 There is every reason to believe that modern thinkers have 
 been led to adopt these ideas of the evolution of religion, 
 as well as that which we may call the savage theory of 
 man's origin — a theory closely connected with the other — 
 by traditional interpretations of the story of Eden. 
 
 This beautifully simple picture of primeval man has been 
 seen by most of us through a glowing and briUiant haze 
 of popular misconceptions which has magnified the images 
 but distorted their proportions and made their outlines less 
 distinct. It demands, therefore, a considerable mental 
 effort to see the picture as it really is. Great fairness of 
 mind and very close attention are required to enable us to 
 look at the picture cleansed from the dust of human fancy, 
 and as described by Moses for our instruction. 
 
 What do we see, then, when we sweep away the clouds 
 of man's traditions ? We see before us a guileless, helpless, 
 adult infant : literally an infant, for he has no language. 
 What can the advocates of the savage theory of man's origin 
 demand more than this ? 
 
 We are not told that he has anything more than the 
 instincts of an animal and the reasoning faculties of a man. 
 And as an animal he is more defenceless than almost any 
 other animal which God has made. 
 
MAN INCARNATE INTELLECT. 41 
 
 There is not one word in our narrative to lead us to sup- 
 pose that the nature of other animals was in the slightest 
 degree changed by man's sin. We owe this popular mis- 
 conception to the imagination of poets and painters. And 
 if we would understand man's true condition at his first 
 appearance on the earth, we must altogether dismiss this 
 idea from our minds. Man, even before he sinned, must 
 have been, as an animal, helpless in the presence of the 
 lion or the tiger; and so, had they not been awed, as we 
 are told, by fear of him, he could not have survived long 
 enough to bring reason to his aid to devise means of 
 defence against the wild beasts, which as yet were his only 
 companions. 
 
 And this is perhaps one of the strongest arguments 
 against the modern fiction of man's gradual evolution from 
 some form of ape. It is clear that every stage of upward 
 progress from the brute to the man — of which stages, in- 
 deed, there are no traces whatever — must have placed him 
 at an ever-increasing disadvantage as regards the means of 
 defence against his companion brutes. 
 
 And if, without these intermediate stages, he was born 
 from the very highest form of ape, it must have been by 
 one of those sudden jumps in the progress of things to 
 which our modern naturalists most object, or by a direct 
 and miraculous interference with the order of generative 
 reproduction; by a sort of incarnation of intellect — by a 
 miracle, in fact, far more inconceivable than that so simply 
 described in our narrative, though without any explanation 
 to satisfy our curiosity. " God formed man of the dust 
 of the ground" (as He did all the other animals), "and 
 breathed into his nostrils the breath of life ; and man 
 became a living creature." 
 
 And now let us try to look steadily at this guileless, help- 
 less, adult infant. 
 
42 HE OBSERVES AND REASONS. 
 
 He is placed in a highly favoured spot. It is reasonable 
 to suppose that the Creator would place the first solitary 
 man in the midst of favourable surroundings, with abun- 
 dance of food, attainable with little labour. And such a 
 spot, we are told, was the home of the first man. 
 
 Let us consider well this fair creature in his delightful 
 home, as he stands before us fresh from the forming hands 
 of his Creator, with all the guileless innocence of a child, 
 but with the stature and intellect of a man. 
 
 He has instincts, intuitions, and faculties, in addition 
 to the five senses ; but at present he has absolutely no 
 acquired knowledge. He is surrounded by countless objects 
 which delight his senses, excite his wonder, and prompt 
 at once inquiry into their nature. From them he cannot 
 help at once beginning to acquire knowledge and to form 
 language. He sees his own image retlected in the smooth 
 surface of the water, and observes at once that he differs in 
 form, as well as in faculties, from all other creatures near 
 him. He sees, he hears, he handles, he smells, he tastes. 
 He observes, he reflects, he reasons, on all things around 
 him ; and he can no more help doing this than the fish 
 can help swimming or the bird flying. Neither can he help 
 giving names to express the likeness or difference which 
 he observes in objects. Even if he has no companion to 
 whom he may utter them aloud, the connection of thought 
 and speech is so intimate, that he must by a necessity of 
 his nature frame names in his mind and utter them some- 
 times to himself. 
 
 That this is natural to man as man — as natural as it is to 
 the ox to low or to the nightingale to sing — we may be sure 
 from what we constantly see in very young children. They 
 frequently give names to objects utterly different from 
 anything they have heard, and clearly derived from some 
 imitation of a sound or strange association of ideas 
 
HE SEES AND WORSHIPS GOD. 43 
 
 passing through their minds at the time ; and they often 
 utter them aloud to themselves when they think they are 
 alone. 
 
 But if we adhere closely to our narrative, we shall see 
 that Adam was not alone. His Maker condescends to be 
 his instructor. He whose special office it is to reveal the 
 Invisible, He, Who is the only One Person by whom the 
 Triune God can be brought under the observation of the 
 human senses, shows Himself to Adam, and is necessarily 
 and at once perceived by him to be a Being glorious, 
 powerful, and in all things superior to himself. 
 
 This is a primeval revelation, simple and intelligible to 
 all who believe in Christ. Adam has no conception of the 
 Infinite, no name for God, no idea of God j but he has eyes 
 and ears. He sees and he worships ; he hears and he learns 
 by hearing. 
 
 How long does it take a child to learn to speak so as to 
 be understood ? At least two years, for during half that 
 time the mind is undeveloped and the organs of speech 
 are imperfect. Would it be as many weeks if he had the 
 mind and the mouth of a full-grown man? 
 
 We have no means of testing this ; but it requires no 
 great stretch of the imagination to fancy that Adam must 
 have been an apt pupil of his Divine Instructor. 
 
 And it is difficult to see why it should be more hard to 
 believe that the Son of God should condescend to be his 
 Instructor than that He should dwell with men as man for 
 more than thirty years ; and even after His resurrection from 
 the dead should show Himself to His Apostles from time 
 to time during forty days, and speak with them of the things 
 concerning the kingdom of God (Acts i. 8). 
 
 Neither, if we look again to our narrative, could he have 
 been long without a companion, whom he might live with, 
 and with whom he misiht learn to converse. We are not 
 
44 THE IMAGE OF GOD. 
 
 told how long Adam remained alone; but our narrative 
 seems to imply that Eve was not created until Adam had 
 learned to give names to the animals and objects in his 
 garden ; in fact, until he had had time to form the elements 
 of language. Then comes the account of the creation of 
 Eve. 
 
 The facts of creation are very clearly stated in this 
 second chapter of Genesis, but the account of it is not 
 intended to contradict that of the first. This second chap- 
 ter of Genesis does not profess to be a detailed account 
 of the whole creation, which has been given already in the 
 first. But its sole object is to describe more fully the crea- 
 tion and original condition of man. 
 
 Several things mentioned in the previous chapter require 
 to be made more clear when our attention is specially 
 directed to man. 
 
 We might erroneously suppose that man's origin was 
 altogether different from that of other animals when we 
 read, " Let us make man in our image, after our likeness." 
 And so we are at once told that man was formed, like the 
 animals, out of the dust of the ground, and became a living 
 creature. 
 
 And then the mysterious saying, "in our image, after 
 our likeness," requires expanding and explaining. And so 
 it is shown to consist in something: hisjher than mere do- 
 minion over the other animals, in the more lofty but more 
 perilous condition of moral freedom, the knowledge of 
 good and evil, and the free choice between them. 
 
 And next, the same mention of the image of God must 
 have suggested this question without solving it : Is this 
 God-like creature to perish and come to nothing, like the 
 brutes beneath him ? Our narrative answers this question, 
 and implies his immortality by threatening death only as 
 ihe punishment of sin. 
 
THE CREATION OF WOMAN. 45 
 
 There remains yet a further interesting question to which 
 our narrative gives the answer. 
 
 Why this emphatic mention of sexual difference in man 
 alone of all the creatures of the earth ? Perhaps few readers, 
 though they may know the first chapter of Genesis by heart, 
 have observed how the difference of sex is emphasised in 
 the case of man by being mentioned only of him. It is 
 implied of others in the words of blessing, "be fruitful and 
 multiply ; " but it is mentioned distinctly only of man both 
 here and in chap. v. 2 : " Male and female created He 
 them." 
 
 Our narrative explains all this. Woman was to be more 
 to man than the mere bearer and nurse of his children. 
 Even in Paradise it was not good for him to be alone; she 
 was to be a companion and a help-meet for him ; one who 
 should share his joys and enter into his thoughts ; whose 
 form should delight his eyes, and whose voice should be 
 as music in his ears. And further, unlike all the other 
 creatures of the earth, she was to be his even to the very 
 end of his earthly life, so that it should be an ordinance 
 of Nature for ever that a man should leave his father and 
 mother and cleave to his wife, and that they should become 
 as one flesh. 
 
 And so the creation of woman is made a matter of pri- 
 mary importance in our narrative, and we are distinctly 
 told that she was derived from man. 
 
 We need not insist upon the literal interpretation of this 
 beautiful passage. The story is so simple and natural that 
 we can scarcely help believing that something very much 
 like it may have actually taken place. He who formed 
 man from the dust of the ground may easily be supposed 
 to have formed woman out of the substance of man. But 
 God never allows His creative acts to be seen in their first 
 stages. He does not work, like man, with visible hands, 
 
46 INNOCENCE WITHOUT SHAME. 
 
 but with the hidden hands of creative energies. And our 
 narrative, therefore, would seem to suggest, if it is not 
 altogether allegorical, that the deep mystery of Eve's deriva- 
 tion from his own living substance was communicated to 
 Adam by a vivid dream during his sleep. His exclamation 
 on awaking is extremely natural : " This time it is bone 
 of my bone, and flesh of my flesh ; she shall be called 
 woman (Ishah), because she was taken from man (Ish)." 
 The deduction which follows is of course the reflection of 
 the sacred writer, and is not to be considered as part of the 
 exclamation of Adam : '•' Therefore a man leaveth his 
 father and his mother, and cleaveth unto his wife, that they 
 may become as one flesh." 
 
 How touching are the closing words of the chapter when 
 read by us, the children of shame ! " And they were both 
 naked, the man and his wife, and they were not ashamed." 
 
 How true to nature, whether the story is an allegory or 
 a literal narrative ! There can be no shame until there 
 is a consciousness of committed evil or of an inherent 
 tendency to commit it. 
 
 The angels of heaven have the knowledge of evil, but we 
 cannot believe them to have any experience of shame ; for 
 we only feel shame when we are conscious of tendencies 
 to evil of which we are ashamed, or of the actual commis- 
 sion of shameful deeds. The uncorrupted children even 
 of fallen man will for many years give us no faint picture 
 of the garden of Eden, while they stand together, male and 
 female, naked but not ashamed. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE FALL OF MAN. 
 
 The third chapter of Genesis reveals to us the nature and 
 origin of sin ; the rest of the Bible its rapid development, 
 its punishments, and its remedies. ''Behold how great a 
 matter a little fire kindleth." The passage is very short, 
 and very terrible in the narrative, from the eating a for- 
 bidden fruit to the crime of murder. 
 
 Surely the first men of Genesis are savage enough, and, 
 if we will only confine ourselves to the words of the Bible, 
 ignorant and helpless enough, to satisfy any theory of 
 human progress from " utter barbarism " to the civilised 
 life of the nineteenth century. 
 
 But if we will carefully confine ourselves to the language 
 of the Bible, we shall find that it gives us an account of 
 man's original state, which, while it answers all the require- 
 ments of the modern theories of progress, contradicts at 
 the same time the false conclusions as to his primitive in- 
 tellectual and moral condition which have been drawn from 
 them. 
 
 But we must not only confine ourselves to the actual 
 words of the Bible ; we must also bear in mind, while we 
 are studying them, certain well-established truths connected 
 with the nature, condition, and tendencies of mankind in 
 all ages. 
 
 I. All known facts, as distinguished from theories, go to 
 
 47 
 
48 MAN HAS ALWAYS BEEN MAN. 
 
 prove, almost to demonstration, that man has always been 
 man, as he is now, neither more nor less ; that, if we set 
 aside all consideration of acquired knowledge, he has always 
 been precisely what he is now, an animal with intellectual 
 powers, the faculty of speech, and a moral nature. All 
 history bears witness to this truth, and all pre-historic 
 traces of his existence and of his works confirm it. The 
 most ancient man who, without any inherited knowledge, 
 first made a bow and arrows or constructed a hut made of 
 the branches of trees cut down by his stone-hatchet, showed 
 little less ingenuity and skill than the architect of St. Paul's 
 or the inventor of the steam-engine. 
 
 And we may fairly regard it as no slight evidence of the 
 inspiration of the Bible that its authors should have kept 
 so clear of all the strange fancies of other writers, both 
 ancient and modern, on this subject. Man is always man, 
 just as we know him now, from the beginning to the end 
 of the Bible. He is neither bigger nor smaller, stronger 
 nor weaker, more or less clever, more or less good or evil, 
 than we know him in this nineteenth century. 
 
 The expression, " There were giants in the earth in those 
 days" (Gen. vi. 4), does not at all imply that they w^ere 
 bigger than other men, but abandoned, violent, or, as 
 expressed in the latter part of the verse, "mighty men," 
 "men of renown." The word nepJiilini^ rendered giants, 
 comes from Jiap/ial, to fall, and so will signify either 
 " fallen ones," abandoned men, or possibly " violent ones," 
 who fall upon others. But whatever the word may mean, 
 it has not any necessary connection with size of body. 
 
 2. Then it is absolutely certain that man has a tendency 
 to change for the better or for the worse, physically, intel- 
 lectually, and morally, according to his surroundings and 
 his own individual exercise of free-will. And this is not 
 a contradiction of what we have just stated, for this change 
 
MORAL TENDENCIES INHERITED. 49 
 
 is not found to affect to any great extent his essential nature, 
 but to be due only to his acquired habits of life, thought, 
 and action. 
 
 No amount of degradation can bring man down to the 
 intellectual level of the brute, or to a condition from which 
 he and his children may not be raised again to a more 
 civilised state. And, on the other hand, no amount of 
 civilisation can save his descendants from sinking down 
 rapidly to the condition of the savage, if they are removed 
 from all the surroundings and helps of civilised life, and 
 placed in a position where all their energies can scarcely 
 provide them with food for their hunger and shelter from 
 the cold. 
 
 3. To these two facts we must add yet another, which 
 seems to be pretty clearly established by many proofs in 
 these days. 
 
 There can be little doubt that not only natural diseases 
 but also evil moral tendencies are inherited. The natural 
 law emphasised in the second commandment seems true to 
 Nature in more senses than one ; and although, as regards 
 its eternal consequences, it must of course be confined to 
 those who persist in the sins of their fathers and make no 
 attempt to resist evil by the promised aid of God's Spirit, 
 it is nevertheless a law of the Creator that the sin of the 
 fathers should affect their children. 
 
 With these known truths before our minds, let us con- 
 sider the Scriptural account of the fall of man and its 
 consequences. 
 
 Adam and Eve are together in the garden, as yet igno- 
 rant of evil, and therefore as free from any sense of shame 
 as the young child which stands naked before its parents in 
 the nursery. 
 
 The child feels no shame because it is utterly uncon- 
 scious of anything of which it ought to be ashamed. And 
 
 D 
 
50 FEAR AND SHAME FOLLOW SIN. 
 
 this state of guileless innocence remains for a very con- 
 siderable time if the child's imagination is unpolluted by 
 contact with other less innocent minds. 
 
 What is the cause of this absence of shame in a child ? 
 It cannot be due merely to the fact that the child's con- 
 stitution is not fully developed ; for premature knowledge 
 will at once cause premature shame, even if it does not 
 cause premature crime ; and, moreover, we cannot observe 
 any feeling of shame from a consciousness of being naked 
 in any animal below man, however highly organised. 
 
 Besides this, we must remember that shame arises not 
 only from a consciousness of impurity, but from a sense 
 of guilt of any kind. The child who has been untruthful, 
 dishonest, or spiteful, naturally feels shame because it is 
 convicted by its own conscience of having said, done, or 
 felt that of which it ought to be ashamed. 
 
 Closely connected with this sense of shame arises the 
 natural fear of discovery and of punishment. But these 
 two feelings must not be confused with one another, for 
 they are quite distinct. Fear and shame are both the 
 natural and necessary punishments of sin, but they spring 
 from different sources. Shame and its companion, remorse, 
 come from within, from the man's own condemnation of 
 his own conduct, irrespective of any thought of a law- 
 giver. Fear arises from the anticipation of punishment 
 from another without, whether it be the censure of his 
 fellow-man or of the Supreme Lawgiver. 
 
 A great deal of time is often wasted in arguing for or 
 against the existence of an instinctive moral sense in man. 
 
 Does not the account of the first sin and its consequent 
 fear and shame plainly teach us that conscience is simply 
 one of the necessary functions of reason ? 
 
 Conscience — which means self-knowledge — is the name 
 we give to the necessary operation of the mind of a being 
 
CONSCIENCE IS SELF-KNOWLEDGE. 51 
 
 who has the power of reflecting upon his own nature and 
 conduct ; and such a reasoning creature can no more help 
 forming a judgment upon the character of his own acts and 
 feehngs than he can avoid distinguishing by his senses 
 between light and darkness or between sweet and bitter. 
 
 The Latin words " Mens conscia recti " or " Mens conscia 
 probri " well express this truth. Conscience is "the mind 
 aware of right or wrong," distinguishing between the two 
 and judging of the fitness or unfitness of each. 
 
 And this leaves room, of course, for any amount of 
 enlightenment of the mind by moral training in the way 
 of righteousness or that darkening of the understanding 
 which is one of the most terrible consequences of the 
 indulgence in wilful sin, so that a man learns at last to 
 " call evil good, and good evil ; to put darkness for light, 
 and light for darkness ; to put bitter for sweet, and sweet 
 for bitter " (Isa. v. 20). 
 
 The reader is particularly requested to bear in mind this 
 explanation of the obvious meaning of conscience, for it 
 will enable him not only to understand better this narrative, 
 but also to see how groundless are many of the modern 
 fictions about the gradual growth of the moral sense. 
 
 " The light of the body is the eye," says our Lord, mean- 
 ing not the bodily eye, but the keen moral eyesight of 
 reason, which, when unclouded by moral depravity, can 
 no more help judging truly of the fitness or the unfitness of 
 the reasoning being's own actions and feelings, than his eye 
 can help distinguishing between light and darkness. This 
 moral eyesight is never so keen as in the case of uncorrupted 
 children ; for it is as natural a part of man as his bodily eye, 
 and, like it, can be trained to greater accuracy of judgment, 
 or injured by misuse or neglect. 
 
 What we do know of conscience is, that it can be over- 
 clouded for a time, but never destroyed. It is the judge 
 
52 CONSCIENCE ACQUITS OR CONDEMNS. 
 
 within us who, when ihe time comes, will acquit or con- 
 demn, will punish or reward us, however much we may dis- 
 regard his warnings or seem to stifle his voice. 
 
 This is the teaching of St. Paul, who, on this very ground, 
 shows that the Gentiles cannot be acquitted of the charge 
 of wilful sin because they have not the light of a revealed 
 law like the Jews. "When the Gentiles, which have no 
 law, do by nature the things of the law, these, having no 
 law, are a law unto themselves ; in that they show the work 
 of the law written in their hearts, their conscience (lit. self- 
 knowledge) bearing witness therewith, and. their thoughts 
 (Ht. reasonings) one with another accusing or else excusing 
 them" (Rom. ii. 14, 15). 
 
 This moral eyesight, then, must have been singularly 
 keen in the case of Adam and Eve, although at first it dis- 
 covered in themselves no thought, desire, or action un- 
 suited to their own nature or to their natural relation to 
 Him who revealed Himself to them as their Master and 
 their Friend. 
 
 As yet sinless, they feel no shame, simply because their 
 reason tells them of no act or feeling of which they need 
 be ashamed. 
 
 And now, what are we to think of the tree of knowledge 
 of good and evil, of the tree of life, of the speaking serpent, 
 of the expulsion from the garden, and of the cherubim with 
 the flaming sword, or sword-like flame, guarding the way 
 of the tree of life? Are these parts of the literal narrative, 
 or allegorical symbols introduced to illustrate the truths 
 which that narrative is intended to teach ? 
 
 There is no reason why we should determine these ques- 
 tions either way; for the whole might be allegorical, as 
 already observed, without in the slightest degree affecting 
 the question of the inspiration of the Bible. 
 
 The inspiration of the sacred writer is proved by the pro- 
 
THE LAW OF EDEN. 53 
 
 foundness of the truth which he reveals, and the miracu- 
 lous manner in which he avoids all the false theories and 
 nonsensical fancies of other ancient writers. 
 
 Adam and Eve stand before us in this story, a man 
 and woman exactly like ourselves, and whom we need 
 not be ashamed to own and to honour as the parents of 
 our race. 
 
 The law which was given to them was, in all essential 
 points, precisely the same as that which we have as our 
 guide in the Ten Commandments. " Of every tree of the 
 garden thou mayest freely eat, but of the tree of know- 
 ledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it ; for in 
 the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die " 
 (Gen. ii. 16, 17). 
 
 Man must honour the Lawgiver by perfect obedience, 
 but every creature of God may be freely enjoyed except 
 when and where He, for the wisest reasons, has forbidden 
 its use. 
 
 Although we may not dogmatise about this story one 
 way or the other, we have a full right to claim that freedom 
 which we allow to others. 
 
 If others regard it as allegorical, and we allow them to 
 do so, we may ourselves fairly claim the privilege of con- 
 sidering it, at any rate in most parts, a simple and literal 
 narrative of events which happened exactly as they are here 
 described. 
 
 The account of these two trees seems extremely natural, 
 and singularly consistent with the rest of the narrative. 
 
 Such a simple command is admirably suited to the infan- 
 tine condition of our new-created parents. 
 
 They are utterly without any knowledge except that which 
 they have acquired by observing the objects around them 
 in the little world of their Paradise. 
 
 They have only just formed the rudest elements of Ian- 
 
54 THE RELIGION OF EDEN. 
 
 guage, sufficient to enable them to understand one another 
 in their very limited sphere of action and enjoyment, and 
 their religion is confined to the knowledge of Him who has 
 from time to time held visible communion with them. 
 
 They are not modern philosophers of the nineteenth 
 century, and therefore have no sublime conceptions of the 
 Infinite ; but they have a far better and more simple reli- 
 gion, and find no intellectual difficulty whatever in recog- 
 nising in Him Who visits them in their garden the visible 
 Revealer of the Being who made them, and Whom they 
 feel that it is reasonable and natural for them to love, to 
 worship, and to obey. 
 
 What can be more natural than that an easy and simple 
 command should be given to these guileless creatures to 
 test their love and to train them for the safe enjoyment of 
 moral freedom. 
 
 They are supplied with everything they need. Food 
 for the body is abundant on all sides ; and they have an 
 occupation which is found to give the greatest pleasure to 
 many of their descendants, that of watching and tending 
 the growth of trees and flowers, and of the fruits of their 
 Paradise. 
 
 Regarding the tree of life and its fellow as literal trees in 
 the midst of the garden, we are not to suppose them pos- 
 sessed of properties different from any of the other trees. 
 
 The tree of life must have had what we should call 
 now a sacramental character, having no miraculous virtue 
 or life-giving power inherent in it, but being simply the 
 appointed symbol or pledge of God's promise of immor- 
 tality. 
 
 We may compare it to the rainbow, which was selected 
 out of the other existing phenomena connected with light 
 to be the appointed token to the descendants of Noah of 
 God's promise not to disturb again the ordinary course of 
 
THE TREE OF LIFE SACRAMENTAL. 55 
 
 Nature by a deluge. Or we may compare it to the water 
 of Baptism, or tlie bread and wine of the Lord's Supper, 
 which, without undergoing any material change or acquiring 
 any miraculous properties, become by the words of conse- 
 cration the symbols of the Spirit of God and of the Body 
 and Blood of Christ, and so the tests of our own faith, and 
 the pledges of God's promise to pardon our sins and to give 
 us eternal life. 
 
 We may easily imagine the reverential awe with which 
 Adam and Eve must have approached this sacred spot in 
 the midst of the garden. 
 
 The fruit of only one of the trees was forbidden, so that 
 they must have eaten as freely of the Tree of Life as of any 
 other. 
 
 The act of eating pledged God to support their life ; and 
 therefore, when they had broken God's laws, they were to 
 be prevented from partaking any longer of this pledge of 
 life. God's word of promise could not be broken, and 
 therefore He withheld from them, when they had disobeyed 
 Him, the visible pledge of that promise. And this was not 
 to be restored until sin had been conquered, as we have it 
 explained to us in that glorious allegory which unseals so 
 many of the mysteries of the ancient Scriptures : " To him 
 that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which 
 is in the midst of the Paradise of God" (Rev. ii. 7). 
 
 As the tree of life was the pledge of immortality, so the 
 tree of the knowledge of good and evil was simply the test 
 of man's obedience and love. And it was God's command 
 which made it so, and not, we may be sure, any unusual 
 property inherent in the tree itself. 
 
 And now, before we consider how innocence was lost, 
 and sin and death introduced into the world, we must face 
 the great question of moral freedom, and see what it means. 
 
 This simple story, whether we regard it as a literal 
 
56 NEGATIVE AND POSITIVE VIRTUE. 
 
 narrative or as an allegory, throws more light upon the 
 perplexing subject of moral freedom than all the books 
 of all the philosophers of the world — no slight proof of 
 the inspiration of the writer. 
 
 It enables us to distinguish clearly between negative 
 and positive virtue. The first chapter of Genesis, as we 
 have already observed, tells us that man was made in 
 God's image. The third chapter explains the full mean- 
 ing, of that expression. "Behold, the man is become as 
 one of us, to know good and evil" (Gen. iii. 22). 
 
 It is clear from this that man's likeness to God was not 
 to consist only in dominion over the world, in negative 
 virtue, or in a state of guileless innocence, due merely to 
 ignorance and the absence of temptation. It was his high 
 destiny to be God-like in knowledge and in the deliberate 
 choice of good, that is, of all which is most consistent 
 with his God-like nature. 
 
 There is no difficulty in distinguishing between negative 
 and positive goodness, because precisely the same moral 
 process which went on in the case of Adam and Eve goes 
 on now in all their children, especially when they come 
 into the world under favourable circumstances and in the 
 midst of virtuous surroundings. 
 
 How delightful it is to contemplate the guileless inno- 
 cence, the delicate conscience, the keen moral eyesight 
 of a well-disposed child. Yet how sad to feel that all this 
 is mere negative and untried goodness, and that a few 
 days or weeks of contact with evil companions may be 
 enough to change it all. 
 
 Then comes the struggle for victory, the battle for life 
 or death, the attainment of positive virtue, or the settling 
 down into moral darkness, irretrievable ruin, and hopeless 
 slavery to the lower nature and to the spiritual enemy of 
 the soul. 
 
THE MORAL STRUGGLE FOR LIFE. 57 
 
 Now we cannot believe that man was meant to be kept 
 long in this first moral state of negative goodness. It was 
 his destiny to be made like God by becoming acquainted 
 with good and evil and by deliberately choosing the good. 
 
 The origin of evil is profoundly mysterious, but we 
 know enough about it to feel certain that its immediate 
 cause is the abuse of moral freedom ; and we may there- 
 fore feel also tolerably certain that every intelligent being 
 in the universe who has reached a state in which he can 
 enjoy moral freedom with safety has passed through some 
 sufficient moral trial, and so learned to deliberately choose 
 good instead of evil. 
 
 This does not involve any necessity of a fall from virtue. 
 We do not know who first introduced evil into the moral 
 universe or why God permitted it, but we know only too 
 well that it exists, and we can see some of its uses. 
 
 So far as this world of ours is concerned, and we need 
 not trouble ourselves about any other, we can see one of the 
 great uses of evil. It makes this world a place of moral 
 training, a battle-field of virtue, where by the aid of God we 
 may reach positive goodness by overcoming evil. 
 
 Now, although our surroundings and inherited moral 
 weakness involve the necessity of many defeats before final 
 victory is reached, there cannot be any necessity that this 
 should be the case with all moral beings. 
 
 No sufficient reason, therefore, can be imagined why 
 Adam and Eve should not have resisted the temptation to 
 break this law of God. "Of the tree of the knowledge 
 of good and evil thou shalt not eat of it; for in the day 
 that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die" (Gen. 
 ii. 17). 
 
 How long they would have remained in this state if they 
 had resisted temptation, or to what further temptations, if 
 any, they would have been exposed as their knowledge and 
 
58 THE TEMPTER OF MAN. 
 
 moml strength advanced, or by what means God would 
 have eventually given them, still unfallen, that knowledge 
 of good and evil which must have been in some way 
 acquired even by the angels of heaven, we cannot possibly 
 tell. 
 
 But one thing is quite clear, that their sin consisted in the 
 endeavour, through want of faith and patience, to shorten 
 the period of their moral training. They could not wait 
 God's time. They wanted to reach the goal by a short but 
 forbidden path. They could not understand God's plan, 
 and chafed under His discipline. The immediate incentives 
 to their crime were sensual desire, pride, and ambition, and 
 the suggestion to commit it came into their minds from 
 without. 
 
 And this brings us to the part which is attributed to the 
 serpent in our narrative. 
 
 We may regard it as a matter of perfect indifference 
 whether this was a real serpent, or the Evil Spirit in the 
 form of a serpent, or merely an allegorical symbol used by 
 the writer for the spirit of evil, as in the allegory of the 
 Apocalypse. 
 
 The great truth which the narrative teaches is this, that 
 the temptation came from without before it began within : 
 that the sensual desire, the pride, and the ambition of Eve 
 were kindled by the permitted suggestion of the Evil Spirit, 
 and those of Adam by the persuasion of Eve. 
 
 It is the fashion in these days to deny the existence of 
 a personal Evil Spirit, the tempter of man ; and there is 
 good reason to believe that the denial by men of his own 
 existence is a fresh evidence of his great power to deceive 
 the human mind. As it has been quaintly observed, the 
 Devil, having failed to mislead men to their ruin in other 
 ways, is at last " shamming dead ; " and it is consistent with 
 this that he has reproduced in these days, and dressed up 
 
WHAT WAS THE SERPENT? 59 
 
 in a more modern form, the old original falsehood, "Ye 
 shall not surely die." 
 
 But whatever may be the difficulties of believing that 
 God would allow the existence of evil spirits, and still more 
 that He should permit them to suggest evil to the mind of 
 man and have power to deceive him, nothing can be more 
 plainly revealed in Holy Scripture ; and, like the existence 
 of God, it is rather taken for granted than proved. 
 
 Moses does not begin the Bible by saying that there is 
 a God, or by proving His existence, but assuming it at 
 once, he says, " In the beginning God created the heaven 
 and the earth." And so, assuming the existence of the 
 Evil Spirit, he speaks of him as suggesting the first sin to 
 the mind of Eve. 
 
 For it is certain that he cannot mean that the serpent, 
 simply as a serpent, was man's tempter. If it is literally 
 true that the serpent did speak to Eve with human voice, 
 a miracle must have been permitted for a great moral pur- 
 pose. If otherwise, then we must consider that the writer 
 teaches us in this symbolical language how the Devil sug- 
 gested to Eve the arguments which induced her to trans- 
 gress the law, and how she attempted to excuse herself 
 afterwards by attributing her sin to those suggestions. 
 
 But in whatever way we look at it, the account of the 
 temptation is most true to Nature, and most instructive. 
 
 We need not suppose that the forbidden tree was literally 
 called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, in the 
 first instance. And so, when Eve speaks of it in the third 
 chapter, she calls it simply " the tree which is in the midst 
 of the garden." 
 
 The suggestion of the Evil Spirit that the eating its fruit 
 would give knowledge is the cause of its mysterious name. 
 
 The temptation begins by a question suggesting hard 
 thoughts of God and exaggerating the stringency of His 
 
6o HIS SUBTLE QUESTION. 
 
 law. "Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree 
 of the garden?" "Is it really true that God hath sur- 
 rounded you with all these delicious fruits and forbidden 
 you to eat of them?" 
 
 This was not true ; and the suggester of the question 
 knew it was a lie. He knew that God had given man all 
 His creatures richly to enjoy. " Of every tree of the garden 
 thou mayest freely eat." 
 
 But although it was a lie, although Eve also knew it was 
 a lie, it had its intended effect upon her mind. She hastens 
 to contradict the slanderous suggestion with indignation. 
 Yet it has done its work. It has brought powerfully before 
 her imagination the one prohibition. "True, God has 
 allowed me .all these enjoyments, but why is that myste- 
 rious one forbidden ? " 
 
 This feeling shows itself in her answer, for she exagge- 
 rates the law herself; she adds to the command that which 
 God had not added, " Neither shall ye touch it, lest 
 ye die." She evidently had felt Satan's taunt. " What a 
 miserable state of ignorance you are placed in here ! Why 
 should God forbid you anything which can add to your 
 knowledge or enjoyment of life ? " " We may eat of the 
 fruit of the garden," she answers. "You are wrong there; 
 we are not treated so unreasonably as you suppose; but," 
 she continues, " of the fruit of the tree which is in the 
 midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, 
 neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die." 
 
 The tempter is encouraged by the evident effect of his 
 first suggestion, and proceeds at once to give God the lie, 
 and to suggest unworthy motives for His command. 
 
 " The threatened punishment is a mere scarecrow to 
 keep you in a state of ignorance and dependence. You 
 will not die, but become like a god." " Ye shall not surely 
 die ; for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, 
 
MAN SINNED THOUGH NOT DECEIVED. 6i 
 
 then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, 
 knowing good and evil." 
 
 Sensuality, pride, and ambition have been set to work 
 unchecked ; the actual sin necessarily and speedily follows. 
 " When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, 
 and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be 
 desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, 
 and did eat, and gave also to her husband with her, and 
 he did eat. And the eyes of them both were opened, and 
 they knew that they were naked " (iii. 6). 
 
 We are not told by what arguments Adam was persuaded, 
 neither is there in this simple narrative any description of 
 the painful scene which presented itself to the imagination 
 of the author of the " Paradise Lost ; " yet the words " gave 
 also to her husband with her, and he did eat," seem to 
 justify his touching lines : — 
 
 '* She gave him of that fair enticing fruit 
 With liberal hand : he scrupled not to eat, 
 Against his better knowledge : not deceived, 
 But fondly overcome by female charm. " 
 
 — Paradise Lost, ix. 996. 
 
 And his sin is in our narrative distinctly attributed to the 
 persuasion of Eve : " Because thou hast hearkened unto 
 the voice of thy wife " (iii. 17). Such, too, is the judgment 
 of St. Paul: "Adam was first formed, then Eve. And 
 Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived, 
 was in the transgression" (i Tim. ii. 14). 
 
 Thus the reins were given to sensual appetite, intellectual 
 pride, and worldly ambition. A terrible sense of nakedness, 
 shame, remorse, and terror were the natural and necessary 
 result. But there is little willingness to bear the blame or 
 to acknowledge themselves without excuse. '• The serpent 
 beguiled me, and I did eat." " The woman, whom Thou 
 gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did 
 
62 TEMPTATION NOT THE CAUSE OF SIN. 
 
 eat." The sin which could not possibly have been com- 
 mitted without the free consent of the human will is thrown 
 back upon the woman who persuaded, the Evil Spirit who 
 deceived, and finally upon God Himself, Who gave the 
 woman and permitted the temptation. 
 
 Temptation is not the cause of sin, but is absolutely 
 necessary for the training of all endowed with the priceless 
 gift of moral freedom. 
 
 There was no real reason why Adam should have fallen, 
 even when Eve allowed herself to be deceived. The true 
 state of the case is well summed up in the inspired words 
 of the Apostle : " Blessed is the man that endureth temp- 
 tation ; for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of 
 life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love Him. 
 Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God ; 
 for God cannot be tempted of evil, neither tempteth He any 
 man ; but every man is tempted when he is drawn away 
 of his own lust and enticed. Then when lust hath con- 
 ceived, it bringeth forth sin, and sin, when it is finished, 
 bringeth forth death " (St. James i. 12-15). 
 
 Neither is there a word in the Bible to lead us to believe 
 that if Adam and Eve had not fallen their children would 
 not have done so. The existence of sin in the world is 
 a fact which we know without the Bible. We know that 
 every human being is so morally weak that he begins to 
 sin as soon as he is old enough to know the difference 
 between good and evil. The Bible tells us that we inherit 
 this moral weakness as the natural consequence of the 
 wilful sin of our first parents, and of all who iiave been 
 naturally born from them. Our own personal guilt begins 
 when our own will consents to sin. 
 
 The expulsion from Paradise and the loss of the pledge 
 of immortality follow, but not without the promise of final 
 victory over him whose deception has caused this moral 
 
THE CHAMPION OF MAN. 63 
 
 ruin. Woman is to suffer ; man is to labour ; but One 
 born of woman is to destroy the power of the tempte/ by 
 suffering. A Champion is to come in God's time, to crush 
 with bleeding heel the serpent's head. 
 
 Whether the rest of the narrative is allegorical or not, 
 there is clearly allegory here, as clearly as in that strange 
 scene which presented itself before the entranced eyes of 
 the prophet in Patmos, when he saw under the image of a 
 war in heaven the struggle of Christ with Satan for the 
 salvation of His brethren, and heard, when it was over, 
 "A loud voice saying in heaven. Now is come salvation 
 and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power 
 of His Christ ; for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, 
 which accused them before our God day and night. And 
 they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the 
 word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives 
 unto death" (Rev. xii. 7-11). 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE EXPULSION FROM EDEN. 
 
 The immediate punishment of the sin of Adam and Eve 
 was their expulsion from Paradise, with all which that 
 implied. The lot of woman was to be a hard one ; her 
 travail pains were to be increased, her subjection to her 
 husband to be more complete ; though, as a compensation, 
 she was to be the mother of the Future Deliverer. 
 
 Man was no longer to find himself provided with all he 
 needed by the bounty of Nature, but he was to be driven 
 into a less hospitable region and left to his own resources. 
 
 And now let us try to realise the utter helplessness of 
 the banished ones. 
 
 They have fled in terror far from their early home, and 
 they find themselves unprotected in the midst of dangers 
 and difficulties hitherto unexperienced. 
 
 Under such circumstances it seems scarcely possible that 
 they could have escaped destruction from famine and 
 exposure, or from the attacks of fierce wild beasts, wathout 
 the aid of Divine Providence. 
 
 No doubt the part of the world they w^ere in, though not 
 like Paradise, was one in w^hich it was possible for them 
 to exist more easily than in many others into which their 
 descendants were afterwards driven, when the population 
 of the earth increased. 
 
 They had a warm climate and a fertile soil yielding food 
 
 64 
 
MAN ALONE HAS TO LABOUR. 65 
 
 in return for very little and very rude cultivation ; and there 
 must have been many natural productions on which a single 
 pair might manage to support life, at any rate for a time, 
 and until stern necessity had taught them how to improve 
 these productions by the labours of their hands. 
 
 But for some years, at least, they must have had to 
 endure the most fearful hardships and to suffer severe 
 privations. The narrative gives us no exaggerated account 
 of their miseries. "Cursed is the ground for thy sake; in 
 sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life ; thorns 
 also and thistles shall it bring forth unto thee, ... in the 
 sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat bread" (iii. 17). 
 
 No change has passed over the earth itself. It still yields, 
 uncultivated, an abundant supply of food for every other 
 animal except man. "These all wait upon Thee, that Thou 
 mayest give them their meat in due season. That Thou 
 givest them they gather : Thou openest Thine hand ; they 
 are filled with good" (Ps. civ. 27, 28). These "toil not, 
 neither do they spin ; " it is man alone, of the inhabitants 
 of the earth, the head and ruler of all, he alone it is who 
 day by day " goeth forth unto his work and to his labour 
 until the evening." 
 
 We are apt to forget this significant fact that Nature 
 refuses to man alone the fruits of the earth which he needs 
 without labour. The very thorns and thistles which give 
 him so much trouble supply food in abundance for the 
 fowls of the air. 
 
 Why should he, the lord of all, be doomed to this inces- 
 sant round of labour ? And still further, why is it that no 
 progress in that which is commonly called civilisation should 
 bring him very much relief? Why, on the contrary, should 
 material advancement be so often attended, except in the 
 case of a few favoured ones, by increasing severity of toil 
 and more intense human suffering? 
 
 E 
 
66 ADAM AND EVE HELPLESS, 
 
 The answer is obvious. Toil and suffering are the natural 
 consequences, and so the ordained punishments of sin — a 
 fact which is proved by the universal experience of man- 
 kind : for where sin most abounds, there toil and suffering 
 are most abundant also ; where communities are less selfish 
 and more God-fearing, there there is less poverty and less 
 anxious toil. " I have been young, and now am old, and 
 yet saw I never the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging 
 their bread" (Ps. xxxvii. 25). 
 
 But to return to Adam and Eve; what more helpless 
 condition can the advocates of the savage-theory of man's 
 origin demand ? Who can conceive a state of more abject 
 misery than that of our first parents in their place of banish- 
 ment? All sorts of fanciful traditions exist about them; 
 but let us confine ourselves to the actual statements of 
 Scripture and the facts which may naturally be inferred 
 from them. 
 
 They want food, clothing, shelter, and protection possibly 
 from the attacks of wild beasts. The latter danger we need 
 not consider perhaps at present. Providence may have 
 guided them to a part of the country not infested by wild 
 beasts of a formidable kind, or these animals may have 
 been so well provided with prey as not to be driven by 
 hunger to attack the defenceless pair ; but food and cloth- 
 ing they must have and some kind of shelter. 
 
 What knowledge had they of the means of obtaining 
 these ? Their experience in Paradise may have given them 
 some elementary notions about the cultivation of the natural 
 productions of the soil ; reason and awakened shame had 
 suggested to them the use of leaves for clothing ; and either 
 the actual teaching of the Angel of the Lord or natural 
 intuition had enabled them to substitute for these the skins 
 of animals. 
 
 We have a right to insist upon these facts when men 
 
BUT NOT LIKE SAVAGES. 67 
 
 come forward with theories about the origin and early con- 
 dition of man which they conceive to be inconsistent with 
 the statements of Holy Scripture. We maintain that the 
 statements of Scripture imply a more helpless condition of 
 the first man and woman than can well be imagined — help- 
 less, that is to say, as regards the knowledge of the arts or of 
 the rudest beginnings of civilisation. Their clothing is the 
 skin of animals ; their food, whatever they can find upon 
 the trees or on the ground ; their shelter, the nearest cave 
 or the branches of the trees. And since their banishment 
 from Paradise was a punishment for a base and ungrateful 
 act of disobedience, we have no reason to suppose that 
 God would give them any assistance by teaching them how 
 to supply their natural wants, but would leave them to the 
 unassisted guidance of their natural reason. 
 
 As regards the supply of their natural wants, therefore, 
 and all the mechanical arts, Adam and Eve must have been 
 more helpless than the most degraded savage that can be 
 found in the forests of Australia or amid the icebergs of the 
 Arctic Ocean. At least we have no right to infer otherwise 
 from anything which is stated in Scripture. 
 
 But in no other respect were they in the smallest degree 
 like savages. That which we commonly understand by the 
 savage state, that state of utter barbarism in which we find 
 some races of men in remote and inhospitable regions even 
 in these days, is not in the slightest degree like that of the 
 Adam and Eve of Genesis. In many respects such savages 
 are far better off than Adam and Eve could have been 
 at first. They know much better how to provide them- 
 selves with food, clothing, and shelter, and how to defend 
 themselves against the wild beasts. 
 
 Put a highly educated man and woman of the upper 
 classes of society in the backwoods of America with nothing 
 but the clothes on their backs. What would become of 
 
6S MORE HELPLESS THAN SAVAGES, 
 
 them? They would soon die of hunger and cold unless 
 some Red Indian should come across them and supply them 
 with food and shelter. 
 
 The Red Indian is at home in the forest, and his wig- 
 wam is well supplied with all he needs; but in intellect, 
 religion, and morals he will contrast unfavourably with the 
 refined and educated pair. 
 
 It is recorded of three great poets, that when they had 
 finished a picnic and wished to reharness their horse, neither 
 of them could imagine how the collar could be put over the 
 horse's head until they had taken counsel with a ploughman 
 in a neighbouring field. 
 
 There is, in fact, no necessary connection between the 
 intellectual, moral, and religious condition of a man and 
 ins knowledge of the mechanical arts. He may be a 
 profound philosopher, and yet be utterly incapable of 
 cultivating his garden, making himself a coat, or perform- 
 ing any manual labour. And, on the other hand, he may 
 be almost as ignorant and more brutalised than the oxen 
 before his plough, and yet his furrows may be straight and 
 deep, and he may be able to turn his hand to almost any 
 useful work upon his master's farm. 
 
 It is of very great importance to bear in mind this clear 
 distinction between a man's moral condition and his know- 
 ledge of the mechanical arts, because it enables us to under- 
 stand better the real position of Adam and Eve just banished 
 from Eden. 
 
 Contrasted with the savage — 
 
 "A creature squalid, vengeful, and impure, 
 Remorseless, and submissive to no law 
 But superstitious fear and abject sloth" 
 
 ( Wot'dsworih' s Excursion, Book iii. ) 
 
 Adam and Eve were as light is to darkness. 
 
 A terrible change had indeed passed over them. In 
 
BUT MORALLY SUPERIOR. 69 
 
 their hearts guilty fear and shame had taken the place 
 of guileless innocence and a confiding love of their Maker. 
 They had fallen, and were certain, if not in themselves, at 
 least in their descendants, to experience many a deeper 
 and more degrading fall. 
 
 In morals more than in the arts of civilisation man falls 
 rapidly and rises slowly ; and, as a general rule, when he 
 has reached a certain stage of moral degradation, rarely 
 rises at all without external aid. 
 
 Adam and Eve, then, were immeasurably superior to 
 the modern savage as regards their moral condition and 
 religious knowledge. 
 
 Children, who have left a home of purity and love and 
 fallen into sinful ways, never, even during a long life of 
 infamy, forget wholly the lessons of their childhood. And 
 so must it have been with our first parents. In all their 
 misery and helplessness they still knew that He Who made 
 them was holy, wise, and merciful, and that, though they 
 had been driven from His presence and condemned to 
 labour, suffering, and death, a Future Deliverer was pro- 
 mised to destroy their enemy and open to them again the 
 way of the tree of life. 
 
 And here it is of some importance to consider what the 
 sacred writer means by the cherubim, the flaming sword, 
 and the guarding of the way of the tree of life. 
 
 It matters comparatively little whether we are reading an 
 allegory or a literal narrative. In either case the teaching 
 will be the same, and in either case we shall have to inquire 
 what God's object was in guarding the way of the tree of life. 
 Was it to prevent man by terror from re-entering the 
 garden? or was it to preserve the way for his return at 
 some future time; to keep alive the hope of a recovery 
 from his fall, and of an end to his period of banishment ? 
 
 That this latter was the object has been suggested by 
 
70 THE CHERUBIM GUARDING 
 
 MacWhorter in a little book which deserves to be better 
 known;* and such an interpretation of the passage is 
 suitable to the prediction of future deliverance which 
 immediately followed the fall of man. 
 
 And yet, when we read the passage in connection with its 
 context, we can scarcely help inferring that the intention 
 was to keep man out of the garden. He is driven out 
 lest he should eat of the tree, and the way to reach it 
 is guarded. 
 
 But surely there was a double object in this. The way 
 of the tree of life was to be blocked, and yet the knowledge 
 of it was to be preserved. And so it was to be guarded by 
 the cherubim until "To him that overcometh it should 
 be given to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst 
 of the Paradise of God" (Rev. ii. 7). 
 
 But what were these cherubim ? and what was this flame 
 of a sword revolving ? 
 
 It is certain that the sacred writer did not mean angels, 
 and it is not probable that he meant a sword. 
 
 Here, as in many other cases, the imaginations of poets 
 and painters have misled us. The figure of a mighty angel 
 with a drawn sword driving before him the guilty pair, or 
 standing at the entrance of the garden brandishing his 
 flashing weapon, may make a fine picture, but it is not the 
 picture drawn by Moses. He does not mention angels 
 at all, but says that God set up cherubim. Angels are 
 frequently mentioned in Holy Scripture, but are always 
 represented as appearing in human form. Indeed, they are 
 often called men. The Jehovah-Angel is no exception. 
 To Joshua He appears as a man with a drawn sword in 
 His hand. It is a comparatively modern misconception to 
 
 *" Yahveh Christ ; or, The Memorial Name." ((iould & Lincoln, 
 Boston. London, 1857.) 
 
THE WAY OF THE TREE OF LIFE. 71 
 
 identify cherubim with angels. Cherubim are described 
 as composite symbolical figures, representing apparently the 
 attributes of Deity, and seen in the visions of later prophets 
 as the bearers of the throne of God. But in the Pentateuch 
 they are only mentioned here and as being placed in the 
 tabernacle, overshadowing the mercy-seat with their wings. 
 Between them Jehovah was said to dwell, because it was 
 here in the holy of holies that He revealed His presence 
 by a miraculous light. 
 
 And then, what is the flame of a sword turning itself but 
 a common Hebraism for a sword-like flame revolving ? 
 
 And have we not then, in these composite figures and 
 mysterious fire, whether literally set up as symbols of 
 Jehovah's presence, or forming part of an allegorical picture, 
 the types and models of the cherubim and shechinah of 
 the tabernacle, guarding by their awe-inspiring presence the 
 way into the holiest, from which all but the atoning high 
 priest were to be excluded, until that cry was uttered at 
 which the veil of the temple was rent in twain and the 
 kingdom of heaven was thrown open to all believers. 
 
 At any rate it is evident that though man was banished 
 from Eden, a hope of final victory over evil, and so of 
 access to the tree of life, was held out to him from the 
 very beginning. 
 
 It is impossible to estimate too highly the moral value 
 of this hope, and the interval which this knowledge places 
 between the most skilful savage and our first parents just 
 banished from Paradise. 
 
 But here their superiority to the savage ceases; in all 
 other respects, except perhaps in the climate and natural 
 productions of the country, they were very much more 
 helpless. 
 
 The Scriptural starting-point, then, of human civilisation, 
 that is to say, of the progress of man in the arts, sciences, 
 
72 ORIGINAL CONDITION OF MEN. 
 
 and material comforts of life, is the lowest which has ever 
 been thought possible by those who have speculated upon 
 the original condition of the human race when man made 
 his first appearance upon the earth. 
 
 Interpreters of Scripture have indeed given a very diffe- 
 rent account of the matter ; but we have a right to reject 
 every interpretation which is inconsistent with well-authen- 
 ticated facts, and which is not expressed or implied in the 
 actual words of the sacred writer. 
 
 Adam and Eve may have been instructed, as some sup- 
 pose, by the Angel of the Lord in some of the simple arts 
 of a rude civilisation, but there is no statement of this 
 kind in Holy Scripture; and when men question the 
 truthfulness of Scripture, it becomes necessary to point out 
 to them what Scripture records. There is no great harm 
 in drawing imaginary pictures of the condition of our 
 first parents ; but it is much safer in these days to try 
 to bring before our minds what the Bible really tells us 
 about them. 
 
 Now all that we are told is this, that shame suggested to 
 them some kind of clothing ; that they first made for them- 
 selves girdles of leaves ; and that God, before expelling 
 them from Paradise, clothed them in the skins of animals. 
 Or, as rendered in the Jews' family Bible, made "inner gar- 
 ments for the skin, and clothed them." Not one word 
 more is told us of any further instruction in the arts and 
 appliances of life. On the contrary, the stern sentence, 
 " In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread," seems to 
 imply that natural reason and dire necessity were for the 
 future to be man's only teachers of these things. 
 
 But however helpless his condition, however hard his 
 lot, he still knew his Maker ; he still had some intercourse 
 with Him ; the Angel of the Lord from time to time, as in 
 after ages, manifested Himself to him. His religion was as 
 
THEIR KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 73 
 
 yet pure and unadulterated by human fancy. It consisted 
 in the knowledge of One Who was good and powerful, and 
 immeasurably superior to himself; from Whom he derived 
 his being, to Whom he owed obedience, and to Whom he 
 might look and pray for guidance and help in all the trials 
 and sorrows of his fallen state. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE HUMAN RACE BEFORE THE FLOOD. 
 
 What do we know of the human race, its rate of increase 
 or progress in civilisation, before the Flood ? Scarcely any- 
 thing. The Bible tells us very little about it ; two short 
 chapters contain all the information it gives us ; and there 
 are no other materials of any kind from which anything 
 approaching to a history could be formed. 
 
 We don't know what traditions, monuments, or records 
 may have been accessible to Moses, but we certainly have 
 none. Nor does he tell us that any supernatural revela- 
 tions were given him on the subject. 
 
 His truthfulness and inspiration are evidenced by what 
 he omits as well as by what he records. He probably had 
 before him during his Egyptian education a vast number 
 of fables and fanciful speculations of the Egyptian priests. 
 What, we may ask, except the Spirit of God could have 
 enabled him to reject all fables, and to give us a view of 
 man and God, and the relation between them, so far accept- 
 able even to the advanced philosophy and critical judgment 
 of the nineteenth century as to lead some to suspect that 
 the Book of Genesis must have been the production of a 
 later and more advanced age than that of Moses ? 
 
 We must not forget here the difference we have before 
 pointed out between revelation and inspiration. 
 
 Much knowledge, which he could not have acquired in 
 
THE RAPID INCREASE OF MANKIND. 75 
 
 any other way, was, doubtless, supernaturally communicated 
 to Moses — was, in fact, revealed to him. 
 
 Much, also, he obtained by his education in all the learn- 
 ing of the most enlightened people of that age ; and then 
 in the use of this knowledge, whether naturally or super- 
 naturally acquired, he was guided by the Spirit of God. 
 
 It will help us to form a just conception of these early 
 chapters if we bear in mind how much Moses entirely 
 omits, which we must supply by conjecture, formed as well 
 as we can from our present experience of human affairs. 
 
 Now he tells us nothing whatever about the rate of in- 
 crease or the amount of the population of the antediluvian 
 world. He mentions but few people by name, about five- 
 and-twenty men and three or four women. He says, indeed, 
 of Adam and of all his descendant?, that they "begat sons 
 and daughters ; " but he does not say how many. And 
 besides this statement of each patriarch that "he begat 
 sons and daughters," he also uses an expression which 
 implies that the rate of increase was very high ; he speaks 
 of men " multiplying upon the face of the earth " (Gen. 
 
 Vi. I). 
 
 Here then we must supply the omission as well as we 
 can from our present experience. 
 
 The human race, he tells us, starts from a single pair. 
 Yes ; but the number of human beings descended from a 
 single pair at the end of fifty or a hundred years must have 
 been very great. 
 
 The results of the geometrical ratio of increase are always 
 surprising, and at first, and until we work them out in 
 figures, appear to us quite incredible. " There is no excep- 
 tion," says Darwin, " to the rule that every organic being 
 naturally increases at so high a rate that, if not destroyed, 
 the earth would soon be covered by the progeny of a single 
 pair. Even slow-breeding man has doubled in twenty-five 
 
76 THE DESCENDANTS OF ONE PAIR. 
 
 years ; and at this rate, in a few thousand years, there would 
 hterally not be standing-room for his progeny." 
 
 " Linnaeus has calculated that if an annual plant produced 
 only two seeds — and there is no plant nearly so unproduc- 
 tive as this — and their seedlings next year produced two, 
 and so on ; then in twenty years there would be a million 
 plants. The elephant is the slowest breeder of all known 
 animals, and I have taken some pains to estimate its pro- 
 bable minimum rate of natural increase. It will be safest 
 to assume that it begins breeding when thirty years old, 
 and goes on breeding till ninety years old, bringing forth 
 three pairs of young in this interval ; if this be so, at the 
 end of the fifth century there would be alive fifteen million 
 elephants descended from a single pair " (Darwin's " Origin 
 of Species," p. 75). 
 
 But Adam and Eve began having children as soon as 
 they were expelled from Paradise ; and as we are told that 
 Adam begat sons and daughters, it is reasonable to suppose 
 that they had a much larger family than most married 
 couples in these days. It is scarcely to be imagined that 
 Eve, the mother of all living, had fewer children than many 
 an Englishwoman in the nineteenth century. 
 
 Let us suppose her to have given birth to twenty children, 
 ten sons and ten daughters. These would certainly begin 
 having children at fourteen years old, and probably before. 
 
 There are many reasons for believing that polygamy did 
 not prevail in the earliest ages. " It was not so from the 
 beginning," says our Lord. And Moses seems to mention 
 the taking of two wives as an innovation introduced by one 
 of the descendants of Cain (Gen. iv. 19). 
 
 But without the practice of polygamy, and even without 
 taking into consideration many second marriages or births 
 of twins, the population at the end of the first century must 
 have been considerable. Certainly not less than two thou- 
 
PRIVATE VENGEANCE FORBIDDEN. 77 
 
 sand ; probably very much more. Any one who will take 
 the trouble to make a calculation similar to that which 
 Darwin made about the breeding of elephants will doubtless 
 be greatly astonished at the result. 
 
 Here, then, we have an answer to the foolish question of 
 the ignorant objector, "Who was Cain's wife?" And it 
 must be only an ignorant or very inattentive reader who 
 can see any difficulty whatever in Cain's expression, " It 
 shall come to pass that whosoever findeth me shall slay 
 me." Doubtless he had good reason to fear the vengeance 
 of the children or friends of Abel, of whom there must have 
 been a considerable number. 
 
 The difficulty also which the English reader may some- 
 times find in the expression, " The Lord set a mark upon 
 Cain, lest any finding him should kill him," is entirely 
 removed by the more correct rendering of the Revised 
 Version, " The Lord appointed a sign for Cain, lest any 
 finding him should smite him." The sign was not any 
 mark upon Cain's body, but something which gave notice 
 and made public for his protection the Lord's proclamation 
 concerning him, "Whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall 
 be taken on him sevenfold." 
 
 It is easy to see why this treatment of Cain should be 
 recorded when so many other things are omitted. It con- 
 demns from the first that which is so natural to the corrupt 
 heart of man, which is so subversive of justice and so 
 interminable in its evil results — the gratification of private 
 revenge, that system of blood-feuds so prevalent in the days 
 of Moses, and so carefully provided against by his laws. 
 Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, blood for blood was to be the 
 principle by w'nich the sentence of the lawful judge was to 
 be given — not the rule of private vengeance, as the Jews mis- 
 understood the precept in our Saviour's time, a mistake wiiich 
 He corrects in the Sermon on the Mount (St. Matt. v. 38). 
 
78 MAN'S PROGRESS IN CIVILISATION. 
 
 And this condemnation of private vengeance is confirmed 
 afterwards in the case of Lamech, the descendant of the 
 murderer Cain. He killed a man in self-defence, and 
 therefore claimed the right of protection from the avenger 
 of blood on stronger grounds than those before laid down 
 in the case of his forefather. His words are thus rendered 
 in the Revised Version : " I have slain a man for wounding 
 me, and a young man for bruising me; if Cain shall be 
 avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy and seven fold " 
 (Gen. iv. 2^). 
 
 So far, then, we must supply what Moses omits to tell us 
 about the rapid increase of the human family. 
 
 Does he give us any information about man's progress 
 in civilisation, that is to say, in the division of labour, the 
 organisation of society, the building of cities, the discovery 
 of useful arts, and moral and religious institutions ? 
 
 Here again we may be sure that he had before him in 
 Egypt many strange and mythical traditions of the origin 
 of human society and customs, and of the invention of the 
 mechanical arts. What but the truth-loving Spirit of God 
 could have guided him through this labyrinth of fable? 
 We find none of those myths in his simple and intelligible 
 record of the progress of primeval man. Reading of those 
 men who lived before the Flood, we seem to be walking, 
 as it were, among our own near relations and friends, men 
 of the same form and stature, and of like passions with 
 ourselves. And then just those things are mentioned, 
 and no others, which form the very elements of human 
 society. 
 
 Thus we have very early mention of that division of labour 
 which so immensely increases the power of man. "Abel 
 was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground " 
 (Gen. iv. 2). People commonly read these words over 
 and over again without stopping to consider what amazing 
 
THE DIVISION OF LABOUR. 79 
 
 progress in civilisation they imply. What a leap the narra- 
 tive has made from the wretchedness and helpless misery 
 of the guilty pair just driven in terror from the home of 
 peace, innocence, and plenty ! 
 
 We last saw them shivering in conscious nakedness, with 
 scarcely sufficient knowledge to make themselves the rudest 
 clothing or to provide themselves with the means of bare 
 subsistence — in such a helpless state, in fact, that we can 
 scarcely see how they could have survived without some 
 Divine help and guidance. The narrative implies that 
 they received some such help, and that God still had some 
 intercourse with the being whom He had made in His own 
 image. 
 
 What a very different state of things is implied by these 
 simple words, "Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was 
 a tiller of the ground." Years of sorrow and suffering are 
 wholly passed over. There is not a word of the early and 
 heart-breaking struggles of the guilty pair; no hint of the 
 annual birth and anxious tending of their new-born infants ; 
 of the training of their childhood, the growth of their bodies, 
 the development of their characters, their early marriages, 
 their rapid increase. We are not told how stern necessity 
 became the mother of invention, but we pass at a bound to 
 a description of a state of things existing after an interval 
 of perhaps a hundred years. 
 
 Then we have flocks and herds, and a good and faithful 
 shepherd watching over them, doubtless with many helpers 
 under him ; and we have cornfields, orchards, and vine- 
 yards the possessions of Cain. 
 
 We shall have to consider by and by the long lives 
 attributed to the patriarchs, which Moses must have 
 recorded, not in words, but by means of letters used as 
 numerals, and which, subsequently written out in words, 
 may have been much exaggerated. But after making 
 
8o ORGANISATION OF SOCIETY. 
 
 ample allowance for such probable exaggeration, it is 
 quite reasonable to suppose that the average length of 
 human life must have been very great when as yet the con- 
 stitutions of men were not sapped by disease, or weakened 
 by an artificial mode of living. 
 
 Adam is said to have been a hundred and thirty years 
 old when Seth was given to him in room of the murdered 
 Abel. And even if we divide this number by two, we shall 
 be well on in the first century, when Cain and Abel had 
 become, the one a keeper of sheep, and the other a tiller of 
 the ground. 
 
 Then we have early mention of another very natural 
 cause of separation among men, resulting in great measure 
 from the important principle of the division of labour, and 
 tending to the better organisation of human society. We 
 read of the dwellers in towns, and the dwellers in the more 
 open country ; the settled inhabitants of cities or villages, 
 and the nomadic tribes. 
 
 The first builder of a regular town or village is mentioned, 
 and the first nomad. And it is somewhat remarkable, and 
 no slight evidence of the truthfulness of Moses, that the 
 more advanced steps in the march of civilisation are 
 assigned to the descendants of the accursed Cain rather 
 than to those of the more highly-favoured Seth. 
 
 Not only does Cain, the tiller of the ground, become the 
 builder of the first town or village, but it is Jabal, one of 
 his descendants, who becomes "the father of such as dwell 
 in tents and have cattle ; " an expression which does not 
 imply that only his children were nomads, but that he was 
 the first to institute and make a regular custom of that 
 manner of life. So it is Jubal, another of Cain's descen- 
 dants, who becomes the inventor of music and musical 
 instruments — implying not only great material progress, 
 but also a considerable advance in the pleasures and 
 
THE ELEMENTS OF PRIMEVAL WORSHIP. 
 
 refinements of human life. A still greater advance in 
 mechanical skill is attributed to another of his children, 
 who discovers the use of the metals, and teaches men to 
 make tools and weapons far better than those of stone or 
 wood. " Zillah, she also bare Tubal-Cain, the forger of every 
 cutting instrument of brass and iron" (Gen. iv. 17-23). 
 
 These scanty notices tell us all we can know for certain 
 about the condition and progress of man before the Flood. 
 But the description afterwards given of the building of the 
 Ark proves that his knowledge of the mechanical arts must 
 have been very great, for many and skilful hands must have 
 been employed by Noah in the construction of that huge 
 vessel, alike in its proportions and equal in size to many of 
 our modern ships. 
 
 The fourth chapter closes with an account of the birth of 
 Seth in place of the murdered Abel, who seems specially 
 mentioned as one of the ancestors of Noah and Abraham. 
 
 Judging from the very brief notices given in these 
 chapters of the primeval religion of mankind, we may 
 infer that it consisted of two parts — the offering of first- 
 fruits and sacrifices, and some forms of prayer and public 
 worship. 
 
 We are not told whether this religion was the natural 
 product of men's own minds or divinely commanded, but 
 the latter seems most probable. 
 
 The offering of first-fruits may seem natural enough, but 
 when we consider the extraordinary character of sacrifice, 
 the killing of an animal upon the altar of God, we can 
 scarcely help believing that men must have been com- 
 manded to do this as a type from the very first of the death 
 of Him Who was to come, "The Lamb of God, which 
 taketh way the sin of the world." 
 
 It does not, however, follow from this that Cain's offer- 
 ing was rejected because it was not an animal. This may 
 
82 CAIN REJECTED BECAUSE WICKED. 
 
 have been the case, but there is not a word in the narrative 
 to lead us to think so. It is far more probable that Cain 
 was rejected because he came with an offering to One Who 
 reads the heart, and Who afterwards said to Israel by the 
 prophet, " I will not reprove thee because of thy sacrifices, 
 or for thy burnt-offerings, because they were not always 
 before Me. . . . Thinkest thou that I will eat bull's flesh or 
 drink the blood of goats ? Offer unto God thanksgiving, 
 and pay thy vows unto the Most Highest. And call upon 
 Me in the time of trouble : so will I hear thee, and thou 
 shalt praise Me" (Ps. 1. 7-16). 
 
 His evil life rather than the nature of his offering seems 
 indeed to be the reason given for Cain's rejection. "The 
 Lord said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth? and why is thy 
 countenance fallen ? If thou doest well, shalt thou not be 
 accepted ? " (Gen. iv. 6, 7). 
 
 Such, then, is the extent of our knowledge of the human 
 race before the Flood. We are told everything which we 
 need to know, and nothing or next to nothing to satisfy 
 mere natural curiosity. 
 
 There may be no great harm in the speculations of some 
 theologians. Adam may have been created an Aristotle or 
 a Newton. This may have been so; but Moses is not 
 responsible for any such theory. And when his truthful- 
 ness is called in question, it is only fair to confine ourselves 
 strictly to what he says. 
 
 Although he emphasises man's creation and that of 
 woman, his companion ; attributes to him the god-like 
 qualities of intellect and a moral nature, and assigns to him 
 the work of replenishing the earth and subduing it, of filling 
 the world with his descendants, ruhng over the brute crea- 
 tion, and making them and the forces of Nature his servants ; 
 he nevertheless says plainly that his origin was exactly 
 the same as that of all other creatures. " The Lord God 
 
MORAL WEAKNESS INHERITED. 83 
 
 formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into 
 his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living 
 soul" (Gen. ii. 7). And this expression, "a living soul," 
 signifies in the Hebrew, as it has been explained above, 
 nothing more than that man became an animal, a living 
 creature, the very same expression being used of all the 
 other animals. 
 
 Such was man, and such the condition and progress of 
 the human race as described by Moses. What light does 
 the narrative throw upon the present condition of his de- 
 scendants ? 
 
 We have existing in the world, as a stubborn fact, moral 
 evil, an inability in every man born into the w^orld to keep 
 his lower nature in perfect subjection to his higher will, that 
 which the Bible calls sin. We observe that this moral 
 weakness is handed down from father to son, and has been 
 so from generation to generation, so that history records 
 only one Human Being Who was absolutely free from sin. 
 Modern research has also thoroughly established the fact 
 that not only physical diseases, but also evil moral ten- 
 dencies are inherited. What follows from this ? Clearly 
 that the first man endowed with intellect and moral free- 
 dom (whether he was the final result of an evolutionary 
 process, or was produced by a kind of incarnation of intel- 
 lect, or brought into existence, as seems most probable, by 
 an immediate act of creative energy *) was either a sinner 
 and the father of sinners, or one who, being made perfect, 
 failed in the trial which every free moral agent must of 
 necessity go through. 
 
 To this most important question Moses gives us no 
 doubtful answer. Whatever view we may take of the story 
 of Eden, its teaching cannot be mistaken. It points out 
 
 * See chap. xix. 
 
84 GUILT AND ACTUAL SIN. 
 
 in the clearest manner the nature of our moral trial, the 
 elements and origin of temptation, and the consequences of 
 sin to the sinner and his children. Moses does not tell 
 us ^Yhat would have happened if Adam had not sinned. 
 Nor does the Bible tell us or lead us to suppose that if 
 Adam had stood firm all his children would have done so. 
 Perhaps some would and some would not. 
 
 What Moses teaches is just that which we most require 
 to know, that, whatever might have happened if Adam had 
 not sinned, as a fact he did sin, and that all his children, 
 as a natural consequence of his fall, inherit, not indeed his 
 guilt, but moral weakness and inability perfectly to control 
 their lower nature. 
 
 This story of Eden, like the rest of the Bible, teaches us 
 to distinguish clearly between temptation and sin, and 
 shows in the plainest manner that guilt is incurred only 
 when the will consents to evil. 
 
 Thus original or birth sin is defined in our Ninth Article 
 to consist in " the fault and corruption of the nature of 
 every one naturally descended from Adam " (" vitium," 
 which means a defect, " et depravatio naturae "), and not, 
 as in the case of Adam, in the fall of one perfectly capable 
 of standing. 
 
 Adam fell when he had power to stand. Guilt and actual 
 sin commence in his children as soon as their will is suffi- 
 ciently developed to be capable of choice ; and, as inheritors 
 of a damaged moral nature, they cannot by their own 
 strength always refuse evil and choose good. 
 
 St. Paul, therefore, thus utters the despairing cry of the 
 natural man, similar to the Roman poet's description of 
 the struggle between a sense of duty and passion, " video 
 meliora proboque, deteriora sequor " — " I see and approve 
 the better things ; I follow after those which are worse." 
 " The good that I would I do not ; but the evil which I 
 
FREEDOM FROM THE LAW OF SIN. 85 
 
 would not, that I do. ... O wretched man that I am ! 
 who shall deliver me from this dead body ? I thank God 
 through Jesus Christ our Lord" (Rom. vii. 19, 24). He, 
 the Seed of the woman, but not *' naturally engendered of 
 the offspring of Adam," crushes with wounded heel the 
 serpent's head. " The law of the Spirit of life in Christ 
 Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death " 
 (Rom. viii. 2). 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE GENEALOGIES OF NOAH AND ABRAHAM. 
 
 We must now examine the third section of these eleven 
 introductory chapters of Genesis, which is called "The 
 book of the generations of Adam ; " and it will be con- 
 venient to consider at the same time the sixth section, 
 called " The generations of Shem." They both contain a 
 list of names and scr.rcely anything else. 
 
 In "The book of the generations of Adam" (Gen. v.), 
 the first thing which strikes us in reading it is this : that if 
 it stood alone, we should certainly infer from verses 3 and 4 
 that Seth was Adam's first-born son ; that he was begotten 
 when Adam was 130 years old, after which time Adam had 
 other sons and daughters born to him. 
 
 From this we may see how very careful we should be in 
 reading the Bible to remember the extreme brevity of the 
 narrative, and that Moses rarely mentions anything more 
 than that which is necessary for the object immediately 
 before him. 
 
 He had no occasion here to mention any name except 
 that of Seth, and therefore does not mention any. He 
 knew that this section did not stand alone, and therefore 
 that his readers could not possibly make the mistake of 
 thinking that Seth was Adam's first-born, or that he had not 
 had very many sons and daughters before him. 
 
 Then in the next place we naturally ask ourselves, is 
 
 86 
 
LETTERS USED AS NUMERALS. 87 
 
 it credible that these men hved nearly a thousand years ? 
 ^Vhich is the more probable, that men should have lived 
 nine hundred years, or that copyists should have uninten- 
 tionally exaggerated the number originally written by Moses 
 or handed down to him from his forefathers ? The latter 
 seems the more probable. 
 
 There are no figures in Hebrew, and although numbers 
 are given in words in all existing MSS. of the Bible, there 
 are many reasons for believing that they were originally 
 expressed by letters of the alphabet. 
 
 How easily, therefore, unintentional mistakes and exag- 
 gerations may have arisen. 
 
 And there are many passages of Scripture which prove 
 that letters must have been formerly used for numbers. 
 Thus we have in the Hebrew text of Gen. ii. 2, " And on 
 the sevejith day God ended His work which He had made : 
 and He rested on the seveiith day." Whereas the Sep- 
 tuagint has it thus : "And God ended on the sixth day His 
 works which He had made, and He rested on the seventh 
 day." 
 
 Of course the translator may have made this alteration 
 on purpose to make better sense, but it seems much more 
 probable that some confusion must have arisen between 
 the letters standing for six and seveji., either then or at 
 some previous time. 
 
 In 2 Kings xxiv. 8 Jehoiachin is said to iiave been eighteen 
 years old, but in 2 Chron. xxxvi. 9 the number given is 
 eight. Again, in i Kings iv. 26 we read that Solomon had 
 40,000 stalls for horses, whereas in 2 Chron. ix. 25 he is 
 said to have had only 4000. 
 
 There are many other instances of this difference of 
 numbers in parallel passages, so that wherever an incredible 
 or improbable number is mentioned in the Old Testament, 
 we may, without questioning the authenticity of the general 
 
88 THE UNCERTAINTY OF NUMBERS. 
 
 narrative, safely conclude that there has been some uninten- 
 tional exaggeration by copyists. 
 
 At any rate, it is quite impossible to feel certain that we 
 have the numbers which Moses wrote; although w^e may 
 observe that in every instance except that of Noah, which 
 is given in a round number, the patriarch is said to have 
 lived this incredible number of years after the birth of the 
 chosen son. 
 
 Thus Adam, having had many children born to him 
 before, begets Seth in the place of Abel when he is 130 
 years old ; a great age indeed, but not incredible. Then 
 after the birth of Seth he is said to have lived 800 years. 
 Now it so happens that the Hebrew letter which stands 
 for 80 in its usual form, as used in the middle of a word 
 or sentence, was in later times written differently when 
 occurring at the end of a sentence. In its natural form 
 standing for 80, when final it stands for 800. 
 
 This is not mentioned as the real cause of the error, if it 
 be an error, in this instance, but only to illustrate how easily 
 the record of such amazing numbers in this and other parts 
 of the Bible may have originated. We don't know what 
 may have been the form of the ancient letters, but it is 
 probable they may have been quite as likely to have been 
 mistaken one for another as more modern ones. 
 
 What have we then in the fifth chapter ? Only a list of 
 names. The name of only one out of the many sons of 
 each of Noah's ancestors is mentioned, and, except in the 
 case of Enoch and Noah, nothing whatever is said of them 
 except that they lived a certain number of years and begat 
 sons and daughters. 
 
 And yet it is upon this list of names and doubtful 
 numbers, and that of Section vi. contained in chapter xi. 
 10-26, and called "The generations of Shem," an even 
 more meagre list of names connected with equally doubtful 
 
THE EARLY DATE OF THE FLOOD. 89 
 
 numbers, that the whole question of the antiquity of the 
 human race rests. 
 
 It is Hterally from these two Hsts of names and from 
 nothing else recorded by Moses that we can form even the 
 vaguest conjecture as to the interval of time which separates 
 the birth of Abraham from the creation of Adam. 
 
 Of course, in the absence of all evidence to the contrary, 
 it is natural to conclude that Abraham was separated from 
 Adam by a period of something over 2000 years. 
 
 But it is clear from the remains discovered even of the 
 works of civilised man, that these lists of names cannot be 
 perfect, and that we cannot depend upon the dates which 
 they suggest. And we have no reason to think that the 
 Bible was intended to teach us chronology any more than 
 natural science. 
 
 Nor need we suppose that these genealogies were given 
 to Moses by any supernatural revelation. He does not 
 claim any such guidance, nor can we see any reason why 
 he should have received it. 
 
 It is enough that he avoids all mythological fables of 
 heroes and demigods, and gives us the names which had 
 come down to him by tradition of men like ourselves, who 
 really lived upon the earth and were too conspicuous to be 
 forgotten by their direct descendants. The practice, too, 
 of compressing genealogies to assist the memory by the 
 omission of a great many names is not unknown, and we 
 have an example of this even in the genealogy of our Lord, 
 given us by St. Matthew. 
 
 It is certain, at any rate, that we must put back the Flood 
 to a very much earlier date than that hitherto derived from 
 this list of names to give time for the rise and fall of civili- 
 sations which have left in the sands of Egypt and Asia 
 imperishable evidences of their existence. 
 
 Man, sufficiently advanced in civilisation to leave these 
 
90 SONS OF GOD NOT ANGELS. 
 
 monumenrs behind him, must have existed many ages, we 
 know not yet how many, before the time of Abraham ; and 
 there is not a word in the Bible, except ihe genealogy of 
 Shem, to lead us to think that he (iid not. Whereas, on 
 the contrary, there are many circumstances mentioned 
 which render probable a very long interval of time between 
 Abraham and the Flood. 
 
 And it is here, rather than before the Flood, that a longer 
 interval is needed to allow time for the rise and fall of 
 empires, whose temples and palaces are frequently being 
 discovered. 
 
 The Flood, which, though not universal, probably de- 
 stroyed the whole human race, may well have occurred 
 within a few generations from Adam; but the growth of 
 the vast civilisations alluded to in the days of Abraham 
 could not have taken place in the short period of 200 or 
 300 years. 
 
 Let us next examine, therefore, the fourth section of 
 the introductory chapters of Genesis, which contains the 
 account of the Flood, and is called "The generations of 
 Noah.'"' It is prepared for by the first eig'nt verses of the 
 sixth chapter. 
 
 In these a strange misconception has arisen from the 
 very simple words of the sacred writer, "The sons of God 
 saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they 
 took them wives of all that they chose" (Gen. vi. 2). 
 
 Some have supposed that the sons of God here mentioned 
 were the angels or some superhuman beings, as though 
 Moses were imitating or originating one of the many 
 mythological fables of Paganism. And this interpretation, 
 which contradicts many other passages of Scripture, is still 
 given even by some who do not seem anxious to under- 
 mine the authority of Moses by attributing to him such an 
 absurd and improbable statement. 
 
SONS OF GOD HIS WORSHIPPERS. 91 
 
 It is quite true that in one or two highly figurative and 
 poetical passages the angels are called the sons of God, and 
 of course they may very properly be so called, as in Job i. 
 6, ii. I, and xxxviii. 7, the context in these passages show- 
 ing clearly that the angels are intended. 
 
 In every other instance the sons of God, or the children 
 of God, mean the true worshippers of God, or those who, 
 from having been received into covenant with Him, ought 
 to be His true worshippers. Thus in Exodus iv. 23 we 
 read, " Thus saith the Lord, Israel is my son, My first-born, 
 . . . Let My son go, that he may serve Me." In Hosea i. 
 TO, "In the place where it was said unto them. Ye are not 
 My people, it shall be said unto them. Ye are the sons of 
 the living God." In St. John i. 12, "As many as received 
 Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of 
 God." In I John iii. 10 we have this distinction drawn 
 between the true and false children : " In this the children 
 of God are manifested, and the children of the devil ; who- 
 soever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he 
 that loveth not his brother." And in chapter iii. 2 he 
 writes, "Now are we the sons of God," &c. And in all 
 these passages the Greek is rendered in Baxter's Hebrew 
 New Testament by the very same Hebrew words which 
 occur in the passage we are considering, "the sons of 
 Elohim." 
 
 It seems strange that any should fail to see the meaning 
 of this passage who are taught from their earliest child- 
 hood to say that they were made the children of God in 
 their Baptism. Yet so it is, and we have here only another 
 instance of the marvellous tenacity with which we cling 
 to the teachings of the nursery, however great may be the 
 absurdities they involve. 
 
 But this is not the only passage which implies the selec- 
 tion of a chosen people before the Flood, who might fitly 
 
92 THE WICKED CALLED THE SONS OF MEN. 
 
 be called, as afterwards, the children of God as distinguished 
 from those who had fallen away from Him. 
 
 There are intimations of the existence of a system of 
 Divine worship, and a distinction between the true and the 
 false worshippers, even in these very brief and sketchy 
 notices of the early condition and progress of mankind. 
 
 To say nothing of the difference between the offerings of 
 Cain and Abel, it is hard to imagine what can be the mean- 
 ing of the words, " Cain went out from the presence of 
 Jehovah" (Gen. iv. i6, 26), if they do not imply some sort 
 of separation beginning between the true worshippers, the 
 ancestors of the righteous Noah, and the rest of mankind. 
 
 And then the mention of these intermarriages seems to 
 give some clue to the otherwise very strange and unaccount- 
 able circumstance that Noah alone and his family remained 
 faithful, and so " found grace in the eyes of the Lord." It 
 brings out strongly the utterly hopeless state of incorrig- 
 ible wickedness prevailing in the world when the sacred 
 writer tells us that even the children of God were falling 
 away, and, by marriages contracted from mere worldly 
 or carnal motives, were making common cause with un- 
 believers and casting in their lot with them. 
 
 And it is to be observed that the expression " children 
 of men " is sometimes used in Scripture of the unfaithful, 
 worldly, or profane. Thus the Psalmist exclaims, " The 
 children of men are but vanity : the children of men are 
 deceitful upon the weights ; they are altogether lighter than 
 vanity itself" (Ps. Ixii. 9). 
 
 Having, then, so many examples in the rest of Scripture 
 of the use of the expression "sons of God" for the more 
 faithful or chosen people, we may feel perfectly certain that 
 Moses is not responsible for any of the gross absurdities 
 which some interpreters of Scripture have attributed to 
 him. He merely gives us here one of the principal causes 
 
THE PATIENCE OF GOD EXHAUSTED. 93 
 
 of the rapid corruption of mankind, the falling away of 
 those who ought to have been the salt of the earth and the 
 light of the world ; the contempt of their privileges, even by 
 those who called themselves, in distinction from the rest of 
 mankind, the children of God. 
 
 It is not easy to determine the exact meaning of the 
 third verse, '' And the Lord said, My spirit shall not strive 
 with man for ever, for that he also is flesh : yet shall his 
 days be an hundred and twenty years." Some render it, 
 " My spirit shall not be made low in man for ever," i.e., the 
 higher and Divine nature in man shall not for ever be 
 humiliated in the lower. Others translate it, " My spirit 
 shall not rule in man for ever," or " shall not dwell in man 
 forever." And Kalisch seems to prefer the following expla- 
 nation of the passage : " My spirit shall not for so long a 
 period preside in the fleshly frame of man ; his life shall be 
 shorter; he shall live only one hundred and twenty years." 
 
 It matters little for the general bearing of the passage 
 which of these translations w^e adopt, or W'hether the hundred 
 and twenty years refer to the period of man's natural life, 
 or, as many think, to the time to be allow^ed to give the 
 wicked the opportunity of repentance before the Flood 
 should destroy them. The words, in any case, imply that 
 God's patience was nearly exhausted, and that the time of 
 judgment was at hand. 
 
 In reading the verses which follow next, we must be 
 careful to remember how much the language of Scripture 
 is accommodated to the ignorance of man. 
 
 It is strange that any except the enemies of the Bible 
 should find a difficulty in the expression, " It repented the 
 Lord that He had made man upon the earth, and it grieved 
 Him at His heart " (Gen. vi. 6). 
 
 The same kind of language is used when God says to 
 Samuel, " It repenteth Me that I have set up Saul to be 
 
94 MEANING OF GOD'S REPENTANCE, 
 
 king; for he is turned back from following Me." In 
 neither case is it meant that God, like a man, can be 
 as it were, taken by surprise, as though He had made a 
 mistake for lack of knowledge or foresioht. 
 
 He who sees the end from the beginning cannot be 
 taken by surprise or make mistakes ; and therefore, in 
 the very same chapter, Samuel declares that there can 
 be nothing like man's repentance or weakness of purpose 
 in God. "The strength of Israel will not lie nor repent, 
 for He is not a man, that He should repent" (i Sam. 
 XV. II, 29). 
 
 Wherever, therefore, human passions or feelings are attri- 
 buted to God, we must remember that the sacred writer 
 is accommodating his language to human ideas and man's 
 ignorance. 
 
 In what other language could he have made himself 
 intelligible to the majority of mankind ? Genesis was not 
 written in the first instance for the philosophers and scien- 
 tific thinkers of the nineteenth century, but for a people 
 just delivered from slavery in Egypt, and for those blessed 
 ones in every age, who, being humble in spirit, are morally 
 fitted to understand the judgments and the mercies of God. 
 
 To misunderstand this language is quite as absurd as 
 to give a literal meaning to such expressions as, "This 
 is the finger of God ; " " The eyes of the Lord are over 
 the righteous, and His ears are open to their prayers ; " 
 " The hand of the Lord is not shortened that it cannot 
 save ; " and countless other modes of speech of the same 
 kind. If these words do not imply that the sacred writer 
 thought that the invisible God has eyes and ears and 
 hands and fingers like a man, why should we take his 
 expressions literally when he tells us "that God repented, 
 and was grieved at His heart " ? 
 
 Bearing this in mind, let us use a little common sense in 
 studvin^i the narrative of the Flood. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE NARRATIVE OF THE FLOOD, 
 
 We need not believe that the Flood of Noah covered the 
 !;'vvhole globe ; and yet, without in the slightest degree 
 questioning the authenticity of the narrative or the inspira- 
 tion of the writer, we may candidly admit that he meant 
 to describe a catastrophe which affected the whole world, 
 and that there is perhaps scarcely one reader in a thou- 
 sand who would understand the narrative in any other 
 sense. 
 
 It is true indeed that " the earth " often means, as here, 
 the people upon it. " The earth was corrupt, and God 
 saw the earth, and behold it was corrupt." Neither does 
 the earth necessarily mean what we understand by the 
 globe. It is frequently used in a much more limited 
 sense ; but it means the w^hole world in Gen. i. i. " God 
 created the heaven and the earth ; " and the describer of 
 the Flood, we may be sure, whether it was Noah or Moses, 
 intended his readers to understand, what he thought him- 
 self, that the whole world, so far as he knew anything about 
 it, was covered with water. 
 
 Such must have been the impression produced upon 
 Noah's mind from the words which God spoke to him, and 
 from his own experience. 
 
 His knowledge of geography and natural history could 
 not have been very extensive, and it is very improbable 
 
96 THE FLOOD NOT UNIVERSAL. 
 
 that he had any just conception of the shape or size olif 
 tlie world, or of the multitudes of living things existingf 
 upon it. : 
 
 But he did know something about the limited area at: 
 that time occupied by the human race, and was acquainted! 
 with a certain number of domestic and other animals. He 
 did know also that the waters covered the whole of that 
 area, and destroyed every man and beast existing upon it. 
 
 What could he infer from this but that the Flood was 
 universal? And in what other language, more limited, 
 could God have predicted this deluge, without first givin;,^ 
 Noah lessons in geography and natural history, and making- 
 him acquainted with vast continents, to be in after timej 
 peopled by some of his descendants, and then to be lost 
 sight of by his part of the earth, some of them even till th^ 
 days of Columbus ? 
 
 There is every reason for thinking that the Flood hap- 
 pened very soon after the creation of man, and certainly net 
 later than the ninth or tenth generation ; and so at a tinj 
 when men had not yet gone far from their original home; 
 and then that an interval much longer than we should infr 
 from the compressed genealogy of Shem occurred betweei 
 the death of Noah and the birth of Abraham. 
 
 It is possible that future discoveries may enable us o 
 conjecture the extent of this interval, but at present we ca 
 only say that it must have been very great. 
 
 All, then, that this narrative requires us to believe is, ttt 
 the waters destroyed the whole human race, and all livig 
 creatures which existed in that part of the world occupid 
 by man or known to him. 
 
 Why should we understand the language of Genesis me 
 literally than that of St. Luke, whose inspiration and tru- 
 fiilness we do not question when he writes, "There wet 
 out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world shod 
 
THE LANGUAGE OF SCRIPTURE. 97 
 
 be taxed." He means, of course, all the Roman world, 
 although the word he uses means all the inhabited world. 
 
 These wide and general expressions must always be 
 understood, not with scientific accuracy, but with such 
 hmitations as the context and the purpose of the writer 
 may naturally suggest. And so here, as it has already 
 been observed, the word " earth" evidently means, like the 
 expression of St. Luke, the inhabited earth. " The earth 
 was corrupt before God." Of what else had either Noah 
 or Moses any knowledge whatever ? And why should we 
 expect God to have told them that the globe was much 
 larger than they supposed ? 
 
 The words of God to Noah were, *' I will destroy man 
 whom I have created from the face of the ground, both 
 man, and beast, and creeping thing, and fowl of the air," 
 which must, of course, mean all those living with man. 
 And again, " The end of all flesh is come before Me." 
 " I do bring the flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy 
 all flesh ; . . . everything that is in the earth shall die." 
 
 Noah, must, of course, have understood these words as 
 referring to the whole world ; and, like St. Luke's words, they 
 did refer to the whole world, with equal truthfulness and 
 similar limitations. The words were spoken in accommoda- 
 tion to the ignorance of those who heard them, and were also 
 exactly true in the sense in which Noah understood them : 
 they referred to the whole world occupied by man, and to 
 every living thing under heaven whose existence was known 
 to him. 
 
 That the Flood was universal, so far as the whole human 
 race is concerned, seems almost certain from the traditions 
 which exist in every part of the world. The following are 
 the words of Kalisch : — 
 
 " It is unnecessary to observe that there is scarcely a 
 single feature in the Biblical account which is not dis- 
 
98 OPINION OF KALISCH. 
 
 covered in one or several of the heathen traditions. And 
 the coincidences are not hmited to desultory details ; they 
 extend to the whole outlines, and the very tenor and spirit 
 of the narrative : it is almost everywhere the sin of man 
 which renders the determination of the All-just Judge irre- 
 vocable ; one pious man is saved, with his family, to form 
 the nucleus of a new population ; an ark is introduced, and 
 pairs of the whole animal creation are collected ; birds are 
 sent out to ascertain the condition of the earth, an altar is 
 built and sacrifices are offered. And yet it is certain that 
 none of these accounts are derived from the pages of the 
 Bible ; they are independent of each other ; their differences 
 are as striking and characteristic as their analogies ; they 
 are echoes of a sound which had long vanished away. It 
 would be miraculous to suppose that such a remarkable con- 
 currence is accidental ; the legends of the Chaldeans and the 
 Mosaic narrative bear not only a family likeness, but they 
 have the very appearance of twins. There must indisput- 
 ably have been a common basis, a universal source. And 
 this source is the general tradition of primitive generations. 
 The harmony between all these accounts is an undeniable 
 guarantee that the tradition is no idle invention ; a fiction 
 is individual, not universal ; that tradition has, therefore, a 
 historical foundation; it is the result of an event which 
 really happened in the ages of the childhood of mankind ; 
 it was altered, adorned, and it may be magnified, by the 
 dissemination ; it was tinctured with a specifically national 
 colouring by the different nations ; it borrowed some 
 characteristic traits from every country in which it was 
 diffused; it assumed the reflex of the various religious 
 systems ; but though the features were modified, the general 
 character was indestructible, and remains strikingly visible " 
 (Kalisch's "Commentary on Genesis," p. 205). 
 
 This miraculous judgment, therefore, which was meant 
 
EARLY TRADITIONS OF THE FLOOD. 99 
 
 to teach men that God is in earnest when He threatens to 
 punish, as well as when He promises to reward, produced 
 an impression which neither centuries nor millenniums have 
 been able to efface. 
 
 But when we read the account of it in the simple lan- 
 guage of Scripture, we find none of the monstrous absurdi- 
 ties which deform all the heathen traditions of the event, 
 but we seem to have before us the narrative of an eye- 
 witness. 
 
 Did Noah himself, we are almost inclined to ask, write 
 this story, or verbally commit the details of it to memory, 
 and cause his children to learn them, and to hand them 
 down from generation to generation through the ancestors 
 of the chosen people. 
 
 Is the section with the heading, " These are the generations 
 of Noah," a monograph which had come to Abraham and so 
 to Moses ? or were the incidents of the deluge revealed to 
 him in some miraculous manner? or had he before him, 
 as some suppose, the Chaldsean and other traditions, and 
 then, guided by the Spirit of God, did he exclude from them 
 that which was evidently fabulous, and retain only the resi- 
 duum of truth ? 
 
 It is unnecessary to attempt to answer any such ques- 
 tions, since it is quite impossible to find out how Moses 
 acquired his information. We have nothing to guide us 
 except the narrative itself, which we cannot read without 
 feeling persuaded that the writer had a sufficient knowledge 
 of the events which he describes ; so much so, that it reads 
 almost, as already observed, like a narrative of an eye- 
 witness. 
 
 There is nothing strange or fable-like about the description 
 of the Ark. Its size was very great, but not at all too great 
 for the purpose for which it was made ; and the construction 
 of such a vessel, as already remarked, implies a consider- 
 
lOO SIZE AND STRUCTURE OF THE ARK. 
 
 able knowledge of the mechanical arts in the antediluvian 
 world. 
 
 Men could not have existed long on the earth without 
 having invented and used some kind of vessels for navigat- 
 ing the rivers and the sea. The Ark differed from these 
 only in its enormous size and vast capacity, for its propor- 
 tions are much the same as those of some of our largest 
 modern ships. It had three decks, was divided into cells, 
 and was well lighted from above. 
 
 Only critics determined to find difficulties can misunder- 
 stand the expression, " A window shalt thou make to the 
 Ark." It is simply ridiculous to understand this as meaning 
 one little window. It is rendered in the Revised Version, 
 " A light shalt thou make to the Ark," and by Gesenius, 
 "Light shalt thou make for the Ark, i.e., windows." 
 
 It is idle to speculate upon the shape of the Ark, whether it 
 was built at all like a modern ship, or whether, as seems more 
 probable, it was like a huge flat-bottomed barge. Neither 
 can we even conjecture whether it was built on dry land, or 
 in some great river where other vessels were usually made. 
 
 In any case, we may be sure its great size and apparent 
 uselessness must have exposed its builder to a good deal of 
 ridicule. 
 
 The principal thing which the writer wishes us to under- 
 stand is this, that the Flood was a miraculous flood, and that 
 Noah was forewarned that it was coming, was told why it 
 was coming, and plainly directed how to escape destruction 
 from it. 
 
 All speculations, too, about the number of animals rescued, 
 as well as the secondary causes by which the deluge was 
 brought about, are useless, as likely to lead to no satisfac- 
 tory result. We are told just that which we require to know 
 in order to understand the purpose and result of the judg- 
 ment, and nothing whatever to satisfy curiosity. 
 
SUDDENNESS OF THE FLOOD. 
 
 The Flood was evidently very sudden, and was not caused 
 by rain only. Just seven days before it occurred, Noah and 
 his family, and those living creatures which were to be pre- 
 served, entered into the Ark, and then the Flood came with 
 a suddenness which overwhelmed all the rest. 
 
 Its suddenness is implied in the words, " It came to pass 
 after the seven days that the waters of the Flood were upon 
 the earth" (vii. lo), and still further in the expression, "On 
 the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken 
 up, and the windows of heaven were opened" (vii. ii). 
 
 The waters evidently came partly from the sea and partly 
 from the rain. There must have occurred on a large scale 
 one of those wave-like tremors of the crust of the earth, such 
 as are frequently experienced when there is an earthquake, 
 and which often cause the sea to overflow the land, and then 
 go back again into its bed. 
 
 Many thousands have often been destroyed in a few hours 
 by such an influx of the sea ; and in what more simple 
 language could an eye-witness describe such a catastrophe 
 happening on a large scale than that in the passage we are 
 considering : " The fountains of the great deep were broken 
 up." The springs of the great ocean burst forth. 
 
 To expect Moses or the narrator of the Flood, whoever 
 he may have been, to give us an exact and scientific account 
 of the secondary causes by which God brought it about is 
 absurd in the extreme ; especially when we reflect that there 
 is not a man living in this nineteenth century who can do 
 more than guess at the real causes of the volcanic eruptions 
 and earthquakes which suddenly and frequently occur in 
 these days, often when least expected. 
 
 If it is true that the waters were more than twenty feet 
 higher than the tops of the hills, and yet that they did not 
 envelop the whole globe, there must have been some tem- 
 porary and gradual depression of the land and upheaval of 
 
ro2 SECONDARY CAUSES. 
 
 the bed of the neighbouring oceans, on a larger scale, and 
 yet perhaps similar in kind to that which commonly occurs 
 whenever an earthquake takes place. 
 
 Such phenomena frequently precede or accompany earth- 
 quakes. 
 
 During the eruption of Krakatoa in the Strait of Sunda, 
 a mighty wave swept away at least 50,000 people, and 
 carried a large steamer nearly three miles inland. 
 
 Such a catastrophe may give us some idea of the vast 
 resources at the command of Him Who made and rules 
 " the heaven and the earth, and the sea and the fountains 
 of waters " (Rev. xiv. 7) ; and none can feel any difficulty 
 about the secondary causes or extent of the Flood of Noah 
 who believe in Him Who " rebuked the wind, and said 
 unto the sea, Peace, be still . . . and the wind and the 
 sea obeyed Him" (St. Mark iv. 39-41). 
 
 The gathering together and implied docility of the 
 animals can present no difficulty to those who believe in 
 miracles at all, especially to those who believe that the 
 miraculous draught of fishes and the finding of the tribute- 
 money in the fish's mouth were real events. 
 
 We cannot, of course, expect to persuade those, who have 
 given up all faith in the supernatural, to believe that this 
 narrative or anything else recorded in the Bible is true. 
 Neither is this book written for such persons, but for those 
 only, who, believing in the great Creator and Governor 
 of the world, are yet perplexed by the many traditional 
 interpretations of His Word, which modern knowledge has 
 shown to be improbable. 
 
 Nothing can be more simple or truth-like than the 
 description of the gradual drying up of the waters, and the 
 coming forth of Noah and his family from their long 
 imprisonment in the Ark. And then follows the promise 
 that no such universal flood shall ever occur again, but 
 
THE RAINBOW A SYMBOL. 
 
 that "while the earth remaineth, seed-time and harvest, 
 and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and 
 night shall not cease" (Gen. viii. 22). 
 
 The rainbow was selected as the token of this covenant ; 
 but it is a misconception to imagine that this beautiful 
 phenomenon then appeared for the first time. As well 
 might we suppose that w^ater or bread and wine did not 
 exist until they had been made the symbols of the Spirit of 
 God and the Body and Blood of Christ. 
 
 No one wlio does not wish to find or make difificulties 
 in the Bible can fail to see the meaning of the simple 
 words. " I do set My bow in the cloud," or, as it is ren- 
 dered in the margin of the Revised Version, " I have set 
 My bow in the cloud." 
 
 Of course, any one ignorant of the causes of the refrac- 
 tion of light might fancy that the rainbow was then seen 
 for the first time. It is even conceivable, though not pro- 
 bable, that Moses himself thought so, as many have who 
 have since read his words. 
 
 But to tie the words to this meaning is to violate the 
 principle already laid down for the interpretation of the 
 popular language of Scripture. They mean, no doubt, some- 
 thing like this, "There is My bow in the cloud; hence- 
 forth it shall be the token of the covenant I now make with 
 you. When I look upon it, and when you look upon it, it 
 shall remind us of the promise that all mankind shall never 
 again be destroyed by a flood." 
 
 The account of the deluge closes with the story of the 
 disrespectful conduct of Ham, and the utterance by Noah 
 in consequence of it of one of the most remarkable pro- 
 phecies of the Bible, and one which has been conspicuously 
 fulfilled, and is still in course of fulfilment, in our own times. 
 
 But here, at the risk of being thought singular, the writer 
 of these pages cannot help expressing a hope that the char- 
 
I04 THE SIN OF HAM. 
 
 acter of righteous Noah has been unnecessarily mahgned 
 by almost all commentators. 
 
 The language of the original does not compel us to 
 believe that Noah was drunk, in the worst sense in which 
 we use that term. " He drank of the wine and was 
 drunken." But the word "was drunken " has not always 
 this meaning, but may signify drank largely and was satisfied 
 with wine. 
 
 After working all through the heat of the day in his vine- 
 yard, the old man comes home and drinks freely and to his 
 satisfaction of his wine, and then lies down to rest in his 
 tent, and in his sleep throws off his clothing. 
 
 Ham sees, and, as the simple narrative seems to imply, 
 derisively calls his son Canaan and his brethren to look. 
 But Shem and Japheth, with respectful delicacy, cover their 
 father again without looking upon him or waking him. 
 
 In Haggai i. 6 this same Hebrew verb is used, and the 
 context proves that it means only to have enough, to be 
 satisfied. " Ye eat, but ye have not enough : ye drink, but 
 ye are not filled with drink : ye clothe you, but there is 
 none warm." In Cant. v. i it is translated, " Drink, yea, 
 drink abundantly, O beloved." This scarcely meant literally 
 "make thyself drunk." Again, in this very book we read 
 that Joseph and his brethren " drank and were merry with 
 him " (Gen. xliii. 34), where in the margin of the Revised 
 Version this word " were merry " — the same word as that 
 used of Noah — is translated "drank largely." 
 
 Unless we are prepared, therefore, to take away not only 
 the character of Noah, but also that of Joseph and his 
 brethren, it seems hard not to give the righteous patriarch 
 the benefit of the doubt. 
 
 Some, also, may think the story of Ham and his brothers 
 too insignificant to be recorded in the Bible. But a very 
 little consideration will make us think otherwise. 
 
VALUE OF RESPECT FOR PARENTS. 105 
 
 What better foundations for the character shall we find 
 than respect for an aged parent, and pure and delicate 
 modesty ? And it is to the absence of these principles in 
 his descendants that we must attribute the degradation and 
 loathsome immorality, which, in the strong and indignant 
 language of Scripture, caused the land of Canaan to "vomit 
 out its inhabitants." 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE PROPHECY OF NOAH AND THE TOWER OF BABEL. 
 
 The prophecy of Noah is very remarkable, and is rarely 
 sufficiently considered. 
 
 The event which led to it must have occurred, and the 
 prophetic words must have been spoken, some considerable 
 time after the Flood ; for Canaan, who was not the eldest 
 son of Ham, must have grown up sufficiently to give some 
 indications of his future character ; and the words seem to 
 imply that he must have been present with his father at the 
 time, and been a partaker in his sin. Why otherwise does 
 Noah curse Canaan instead of Ham ? 
 
 This can only be because he is uttering a prophecy, and 
 because the prescient Spirit of God, which guided his words, 
 foresaw the loathsome wickedness of the future Canaanites, 
 and the degradation to which it would lead. 
 
 But this mention of Canaan instead of Ham is only one 
 of the very remarkable features of this prophecy which bear 
 witness to its truth. 
 
 We must remember that these words of Noah are recorded 
 by Moses and occur in the Bible of the Hebrews. It is 
 conceivable that Moses might particularise Canaan to en- 
 courage the Israelites to attack his descendants boldly, with 
 the feeling that the curse of God rested on them. But of 
 those who question the genuineness of this prophecy we 
 have a right to ask how Moses or any Israelite came to 
 
 io6 
 
THE RELIGIOUS PRIVILEGES OF SHEM. 107 
 
 give Japheth, in his descendants, the final superiority over 
 his brethren ? 
 
 Rehgious privilege is assigned to Shem : " Blessed be 
 (or blessed is) the Lord God of Shem;" and superiority 
 over Canaan : "Canaan shall be his servant." But larger 
 empire and the final acquisition of the privileges, if not of 
 the possessions, of Shem seem to be given to the Northern 
 and European descendants of Japheth, with whom Israel, 
 at the time of the Exodus and for many subsequent genera- 
 tions, could have been very little acquainted. 
 
 The words, "God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall 
 dwell in the tents of Shem, and Canaan shall be his ser- 
 vant," are not what we should expect from a descendant of 
 Shem. 
 
 Names in Scripture are often suggested by the Spirit or by 
 the providence of God are given to men, as modes of reveal- 
 ing the future ; and this seems to have happened in the case 
 of Japheth. 
 
 The word means "widely spreading," and the verb from 
 which the name is formed begins the prophetic sentence : 
 "God shall make large room for Japheth, and he shall 
 lie down in the tents of Shem, and Canaan shall be his 
 servant." 
 
 The more we study this prophecy in connection with the 
 account of the geographical distribution of nations given 
 in the tenth chapter which immediately follows, the more 
 remarkable it will appear. 
 
 A few only of the sons of Japheth are mentioned, and 
 then they are briefly disposed of by the words, " By these 
 were the isles of the Gentiles divided in their lands." 
 
 In the time of Moses, the Canaanites, the Egyptians, and 
 the Babylonians, were the rulers of the known world, the 
 mighty builders of those towers, pyramids, and temples, 
 which excite the wonder of the archaeologist, as well as of 
 
io8 THE WIDE EMPIRE OF JAPHETH. 
 
 the great cities Babylon and Nineveh, which have recently 
 been exhumed. 
 
 And yet it is of the forefather of one of the most powerful 
 of these races that the Prophet says, "Cursed be Canaan: 
 a servant of servants shall he be to his brethren." 
 
 The descendants of Canaan are mentioned because it was 
 on them, for their atrocious wickedness, that the curse was 
 first to take effect. 
 
 But what, we may ask, is the present condition of the 
 rulers of the world in the days of Moses, the Cushites or 
 Ethiopians of Arabia and Africa, the Babylonians, the 
 Egyptians, and the Hittites ? 
 
 And may we not say of that which is called in Scripture 
 the Land of Ham, that, in accordance with other later pro- 
 phecies, it has long been the basest of nations, and its original 
 inhabitants the servants of servants to the superior races 
 which have succeeded them ? 
 
 The Shemitic races had their turn of empire in the days 
 of the later x\ssyrians, and even of the Hebrews in the time 
 of Solomon. 
 
 But from the age of Marathon, those who were so long 
 lost sight of, those by whom the isles of the Gentiles were 
 divided, came to the front and began the history of the 
 European world, fulfilling the words of the ancient prophet, 
 " God shall make large room for Japheth, and he shall 
 occupy the tents of Shem, and Canaan shall be his servant." 
 
 In the days of Mahomet the falsification of this prophecy 
 seemed possible, and even probable, and the Shemitic chil- 
 dren of Ishmael appeared not unlikely to gain the empire of 
 the world. 
 
 But what are they now ? and who have inherited the 
 religious privileges of Shem, if not nearly all the possessions 
 which once were his ? 
 
 Europe, we must remember, and Russia, and Northern 
 
THE JAPHETH OF SCRIPTURE. 109 
 
 and perhaps Eastern Asia, were peopled by the descen- 
 dants of Japheth ; and they have spread widely indeed, 
 and are still spreading over the vast continents of America, 
 over India, and over the colonies of the British Empire, on 
 which the sun never sets. 
 
 Rightly was our great forefather called Japheth, the 
 widely-spreading one ; and it seems impossible not to re- 
 cognise some dim traces of the remembrance of him in the 
 mythology of the Greeks, who looked back to one called 
 lapetos as the founder of the human race. 
 
 The Septuagint has lapheth, and p/i and t/z being the 
 same in Hebrew as J> and f, the name lapetos is simply the 
 Hebrew name with a Greek termination ; much closer, in 
 fact, than the Greek lesus is to its Hebrew form Joshua. 
 
 The Greeks, who took greater liberties than almost any 
 nation in the translation of foreign names into their own 
 language, have in this instance merely added a Greek ter- 
 mination. 
 
 And here we have a right to ask the unbeliever to explain 
 how it came to pass that a writer, sprung from a race en- 
 slaved in Egypt for four hundred years, and educated in an 
 idolatrous court, composed or compiled a narrative of the 
 origin of the human race free from the impossible nonsense 
 of the Greek and other mythological systems ? 
 
 It is intelligible if we believe him to have been guided by 
 the Spirit of God, but on no other supposition. 
 
 We get into such a habit of expecting the writers of the 
 Bible to abstain from mythological fictions, that we forget 
 what a proof this is of their inspiration. 
 
 The Greeks, we must remember, were among the most 
 gifted races of mankind. They advanced both the body 
 and the mind of man to the highest degree of perfection. 
 They produced the greatest poets, historians, philosophers, 
 statesmen, generals, architects, sculptors, and painters which 
 
THE MYTHICAL lAPETUS. 
 
 the world has ever seen. Even the men of the nineteenth 
 century regard their productions as inimitable models for 
 themselves. 
 
 Why then, we may ask, do they, and all other nations 
 upon the face of the earth, go so far astray in their concep- 
 tions of God, and in their attempts to describe the origin 
 of the world or of the human race ? 
 
 Why is there lapetus, a mere mythical being, the father 
 of Prometheus, who makes a man and woman of clay or of 
 particles taken from other animals, and gives them life with 
 fire which he had stolen from heaven ; while the Japheth of 
 Genesis is a man like one of us, conspicuous for his modesty 
 and filial affection, and one to whom God promises exten- 
 sive empire and superiority for his descendants over those 
 of all his brethren ? 
 
 And again we may ask, is it likely that any Israelite, 
 between the ages of Moses and Ezra, proud of his descent 
 from Shem, and expecting the sovereignty of the world in 
 the days of the Messiah, would have given in his forged 
 Genesis universal dominion to Japheth, the forefather of the 
 inhabitants of the isles of the Gentiles ? Even one of those 
 subsequent editors of Genesis, of whom our modern critics 
 speak, would scarcely have left this prophecy as it stands in 
 the Hebrew text if he had not felt persuaded that Moses 
 had stamped it as authentic. 
 
 It is not only the singularly pure monotheism of these 
 chapters, but also the fulfilment of the prophecies the}' 
 contain, and the absence of all impossible nonsense in the 
 description they give of the origin of things, which prove 
 that the composer or compiler of them was enlightened and 
 guided by the Spirit of God. 
 
 The mania for tracing every conceivable thing to an evolu- 
 tionary process has caused some to question the antiquity of 
 the Pentateuch, merely because it teaches pure monotheism. 
 
MONOTHEISM NOT EVOLVED. in 
 
 Having determined a priori^ and without even a particle 
 of evidence, that the behef in One Living God has been 
 reached by man himself, and gradually evolved by his own 
 unaided thought and experience, such persons pronounce 
 as comparatively modern any book which teaches it. 
 
 But what right have they to do so ? The hypothesis is 
 not supported by a single fact, but is contradicted by many. 
 
 The principal one is this, that for at least 2000 years 
 before the Christian era, or, for the sake of argument, say 
 for 1000 years, out of all the literature of the world the 
 Hebrew Bible alone taught the purest monotheism from 
 end to end. 
 
 This unique characteristic of the literature of a despised 
 people, which, in accordance with an early prophecy, "dwelt 
 alone and was scarcely reckoned among the nations," is 
 sufficient to mark it as Divinely inspired ; even if its pro- 
 phecies had not been so conspicuously fulfilled, and its 
 moral tone so pure and exalted, and if it had not borne 
 witness to Him Who came to fulfil its very earliest prophecy. 
 The Seed of a woman, but without human father. Who 
 suffered the wounding of the heel while He crushed the 
 serpent's head. 
 
 Very shortly after the Flood we read of the founding of 
 Babylon, and the dispersion of the three families of Noah 
 over the world. 
 
 Of all the popular misconceptions which have arisen 
 from inattention to the actual words of these early chapters 
 of Genesis, the most absurd and the most groundless is that 
 which regards the builders of the Tower of Babel as guilty 
 of the extreme folly of attempting to build a tower up to 
 heaven. 
 
 Nothing was farther from the mind of the writer of this 
 simple narrative than any such idea; and his account of 
 the building of Babylon and the dispersion of the nations 
 
 y 
 
THE TOWER OF BABEL. 
 
 is another instance of the way in which the guidance of the 
 Spirit of God enabled him to keep clear of all mythological 
 and impossible nonsense. 
 
 We have here, too, another instance of the manufacture 
 of Bible difficulties, which disappear directly the attention is 
 directed to the actual words of Scripture. 
 
 The words are, " Let us build for ourselves a city and a 
 tower and its head in heaven ; " as we should say, " with its 
 head in heaven," i.e., very lofty. 
 
 We have the very same expression in Deut. i. 28, "The 
 cities are great and walled up to heaven." 
 
 It seems strange that any should misunderstand such an 
 expression who read in Virgil how Calchas advised the 
 Greeks to make a wooden horse, " Cceloque educere jussit," 
 — " and ordered them to build it up to heaven" (^n. ii. 
 186). Yet so it is, and when this misconception has been 
 removed, many fall back upon the equally absurd one that 
 these men hoped to escape from another deluge on the top 
 of their tower. 
 
 There may be no great harm in these nursery-tales, but 
 they become serious when the enemies of religion point to 
 them as difficulties in the way of beUef, and still more when 
 they are brought forward by the friends of the Bible to prove 
 the fanciful modern theory of the evolution of the intellect 
 of man. 
 
 Thus the account of the Tower of Babel is supposed to 
 prove the early childishness of man, who could think of 
 building a tower to reach heaven, or high enough to escape 
 the wrath of God. 
 
 Such an idea certainly never did enter the dreams either 
 of the builders of Babylon or of the writer who records their 
 work ; but it has been instilled into the mind of many a 
 Christian child in the nursery, and is found even in serious 
 books written in this inquiring age. 
 
THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE ANCIENTS. 113 
 
 jNIodern research, too, is daily bringing to light the 
 evidences of a civilisation and amount of knowledge in 
 the builders of the great cities, palaces, and towers of the 
 ancient world, whicli prove them to have been by no means 
 childish or ignorant, but, on the contrary, far better instructed 
 in many of the arts and sciences than our forefathers during 
 many ages of Mediaeval and even Modern Europe. 
 
 And it may well make us a little more humble to reflect 
 what an effort it cost Englishmen (not supposed to be far 
 behind the rest of the modern world in the knowledge of 
 the mechanical arts), not to make, but merely to carry one 
 obelisk from the shores of Egypt to the Thames Embank- 
 ment. 
 
 And yet such monoliths, and even larger ones, were made 
 by the hundred, carried enormous distances, and erected 
 where they have stood ever since by those men who are 
 supposed to have known little or nothing about themselves 
 or their surroundings. 
 
 The almost universal prevalence of these ideas about the 
 building of the Tower of Babel is an instance of the vitality 
 of many traditional and popular misconceptions in the inter- 
 pretation of Scripture, for which there is not the slightest 
 foundation in the original Hebrew, or even English words, 
 and which the writer of these pages has attempted to 
 remove. 
 
 The following sentence occurs in a work published as 
 late as the year 1850, not for children in the nursery or 
 at school, but for Oxford and Cambridge undergraduates, 
 to help them in getting up the history of the Old Testa- 
 ment : — "After the death of Noah, the whole earth was of 
 one language, and all the famihes journeyed from Armenia 
 in the East to a plain in the land of Shinar, near Chaldoea, 
 on the Euphrates. Here they commenced building a city 
 and tower, afterwards called ' Babel,' i.e. Confusion, which 
 
 H 
 
114 CENTRALISATION OF POWER. 
 
 they presumptuously intended should reach the heavens " 
 ("An Analysis and Summary of Old Testament History," 
 by the author of " An Analysis and Summary of Herodotus," 
 Oxford. J. Wheeler, &c.). 
 
 It would seem that some of these undergraduates must 
 have been struck with the absurdity of this idea, and began 
 to suspect that the builders of so renowned a city were 
 unlikely to have been more foolish than the architects of 
 the comparatively insignificant structures of modern Europe. 
 
 They took the trouble to read the words of Moses in the 
 light of common sense, and the result has been a with- 
 drawal of this interpretation, at first somewhat timid and 
 apologetic, but at last complete, from almost all works on 
 Bible history, and the substitution for it of the explanation 
 that the words are evidently figurative, and simply mean 
 " very lofty." 
 
 But what then was the purpose of these builders? The 
 sacred writer tells us plainly — the acquisition of worldly 
 glory and the centralisation of power : " Let us make for 
 ourselves a name, lest we be scattered upon the face of the 
 whole earth " (Gen. xi. 4). 
 
 It would naturally be the most powerful of the three 
 families of mankind who would wish to do this ; and the 
 account of the descendants of Ham given in the tenth 
 chapter shows that they at first were far more numerous 
 and powerful than their brethren. 
 
 It is probable, therefore, that they soon began to observe 
 the tendency of the Japhetites to spread widely, and the 
 preference of the Shemites for the nomadic life, and so 
 either persuaded or compelled their weaker brethren to 
 join with them in building a great city, to prevent them 
 from spreading abroad. 
 
 But this was to attempt to defeat the Divine purpose 
 implied in the blessing of Noah. " God blessed Noah and 
 
THE REAL PURPOSE OF THE BUILDERS. 115 
 
 his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful and multiply 
 and replenish the earth." The word rendered " replenish " 
 means to " overflow from abundance." 
 
 The neglect of this command, given also to Adam (Gen. 
 i. 28), seems to have been one of the causes of the cruelty, 
 oppression, violence, and fearful wickedness of the ante- 
 diluvian world. 
 
 Instead of replenishing the earth, they seem to have all 
 kept together in one part of the world, corrupted and cor- 
 rupting one another, until the Flood suddenly came and 
 destroyed them all. 
 
 The terrible cruelty and loathsome immorality which 
 deform the character of the Hamites all through history, 
 from the founding of Babylon to that of Tyre and Carthage, 
 may perhaps be attributed in great measure to this excessive 
 desire of worldly glory, and the centralisation of power by 
 massing together dense populations and building enormous 
 cities, temples, palaces, and towers. 
 
 It was, therefore, to prevent this fertile source of moral 
 corruption, and to set the weaker Shemites and Japhetites 
 free to follow their natural tendencies, that the miracle of 
 the confusion of languages took place — a miracle of the 
 nature and extent of which the Bible tells us nothing, but 
 which had an obvious, wise, and merciful purpose, and 
 which can present no difficulty to those who believe in that 
 greater miracle of Pentecost, wrought to enable the faithful 
 servants of the Lord God of Shem to invite every nation 
 under heaven, so long scattered abroad, to come and dwell 
 in their tents. 
 
 It would be well if we would remember that there are 
 modern Baby Ions, and that the massing together of vast 
 populations for the building up of colossal fortunes and 
 towers of worldly renown, instead of judiciously and liberally 
 helping them to colonise the fertile but unoccupied regions 
 
ii6 THERE ARE MODERN BABELS. 
 
 of the earth, may bring upon us sooner than we expect 
 judgments worse than any confusion of languages — ^judg- 
 ments which invariably fall sooner or later where the 
 religious principles and morals of a people are hopelessly 
 corrupted. 
 
 The Tower of Babel was the first, but not the last or only 
 worldly structure which has provoked the long-suffering 
 vengeance of Heaven, and led to the scattering of man- 
 kind ; and our Lord has summed up this moral law of God 
 in the words first spoken of apostate Zion, "Wheresoever 
 the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered together " 
 (St. Matt. xxiv. 28). 
 
CHAPTER ;X. 
 
 REMARKS ON GENESIS XI. 27 — L. 
 
 The Book of Genesis, from chapter xi. 27, contains the 
 family annals of Abraham and his children up to the death 
 of Joseph. In studying this record of God's chosen people, 
 we must bear in mind that it is apparently a selection and 
 compilation of traditions, contained probably in writings pre- 
 served by the descendants of the Patriarch, and handed 
 down to Moses, we may fairly conclude, through the instru- 
 mentality of Joseph. 
 
 Recent discoveries have proved beyond question that the 
 primeval world was not so ignorant of the arts and sciences 
 as we used to suppose, and especially it is certain that the art 
 of writing was well known ages before the time of Abraham, 
 not only in Egypt, where Joseph was prime minister and 
 Moses was educated, but also among the nations on the 
 banks of the Tigris and Euphrates, where Abraham was 
 brought up. 
 
 It is, therefore, inconceivable that Egyptian Pliaraohs 
 and Assyrian and Babylonian conquerors should have taken 
 care to have their exploits engraved on stones and bricks or 
 written on linen and papyrus, but that Abraham and his 
 descendants, the recipients of Divine revelations, should 
 not have handed down to subsequent generations many 
 written records of the more important occurrences con- 
 nected with the family. 
 
ii8 THE PURPOSE OF MOSES. 
 
 We should not expect these to be all alike either in style 
 or substance, and it would be only natural that, like modern 
 sermon-writers, they should exhibit a preference for one or 
 another of the well-known Divine names. Neither can we 
 tell at all in what language or by what kind of writing, 
 whether ideographic or alphabetical, these records were 
 handed down to Moses. 
 
 There is reason to believe, however, that Hebrew in some 
 form was the language of Abraham ; and we know from our 
 own experience how much the existence of sacred writings 
 has to do with the preservation of a language. The un- 
 changing customs also of Orientals must have given much 
 fixity to any language spoken or written by them. 
 
 Thus we may feel sure that Moses had before him ample 
 materials from which to compile this portion of the Book of 
 Genesis. And so, having given under Divine guidance a 
 brief account of earlier traditions concerning the origin of 
 all things and God's primeval revelation of Himself to man 
 in the first eleven chapters, he confines himself, during the 
 remainder of his book, to a record of the family annals of 
 his race. 
 
 In putting together these traditions — varying perhaps 
 some of them slightly, even when recording the same events, 
 just as we find varying accounts in the Gospels of the same 
 important events in the life of Jesus Christ — Moses seems 
 to have had in view objects very different from those of a 
 mere uninspired historian. 
 
 His purpose is not to satisfy the curiosity of his readers, 
 or even to form a continuous and consistent narrative, but, 
 like the subsequent inspired compilers of the historical 
 books of the Bible, to manifest the watchful care of Jehovah 
 over His people and to give faithful portraits of the char- 
 acters of men. 
 
 With this view he puts together the records of the events 
 
THE BIRTH OF ABRAM. 119 
 
 which he selects in the order which suits his purpose, and 
 that often not the true chronological order ; just as St. Luke 
 purposely changes the order of our Lord's temptations, 
 and the other Evangelists group together His sayings and 
 miracles not always in connection with the same events. 
 
 This being the case, we may feel at liberty to attempt an 
 arrangement of these narratives in that which seems in all 
 probability to have been the true order and succession of 
 the events recorded. 
 
 We find, for example, that, if we regard the narrative as 
 chronologically continuous, Sarah must have been sixty five 
 years old when she captivated the Egyptians by her beauty, 
 and so endangered the life of her husband. How much 
 more natural it is to suppose that Moses places the story of 
 Abraham's criminal weakness and timidity out of its proper 
 chronological position, but immediately after the record of 
 his great faith, in order to give a truthful picture of his 
 character. 
 
 With this preface, let us attempt to give a brief summary 
 of the events connected with Abraham and his descendants, 
 from the birth of the great Patriarch until the death of 
 Joseph, in that which seems to be the most probable chro- 
 nological order of the events recorded. 
 
 Abram was born in Ur of the Chaldees, recently dis- 
 covered to have been situated on what was then the head 
 of the Persian Gulf. His father Terah was seventy at the 
 time of his birth, and his brothers were Nahor and Haran. 
 Haran, the father of Lot, died there, and there Abram 
 married Sarai, who had no children when they left their 
 native city. Terah, though, as will appear hereafter, a 
 worshipper of the true God, also worshipped idols. 
 
 That he might be rescued from such superstitious prac- 
 tices, Abram was called, while living with his father, to leave 
 his country and go into another land,'jhere to become the 
 
120 HE RESIDES LONG IN CHARAN. 
 
 forefather of a great nation, and of the promised Saviour 
 of the world. 
 
 Such a call must have been a terrible blow to the family 
 and a sore trial to Abram's faith. But nothing is said about 
 this. The Bible never glorifies its heroes. The call, how- 
 ever, is promptly obeyed, and the whole family naturally 
 follow the future wanderer to the borders of the land of 
 his exile. 
 
 They all migrate to Charan, "a frontier town of Baby- 
 lonia, commanding both the roads and the fords of the 
 Euphrates." ^ Here they must have remained long enough 
 to acquire a great deal of property and many dependants 
 (Gen. xii. 5) ; probably about forty years, and until the 
 death of Terah. 
 
 Abram, being childless, seems almost to have adopted 
 Lot, the son of his deceased brother. 
 
 Whatever Terah may have been, Abram and Lot were 
 certainly nomads, owning vast flocks and herds, and dwell- 
 ing in tents. And so they must have been compelled often 
 to wander far from Charan in search of pasture. 
 
 It was probably during one of these expeditions to the 
 south of Palestine, and while Sarai was still a young woman, 
 that Abram was driven by a famine into Egypt, and there 
 denied his wife, and again on a similar occasion in Gerar. 
 And Moses purposely inserts these records of his criminal 
 timidity and want of faith in the connections most suitable 
 to exhibit a true portrait of the great Patriarch in his weak- 
 ness and in his strength. 
 
 Upon the death of Terah — if with St. Stephen and the 
 Samaritan text we consider that his age was 145 ; or before 
 his death, if we accept the numbers of the Hebrew text, 205 
 — Abram and Lot finally leave Charan, Abram being seventy- 
 five years old, and Sarai sixty-five. 
 
 i " The Bible and Modern Discoveries," by Harper, \)p. 3, 4- 
 
CHAR AN STILL HIS COUNTRY. 121 
 
 But Abram still looked upon Charan as his own country, 
 and regarded himself as an exile following the guidance of 
 Jehovah. The rest of the family remained there, for it was 
 to the city of Nahor that we find Abram long afterwards 
 sending his servant to fetch a wife for Isaac ; as we read, 
 *'Thou shalt go to my country and to my kindred, and take 
 a wife unto my son Isaac " (Gen. xxiv. 4), and so the servant 
 "arose and went unto the city of Nahor" (ver. 10). That 
 the city of Nahor was Charan is evident from the fact 
 that it was to Charan that Jacob went and served Laban, 
 the son of Nahor, for his wife and flocks (xxviii. 10, and 
 xxix. 4, 5). 
 
 Thus the exiled condition of the chosen family is recog- 
 nised from the call of Abram up to the final migration of 
 Jacob into Egypt, and even until the Exodus and triumphant 
 entrance into Canaan after the death of Moses. And from 
 these circumstances it also appears that Charan was not too 
 far from the land of Canaan to admit of Abram's frequent 
 wanderings for pasture as far as the south of Palestine during 
 his long residence in Charan, at which time, as above sug- 
 gested, we must suppose his denials of his wife to have 
 taken place. 
 
 Continuing the narrative, we find the wanderers encamping 
 at Shechem. Was this at tiiat early date the name of a 
 place ? We cannot tell. Shechem is apparently a primi- 
 tive noun signifying the shoulder. In Gen. xlviii. 22 it is 
 used for a tract or portion of land ; properly a ridge or hill. 
 " I have given thee one portion (Shechem) above thy 
 brethren." And so here it may mean a ridge or hilly tract, 
 which later on in the history of Jacob may have given the 
 name to a man and his city ; as in English, hill, mount, 
 mountain, may be either common or proper nouns. Moreh 
 also has many significations as a common noun. At any 
 rate, it is treacherous to found any argument concerning the 
 
122 GOD PROMISES HIM 
 
 date of a book upon its supposed anachronisms in the names 
 of places. How many Buttons, Thorpes, Woodlands, &c., 
 are there in England ? 
 
 It is no invention of a later writer, nor proof, as some 
 critics suppose, of the later composition of the narrative, 
 but the very natural remark of Moses that " the Canaanite 
 was then in the land." He mentions this to emphasise the 
 faith of Abram. When Jehovah appeared to him many 
 years before, He told him "to go into a land which God 
 would show him" (Gen. xii. i). He has now come, under 
 Divine guidance, not, as he must have expected, into some 
 distant and unoccupied land, but into a land already in 
 the possession of the powerful descendants of Canaan. 
 How improbable it must have seemed that the children of 
 this childless wanderer should ever be the owners of this 
 land of his exile. But it is of this that Jehovah says, " Unto 
 thy seed will I give this land " (Gen. xii. 6, 7). The words 
 are as emphatic as it is possible to make them. He does 
 not say " a land," but " even the land, even this," as nearly 
 as we can render it in English, as we should say ' this very 
 land' now owned by the Canaanites. 
 
 He next encamps, not at Bethel, nor at Hai, but upon a 
 mountain, the situation of which Moses could best describe 
 as lying between the two places known by these names in 
 his day, though not perhaps so early as the age of Abram. 
 Here, as at Shechem, he builds an altar and calls upon the 
 name of Jehovah. 
 
 After some wanderings, during which he and Lot have 
 greatly increased the number of their flocks and herds, they 
 come again to the same mountain where they had been on 
 a previous occasion. 
 
 And here it is very important to remember that numerous 
 stations where the wandering shepherds must have rested 
 are not mentioned. Probably no record of them was pre- 
 
THE LAND OF THE CANAANITE. 123 
 
 served. At any rate, in this very compressed narrative, 
 Moses selects for mention those only which have some im- 
 portant bearing on his subject, or tend to illustrate the pro- 
 vidence of God or the characters of the Patriarchs. 
 
 And so this second encampment near Bethel is recorded 
 because it was here that Abram and Lot found it expedient 
 to part company, and because the circumstances of this 
 parting bring out into strong contrast the characters of the 
 two men — the noble generosity of the uncle and the im- 
 prudence of the nephew. Lot has all the land before him, 
 but, attracted by its evident fertility, he unwisely " pitches 
 his tent towards Sodom," although he must have known 
 that " the men of Sodom were wicked and sinners before 
 the Lord exceedingly" (Gen. xiii. 13). 
 
 This encampment is also selected for mention because it 
 was here that, after the departure of Lot, Jehovah confirmed 
 and enlarged His promise to Abram. Encamped on a high 
 mountain, he is commanded to look in every direction upon 
 the land given to him and to his seed for ever — seed which 
 is to be countless as the dust of the earth. Though " the 
 Canaanite and the Perizzite then dwelt in the land" (ver. 7), 
 it is given as an eternal inheritance to the innumerable 
 descendants of the as yet childless wanderer. " Arise, walk 
 through the land in the length of it and in the breadth of 
 it, for I will give it unto thee" (Gen. xiii. 17). 
 
 The next station mentioned is near Hebron and the 
 oaks of Mamre. It is impossible to say how long after 
 the departure of Lot Abram came to this place. But this 
 encampment is evidently mentioned for its connection with 
 the episode of chapter xiv. In this chapter we find Abram 
 in close alliance with three powerful Amorite sheikhs, 
 Mamre, Eshcol, and Aner. 
 
 What caused this close alliance ? Probably the invasion 
 of Chedorlaomer, which also compelled Lot to leave his 
 
124 CHEDORLAOMER'S INVASION. 
 
 tents and dwell in Sodom. The shepherds of the hilly 
 districts could keep out of the way of the king of Elam's 
 armies, which would probably conquer and exact tribute 
 from the fortified cities ; but Lot, in the plain of Jordan, 
 could not so easily escape. 
 
 In this fourteenth chapter we have an extremely com- 
 pressed narrative of events of the deepest interest, evi- 
 dencing a state of things in Western Asia upon which the 
 monumental records of Assyria have lately thrown much 
 light. The country was partly occupied by nomadic tribes, 
 while the dwellers in fortified towns were regarded as the 
 owners of the land, or rather perhaps of the districts around 
 their cities. 
 
 All Western Asia seems to have been divided into king- 
 doms ruled by petty princes, ''a congeries of kingdoms," 
 nominally and often really under the suzerainty of one 
 of the great kings of Egypt, Elam, Babylonia, or Assyria. 
 This state of things led to frequent rebellions and conspi- 
 racies of distant princes against the suzerain, and changes 
 in the suzerainty. What an illustration of this we have in 
 the episode of this chapter. 
 
 Chedorlaomer, king of Elam, is evidently the suzerain ; 
 but there has been an extensive effort made by his western 
 and southern subject kings to throw off his yoke. The 
 details of the narrative, though so much compressed, have 
 all the marks of true history. The suzerainty of Elam is 
 unquestioned for twelve years, then in the thirteenth year 
 the yoke of Chedorlaomer is thrown off. He collects a 
 mighty army of the kings, his neighbours, still faithful to 
 him ; then, having made all his preparations, he com- 
 mences the reconquest of the rebels in the fourteenth year. 
 The nomadic tribes, as already observed, seem to have been 
 little affected by this. They doubtless occupied districts 
 less accessible to the armies of Chedorlaomer, whose attacks 
 
ABRAM RESCUES LOT. 125 
 
 would naturally be directed against the fortified towns of 
 the rebel kings. Having subdued most of these and re- 
 established his suzerainty, he was naturally anxious to get 
 back with his main forces as soon as possible to his own 
 distant country. The captives and spoil would follow neces- 
 sarily more slowly under an escort supposed to be sufficient. 
 Abram hangs upon the rear of the retiring army and comes 
 up with this band. With his own armed dependants and 
 those of three other powerful sheikhs he watches them. 
 Knowing every inch of the ground, these hardy shepherds 
 choose their opportunity, surprise and overpower the escort, 
 rescue and carry off the prisoners and spoils before the main 
 body of the army know anything of what has happened. 
 By the time the news of the rescue reaches the more ad- 
 vanced columns, x\bram and his party are well on their way 
 home and out of danger. 
 
 We have here, then, a simple and intelligible though very 
 compressed account of events closely affecting the family of 
 Abraham, and bringing out some admirable points in the 
 character of the noble patriarch. The words of verse 17 
 need not be taken to mean that Abraham with his little 
 force overtook and conquered Chedorlaomer himself and 
 the main body of his retiring army. He had probably sur- 
 prised and overcome the rearguard, not the vast host which 
 had so lately defeated the armies of the five cities. Then 
 the mention of the name Dan need not imply that this 
 whole narrative was inserted in Genesis by a writer later 
 than Moses. The original name, Laish, was so entirely lost 
 sight of after the conquest of the district by the Danites, that 
 its retention would have rendered the narrative in after 
 times less intelligible ; and so the name may have been 
 changed to Dan by Samuel, or some later inspired editor 
 of the book of Moses. 
 
 Kalisch suggests that we must understand the writer to 
 
126 HE PURSUED UNTO DAN. 
 
 mention another Dan, distinguished as Dan-Jaan (2 Sam. 
 xxiv. 6) ; and he adds, '"It is a peculiar characteristic of 
 our chapter to explain ancient names ; thus we have the 
 valley of Siddim, which is the salt sea (ver. 3) ; En-mishpat, 
 which is Kadesh (ver. 7) ; the valley of Shaveh, which is the 
 valley of the king (ver. 17). If, therefore, the northern 
 boundary town were here intended, the text would probably 
 have been, " Laish, which is Dan." 
 
 But is it absolutely certain that Dan in this passage is 
 the name of a town ? 
 
 The word occurs in the very next chapter as a verb, " That 
 nation, whom they shall serve, will I judge " (Dan anoki, 
 XV. 14). Dan as a verb is either the participle as above, or 
 the perfect tense, the letters and pointing being exactly the 
 same. As a verb it gave a name to the son of Bilhah, 
 Rachel's handmaid, the forefather of the Danites. " And 
 Rachel said, God hath judged me . . . and hath given me 
 a son ; therefore she called his name Dan " (or he hath 
 judged) (Gen. xxx. 6). 
 
 Then in this passage it is said, " he pursued unto Dan." 
 But the word 'ad,' 'unto,' is often used with a verb for 
 'until,' with an implied purpose, as in Ps. ex. i. "Sit 
 thou on my right hand un^i7 I make thine enemies thy 
 footstool " (Ps. cxii. 8). " He shall not be afraid 2in^i7 
 he see his desire upon his enemies." And so possibly 
 it might be here; "he pursued until he had judged 
 them," or punished them, or had judged the cause of his 
 nephew. The word would then be used exactly as it is by 
 Rachel. 
 
 Of course the context makes the ordinary translation, 
 " unto or as far as Dan," much more probable, but the above 
 suggestion may be worth considering. 
 
 But if the name Dan is supposed to suggest that this 
 passage must have been written by some one living later 
 
MELCHIZEDEK KING AND PRIEST. 127 
 
 than Moses, what shall we think of the mention of Salem 
 and its mysterious king? 
 
 There can be little doubt that Salem was the ancient 
 name of the city known as Jerusalem in the days of Joshua 
 (Kalisch on Genesis, p. 360); and its king, who was con- 
 quered by Joshua, though a very bad representative of 
 Melchizedek, bore a very similar name, Adonizedek, Lord 
 of Righteousness, a name to which he had no more right 
 than many a " most Christian king" of modern times. 
 
 We could scarcely have stronger proof of the antiquity of 
 the narrative than this mention of Melchizedek and Salem. 
 Whichever way we look at it, it indicates a state of things 
 of an earlier date, and widely different from that of the age 
 of Moses or Joshua. The name of the city has changed at 
 the time of Moses, and still more the character of the king 
 and his people. Adonizedek is one of the kings of the 
 Amorites, and four or six centuries have greatly changed 
 the religion and character of these people, though their 
 reigning sovereign still calls himself "righteous." The 
 Amorites were on very friendly terms with Abram, and 
 Melchizedek was not only the king, but also the priest of 
 the true God to his subjects. 
 
 Thus in this account of the blessing of Abram by 
 Melchizedek, a king and priest, and the honour shown to 
 him by Abram, who pays him tithes of all, we catch a 
 glimpse of the hngering glory of the primeval religion of 
 the world. Of course, to those who do not believe in any 
 primeval revelation, this will seem absurd. But those who 
 accept the teaching of the Bible will believe that monotheism, 
 or the knowledge and worship of the true and living God, 
 the creator of all things, was not thought out by man as the 
 result of some evolutionary process, but has been from the 
 very beginning revealed. 
 
 This pure light of truth, however, has from the beginning 
 
128 MELCHIZEDEK A TYPE OF CHRIST. 
 
 of the world to the present hour been in every age more or 
 less hidden under clouds of error, superstition, and igno- 
 rance. And it was to counteract this tendency, and to keep 
 alive a knowledge of the true God in a world rapidly falling 
 away from Him, that Abraham was called to be the fore- 
 father of a chosen people, who should introduce the pro- 
 mised seed of the woman, the Redeemer and Regenerator of 
 mankind. His teaching when He came is summed up 
 in the words, " It was not so from the beginning." Pure 
 religion is the religion of Eden, from which man has fallen 
 and needs to be restored. 
 
 In Melchizedek, the king of righteousness, the king of 
 peace, and the priest of his people, we have one of the last, 
 if not the last, of God's witnesses of this primal truth, and 
 so a type of that greater King of righteousness whose priest- 
 hood is eternal. 
 
 The narrative of this chapter having, then, such marks of 
 antiquity stamped upon it, and giving a compressed descrip- 
 tion of events so entirely consistent with the historical testi- 
 mony of Assyrian monuments, and being at the same time 
 so little connected with the preceding and following chap- 
 ters, we might concede, without in any way detracting from 
 the general authenticity and genuineness of Genesis, that it 
 may have been inserted by some later editor of the Book of 
 Moses. There can be little doubt, however, that a story so 
 graphic and consistent must have existed in the time of 
 Moses in some written form, amongst the family annals of 
 his race, from which he compiled the Book of Genesis. But 
 whether he inserted it himself or some one who lived when 
 the expression " from Dan to Beersheba " was familiar to 
 every Israelite, the defender of the authenticity of Genesis 
 need not feel bound to determine. 
 
 The events are historical, and the record of them came 
 down to Moses from Abraham through Isaac, Jacob, and 
 
THE BOOK OF ORIGINS. 129 
 
 Joseph, They were then in some form placed by Moses 
 or some one soon after his time in that collection of the 
 family annals of their race which forms the first book of 
 the Bible, and which the Jews call Bereshith (" In the 
 beginning "), but Christians Genesis, from its Greek title 
 in the Septuagint, and which may well be rendered " the 
 book of origins." 
 
CHAPTER XL 
 
 THE VISIONS OF ABRAHAM. 
 
 Chapter xv. contains the description of a vision in which 
 the future of his descendants is more fully revealed to 
 Abram, and the Egyptian oppression and the Exodus are 
 predicted. The limits of the promised land are defined, 
 and the names of the nations then owning it are given. 
 
 Then chapter xvii. records another visible appearance of 
 Jehovah to him when he was ninety-nine years old. His 
 name is changed from Abram, the High Father, to Abra- 
 ham, the Father of a Multitude. The rite of circumcision is 
 instituted. Ishmael, whose birth from Hagar has been 
 described in chapter xvi., is also circumcised, being thirteen 
 years old. 
 
 The episode of chapter xvi. records the failing of Abram's 
 faith in consequence of the long time during which the 
 fulfilment of God's promise of a child is deferred. In de- 
 spair he weakly yields to Sarah's suggestion, and takes Hagar 
 as a concubine, from whom Ishmael is born. This took 
 place ten years after Abram had permanently left Charan 
 (xvi. 3), when he was eighty-five years old (xii. 4). Ishmael, 
 therefore, was born in the eleventh year. He was thirteen 
 when circumcised, and thus about fourteen when Isaac was 
 born (xvii. 25), Abraham being then a hundred. 
 
 In chapter xviii. we read again that Jehovah appeared to 
 Abraham. Sitting in the door of his tent, he sees three men 
 
THE ANGEL OF JEHOVAH. 131 
 
 coming to him. From the rest of the narrative it is clear 
 that one of these is Jehovah, and that the other two are 
 created angels. Thus we read in verse 22, "The men 
 turned their faces, and went towards Sodom, but Abraham 
 stood yet before Jehovah " ; and then in xix. i, *' Ihere 
 came two angels to Sodom." 
 
 We are not told whether Abraham at the first knew that 
 one of these mysterious strangers was Jehovah, but it is 
 plain that he soon did so. And although the narrator 
 says, in verse 9, " They said unto him, Where is Sarah thy 
 wife ? " it is added directly after, " He said, I will certainly 
 return unto thee according to the time of life, and Sarah 
 thy wife shall have a son." And again, "Jehovah said unto 
 Abraham, Wherefore did Sarah laugh ? . . . Then Sarah 
 denied, saying, I laughed not ; for she was afraid. And He 
 said. Nay; but thou didst laugh." The principal speaker 
 is evidently Jehovah ; and so, when the two angels have 
 departed to Sodom, it is Jehovah, in visible form, who 
 remains with Abraham, and with whom Abraham pleads 
 for Sodom. 
 
 There are many of these Theophanies, or appearances 
 the Angel of Jehovah, recorded in the Old Testament. He 
 suddenly appears in the form of a man, and speaks with 
 human voice, and yet declares Himself to be more than 
 man, claiming, commanding, and receiving Divine worship, 
 pronouncing Holy the very ground on which He stands. 
 But He does not usually come or go as a man, but suddenly 
 appears and as suddenly vanishes. But not only does this 
 mysterious Being show Himself to the Patriarchs and make 
 important communications to them, He is also called in the 
 record and addressed by men as Lord and God. 
 
 Are these narratives true and historical records of events 
 which really happened? They are so completely mixed 
 up with the history and so clearly described, not as mere 
 
IC52 CHRIST THE REVEALER OF GOD. 
 
 visions, but as real events, that to doubt them is to doubt 
 the historical character of the whole narrative which con- 
 tains them. The Jews in our Saviour's time evidently- 
 believed them to be real events — "The God of glory 
 appeared unto our father Abraham," &c. (Acts vii. 2), and 
 our Saviour confirms the record of Exod. iii. 2-6. 
 
 But do we believe that these were real manifestations in 
 visible form of the invisible God ? Many of us would per- 
 haps feel difficulty in believing in such stupendous miracles, 
 had we not every reason to believe in the very much greater 
 miracle of the Incarnation, Death, and Resurrection of 
 Jesus, the Son of God ; and still more in His strangely 
 mysterious appearances to His disciples after His Resur- 
 rection, so exactly resembling, in His sudden coming and 
 phantom- like departure, the Theophanies recorded of old. 
 And the resemblance extends even to the mysterious act of 
 eating in the presence of His disciples, just as the Angel of 
 Jehovah partakes of the hospitality of Abraham (St. Luke, 
 xxiv. 41-43 ; Gen. xviii. 8). 
 
 And it is to be observed that these Theophanies occurred 
 only when they were most needed, during the earlier periods 
 of the existence of man, and at great crises in his history. 
 The Angel of Jehovah visited and instructed the first man, 
 and gave him a commandment. He appeared to Noah, 
 Abraham, Moses, Joshua, Samuel, and a few others. Then 
 upon the establishment of the kingdom, and the fuller 
 development of the Mosaic system, these visible manifesta- 
 tions became less frequent or altogether ceased, and God 
 communicated with His people by the mouth of inspired 
 prophets. Having thus " with many different degrees of 
 clearness, and in many different ways," spoken to the fathers 
 by the prophets. He at last made the fullest possible mani- 
 festation of Himself in the Person of His Incarnate Son ; 
 (Heb. i. 2), the only Revealer of the Unseen ; being "the 
 
MIRACLES NO LONGER NEEDED. 133 
 
 brightness of His glory, and the express image of His person " 
 (Heb. i. 3). For says St. John, " No man hath seen God 
 at any time ; the only-begotten Son, which is in the bosom 
 of the Father, He hath declared Him" (St. John i. 18). 
 
 Thus we see in the Bible just what we should expect, the 
 Father gradually training His child to walk alone. Show- 
 ing Himself at first externally and visibly ; but training men 
 by degrees to walk by faith and not by sight ; withdrawing 
 the external, visible evidences, just in proportion as He 
 imparts more and more of the light of His inward and 
 spiritual presence. And this accounts for the complete 
 cessation of miracles upon the establishment of Christianity 
 in the world. The Revelation of Jesus Christ, including 
 as it does the gift of His Holy Spirit, and the founding of 
 His Church, has finished the education of man, who is, 
 therefore, no longer a child or a servant, but a full-grown 
 man in the house of his Father. External evidences might 
 in these days add to the condemnation of unbelievers, but 
 would not convert them. " If they hear not Moses and the 
 prophets," or still more Jesus and His Apostles, " neither 
 will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead " 
 (Luke xvi. 31 ; John xii. 10- 11). 
 
 " Had ye believed Moses ye would have believed Me : for 
 he wrote of Me. But if ye believe not his writings, how 
 shall ye believe My words?" (John v. 46, 47). A signifi- 
 cant saying in these days of hazy belief in the writings of 
 the OM Testament. 
 
 Chapter xix. records the destruction of the cities of the 
 plain, and the escape and degradation of Lot, rescued 
 indeed from death for the sake of Abraham, but not from 
 temporal ruin, or from the taint — at any rate so far as his 
 daughters were concerned — of the gross immorality of those 
 with whom he had been so unwise as to live. 
 
 It is idle to speculate on the causes of the destruction of 
 
134 THE DESTRUCTION OF SODOM. 
 
 these accursed cities. The idea that they were covered by 
 the sea, or that the Dead Sea had its origin or even its 
 enlargement at that time, is due probably to the tales of the 
 crusaders and others, as there is not a word in the Bible, or 
 in ancient history, or anything in the present state of that 
 district to support it. 
 
 They were overwhelmed by some catastrophe, and Lot's 
 wife, lingering behind, was caught and buried under some 
 falling mass of salt. 
 
 They are not the only cities which have been suddenly 
 overthrown and buried out of sight, and the miracle con- 
 sisted, not so much in their destruction, which was doubtless 
 due to natural causes, as in the fact that that destruction 
 was plainly predicted and intended as the punishment of 
 great sin. 
 
 Should we be justified, then, in regarding the sudden 
 destruction of a city in these days as a proof of sin ? Our 
 Saviour teaches the contrary. The flood of Noah, the 
 burning of Sodom, and the extermination of the Canaanites, 
 being predicted and specially commanded, were intended 
 to teach mankind the salutary lesson that God is in earnest, 
 that He hates sin, and is determined to punish it. Further 
 direct and immediate punishments of sin would interfere 
 with man's free will; and therefore of all subsequent 
 temporal evils, though men often bring them upon them- 
 selves, our Saviour says, *' Suppose ye that these men were 
 sinners above all that dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you, 
 nay; but except ye repent ye shall all likewise perish" 
 (St. Luke xiii. 3). 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE TRIALS OF ABRAHAM. 
 
 Chapter xx. is an episode recording a repetition of the 
 sinful weakness of Abraham in again denying his wife. As 
 already stated, the crime was committed many years before, 
 in tae course of the Patriarch's wanderings from Charan, 
 and when Sarah was still young. The careful reader will 
 observe that it has little or no connection with the previous 
 chapter, and still less with that which follows. If the event 
 is recorded in its proper chronological position, Sarah must 
 have been nearly ninety when she again endangered by her 
 beauty her husband's hfe. If this was improbable when 
 she was sixty-five, what must it have been when she was 
 nearly ninety. No. The amazing faith of Abraham having 
 been again recorded, this proof of his previous weakness is 
 placed against it. Moses had before him the tradition of 
 this sin, and he inserts it in the connection most suitable to 
 his purpose. 
 
 Chapter xxi. describes the birth, circumcision, and wean- 
 ing festival of Isaac, and the expulsion of Hagar and 
 Ishmael. This event, so repulsive to the father, was 
 brought about by the sinful jealousy of Sarah, but accom- 
 plished a Divine purpose in keeping select the chosen seed 
 of Abraham ; a purpose expressly revealed to the patriarch. 
 Much compensation is at the same time promised to Hagar, 
 whose son after this trouble is to be tlie forefather of a 
 
136 HAGAR AND ISHMAEL. 
 
 great nation; a prediction which has been conspicuously 
 fulfilled in the history of the world. 
 
 An interval of time, long enough for Isaac to become a 
 young man of perhaps twenty-five years, intervenes between 
 the expulsion of Hagar and Ishmael, and the great trial of 
 Abraham's faith in Mount Moriah. This silence is broken 
 only by the narrative of the thoroughly Oriental transactions 
 between Abimelech and Abraham, ending in the oath be- 
 tween them which gave the name to Beersheba ; after 
 which we are simply told that " Abraham sojourned in the 
 Philistines' land many days" (xxi. 22-34). 
 
 Some critics make a difficulty about the age of Ishmael 
 at the time of his expulsion, as though the writer spoke of 
 him as a little child, whereas he was a lad of about fourteen 
 years old or more. 
 
 It is not necessary to understand from Gen. xxi. 14-17 
 that Ishmael was a child, or that he was put on Hcgar's 
 shoulder, or that she cast him under a shrub. He is called 
 ye/ed, often used, no doubt, for a child, but also for a 
 youth. It is used of Joseph when seventeen years old 
 (Gen. xxxvii. 30). He is also called naar, a boy or Jad ; 
 the word used of Isaac at the time of his offering, and of 
 the servants of Abraham on that occasion. And our trans- 
 lators so render it in verse 17 — "And God heard the voice 
 of the lad." Then she does not cast down the child ; but 
 simply leads him and lets him down under a bush. The 
 verb means, no doubt, to cast down, but it is straining its 
 meaning in this context to represent it as implying that 
 the mother was carrying the child and threw him down. 
 Doubtless the lad was nearly exhausted, and she led him 
 to the bush, and in her anguish let him fall there. 
 
 And so the passage may be literally translated as follows : 
 — " And Abraham rose early in the morning, and took bread, 
 and a skin-vessel of water, and gave them to Hagar, putting 
 
ABIMELECH AND PHICOL. 137 
 
 them on her shoulder ; and the lad." That is, And he gave 
 her the lad ; made her lead away the lad. It is absurd to 
 suppose that he put the lad on her shoulder. "And she 
 went and wandered " (lost her way) " in the wilderness of 
 Beersheba." The verb used here almost always means 
 "to wander," in the sense of "to err," "to go astray," "to 
 lose one's way." Then, reduced to great distress in conse- 
 quence of her stock of bread and water being exhausted, 
 she takes the lad aside and lets him fall under the shade of 
 a bush, and removes to a distance lest she should see him 
 die. The whole story is thoroughly natural, and would 
 suggest difficulties to no one in any book except the 
 Bible. 
 
 We shall meet with another story about Isaac and the 
 King of Gerar in chapter xxvi. Some modern critics like 
 to make out that these two stories refer to one event, and 
 are,' as it were, different editions of the same traditional 
 narrative, because in both we hear of Abimelech and Phicol, 
 and a denial of his wife by the Patriarch. 
 
 But the sacred writer takes great pains to distinguish these 
 two transactions from one another. 
 
 The stories are alike in some respects. The names 
 Abimelech and Phicol occur again. But Abimelech, like 
 Pharaoh, was evidently a dynastic name, meaning " Father- 
 King," and Phicol answers to our prime minister, or 
 commander-in-chief, meaning "mouth of all," or "all- 
 commanding." The place, too, is the same, and Isaac, 
 little profiting, like many another son, by the experience 
 of his father, weakly imitates his sin by denying his wife. 
 The oath of Isaac also, as well as that of his father, estab- 
 lishes for ever the name Beersheba. 
 
 All the other circumstances mentioned are different. 
 
 The famine is expressly distinguished from that which 
 drove Abraham into Egypt. Isaac is specially commanded 
 
138 THE OFFERING OF ISAAC. 
 
 not to go down into Egypt, but to dwell in Gerar. His wife 
 is not taken from him, but when men ask him about her, 
 he is afraid they mean to kill him to take her themselves. 
 The king in Abraham's case took his wife from him and 
 gave her back because God warned him in a dream. 
 
 The Abimelech of Isaac does nothing of the kind, but 
 discovers accidentally the relation between him and Rebe- 
 kah, and shows a much keener appreciation of the sinfulness 
 of adultery than Isaac gave him credit for. 
 
 Then further on in the story the wells are plainly distin- 
 guished from those of Abraham which the Philistines had 
 filled up. 
 
 Thus it is thoroughly uncritical to attempt to identify these 
 stories. We might just as well say that our Lord performed 
 only one miracle of feeding a multitude with a few loaves, 
 but that the Evangelists have described the same one miracle 
 so as to make it appear like two. And perhaps there are 
 critics who would say this, had not our Saviour Himself 
 mentioned the two miracles together on purpose to distin- 
 guish them from one another (St. Mark viii. 19). 
 
 But we must return to the history of Abraham contained 
 in chapter xxii., the great trial of the Patriarch's faith. 
 
 We are not told what the age of Isaac was at the time of 
 his father's trial, but it is evident that he was grown up, for 
 he was strong enough to carry the wood for the sacrifice a 
 considerable distance. We learn nothing of his age from 
 the word rendered " lad," for it is the same as the word used 
 of the servants of Abraham, and may signify any young 
 person, from an infant to a young man of twenty or more. 
 Nor is it important to know more than that he was what 
 we should call a young man and not a boy. 
 
 The command comes to Abraham with startling sudden- 
 ness, and seems to enjoin an act which would render quite 
 impossible the fulfilment of God's promise concerning his 
 
MEANING OF ABRAHAM'S TRIAL. 139 
 
 seed. The character of the command did not seem in itself 
 quite so strange to Abraham as it does to us. 
 
 He knew that the gods of the heathen demanded, or 
 were supposed to demand, such inhuman sacrifices from 
 their worshippers. Later on in the history of Israel we 
 read, "When the King of Moab saw that the battle was too 
 sore for him ... he took his eldest son that should have 
 reigned in his stead, and offered him for a burnt offering 
 upon the wall " (2 Kings iii. 27). And so to the mind of the 
 Patriarch the command would seem to imply, " Thou fearest 
 Jehovah, but wilt thou prove thy love by offering to Him a 
 sacrifice equal to that which the heathen around thee offer 
 to their false gods?" The trial was perhaps the greatest to 
 which the mind and heart of such a man could be exposed, 
 but not only or chiefly because it put a strain upon strong 
 parental affection. There have been many fathers who 
 have willingly given up their sons at the command of duty 
 or honour. The general who, by his own act, allows his 
 only son to lead the forlorn hope, knows something of one 
 part of Abraham's trial, but only the smallest part. It was 
 the terrible abyss which it seemed to open in the mystery 
 of God's moral character. Can Jehovah be true and merci- 
 ful ? Is not this command utterly inconsistent with His 
 promise ? Can a God who makes this claim be otherwise 
 than a cruel God, like the gods of the heathen ? 
 
 Looked at in this its true light, the trial of Abraham is 
 not wholly unlike that which tests the faith of the thoughtful 
 in every age of the world. The faith of not a few indeed 
 has been wrecked upon this rock, or hurried by their 
 thoughts into an abyss of hopeless doubt. The lesson it 
 teaches us is the same which it taught Abraham; "wait." 
 The fulfilment of God's promises often seems impossible. 
 His commands appear not seldom to render them even less 
 possible. That which He does or allows to be done often 
 
140 THE MYSTERY OF GOD. 
 
 seems cruel, His chastisements uncalled for, His threats of 
 future punishment inconceivable as coming from a God of 
 infinite wisdom, power, and mercy. So it seems to us, and 
 so doubtless at first it seemed to Abraham. But his 
 example is meant to teach and encourage us. To patience, 
 unquestioning obedience, and wilHng self-sacrifice, every 
 mystery shall be solved in the end ; for, " In the days of the 
 voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, 
 the mystery of God shall be finished, as He hath declared 
 to His servants the prophets " (Rev. x. 7). 
 
 We know absolutely nothing about the place where this 
 sacrifice was offered. Nothing is said about any Alount 
 Moriah. Abraham is told to go not to Mount Moriah, but 
 into the land of Moriah, and there to offer his son on one 
 of the mountains in that land. The tradition that it was 
 afterwards the site of Solomon's temple, seems entirely 
 destitute of any solid foundation. It was evidently some 
 solitary place. But Jerusalem was not then a solitary place, 
 but was in all probability the city of Melchizedek. And 
 the omission of all allusion to this sacrifice in 2 Chron. iii. i, 
 seems to show that the writer of that passage could not 
 have thought the Mount Moriah on which the temple was 
 built the scene of the great trial of Abraham's faith. The 
 words are, " Then Solomon began to build the house 
 of the Lord at Jerusalem in Mount Moriah, where the 
 Lord appeared unto David his father, in the place that 
 David had prepared in the threshing-floor of Oman the 
 Jebusite." The omission here of Abraham's sacrifice is 
 surely very significant, and there is no other mention of 
 Moriah. 
 
 The truth or falsehood, however, of this tradition, is of 
 no more consequence than of that of the Samaritans, who 
 assert that their Mount Gerizim was the true Moriah. All 
 that we know for certain is that the land of Moriah was 
 
THE RETICENCE OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 141 
 
 about three days' journey from Beersheba, and that it was 
 evidently a very lonely place. 
 
 The extreme reticence of the sacred writer as to the 
 hidden, but long-protracted anguish of the father's heart, or 
 the agonising wonder, and yet willing submission of the son, 
 renders this simple narrative more touching than the most 
 eloquent and affecting language of any uninspired author. 
 It is difficult to read without emotion the simple question, 
 "My father . . . Behold the fire and the wood, but where 
 is the lamb for a burnt offering?" or the equally simple 
 answer of faith, " My son, God will provide Himself a lamb." 
 
 It is scarcely less difficult to realise the revulsion of 
 feeling which must have followed when the trial was over, 
 and when the eyes of the Patriarch were opened to discern 
 something of the meaning of the transaction, and when he 
 saw, however dimly and afar off, the sacrifice of Him who 
 would not be rescued by twelve legions of His Father's 
 angels from the bitterness of death, even the' death of the 
 cross. We know not how far was revealed to him the great 
 truth afterwards expressed in the words, "God so loved the 
 world, that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever 
 beheveth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting 
 life " (St. John iii. 16). But that he had some insight into 
 the typical significance of the tragedy, seems to be implied 
 in our Lord's words, " Your father Abraham rejoiced to see 
 My day, and he saw it and was glad" (St. John viii. 56). 
 And the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews certainly 
 regarded the whole transaction as full of typical meaning : 
 " By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac ; 
 and he that had received the promises, offered up his only- 
 begotten son, of whom it was said, That in Isaac shall thy 
 seed be called ; accounting that God was able to raise him 
 up even from the dead : from whence also he received him 
 in a figure " (Heb. xi. 17-19). 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THE ANTIQUITY OF GENESIS. 
 
 Chapter xxiii. gives a thoroughly characteristic narrative 
 of Abraham's purchase of the cave of Machpelah of Ephron 
 the Hittite, for the burial of Sarah, who died at the age of 
 one hundred and twenty-seven years. 
 
 The Hittites, or children of Heth, one of the sons of 
 Canaan, are spoken of as the owners of that portion of land. 
 And this statement is consistent with the results of the most 
 recent discoveries. 
 
 The land is called in Genesis the land of Canaan, because 
 it was occupied by the descendants of Canaan, the son of 
 Ham. But it is now well known that at one time, and for a 
 considerable time, the Hittites, or children of Heth, the son 
 of Canaan, became the leading tribe, and formed a power- 
 ful Empire in Asia Minor and Syria, having their capital at 
 Kadesh on the Orontes, and contending on equal terms 
 with Egypt and other powerful neighbours. 
 
 There is perhaps scarcely any more convincing argument 
 in support of the antiquity and historical accuracy of Genesis, 
 than that which may be derived from a careful comparison 
 of the account which it gives of the state of Canaan in the 
 age of Abraham contrasted with that which is given in the 
 last four books of the Pentateuch, and the book of Joshua. 
 
 Here in Genesis we have Abraham, the wealthy and 
 honoured nomad sheikh, bargaining on the most friendly 
 terms with a Hittite merchant, and recognising him as the 
 
THE LAND OF THE HITTITES. 143 
 
 lawful owner of the portion of land in which he desires to 
 purchase a burying- place for his wife. Just as before we 
 have seen him recognising the superior dignity and sacred- 
 ness of Melchizedek, the King of righteousness ; probably 
 the Amorite king of Jerusalem, the dynastic predecessor of 
 Adonizedek, the Lord of righteousness, whom Joshua slew. 
 And then when we open the Book of Joshua we find the 
 land called the land of the Hittites. 
 
 How are we to account for this ? By realising the fact 
 that a vast interval of time intervenes between the age of 
 Abraham and that of Moses and Joshua, at least four 
 hundred years, and probably more. Think of four centuries 
 in the development of nations ! In the increase of popula- 
 tions ! In the advance of civilisation ! And, alas ! too 
 often, collateral with this, in the debasement of religious 
 ideas and practices! 
 
 Read carefully the Book of Genesis, and then the rest of 
 the Pentateuch and Joshua, and you seem to find yourself, 
 so to speak, in two widely different atmospheres. It is 
 quite inconceivable that any forger could have brought out 
 this contrast with such wonderful and consistent accuracy. 
 It is equally inconceivable that a Jew in the age of Ezra, 
 and with the knowledge and ideas of a Jew of that age, 
 could have put together the Book of Genesis and yet have 
 preserved so completely the account of the facts which 
 bring out this contrast in such a strong light. Its produc- 
 tion as a fictitious narrative, or mere record of oral traditions 
 in any age later than that of Joshua, is equally inconceivable. 
 On only one theory could Ezra have succeeded in this task, 
 a theory W'hich the believer in the truth of Holy Scripture 
 may willingly accept. He must have had before him con- 
 temporary written and authentic records of events from 
 the age of Abraham to that of Joseph, or, in other words, 
 he must have had before him in some form the written 
 
144 CANAAN IN ABRAHAM'S DAYS. 
 
 materials of which the Book of Genesis consists; in fact, 
 the Book of Genesis as it came down to him. 
 
 It may confirm our faith to trace out this contrast as 
 regards — i. Population; 2. Civilisation; 3. Religion. 
 
 I. Four hundred years make a considerable difference in 
 the population of a country. We are very apt to lose sight 
 of this in studying history, especially the history of the Bible. 
 Mountains really far apart seem quite close to one another 
 when we look at them from a distance ; and fixed stars, 
 countless millions of miles from one another, seem almost 
 touching in the fathomless abyss of space. It is just so 
 with intervals of time in the remote past. We can appre- 
 ciate what four centuries have done for our own nation, for 
 Europe, and for America. Why should it not have done as 
 much even for the extremely conservative East ? Yes, we 
 must make allowance, as regards manners, customs, and 
 the slow development and comparative permanence of 
 language, for the intense conservatism of the Oriental. 
 But even the Oriental knows something of the increase of 
 populations, and the rise and fall of great empires. 
 
 Now, it is evident that the population of Canaan was 
 very scanty in the days of Abraham. There w^as plenty of 
 room for him and Lot to wander wherever they pleased 
 with their vast flocks and herds. But "the Canaanite was 
 even then in the land." The powerful tribes descended 
 from Canaan had settled there, built themselves cities, and 
 were regarded as the owners of, at any rate, parts of the 
 country, perhaps the districts around their cities. They 
 were on friendly terms with Abraham. He is regarded as 
 an important personage by Ephron, the Hittite ; and on 
 one occasion, after Lot had left him, we find him in close 
 alliance with three powerful Amorite sheikhs — Mamre, 
 Eshcol, and Aner. 
 
 What a very different state of things we find when we 
 
CIVILISATION OF CANAAN. 
 
 145 
 
 come to the time of Moses and Joshua ! Four hundred 
 years have increased the family of Abraham into a great 
 multitude, and filled Canaan with warlike and highly civilised 
 nations, jealous of the slightest intrusion of a foreigner into 
 their country. 
 
 2. For the contrast in the civilisation of Canaan is even 
 more striking than the increase in its population. 
 
 While x\braham's seed were multiplying exceedingly in 
 Egypt, the material civilisation of their future land was 
 advancing with rapid strides, and the tribes of Canaan 
 were preparing for God's people " goodly cities which they 
 builded not, and houses full of all good things which they 
 filled not, and wells digged which they digged not, vineyards 
 and olive-trees which they planted not" (Deut. vi. 10, 11). 
 
 The account of the land, where Abraham had been the 
 honoured friend of Amorite sheikhs and of a Hittite mer- 
 chant, which the twelve spies brought back to Moses, was 
 that of a country " flowing indeed with milk and honey," 
 that is, rich and well cultivated, but in which " the people 
 were strong," and "the cities great and walled up to 
 heaven" (Numb. xiii. 28; Deut. i. 28). 
 
 Of the causes of this growing civilisation Holy Scripture 
 tells us nothing. " Of the progress or affairs of these nations 
 in the 430 years the Bible is silent. Egyptian records help 
 us somewhat. Glancing at them, we may now see how 
 God prepared the way — the future homes of the Israelites. 
 While they were in bondage in Egypt, the Hittites, allied 
 with other tribes, resisted the progress of the Egyptian 
 Pharaohs, who at one time had overrun Canaan even to 
 Lebanon. . . . Ihese Hittites were a great and powerful 
 race, as all Egyptian inscriptions show. Their solid sove- 
 reignty was broken by the Egyptians, and so we find in the 
 days of Joshua that the country of Palestine was ruled over 
 by many kings or petty kinglets, sheikhs of tribes, who 
 
146 EGYPT AND PALESTINE. 
 
 represented that once great empire which is now known as 
 Hittite. ... So while the Israelites were in bondage a great 
 empire had grown up in Canaan. That empire was shattered 
 by the Egyptians (by Rameses II., the Pharaoh of the 
 oppression), and it was therefore only its broken fragments 
 that Joshua had to encounter" (Harper, pp. 179, 180). 
 
 The high state of civilisation still remaining after these 
 inroads of the Egyptians may be seen " from a record left 
 by an Egyptian military officer, who traversed the country 
 shortly before its conquest by Joshua. He goes as far as 
 Aleppo in a chariot. . . . He shows a country full of 
 cities, with riches and temples, kings, soldiers, scribes, 
 chariots and horsemen, artisans and traders. All the 
 Egyptian records of Canaan prove a high state of civilisa- 
 tion : enormous flocks of slieep, horses, goats ; huge quan- 
 tities of corn, figs, vines, precious stones, gold, chairs of 
 gold, tables of ivory, of cedar ; oil, wine, incense, dates, 
 implements of warfare, armour, and a galley " (Harper, 
 p. 203, 4). 
 
 And from this we may see that Moses, as an educated 
 Egyptian, must have been well acquainted with the state of 
 Palestine in his day. The frequent intercourse which went 
 on between Egypt, Palestine, and Syria at that time, must 
 have made him familiar with the names of the towns and 
 nations of that land which was promised of old as the 
 possession of his people. 
 
 Such was the state of civilisation in Canaan when Joshua 
 conquered it. Long continued and internecine wars, fre- 
 quent invasions, and cruel oppressions of apostatising and 
 degraded Israel, soon reduced it to the state of desolation in 
 which we find it in the time of the Judges — another period 
 of 400 years, and probably more. 
 
 And to this destruction of civihsation and relapse into 
 chaos, which has been compared to the state of things 
 
THE RUINS OF PALESTINE. 147 
 
 in Europe which followed the disruption of the Western 
 Empire, the countless and gigantic ruins of the land are 
 bearing a silent but ever-growing testimony. We know not 
 what interval of time separated the age of Joshua from that 
 of Samuel, but it cannot have been less than another 400 
 years. But we know what 400 years did for Europe, and so 
 can understand how rapidly a land of high civilisation may 
 sink back into utter barbarism if reduced to a state of 
 violence and anarchy. Well might the Psalmist write, 
 " Neither destroyed they the heathen, as the Lord com- 
 manded them ; but were mingled among the heathen and 
 learned their works. . . . Therefore was the wrath of 
 the Lord kindled against His people, insomuch that He 
 abhorred His own inheritance. And He gave them over 
 into the hand of the heathen ; and they that hated them 
 were lords over them " (Ps. cvi. 34). And therefore " a 
 fruitful land made He barren, for the wickedness of them 
 that dwelt therein " (Ps. cvii. 34). 
 
 The spade of the explorer is daily bringing to light fresh 
 and fresh unquestionable evidences of the existence of these 
 great changes in the civilisation of Canaan. The gigantic 
 walls of the cities of Joshua's age are found underneath the 
 remains of mere stone huts, and then above them the later 
 walls of the times of the kings of Israel and Judah, indi- 
 cating clearly the great breach in the civilisation of Canaan 
 which intervened between its first occupation by the Israelites 
 and the rise of the kingdom of Saul.^ 
 
 3. But what shall we say of the contrast in the state of 
 religious belief and practice exhibited between Genesis and 
 the rest of the Pentateuch and Joshua ? 
 
 The religious belief and practice of Abraham we must 
 
 1 See "Tell El Hesy or Lachish," by W. M. Flinders Petrie 
 Palestine Exploration Fund (Watt, 2 Paternoster Square). 
 
148 THE PRIMEVAL RELIGION. 
 
 remember is that to which Christ and His Apostles would 
 recall both the Jews and the Gentiles of their day; the 
 simple, pure, and spiritual worship of the One Living and 
 true God, the Maker and Ruler of all things in heaven and 
 earth ; a worship encumbered with no ceremonies, except 
 apparently that of the occasional offering of sacrifice, and 
 involving the most perfect trust in the invisible God, revealed 
 in the personal Jehovah, and prompt obedience to His com- 
 mands at any cost. This was, in fact, the primeval religion 
 of the Avorld, as revealed to man from the beginning, flowing 
 naturally from the relation existing betw^een God and man. 
 This is indeed the essence of Christianity, which adds only 
 a fuller revelation of the triune nature of God, and a more 
 perfect manifestation of the personal Jehovah in the incar- 
 nate Son of God, the Man Christ Jesus, and in Him the 
 fulfilment of the original prophecy of the destruction of 
 man's enemy by a Son of Man. 
 
 The history of religion which the Old Testament gives us 
 is consistent with almost universal experience. 
 
 A careful study of the religions of the world soon leads us 
 to these two conclusions : — 
 
 1. That a religion invariably appears more and more pure 
 as we trace it back to its original founder. 
 
 2. That the purer a religion is at its commencement, the 
 greater and more rapid is its subsequent corruption. 
 
 This is exactly the view of things which Genesis gives us, 
 especially when we compare it with the rest of the Penta- 
 teuch and with the books of Joshua and Judges. 
 
 Abraham is not presented to us as the founder of the 
 worship of the One Living God, but as its reformer. We 
 read, indeed, in Joshua xxiv. 2, " Your fathers dwelt on the 
 other side of the river in old time, even Terah, the father of 
 Abraham, and the father of Nahor, and served other gods." 
 But we greatly misunderstand these words if we take them 
 
TERAH A WORSHIPPER OF GOD. 149 
 
 to imply that Terah was not a worshipper of the true God. 
 We might just as truly say that Romanists are not worshippers 
 of God and Christ because they also worship the Virgin and 
 the saints, and regard images and relics with the same super- 
 stitious reverence as the Israelites regarded the brazen serpent 
 in the days of Hezekiah, and Laban attached to the images 
 which Rachel stole and hid from her father in Jacob's tent. 
 The words mean that Terah added to the worship of Jehovah 
 a superstitious veneration for supposed superhuman powers, 
 and the representation of them by visible symbols or images. 
 Is this contrary to experience in any age of the world, or in 
 any religion of the world, not excepting Christianity itself? 
 
 That Terah worshipped the true God is clear from the 
 words of his grandson Laban when he made a covenant of 
 peace with Jacob ; for he calls upon him to swear by the 
 God of Terah, saying, "The God of Abraham, and the 
 God of Nahor, the God of their father judge between us " 
 (Gen. xxxi. 53). 
 
 But we have other proofs in Genesis that the knowledge 
 of the true God, as supreme Lord of heaven and earth, 
 prevailed widely in the days of Abraham, though m.any 
 were adding to His worship the worship and service of other 
 gods. 
 
 The Pharaoh of his day, though no doubt a worshipper 
 of many gods, is very different from the Pharaohs of Moses 
 and Joshua. He acknowledges the authority of the God of 
 Abraham, and shows abhorrence of the sin of adultery (Gen. 
 xii. 17-20). The same is apparent in the case of Abimelech 
 in Gerar, although Abraham thought, "Surely the fear of 
 God is not in this place" (Gen. xx. 11); and in the case 
 of Isaac afterwards in the same place (Gen. xxvi. 7). 
 
 It is certain indeed that the primeval religion of the world, 
 as exhibited by the example of Enos, Enoch, and Noah, 
 had been fearfully corrupted in the days of Abraham, and in 
 
ABRAHAM AND MELCHIZEDEK. 
 
 some parts the very grossest immorality prevailed. But this 
 appears side by side, as in Christian times, with an acknow- 
 ledgment of the existence and authority of the one Supreme 
 Ruler of the world. And in the case of Melchizedek we 
 have the plainest proof that Abraham was not the founder 
 of the true worship of God. This mysterious personage, 
 belonging to a different family and probably to a different 
 race, is recognised by Abraham as his superior, and as being 
 not only a king, but also a priest of the Most High God. 
 
 Contrast all this with the state of Egypt and Canaan in 
 the time of Moses, and the composition of Genesis in any 
 age later than that of Moses, or from any materials other 
 than contemporary writings of the Patriarchs, will appear in 
 the highest degree improbable. And this contrast is all the 
 more striking when we observe that it is brought out by no 
 direct statement, but from the inferences which we cannot 
 help drawing from the casual mention of incidents which 
 testify to its existence. ^ 
 
 And we must not forget that we have also one of the 
 
 ^ "The early books do not exhibit, like the Psalter, the close 
 inner contact of the individual soul with the Deity ; and, as water does 
 not rise above its source, it is hard to ascribe to them alone the 
 wonderful development of that principle which pervades the body of 
 this unparalleled collection. We seem compelled to assume for them 
 some loftier fountain-head of instruction. This, I would submit, is in 
 part supplied, and in part suggested, by the Book of Genesis. I say 
 suggested, inasmuch as the outlines of a pure moral religion drawn in 
 that book are not less slight than they are significant ; so slight, 
 indeed, that I have been unable to resist the impression that there 
 were supplementary communications of Divine truth over and above 
 those contained in Holy Writ. . . . And I also say supplied, inas- 
 much as the story of the Fall involves in full the idea of a restoration 
 in character as well as condition, which is nowhere enunciated in the 
 Law ; and further, inasmuch as it sets forth, at least down to the time 
 of Abraham, a pleasant intercourse, habitual and direct, with the 
 Deity, and one pointing onwards to the great Redemption." — The 
 Impregnable Rock of Holy Scripture, by W. E. Gladstone, p. 127. 
 
THE GROWTH OF SUPERSTITION. 151 
 
 long periods of silence, of which there are so many in 
 Scripture, intervening between the early part of the eleventh 
 and the twelfth chapter of Genesis, between the age of 
 Noah and that of Abraham. We know not how long this 
 period was; but there are many reasons for thinking that it 
 was very long ; so that whether we look backwards or for- 
 wards, we find the state of religion exhibited in Genesis, 
 from the call of Abraham to the death of Joseph, entirely 
 consistent with what we should expect under the circum- 
 stances. We find the knowledge of the God of Noah 
 lingering in more or less purity and clearness in some parts 
 and among some families side by side with the growth of 
 idolatry and superstition, rendering necessary the separation 
 of Abraham from his father's home, and in other parts a 
 development of immorality so hideous as to call down the 
 judgment of God upon the sinners and their cities. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 ABRAHAM, ISAAC, AND JACOB. 
 
 Chapter xxiv. gives an account of the marriage of Isaac, 
 and brings out very clearly the fact already mentioned, that 
 Charan was not very far from the land in which Abraham 
 wandered, and was still recognised by him as his proper 
 country. " Thou shalt go unto my country, and to my 
 kindred, and take a wife unto my son Isaac " (Gen. 
 xxiv. 4). And so Rebekah, the grand-daughter of Nahor, 
 Abraham's brother, becomes the wife of Isaac, who marries 
 her when he was forty years old, three years after his 
 mother's death. 
 
 Chapter xxv. i-ii finishes the history of Abraham. No 
 mention had been made before of Keturah, one of Abra- 
 ham's concubines; but it is evident that he must have 
 married her before the birth of Isaac, and probably very 
 long before. The common explanation is very unsatis- 
 factory. It is not at all likely that he would have married 
 another wife after the death of Sarah, when he must have 
 been 137 years old. It is far more probable that the 
 Hebrew verbs should here be translated as pluperfects, 
 thus : " Now Abraham had added and had taken a wife, 
 and her name was Keturah" — a Hebraic way of saying 
 that he had taken an additional wife besides those already 
 mentioned, Hagar and Sarah. 
 
 And here it is especially important to remember that 
 
DEATH AND AGE OF ABRAHAM. 153 
 
 countless events connected with the long wanderings of 
 Abraham as a stranger in the land of Canaan are passed 
 over in silence. Just those are mentioned which had 
 some important bearing upon the object before Moses in 
 making this compilation. As examples of these intentional 
 silences we may observe the stations or encampments 
 mentioned. These must have been very numerous. If 
 Abraham was 175, or even 155 at his death, he must have 
 been for a,t least eighty years wandering as a shepherd in 
 Canaan. He goes through " the length and breadth of the 
 land" (xiii. 17). "He sojourns long in the Philistines' 
 land" (xxi. 34). And yet, out of hundreds, not half-a- 
 dozen encampments are mentioned in all that time. And 
 thus there had been no occasion to mention Keturah before ; 
 but now it is necessary to do so, because an account is to be 
 given of that which we may call Abraham's will. He had 
 more than one concubine, but their children were to be 
 kept quite separate from Isaac, the chosen forefather of the 
 chosen seed. And so their children are sent away east- 
 ward with gifts, but his residuary legatee is Isaac ; for 
 "Abraham gave all that he had unto Isaac." And then 
 we are told that "Abraham died and was buried in Mach- 
 pelah by his sons Ishmael and Isaac," the other sons having 
 been sent away during his lifetime (ver. 6). 
 
 But what was Abraham's age at the time of his death ? 
 Sarah died at the age of 127, when Abraham must have 
 been 137. Three years after this, Isaac marries Rebekah, 
 when Abraham, therefore, was 140. Rebekah has no 
 children for twenty years, for Isaac was sixty when Esau 
 and Jacob were born. 
 
 But the events recorded in chapter xxvi., the episode of 
 Isaac's denial of his wife and his strife with Abimelech about 
 the wells; must have happened before the birth of Rebekah's 
 children, and while she was a young woman, and yet after 
 
154 BIRTH OF ESAU AND JACOB. 
 
 the death of Abraham, for this is implied by the words, "The 
 famine that was in the days of Abraham " (ver. i) ; and again, 
 " Isaac digged again the wells of water which they had 
 digged in the days of Abraham his father, for the Philistines 
 had stopped them after the death of Abraham" (ver. i8). 
 Is it not, therefore, probable that, as in the case of Terah, so 
 in this record of the age of Abraham, some error must have 
 been caused by the copyist, and that Abraham must have 
 died shortly atter the marriage of Isaac, when he may have 
 been about 145 or 155, rather than 175 ? 
 
 From. vers. 12 to 18 we have an episode giving an account 
 of Ishmael's descendants and his death. With ver. 19 
 begins the history of Isaac, whom God blesses after the 
 death of Abraham (ver. 11). 
 
 At forty years old he marries Rebekah, and Jacob and 
 Esau are born when he is sixty, probably, as we have seen, 
 after the death of Abraham. Vers. 27 and 28 give a general 
 sketch of the two boys with reference to their subsequent 
 history and different characters. 
 
 When they were boys we have the account of Jacob's first 
 treacherous act in purchasing his brother's birthright. It is 
 absurd to suppose that they were grown-up men at this time. 
 They were probably about fifteen or sixteen years old, and 
 so their father would have been seventy-five or seventy-six. 
 
 Chapter xxvi. contains the account of Isaac's weakness 
 in denying his wife, evidently inserted here, as already sug- 
 gested, out of its proper chronological place ; for had Isaac's 
 children been born, there could have been no mistake about 
 Rebekah being his wife. 
 
 Verse 34 gives us some idea of the probable age of Jacob 
 when he deceived his father. Esau, we are told, married 
 when he was forty, and it is evident that the deception of 
 Isaac followed not very long after this, and therefore when 
 Isaac was a little more than a hundred (see xxviii. 6-9). 
 
yACOB'S SIN AND PUNISHMENT. 155 
 
 It is a mistake, which raises a quite unnecessary difficulty, 
 to represent Isaac as on his deathbed, as some critics affirm. 
 There is not a word to justify this statement. He very 
 properly wishes to appoint one of his sons to inherit the 
 blessing of Abraham, and naturally desires to make his 
 eldest and favourite son his heir. Like any other man 
 more than a hundred years old, he might well say, " I am 
 old, and I know not the day of my death." This is scarcely 
 the language of a man who felt that he was dying. He was 
 old and blind, and possibly weak and ill ; and this total 
 blindness accounts for our hearing so little about him, or of 
 any activity of life afterwards. However long he lived, he 
 seems to have lived in the most perfect quietness, as a blind 
 old man might well do, at Mamre near Hebron. Esau was 
 already married, being forty years old, but Jacob was not yet 
 married ; and so it is probable that the twin brothers were 
 not much over forty when Jacob listened to the wicked 
 suggestion of his mother. 
 
 The cruel sin of Rebekah and Jacob brought down upon 
 the mother the loss of the society of her beloved son, 
 and upon that son a lifelong punishment most terrible 
 to one of his temperament; and Esau, by far the finest 
 character of the two, w^as compensated for the loss of privi- 
 lege by far greater worldly prosperity than his treacherous 
 brother. 
 
 It is an ignorant libel on the character of the Old Testa- 
 ment to say that the duplicity of Jacob is condoned. The 
 supplanter of his brother and the deceiver of his father 
 might well say to Pharaoh in Egypt that his days had been 
 "few and evil" (xlvii. 9). As the land of Canaan was not 
 afterwards given to the children of Israel because of their 
 righteousness, for they were a stiff-necked people, so neitt^.er 
 was the privilege of being the forefather of these chosen 
 people bestowed upon Jacob for any superiority over his 
 
156 THE ELECTION OF JACOB. 
 
 brother, but for reasons quite irrespective of merit, which 
 are known only to Him who rules the world. 
 
 And this explains the language of St. Paul in his Epistle 
 to the Romans, especially what he says about God's election 
 to religious privileges being altogether disconnected with 
 human merit, and entirely a matter of God's free choice 
 (Rom. ix. T1-13). And it is obvious that the fact of being 
 born of Gentile or Jewish parents, or, in these days, in a 
 Christian or heathen land, cannot have anything to do with 
 the merit of the child, though doubtless giving it very widely 
 different privileges in this hfe. It would indeed be a libel 
 on the character of God to suppose that it involves any 
 difference of condition hereafter, "For there is no respect 
 of persons with God" (Rom. ii. 9-12). 
 
 We have again, in the case of these twin brothers, an 
 evidence of the superior religious advantages afforded by 
 the pastoral mode of life. Superstitions, idolatries, and 
 immoral practices are in Genesis represented as developing 
 more rapidly among those races who gave up the quiet of 
 pastoral life for more exciting pursuits, and also among the 
 dwellers in cities. This is thoroughly natural, and just what 
 we should expect ; but it is scarcely the feature in the 
 picture of primeval times which would have been so con- 
 sistently traced out by a writer later than Moses, or by any 
 compiler of mere traditions, or composer of a fictitious 
 narrative among the captives in Babylon or in the age of 
 Ezra. And this taste for the quiet pastoral life may account 
 for the selection of Jacob as the forefather of the chosen 
 people in preference to his more generous-minded but more 
 restless brother. From the call of Abraham to enter upon 
 the wandering life of a shepherd down to the death of 
 Jacob, we find this preference given to a mode of life so 
 well suited to religious meditation and to the reception of 
 divine revelations. 
 
JACOB FLEES TO CHARAN. 157 
 
 With chapter xxviii. commences the history of Jacob. 
 The punishment swiftly follows upon his sin. The smothered 
 wrath of the deeply injured Esau could not be hidden from 
 the conscience-stricken mother. Isaac was certainly not on 
 his death-bed, but he was so old and blind and feeble, that 
 there was reason to believe that he might not live very long. 
 His death would untie the hands of Esau, and so Rebekah 
 hastens to provide against that contingency by getting her 
 favourite son as soon as possible out of danger. She urges 
 him to flee to Charan, and devises a scheme by which she 
 might persuade the aged father to send him there at once. 
 He must not take a wife of the daughters of Canaan, but 
 of the daughters of Laban, his mother's brother. 
 
 And here again we have one of those telling silences of 
 inspired Scripture. What agonising scenes must have fol- 
 lowed the treacherous crime ! We are told, indeed, that 
 Isaac "trembled exceedingly," r.nd that Esau "cried out 
 with a great and exceeding bitter cry." Two powerful 
 strokes of the artist, which suggest a dark and terrible 
 domestic picture to the imagination of the reader. 
 
 It must have been an awful time for this family, especially 
 for those two, whose consciences must have been stung with 
 the scorpion of self-condemnation and a terrible fear of the 
 vengeance which was to follow. The conscience of Isaac, 
 also, cannot have been altogether at rest. He knew that 
 Jacob, the mother's favourite, was divinely selected as the 
 forefather of the chosen race. He knew that Esau had 
 shown a profound contempt for this high privilege; and 
 yet he cannot bear the thought of his favourite being sup- 
 planted by him who, from, a significant event at his very 
 birth, had been named Jacob the supplanter. And now by 
 means of a vile conspiracy he has been made the unwilling 
 instrument of the accomplishment of a Divine prediction 
 and purpose. And this accounts for his confirmation of 
 
158 ISAAC CONFIRMS HIS BLESSING. 
 
 the blessing, even after he found that it had been won from 
 him by fraud. He recognises in it the hand of Him who 
 brings good out of evil ; of Him who needs not indeed our 
 sins for the accomplishment of His purposes, and yet fre- 
 quently brings them about by the free wills of men both 
 good and bad — a truth soon to be illustrated by the history 
 of Joseph, and still more in that conspiracy of evil which 
 accomplished the death of Jesus for the salvation of the 
 world. Indeed it is difficult otherwise to account for Isaac's 
 persistence in the blessing of Jacob after his discovery of 
 the trick which had been practised upon him. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 THE HISTORY OF JACOB. 
 
 The narrative of Jacob's flight and adventures in Charan 
 and its neighbourhood in the service of Laban suggests no 
 historical difficulties, and covers a period of twenty years. 
 
 It is a mistake to think that we are called upon to justify 
 his conduct while with Laban, either as regards his matri- 
 monial affairs or his service, or to think that Holy Scripture 
 condones his faults. The sacred writer gives a very com- 
 pressed but plain account of the whole matter, neither justi- 
 fying Jacob nor condemning Laban, but leaving them to 
 our judgment. It is a thoroughly Oriental picture of a 
 father-in-law and his son-in-law trying to circumvent one 
 another. The treachery began with Laban in the case of 
 the marriage of Leah ; and all through Laban seems to 
 have been the worst offender. He changes Jacob's wages 
 ten times, of which changes a few only are mentioned. 
 Jacob still stands before us as the supplanter, and in the 
 end the successful supplanter, but also as the deceiver 
 punished by the deceit of others, his sin continually finding 
 him out. He attributes, indeed, the success of his schemes 
 to the Providence of God taking liis part against the greater 
 treachery of Laban, as one more sinned against than sinning. 
 And this is expressed in his dream, recorded in chapter 
 xxxi. lo, in which God commands him to return to his old 
 
 home with Isaac. This command is mentioned by antici- 
 
 159 
 
i6o yACOB'S DREAM AT PENUEL. 
 
 pation in verse 3. He recounts this dream to his wives for 
 their encouragement when he wants to persuade them to 
 leave their father secretly. 
 
 Jacob then returns homewards, and on the road meets 
 and becomes reconciled to his brother. This last, like 
 almost all the incidents of his checkered life, proves him 
 to be still the same suspicious, crafty, if not deceitful man. 
 But the dream at Penuel probably marks a great crisis in 
 the development of his religious character, perfecting his 
 real conversion to God, and encouraging him to fight more 
 resolutely for the future against his besetting sin. When 
 the brothers part, Esau goes towards Seir, and Jacob 
 journeyed and made himself a somewhat more permanent 
 encampment at some place we know not where, which 
 for that reason was called Succoth (xxxiii. 16, 17). And 
 here he probably dwelt for a considerable time, for he built 
 himself a house and made booths for his cattle. 
 
 Thus we have a continuous, though very compressed, 
 narrative of Jacob's fortunes from the time of his flight 
 from his brother's wrath until his final reconciliation with 
 him twenty years later. Meanwhile Isaac, blind and help- 
 less, was living a perfectly retired life at Hebron. 
 
 At xxxiii. 17 the narrative is broken off abruptly, and we 
 have an episode which has little connection with that which 
 precedes it, but is inserted by Moses evidently in conse- 
 quence of the meaning which it gives to the words spoken 
 afterwards by Jacob on his deatn-bed concerning Simeon 
 and Levi : " Cursed be their anger, for it was fierce ; and 
 their wrath, for it was cruel. I will divide them in Jacob, 
 and scatter them in Israel" (Gen. xlix. 7). 
 
 That we are beginning an entirely fresh extract is evident 
 from the language of xxxiii. 18, which should be trans- 
 lated, " Now Jacob came safely (lit. in peace or in safety) to 
 the city of Shechem, which is in the land of Canaan, when 
 
HE GOES AGAIN TO BETHEL. i6l 
 
 he came from Padan-aram." This expression, "when he 
 came from Padan-aram," would never have been used if the 
 compiler had wished us to understand that Jacob moved 
 from his comparatively permanent residence in Succoth to 
 the city of Shechem ; and so we cannot at all say when 
 the destruction of Hamor's city took place. 
 
 We are not told when or how long Jacob and his sons 
 dwelt in Shechem, on the land which he had purchased, 
 apparently with the intention of remaining there some time ; 
 but he leaves the place in consequence of the misconduct 
 of his daughter and the cruel revenge of his sons. 
 
 After this Jacob is commanded to go to Bethel and 
 dwell there, and to build an altar in memory of his vision 
 of the ladder seen there when he was fleeing from Esau 
 (Gen. XXXV. i). 
 
 And here again we have mention of the superstitious 
 practices of those still worshipping the true God. These 
 strange gods were probably images and magical charms. 
 Jacob takes them away and buries them at Shechem. 
 
 He journeys in fear of the consequences of his sons' 
 cruel and treacherous conduct ; but God saves him by 
 inspiring the inhabitants of the other neighbouring cities 
 with terror, and so he comes to Bethel or Luz. 
 
 It is a misconception and an unnecessary puzzle to iden- 
 tify entirely Luz and Bethel. Joshua xvi. 2 evidently shows 
 them to be distinct. In the time of Joshua, Bethel was pro- 
 bably one town and Luz was another. They were very 
 near, though not identical, for the border of Josephtpassed 
 "from Bethel to Luz" (Josh. xvi. 2). But the two towns 
 being thus originally near, seem, like many modern cities, to 
 have extended so as to reach one another, still retaining their 
 original names, like London and^Westminster. At any rate, 
 it is clear that the old name still clung to the city^from the 
 fact that "the house of Joseph went up against Bethel," and 
 
1 62 BETHEL AND LUZ. 
 
 took it tiirough the treachery of one of the inhabitants, whose 
 life they spared, and who then went " into the land of the 
 Hittites, and built a city which he called Luz, after the name 
 of his own city" (Judges i. 22-26). 
 
 From Joshua xviii. 13 it would seem that of the town 
 which we may call Luz-Bethel, Bethel was the southern 
 portion. " And the boundary went over from thence to- 
 wards Luz, to the side of Luz, which is Bethel, southward." 
 Then we read of "Mount Bethel" (Josh. xvi. i). This no 
 doubt was the mountain on which Abraham encamped and 
 built an altar, which was not in any town, but on a moun- 
 tain well known in the days of Moses and Joshua, and one 
 which could be best described as lying between the place 
 afterwards called Bethel and the town of Ai. It would seem 
 that the place where Jacob slept when he was benighted on 
 fleeing from his home was not a town, but a lonely spot 
 near the city of Luz, and that he named the whole district 
 round Luz Bethel, the House of God, in remembrance of 
 his dream. It is not said that he named any city at all, but 
 that "he called the name of that place Bethel." Of the 
 city with which the name was afterwards identified, the 
 writer says, " But the name of that city was called Luz at 
 the first" (Gen. xxviii. 19), or more literally, "And yet Luz 
 was the name of the city formerly." It is not called that 
 city, but simply the city, i.e., the city near the place where 
 he rested; and perhaps the word rendered "formerly" 
 might be translated " principally," as it sometimes is in other 
 connections. 
 
 He comes again, then, after leaving Shechem, to Bethel, 
 which, we observe, the writer still calls Luz. And here 
 again he builds an altar, calling the place now not only 
 Bethel, but El-Bethel, the God of Bethel; that is to say, 
 the God who appeared to me in this place, which I then 
 named Bethel or the house of God (xxxv. 6, 7). 
 
THE DEATH OF REBEKAH'S NURSE. 163 
 
 Here Deborah, Rebekah's nurse, dies, and is buried 
 below Bethel, under an oak, which is therefore called Allon- 
 bacuth, the oak of weeping. 
 
 How much we learn from this 8th verse ! It implies that 
 Jacob's mother was now dead, and that her faithful old 
 servant had come, after her death, to comfort the exiled son 
 in his trials. The mention of his great sorrow upon her 
 loss brings out a touching trait in the, in some respects, 
 unamiable character of Jacob. It also reminds us how in 
 another way his sin found him out, and how his early crime 
 separated him for ever from the mother whom he loved. 
 
 How easily we pass over the brief record of this simple 
 incident ; and yet how many affecting domestic scenes it 
 brings before the imagination of the thoughtful reader ! 
 
 At ver. 9 the narrative is broken to admit the insertion 
 of incidents which had previously happened at this Bethel, 
 where Jacob now was, or elsewhere. The narrative is not 
 resumed again until the i6th verse. Is this an extract 
 from some writing in the possession of the compiler of 
 Genesis, inserted here in consequence of its connection 
 with Bethel ? or is it a parenthesis composed by Moses in 
 order to supply incidents previously omitted, but which 
 ought to be mentioned in this summing up of the history 
 of Jacob up to the time of his father's death, and before the 
 beginning of the narrative of Joseph ? At any rate, care- 
 ful consideration will remove much of the abruptness which 
 appears in the present versions. 
 
 A Hebrew speaker could doubtless distinguish between 
 the perfect, pluperfect, and imperfect tenses by his pronun- 
 ciation, as we can distinguish in speaking, but not in writing, 
 record from record, entrance from entrance, or precedent 
 from prece'dent ; but a Hebrew writer had only one form 
 for past time. And so, when the context requires it, the 
 Hebrew perfect must be rendered by the English pluper- 
 
i64 THE DEATH OF RACHEL. 
 
 feet or imperfect, and, in fact, frequently is so. Let us try 
 this on the passage before us, remembering also the very 
 many English conjunctions for which the Hebrew conjunc- 
 tion has to do duty, thus : " Now God had appeared unto 
 Jacob again, when he had come out of Padan-aram, and 
 had blessed him. And God had said unto him, Thy name 
 is Jacob : thy name shall not be called any more Jacob, 
 but Israel shall be thy name. And so he had called his 
 name Israel." Where did this happen ? Perhaps at 
 Penuel, or more probably at this very Bethel where he 
 now was, on some previous occasion not before men- 
 tioned ; for countless incidents in the history of Jacob are 
 most certainly omitted. Then verses ii, 12, and 13 con- 
 tain the words of God's blessing, so often repeated to the 
 Patriarchs. 
 
 Again, since the compiler of Genesis knew that the name 
 Bethel had been given when Jacob first left his home, the 
 pluperfect must be used in ver. 15 thus : "Now Jacob had 
 called the place where God spake with him (where he had 
 seen the vision of the ladder, and where he had received 
 much the same blessing as that here given in vers. 11, 12) 
 Bethel." ^ 
 
 Verses 16-20 narrate the death of Rachel, the beloved 
 wife, on giving birth to her second son, whom she calls in 
 her dying words Benoni, son of my sorrow, changed by 
 Jacob to the name of better omen, Benjamin, son of 
 
 ^ It is surprising how many difficulties in the interpretation of these 
 ancient Hebrew records disappear when we remember that Moses 
 could not express in writing any distinction whatever between the 
 relation of times which we can show by the use of the imperfect, per- 
 fect, and pluperfect tenses. Thus Schroeder writes on the syntax of 
 the verb, Rule 45, " Since to the Hebrews, in the finite verb, there 
 were only two tenses, perfect and future, and these were not inflected 
 to express different moods, it was necessary that the uses of each should 
 be'more widely extended, and determined by the context." 
 
THE DEATH OF ISAAC. 165 
 
 the right hand. She is buried in Bethlehem Ephrathah, 
 the predicted birthplace of Him who is "the Ruler in 
 Israel, whose goings forth are from of old, from everlasting " 
 (Micah V. 2). 
 
 On his way to Hebron, he encamps at the tower of Edar, 
 an encampment apparently selected for mention as being 
 the place where the incestuous crime of Reuben was com- 
 mitted ; supposed by some to be the evil report brought by 
 Joseph to his father. 
 
 But there is no proof of this. We are only told that 
 " Israel heard it." But if Joseph, then a little boy, reported 
 it, as a very young child might easily have done, scarcely 
 understanding what had taken place, the conduct of 
 Reuben, in endeavouring to rescue him about ten years 
 after, is naturally that of one thoroughly ashamed of his 
 previous misconduct, yet restrained by fear from resisting 
 the will or exposing the sin of his brothers. 
 
 How affecting, too, in connection with this is the 
 language of Reuben, spoken in the hearing of Joseph in 
 Egypt : " Spake I not unto you, saying, Do not sin against 
 the child; and ye would not hear? Therefore behold, also 
 his blood is required !" Well might Joseph "turn himself 
 about from them and weep " (xHi. 24). 
 
 Verses 23-26 give the names of the twelve sons of Jacob. 
 The birth of Benjamin having been already recorded, he is 
 naturally mentioned with the rest, although he was not born 
 in Padan-aram, as all the others were. 
 
 Jacob, then, comes home after his long absence, and some 
 little time after — we are not told how long — his father dies, 
 and is buried by Esau and Jacob. What was his age ? Can 
 he possibly have been, as here stated, 180 years old? 
 
 Isaac was forty when he married Rebekah, and Esau and 
 Jacob were born twenty years later, when Isaac therefore 
 was sixty. 
 
i66 THE AGE OF ISAAC. 
 
 Esau married Hittite wives when he was forty. After 
 this, and apparently not very long after, Jacob deceived 
 his father and fled to Charan. Let us assume that this 
 happened five years after Esau's marriage with the Hittites. 
 Then Isaac would have been 105 ; forty when he married, 
 sixty when Esau and Jacob were born, 100 when Esau 
 married, 105 when Jacob deceived him and fled. 
 
 Jacob was with Laban twenty years, and about the end 
 of the fourteenth year Joseph was born (xxx. 24, 25); and 
 so Joseph must have been about six or seven when Jacob 
 left Charan. He was seventeen when he was sold into 
 Egypt (xxxvii. 2) ; he was thirty when made Pharaoh's 
 minister, just before the seven years of plenty (xli. 46) ; 
 and it was at the beginning of the third year of the famine 
 that Jacob came into Egypt (xlv. 6). 
 
 Now it is quite certain that Isaac was dead before Jacob 
 went into Egypt, and if Joseph was thirty-nine at the 
 beginning of the third year of the famine, and seven when 
 he came with his father to Canaan, we have an interval 
 of thirty-two years between the return of Jacob to Canaan 
 and his going into Egypt. 
 
 At some time, then, during the interval Isaac must have 
 died. If, therefore, Isaac was 105 when Jacob deceived 
 him and fled, he would have been 125 when Jacob left 
 Charan, and so could not have been more than 157 had 
 he lived until Jacob went into Egypt. But he was dead 
 before this — we don't know how long before. A good 
 many events happened between the time of Jacob's recon- 
 ciliation with Esau after leaving Charan and the burial of 
 Isaac — the residence at Succoth ; the misconduct of Dinah 
 and her brothers at Shechem ; the burial of Rebekah's nurse 
 at Bethel ; the birth of Benjamin and death of Rachel at 
 Bethlehem-Ephrathah : the sin of Reuben at Edar. It is 
 only after the record of all these events that we read of the 
 
THE DESCENDANTS OF ESAU. 167 
 
 death and burial of Isaac in Hebron. From the fact that 
 there is no further mention of Isaac after the selling of 
 Joseph, we may infer perhaps that he died before Joseph 
 was seventeen. Let us assume that he died just before 
 tliis, or ten years after Jacob left Charan. This would 
 make him 135 at the time of his death. Or if the decep- 
 tion of Jacob took place ten years after Esau's marriage 
 with the Hittites, instead of five, as we have assumed, and 
 when Jacob therefore was fifty, Isaac would have been 140 
 instead of 180 when he died. But the earlier age is much 
 the more probable. 
 
 It is clear, therefore, that in this case, as in many others, 
 some error must have occurred in copying the numerals, 
 either those which give the age of Isaac, or those which are 
 connected with his age at his marriage and the other events 
 above mentioned. 
 
 Before beginning the history of Joseph in Egypt, the 
 writer inserts an episode giving an account of the descen- 
 dants of Esau, the forefather of the Edomites, or Idumseans, 
 as they were afterwards called. 
 
 Some difficulties suggest themselves when we read this 
 episode. The names of Esau's wives are different from 
 those given in xxvi. 34 and xxviii. 9; and in xxxvi. 31 we 
 read, " These are the kings which reigned in the land of 
 Edom before there reigned any king over the children of 
 Israel." 
 
 These difficulties are not new suggestions of modern 
 criticism, but are mentioned in some of the oldest com- 
 mentaries. 
 
 As regards Esau's wives, it cannot be denied that there is 
 a difference in their names which it is hard, if not impossible, 
 to explain away. But why should we attempt to do so? 
 There is evidently here some variation. And why should 
 there not. be ? The mention of a king over Israel — not, let 
 
i68 THE NAMES OF ESAU'S WIVES. 
 
 US observe, over Israel and Judah — render it probable that 
 the whole of this episode, little connected with that which 
 precedes or follows it, may have been inserted either by 
 Samuel or by some editor as late as the age of Samuel ; not 
 probably much later, for any editor living after the death of 
 Solomon would have said, " Before there reigned any king 
 over Judah or Israel," not simply over Israel. 
 
 We are not questioning the authenticity or genuineness 
 of the book or the Divine guidance of the compiler when 
 we admit that passages may have been added, or ancient 
 records which Moses omitted inserted by later editors and 
 reformers, such as Samuel and the prophets. But if Moses 
 inserted the episode, we must remember that the marriages 
 of Esau happened several centuries before his time, and 
 that they were events having little influence on the fortunes 
 of Israel. Was it likely, then, that Moses, or the prophets 
 who succeeded him, would much concern themselves to 
 clear up any apparent differences in the names of Esau's 
 wives as mentioned in their own family annals and in those 
 of Esau? Thus we may conclude that Moses or some 
 such prophet as Samuel inserted this Edomitish record just 
 as he found it. It would have been perhaps impossible for 
 either of them with the materials before them to clear up 
 the difficulties had they been anxious to do so. 
 
 Differences far more formidable and less easy to reconcile 
 are met with by the most diligent of our modern historians, 
 in spite of printed books and their access to state papers, 
 when they are writing about events in our history which 
 occurred two or three hundred years ago. Witness the 
 divers decisions of our lawyers in matters of ecclesiastical 
 controversy. 
 
 These differences are fatal to the long exploded theory of 
 mere verbal inspiration, but they in no way affect any more 
 rational system of interpretation or theory of the nature and 
 
ESAU NAMED EDOM. 169 
 
 extent of the inspired guidance of Moses. And then, as 
 regards verse 31, it is by no means certain that Melek 
 need be here rendered king in the sense in which it is used 
 of Saul or David. It is appHed to Moses himself as chief 
 of his people : " He was king in Jeshurun," <Scc. (Deut. xxxiii. 
 5) ; and it is apparently used for a ruler or judge in Judges 
 xvii. 6, as well as of the petty sovereigns of the towns of 
 Canaan in tlie times of Joshua ; and we also find it used 
 of a ruler in Hannah's song of thanksgiving (i Sam. ii. 10). 
 
 Other questions suggest themselves when we read this 
 chapter with care. It seems to consist of two sections. 
 The first ends with verse 8, "Thus dwelt Esau in Mount 
 Seir : Esau in Edom." And here we may observe that the 
 name Edom, red — though only a sort of nickname given 
 him, not because his hair was red (xxv. 25), but because in 
 his impatient hunger he said to his insidious brother, " Let 
 me devour that red thing, that red thing" (ver. 30) — be- 
 came afterwards the name of the country he occupied and 
 of the tribes descended from him ; the forefathers, we may 
 remark, of the last kings of Israel, Herod the Great and his 
 children. 
 
 This first section of the chapter is headed with the usual 
 phrase, " These are the generations of Esau, who is Edom," 
 as we should say in English, " of Esau or Edom." Verses 
 2-5 give the names of his wives and of the children they 
 bore before he left Canaan. But when did he leave 
 Canaan, and why did he do so ? We are told here, verses 
 6 and 7, that "he went into a land from the face of his 
 brother Jacob," for the same reason which had long before 
 caused the separation of Lot and Abraham, because tlieir 
 flocks and herds were so numerous that they could not con- 
 veniently dwell together, especially in a country which was 
 not their own. 
 
 This departure from Canaan must therefore have occurred 
 
I70 THE PARTING OF ESAU AND JACOB. 
 
 at a time when Jacob had abundant flocks and herds. But 
 in xxxii. 3 we read that Jacob sent messengers before him 
 to Esau his brother into the land of Seir, the field of Edom ; 
 and this he did on his return home from Padan-aram, 
 twenty years after his flight from his brother's anger. 
 
 Did Esau, then, go to Seir before Jacob's return from 
 Padan-aram? According to ch. xxxii. 3, he certainly did so, 
 for it was to Seir that Jacob sent to call him. But if so, 
 then what can be the meaning of his leaving Canaan to get 
 out of his brother's way in consequence of the number of 
 his cattle ? 
 
 We may answer, that though Jacob was at present an 
 exile, he was acknowledged as having the right of the first- 
 born, the inheritance of the double portion of his father's 
 possessions. So that the great increase of these during 
 Jacob's absence may have rendered Esau's removal to a 
 distance desirable ; and the expression, '' from before his 
 brother Jacob," may simply mean " out of the way of the 
 rapidly-increasing flocks which Jacob would inherit on his 
 return, in addition to those acquired by his own exertions 
 in the service of Laban." And this is rendered the more 
 probable when we observe that only five children were born 
 to Esau before he left Canaan (xxxvi. 4, 5). 
 
 Of course it is possible that Esau may have gone to Seir 
 without altogether giving up his home in Canaan and his 
 share of his father's possessions to come to him after his 
 father's death. Thus he may have only partially adopted 
 Seir as his country previous to his father's death, and this 
 parting with Jacob may refer to Esau's final separation from 
 Canaan and Jacob's family after the funeral of Isaac, men- 
 tioned in the previous chapter. 
 
 But perhaps, after all, when we remember that these 
 verses 6 and 7 occur in an Edomitish record, we may 
 regard them as simply stating the fact of the final and 
 
THE WORLDLY PROSPERITY OF ESAU. 71 
 
 complete separation of these twin brothers and their 
 descendants, and as assigning, without specifying the time, 
 the chief reason for that separation, the enormous increase 
 of their possessions in a land which did not belong to 
 them. 
 
 That a fresh section, and possibly a different Edomitish 
 document, commences with verse 9 is rendered probable by 
 the usual heading, "These are the generations of Esau, 
 the father of the Edomites, in Mount Seir." It contains a 
 bare list of Esau's descendants, and the Horites, who seem 
 to have occupied the land before him, which was called 
 Seir, from the name of their forefather (ver. 20), and with 
 whom Esau's children seem to have intermarried, and 
 eventually formed one people (Deut. ii. 12). Some of 
 them are called dukes, or, as the word should be rendered, 
 heads of tribes or sheikhs. 
 
 This account of the children of Esau and of the great 
 power and increase of the Edomites is interesting to us 
 only as showing that the worldly power and prosperity of 
 Esau was not less than that of his brother, though it pleased 
 God to make the latter, quite irrespective of his merit, and 
 only after a severe punisliment for his treachery, the fore- 
 father of the chosen nation. 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THE GENERATIONS OF JACOB. 
 
 Chapter xxxvii. commences the history of Joseph, a 
 continuous narrative up to the end of the book, headed, 
 *' These are the generations of Jacob, " and broken only 
 by the painful episode of chapter xxxviii. 
 
 This episode proves the faithfulness of the sacred writer 
 in not concealing the gross sensuality and wickedness of 
 persons so prominent as Judah and his children in the 
 history of the chosen people. As regards the date of the 
 compilation of Genesis, is it conceivable that a story so 
 thoroughly discreditable to the forefather of the royal tribe 
 and the ancestor of the great expected Son of David would 
 have been inserted at any of those later ages suggested by 
 our modern critics ? 
 
 The episode seems inserted, first, to impress upon the 
 Israelites the wrath of God against all violation of the laws 
 of chastity ; and, secondly, to account for the necessity for 
 compulsory legislation with reference to the marriage of a 
 childless brother's widow. The incident suggests the pro- 
 bability of the original existence of the custom which Moses 
 afterwards enforced by a definite law. Concerning the 
 origin, however, of this, as well as of other practices, such 
 as that of sacrifice, which are only incidentally mentioned 
 in this compressed narrative, we are told nothing definite, 
 and should not know that they existed at all but for these 
 
 occasional records of them. 
 
 172 
 
THE STORY OF JOSEPH. 173 
 
 There are slight chronological difficulties in this chapter, 
 but they disappear if we regard the last clause of xlvi. 12, 
 "And the sons of Pharez were Hezron and Hamul," as 
 inserted by Moses, or some later prophet, to continue the 
 genealogy of Judah. Pharez and Hezron must have been 
 born in Egypt ; and then there was time for the growing up 
 of Er, Onan, and Shelah to a marriageable age, and for the 
 sin of Judah and the birth of Tamar's twin children. Judah 
 must have been about ten years old when Jacob left Laban ; 
 and, as we have seen, there was an interval of thirty-two 
 years between that event and the going down into Egypt. 
 Judah must have been twenty when Joseph was sold, and 
 he probably married before, as it is not at all necessary to 
 understand ''at that time" of verse i as referring to the 
 exact time of the selling of Joseph. If Judah married at 
 seventeen, there would remain twenty-five years for the 
 other events mentioned in the chapter ; the birth, marriage, 
 and death of Er and Onan ; the growing up of Shelah ; the 
 sin of Judah, and the birth of Pharez and Hezron. 
 
 The story of Joseph, which is comprised in chapters 
 xxxvii., xxxix.-l., contains no historical difficulties. It is 
 a continuous and almost unbroken and somewhat less 
 compressed narrative than any given in the earher portion 
 of Genesis, and brings us down to the final settlement of 
 Israel in Egypt and the death of Joseph, followed by a 
 silence of at least two centuries, and perhaps four. 
 
 The story fascinates the child, strengthens the young 
 man in his battle with sin, supports the oppressed and 
 afflicted, and comforts him who is nearing the close of life. 
 It reveals the providence of God over individuals, and 
 shows how His far-seen purposes are accomplished by the 
 free actions of both good and bad men, by human free- 
 will, that great secondary cause in the moral universe by 
 which the counsels of the Most High are brought about in 
 
 I 
 
THE CHARACTER OF JOSEPH, 
 
 their due season. There is nothing in the history of Joseph 
 miraculous or even improbable except his dreams and those 
 of Pharaoh; and who shall say that dreams are never pro- 
 videntially suggestive or of influence on the fortunes of men 
 even in this nineteenth century — the age conspicuous for the 
 increase of all knowledge, except, in some sad cases, of the 
 knowledge of God ? 
 
 Where shall we find in all literature a biography which 
 illustrates better than that of Joseph the nature and power 
 of religious principle, standing as it did those tests which 
 are so fatal to most young men between the age of seven- 
 teen and thirty ; the entire change of all surroundings, of, 
 country, society, and worldly fortunes ; passing unscathed 
 from the home in Hebron to the house of Potiphar, and 
 from the dungeon of Egypt to the palace of Pharaoh. 
 
 There are some, too, who are ashamed to own their 
 relations, even their parents, when they have been raised 
 to positions of great worldly power, wealth, and dignity. 
 Such may take the measure of their meanness from the 
 example of Joseph. 
 
 He has been accused by some of harshness towards his 
 brethren ; but the narrative reveals to us the deep yearn- 
 ing of natural affection which lay beneath the surface of his 
 assumed ruggedness of manner, and so enables us to appre- 
 ciate, the great strength of his character and his wisdom in 
 endeavouring to bring his brethren to a sense of their guilt, 
 not only in their conduct towards himself, but also towards 
 his aged father, in persisting for more than twenty years in an 
 infamous falsehood and conspiracy in deceit. Who can read 
 without emotion how he was constrained to " turn himself 
 about from them and weep," when he heard them saying to 
 one another, "We are verily guilty concerning our brother" 
 — their sin committed more than twenty years before — "in 
 that we saw the anguish of his soul, when he besought us, 
 
HIS CONDUCT TOWARDS HIS BRETHREN. 175 
 
 and we would not hear;" and when "Reuben answered 
 them, saying, Spake I not unto you, saying, Do not sin 
 against the child ; and ye would not hear ? " 
 
 Some also have objected, or at any rate expressed their 
 wonder, that such an affectionate son should not have 
 taken some earlier opportunity of sending the news of his 
 prosperity in Egypt to his aged father. But we have now 
 reason to believe that this may have been a difficult, if not 
 a dangerous step, for one in Joseph's position, a foreigner 
 promoted above the heads of all the native Egyptians, to 
 have taken. And recent discoveries have shown that the 
 frontiers of Egypt were as jealously guarded as those of our 
 modern countries in which the passport system is in force. 
 None might pass the frontiers without giving a report of 
 themselves, the accuracy of which might be tested. And 
 this explains the anxiety of Joseph's brothers to give a true 
 account of themselves, and also the naturalness of Joseph's 
 affected determination to verify their words. 
 
 There are some chronological difficulties connected with 
 the age of Jacob when he entered Egypt and when he died, 
 which can only be accounted for, as in the case of those 
 already mentioned, by supposing that when the numeral 
 letters were changed for words some errors must have 
 occurred. 
 
 If Jacob was about forty-five when he deceived his father 
 and went to Charan, he cannot have been more than ninety- 
 seven or a hundred when he went down into Egypt. He 
 was twenty years with Laban. Joseph was born seven years 
 before Jacob left Charan, and was thirty-nine when he re- 
 ceived his father and brethren in Egypt at the beginning of 
 the third year of the famine. And Jacob's expression, " few 
 and evil have been the days of the years of my life" (xlvii. 9), 
 are scarcely the words of a man 130 years old. 
 
 Such inconsistencies, we may be sure, would not be 
 
i67 WILL THE BODY OF JOSEPH BE FOUND ? 
 
 found in the work of a composer or compiler of the Book 
 of Genesis in the seventh or sixth century B.C. ; nor would 
 they have been allowed to remain by an editor so deter- 
 mined to make everything consistent that he did not scruple 
 to suggest that Elohim must have been inserted after Jehovah 
 in chap. ii. 4, because it did not suit his theory that the 
 passage was the work of the Jehovist. 
 
 If these inconsistencies existed in the time of Ezra, and 
 were not corrected by him or by any subsequent copyist, 
 they tend to confirm rather than otherwise the great anti- 
 quity of the book and the veneration with which it was 
 regarded. It is most probable, however, that they are due 
 to the cause already suggested, an unintentionally incorrect 
 copying of the letters used for numerals. 
 
 Joseph must have been about fifty-six when his father 
 died, and he lived, according to the text, fifty-four years 
 longer. There is a touching simplicity about the closing 
 words of the book, " And Joseph saw Ephraim's children 
 of the third generation ; the children also of Machir, the 
 son of Manasseh, were brought up upon Joseph's knees. 
 And Joseph said unto his brethren, I die : but God will 
 surely visit you, and bring you up out of this land into the 
 land which he gave to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. 
 And Joseph took an oath of the children of Israel, saying, 
 God will surely visit you, and ye shall carry up my bones 
 from hence. So Joseph died, being an hundred and ten 
 years old; and they embalmed him, and he was put in a 
 coffin in Egypt." 
 
 When will this be found, and the papyrus read, which 
 must have been wrapt around his body ? 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 MORAL DIFFICULTIES OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 Besides the difficulties which are connected with the Bibhcal 
 account of the creation of the world and the origin and 
 early history of mankind, there are those which may be 
 called moral difficulties. It is felt by some that there are 
 Divine commands or actions recorded in the Old Testament 
 which are inconsistent with a belief in the perfect righteous- 
 ness of God, and which cannot therefore be regarded as 
 having been really given or done by Him. 
 
 The writer of these pages entirely denies that there is a 
 single passage in the Old Testament which, rightly under- 
 stood, represents God as doing, commanding, or praising 
 an unrighteous act — any act indeed which is inconsistent 
 with His character and attributes, as they have been revealed 
 to us by the phenomena of the natural world and the teach- 
 ing of Jesus Christ. 
 
 The Bible truthfully records many unrighteous acts, 
 abominable sins, and false or vindictive words of men ; but, 
 as a general rule, it neither blames nor praises the good or 
 bad words and deeds which it narrates, the one for the en- 
 couragement, the other for the warning of the reader. It 
 gives a faithful picture of some very good, and of many very 
 bad or very mixed characters ; and it neither conceals nor 
 paUiates the sins and infirmities even of its greatest saints 
 and heroes ; and when the sin of some otherwise faithful 
 
178 THE TREACHERY OF JAEL. 
 
 man is recorded, its punishment — often a lifelong i^unish- 
 ment — is generally recorded also. 
 
 To regard a truthful record of the conduct of men, of their 
 false or vindictive words or unrighteous deeds, as reflecting 
 on the moral character of God or of writers inspired by Him, 
 is as absurd as to judge of the character of Shakespeare from 
 the words and actions of Lady Macbeth. 
 
 This consideration removes at once a whole class of 
 these supposed moral difficulties, such as the falsehood of 
 Abraham about his wife ; the duplicity of Jacob ; the sins 
 of David and his curses against his enemies, and such an act 
 as the treacliery of Jael. 
 
 The latter is a good illustration of this. It is simply 
 monstrous to regard the praise of Deborah as the praise of 
 God. And it is even more absurd to say that Deborah 
 ought to have blamed Jael's act in her song of triumph over 
 the fall of the most formidable enemy of her people. I 
 suppose she ought to have said, " The people will bless Jael 
 for delivering them, but they would have liked her better if 
 she had tied Sisera's hands and feet together instead of killing 
 him." It was a Christian officer, we must remember, who 
 asked Wellington if he might throw a shell into the middle 
 of Napoleon's staff. The decision of Wellington, under 
 some temptation, was more honourable, if less expedient, 
 than that of Jael ; and of course the " ruling ideas " of the 
 nineteenth century helped him to decide better what to 
 do on the spur of the moment. 
 
 That the end of Sisera was foreseen and permitted by 
 God all will admit who believe in His government of the 
 world. And this suggests another characteristic of Scrip- 
 tural language. 
 
 God is often said to do what He permits and brings about 
 by secondary causes, some of the more important of these 
 causes being the free wills of good and bad men. So God 
 
THE MORAL LAW OF GOD. 179 
 
 is said to have sent Joseph into Egypt and made him Prime 
 Minister, although the secondary causes were the partiaUty of 
 Jacob, the envy and maHce of his brothers, and the wicked- 
 ness of Potiphar's wife. And the blackest conspiracy of 
 wicked men recorded in history brought about that great 
 event which God had foretold from the beginning, and which 
 the Apostles declare His hand and His counsel determined 
 before to be done (Acts iv. 27, 28). 
 
 In a similar manner God is said to do that which results 
 from the operation of laws which He has made. In the 
 language of the Bible it is not the rain, nor the heat, nor 
 the chemical affinities of the elements, but God Who causes 
 "the grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for the service of 
 man." And so in the moral world, it is God Who hardens 
 Pharaoh's heart, although Moses tells us afterwards that 
 Pharaoh hardened his own heart ; and it is God Who 
 deceives the elders of Israel and their prophets when they 
 come to consult Him with idols in their hearts (Ezek. xiv. 
 9), and sends a lying spirit to deceive the prophets of Ahab ; 
 the truth being this, that God has made a moral law by 
 which it must come to pass that the man who resists the 
 convictions of his reason and the good impulses of his heart 
 will soon become intellectually blind and morally hardened. 
 And the expression, " For this cause have I raised thee up," 
 does not mean that God had brought Pharaoh into the world 
 and made him a king for this purpose, but, as translated in 
 ti:ie Revised Version, " For this cause have I made thee to 
 stand ; " that is, allowed thee to survive, and so enabled thee 
 to resist my will. 
 
 A great many more moral difficulties disappear when we 
 consider the unique and temporary character of the system 
 established by Moses, and the Divine purposes which it was 
 designed to subserve. 
 
 Let us say it with reverence, but the training of a race of 
 
i8o THE CIVIL LAW OF MOSES. 
 
 creatures endued with moral freedom was no easy problem 
 even to the Almighty and All-wise— far less easy than the 
 adjustment of all the forces of the material universe. 
 
 Left necessarily, therefore, as far as possible to them- 
 selves, the nations of the world had become extremely 
 wicked, and if the worship, and even the knowledge, of the 
 One Living God was to be preserved, and the promises of 
 future redemption to be remembered, it was necessary that 
 God should more directly interfere with the exercise of human 
 freedom. And so Abraham was chosen to be the founder 
 of a peculiar people, and afterwards Moses was called to 
 deliver them from Egypt, to form them into a nation, and 
 to give them a code of moral, ceremonial, and civil laws. 
 
 The moral law, given in the Ten Commandments, was 
 absolutely perfect, being the law of Nature written in man's 
 heart, and flowing necessarily from man's relation to God 
 and his neighbour. Not so the ceremonial and civil laws. 
 These were intended to keep the Israelites separate from 
 all other nations, to typify the mysteries of the future, to 
 train them like children and slaves, and to keep them in 
 God's service by a system of immediate rewards and punish- 
 ments and the frequent use of force ; to ameliorate many 
 social evils, such as slavery and polygamy, which could not 
 be at once abolished without the complete disorganisation 
 and reconstruction of the whole social system; and especially 
 to prepare men for Christ, and in the fulness of time to 
 introduce Him to the world as their Saviour. 
 
 To judge of the moral character of God or the morality 
 of the Old Testament from the civil and judicial laws of 
 Moses is as unfair and unreasonable as to judge of the 
 moral standard of the government and people of Christian 
 England from the laws which we make, not to abolish, but 
 to ameliorate the social evils of our Indian fellow-subjects. 
 
 It is not true, therefore, as some have asserted, that the 
 
THE PENAL CODE OF MOSES. i8i 
 
 teaching of the Bible is quite different at the end from 
 what it is at the beginning, and that the morahty of the 
 Old Testament is imperfect. 
 
 Any one who will study with care the actual words of 
 Closes, and not what men have written about them, will be 
 amazed at the profound wisdom and merciful spirit which 
 pervade all his laws, especially those connected with poly- 
 gamy, divorce, and slavery, as well as their adaptation to 
 the degraded moral condition of a nation just rescued from 
 long slavery in Egypt. 
 
 The penal code is severe, but not more so than was 
 needed, and certainly less severe than that of Christian 
 Europe a few centuries back ; and its superior morality to 
 the penal code of any Christian nation is shown from the 
 character of the offences which it severely punishes, such 
 as adultery, seduction, and other like sins. No Christian 
 community, it is to be feared, though supposed to be so 
 advanced in moral ideas, would tolerate the infliction of 
 death upon the adulterer and adulteress, or upon the 
 seducer of a betrothed virgin. 
 
 There is, in fact, a confusion of thought here between 
 two very opposite things. What is meant by the morality 
 of the Old Testament ? Does it mean the 1 moral teaching, 
 of the Old Testament as a revelation and reflection of the 
 moral character of God ? Or does it mean that the moral 
 standard and conduct of the IsraeHtes was imperfect ? 
 
 If the latter, then we may freely admit that the morality 
 of the Israelites was very imperfect. But this was the case 
 only because they failed to reach the standard of holiness 
 set before them by the example of Abraham and Joseph, 
 and the moral law given them by God through Moses. 
 
 To judge of the morality of the Old Testament, as a 
 revelation coming from God, from the moral ideas and 
 conduct of the Jews, is as misleading as to judge of the 
 
[82 PERFECTION OF THE MORAL LAW 
 
 teaching of Christ and His character from the moral ideas 
 and conduct of the great majority of Christians. 
 
 What would a Hindoo think of the morahty of the New 
 Testament if he had nothing to guide him but his own obser- 
 vation of the moral ideas and conduct of Christians and the 
 writings of the historians of Christendom ? 
 
 St. Paul knew the Old Testament well. What is his 
 estimate of the moral standard which it sets before those 
 living under it? 
 
 He declares it to be absolutely perfect. " The law is 
 holy, the commandment is holy and righteous and good." 
 The teaching of Christ added nothing to the perfection of 
 the moral standard of the Old Testament in the judgment 
 of St. Paul. It added nothing to the law, but it gave a 
 power which no law could give. " We know that the law 
 is spiritual ; but I am carnal, sold under sin " (Rom. vii. 
 12, 15). But in the next chapter he says, "The law of the 
 spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law 
 of sin and death " (viii. 2). 
 
 But it is asserted by some, as a proof that the morality 
 of the Old Testament is imperfect, that it represents the 
 innocent in many cases as justly punished for the wrong- 
 doing of others ; that the teaching of Ezekiel indicates pro- 
 gress and an advance towards a higher and more true con- 
 ception of righteousness, and so rises above the doctrine 
 that the innocent may be punished with the guilty, the 
 children for the sins of their parents ; or, worse still, that 
 the individuality of man is ignored, and that a w^hole race 
 or family is regarded as justly involved in the punishment 
 of one man's sin. 
 
 A distinction also is supposed by some modern theo- 
 logians to be observable in the Old Testament between 
 religion or reverence for God, and the perception of His 
 holiness and man's consequent sense of duty. 
 
MORAL STANDARD OF JOSEPH. 183 
 
 The imperfect morality of the Old Testament is supposed 
 to be shown by the importance which it attaches to a recog- 
 niiion of the existence and sovereignty of God rather than 
 of His holiness. As a proof of this it is asserted that the 
 duplicity of Jacob is condoned, while the profaneness of 
 Esau is regarded as a serious offence. But this is utterly 
 untrue. No sin was ever punished more severely than that 
 of Jacob, and Esau was compensated for his loss by far 
 greater worldly prosperity than his treacherous brother. 
 
 It would be well if modern Christians, with all their sup- 
 posed superior conceptions of the holiness of God, could 
 reach the moral standard which Enoch, Noah, and Joseph 
 set before them as carried out in their lives ; and if they 
 would study and imitate the noble example of Abraham, 
 who certainly did not consider belief in the existence and 
 sovereignty of God of more importance than the perform- 
 ance of duty at considerable personal sacrifice. 
 
 It is high time that these and other similar misconcep- 
 tions should be removed from the minds of all who wish 
 to believe the authenticity and inspiration of the Old Testa- 
 ment, and they can easily be removed by a careful study of 
 the actual words of Holy Scripture, and a consideration of 
 the character and surroundings of the persons for whom 
 they were written. 
 
 Nothing, of course, which can be said will persuade those 
 who welcome difficulties as excuses for unbelief. But every 
 effort should be made to remove these unnecessary stum- 
 bling-blocks out of the path of believers. 
 
 In considering these supposed difficulties, it is important 
 to remember that it is not in the Bible only that they are 
 found. There are more difficulties in natural religion than 
 in Holy Scripture ; and we are very apt to forget how im- 
 possible it is for us to know anything about God beyond 
 what He has Himself revealed. 
 
i84 WHAT DO WE KNOW OF GOD? 
 
 He is the Invisible Cause of all causes, but He has 
 revealed Himself; and it is, therefore, only from His own 
 revelations that we can form any opinion at all of His attri- 
 butes and moral character. 
 
 I. First, we can learn something about Him by examining 
 the laws which He has made for the natural universe. 
 
 II. Secondly, from the revelation of Himself, which is 
 described in the Old Testament. 
 
 III. And thirdly, from the more perfect manifestation 
 of His character which we have in the Person and teaching 
 of Jesus Christ. 
 
 Now if we can show that the Old Testament gives us a 
 conception of the character and attributes of God far higher 
 than any suggested by the phenomena of the natural world, 
 and at the same time consistent with the teaching of Christ 
 recorded in the New Testament, we shall have done all 
 which any objector can reasonably demand. 
 
 We can scarcely be called upon to reconcile the moral 
 character of God as revealed in the Old Testament with 
 the false and sentimental conception of Him, as One too 
 kind to punish sinners, which prevails widely in the present 
 day, and which is simply the production in a modern form 
 of the original falsehood of the great Deceiver, "Ye shall 
 not surely die." 
 
 Nor can we be called upon to solve the insoluble problem 
 which affects natural quite as much as revealed religion, the 
 existence of physical suffering and moral evil in the universe 
 of a God of infinite power, wisdom, and goodness. This 
 is a sore trial to our faith in such a God, but it is a trial 
 which the faith of those who are humble and love God is 
 commonly strong enough to stand, and to create in their 
 hearts a spirit of deep humility and patient waiting. 
 
 What we have to show is, that the actions recorded of 
 God or performed by others at His expressed command 
 
HE HAS GIVEN A MORAL LAW. 185 
 
 in the Old Testament are not inconsistent with His char- 
 acter as revealed in Christ and stamped upon the face of 
 the natural world. 
 
 If they are inconsistent with tiie ideas of what God ought 
 to be or ought to do, which this or that individual may 
 have conceived in his own heart, we cannot help it. We 
 cannot concern ourselves with any questions as to what 
 God ought to be or ought to do. We can only consider 
 the definitions of Him which are given to us in Holy Scrip- 
 ture, the actions and commands there recorded of Him, 
 and His everyday operations in the natural world. 
 
 I. First, then, let us see what we can learn of God from 
 His works in Nature. Enough, in St. Paul's opinion, to 
 take away all excuse if men form unworthy conceptions of 
 Him, or wilfully violate the moral law which He has written 
 on their hearts. "That which may be known of God is 
 manifest in them ; for God hath showed it unto them. 
 For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the 
 world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that 
 are made, even His eternal power and Godhead ; so that 
 they are without excuse : because that, when they knew 
 God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful ; 
 but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish 
 heart was darkened" (Rom. i. 19-21). 
 
 He points out, indeed, that the Gentiles will be judged 
 more leniently than Jews or Christians ; but he intimates 
 plainly that the light of Nature ought to be some guide to 
 them. " As many as have sinned without law shall also 
 perish without law ; and as many as have sinned in the law 
 shall be judged by the law; . . . for when the Gentiles, 
 which have not the law, do by nature the things contained 
 in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto them- 
 selves : which show the work of the law written in their 
 hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their 
 
186 LAW NEVER BROKEN WITH IMPUNITY. 
 
 thoughts the meanwhile accusing or else excusing one 
 another" (Rom. ii. 12, 14). 
 
 If we believe in God at all as the Maker of all things, 
 the slightest examination of the natural world and of the 
 course of Nature will impress us with a conviction that He 
 must be a Being of irresistible power and inconceivable 
 wisdom ; and the more the mysterious secrets of Nature 
 are unfolded by advancing knowledge, the deeper this con- 
 viction becomes. 
 
 But there is perhaps no truth so stamped upon the face 
 of Nature as this, that God is a Ruler, and that He has 
 given to all things laws which can never be broken with 
 impunity. 
 
 It is equally clear that He has given many of His crea- 
 tures, especially man, power to break them, or to attempt 
 to break them, or, which is much the same, to neglect to 
 observe them, if they choose ; but He always punishes them, 
 often very terribly, for so doing ; and, what is more to our 
 present purpose, often involves in that punishment the 
 innocent as well as the guilty. 
 
 He is obviously an impartial Ruler. It matters not by 
 whom His law is broken, whether by the thoughtless, the 
 careless, or the wilful, the punishment inevitably follows. 
 As He causes His sun to shine on the evil and on the good, 
 and sends His rain upon the just and upon the unjust, so 
 the flood, the earthquake, and the fire consume alike the 
 innocent and the guilty. The folly of the miner who opens 
 his safety-lamp to light his pipe involves hundreds of inno- 
 cent persons in the destruction caused by the sin of one, 
 and the God of Nature interferes not to rescue them. 
 
 And what does the light of Nature teach us when we 
 look into our own hearts and consider the course of human 
 affairs ? 
 
 Here, too, we discern a law which carrot be broken 
 
SOLON'S IDEA OF GOD. 187 
 
 with impunity : we find a law distinguishing clearly between 
 right and wrong — a law as obviously impressed upon all 
 moral agents as gravitation is given to guide the move- 
 ments of the heavenly bodies. The breaking of this law 
 also involves many who are innocent in the suffering which 
 follows as the natural and necessary consequence of the sin 
 of one. The vices of the sensual or intemperate father are 
 visited on his children and his children's children. The 
 follies of a weak or wicked ruler involve a whole nation in 
 disaster and suffering. 
 
 Thus the view of God which mere Nature gives us is very 
 terrible. We might fear, nay, we must fear, such a Being, 
 but could scarcely love Him. 
 
 The more thoughtful among the heathen could catch 
 here and there some gleams of light in this dark picture. 
 They saw something of the excellence and natural rewards 
 of morality, of elf-restraint, of temperance, ot kindness to 
 their fellow-creatures ; they had some vague and phantom- 
 like conception of a future of rewards and punishments 
 distributed with greater justice than on earth ; and yet, 
 some even of the most thoughtful of them were disposed 
 to attribute the sudden misfortunes of the happy and pros- 
 perous, however innocent, to a spirit of envy in the Supreme 
 Ruler of the world. 
 
 None were to be accounted happy in the estimation of 
 Solon until the end of life, because "the God is envious," 
 and delights to overthrow the excessively prosperous — a 
 sad travesty of the teaching of the 73rd Psalm, and still 
 more of the words of Jesus : " Every one that exalteth him- 
 self shall be abased ; and he that humbleth himself shall 
 be exalted" (St. Luke xviii. 14). 
 
 II. And now, what does the Old Testament teach us 
 about God ? It confirms the teaching of Nature that He 
 is a Ruler Who will not be trifled with ; that no law which 
 
THE DEFINITION OF MOSES. 
 
 He has made, even the smallest, may be broken with im- 
 punity. The light of Nature taught the thoughtful heathen 
 that the mills of the gods move slowly indeed, but grind to 
 powder. The Psalmist of the Old Testament confirms their 
 judgment : " God is a righteous Judge, strong, and patient ; 
 and God is provoked every day. If a man will not turn, 
 He will whet His sword : He hath bent His bow, and 
 made it ready : He hath prepared for him the instruments 
 of death" (Ps. vii. 11-13). 
 
 Yes ; the Psalmist confirms the judgment of the heathen, 
 but with an addition which makes all the diff"erence. " If a 
 man will not turn," he says, implying that he may turn and 
 escape because a door of repentance is open. And thus 
 God is described by Moses as a punishing, indeed, but 
 pitying and pardoning God. "The Lord passed by before 
 him, and proclaimed, The Lord, the Lord God, merciful 
 and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and 
 truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and 
 transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the 
 guilty ; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, 
 and upon the children's children, unto the third and to the 
 fourth generation" (Exod. xxxiv. 6, 7). 
 
 And now, what is the meaning of this visiting the iniquity 
 of the fathers upon children? Does it teach that it is just 
 to punish the innocent children for the sins of the parents ? 
 Certainly not. 
 
 In the first place, it is restricted in the second command- 
 ment to the case of those who hate God, who continue there- 
 fore in the sins of their parents ; and secondly, if the children 
 are innocent and yet suffer, their suffering must be regarded 
 not as the punishment, but as the natural consequence of 
 their parents' sin. Neither is it commonly observed that 
 this mention of the third and fourth generation is a hmita- 
 tion of the natural law of heredity, so much insisted upon 
 
SONS OF SINNERS NOT PUNISHED. 189 
 
 in these days. Nature knows nothing of repentance or of 
 limitation of the punishment of broken law. It is the God 
 of the Old Testament Who makes a way to escape natural 
 consequences by repentance, and shows mercy upon thou- 
 sands in them that love Him and keep His commandments. 
 
 That the Old Testament does not teach that children may 
 be justly punished for the sins of their parents is clear from 
 the fact that such injustice, consistent perhaps with the 
 "ruling ideas" of the surrounding heathen nations, is ex- 
 pressly forbidden by Moses. "The fathers shall not be put 
 to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to 
 death for the fathers ; every man shall be put to death for his 
 own sin " (Deut. xxiv. 16). And in reference to this law we 
 read of King Amaziah, " It came to pass, as soon as the king- 
 dom was established in his hand, that he slew his servants 
 which had slain the king, his father, but the children of the 
 murderers he put not to death : according to that which is 
 written in the book of the law of Moses, as the Lord com- 
 manded, saying, The fathers shall not be put to death for 
 the children, nor the children be put to death for the fathers ; 
 but every man shall die for his own sin " (2 Kings xiv, 5, 6). 
 
 It is, therefore, as already observed, a mistake, though 
 made by many of our modern theologians, to represent 
 Ezekiel as " rising above this doctrine." There is no such 
 doctrine in the Old Testament for him to rise above. 
 What he does rise above is the hypocrisy of his wicked 
 contemporaries, who, by the use of a profane proverb, 
 wished to shift the burden of their own responsibility upon 
 the shoulders of their parents. " What mean ye that ye 
 use this proverb concerning the land of Israel, saying, 
 The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's 
 teeth are set on edge? . . . Behold, all souls are Mine; 
 as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is 
 Mine ; the soul that sinneth it shall die " (Ezek. xviii.). 
 
ago SUFFERING NOT PUNISHMENT. 
 
 It is true indeed that, just as the earthquake often 
 -destroys the innocent and the guilty aUke, so some of 
 God's judgments sent expressly for the punishment of 
 sinners involved many innocent persons in the same ruin. 
 But here the Bible teaches us to distinguish clearly between 
 suffering inflicted as a temporal punishment for sin, and 
 that which falls upon the innocent by way of natural con- 
 sequence. 
 
 Holy Scripture does not represent temporal suffering 
 as punishment at all, except when sent expressly for that 
 purpose ; and the Book of Job was written chiefly to cor- 
 rect the false estimate of temporal misfortunes which men 
 are always tempted to form. 
 
 Such an idea is indeed natural if we lose sight of a 
 future of compensation. The Jews in our Saviour's time 
 held this opinion, and He contradicted it, saying of some 
 who were killed by Pilate while in the act of offering 
 sacrifice : " Suppose ye that these Galileans were sinners 
 above all the Galileans, because they suffered such things ? 
 I tell you, nay ; but except ye repent, ye shall all likewise 
 perish" (St. Luke xiii. 2). 
 
 To judge of the justice of God without taking into con- 
 sideration a revealed eternal future of compensation, is as 
 foolish as to form an opinion of the beauty or usefulness of 
 the tree or flower from its bitter or unsightly roots, or to 
 estimate the work of a great artist when as yet he has only 
 drawn the outline with his pencil, or painted in a few of the 
 lesser lights and shadows upon his canvass. 
 
 But it will be argued that very little is said about a future 
 -of compensation in the Old Testament. 
 
 True, very little is said about it, but it is taken for 
 granted all through, and it is omitted by Moses only because 
 any special mention of it in his laws would be entirely out 
 -of place. 
 
BELIEF IN A FUTURE LIFE. 191 
 
 The Old Testament, with the exception of Genesis and 
 the Book of Job, is entirely concerned with the temporal 
 theocracy of Israel ; and, although it contains prophecies 
 and intimations of a more spiritual and unearthly kingdom 
 yet to come, its actual laws all refer to the present temporal 
 government of the chosen people, and its rewards and 
 punishments are therefore all confined to this life. 
 
 The mention of rewards and punishments after this life 
 would be as much out of place in the legislation of Moses 
 as it would be in the statutes of a modern Christian 
 nation. 
 
 What would some heathen, ignorant of all the ideas of 
 Christians about another life, infer from studying the law- 
 books of Christendom ? Would he find in our laws and 
 penal statutes any allusion to the rewards and punishments 
 of disembodied spirits, or of the risen bodies of the just 
 and unjust ? The saints of the Old Testament proved by 
 their conduct that they looked for future compensation. 
 They are spoken of as "looking for a city which hath 
 foundations," &c. " Confessing that they were strangers 
 and pilgrims on the earth," &c. " Seeking a better country, 
 that is, a heavenly" (Heb. xi. 10-16). It is the Old Testa- 
 ment, we must remember, that records the translation of 
 Enoch and Elijah to a better world. 
 
 But to return to this question of the supposed punishment 
 of the innocent with the guilty, do we find examples of it in 
 the Old Testament ? 
 
 That such indiscriminate punishments were just may 
 have been a ruling idea of surrounding heathen nations, but 
 it is plainly contrary to the teaching of the Old Testament. 
 It was certainly not a ruHng idea in the mind of Abraham. 
 Pleading to God for Sodom, he says, "That be far from 
 Thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the 
 wicked, that so the righteous should be as the wicked ; that 
 
192 THE END OF SINLESS SUFFERING. 
 
 be far from Thee : shall not the Judge of all the earth do 
 right?" (Gen. xviii. 25). 
 
 We have many examples of the innocent suffering the 
 natural consequences of the sins of others, as in the natural 
 world. There must have been thousands of comparatively 
 innocent persons and perfectly innocent children destroyed 
 by the Flood, the fires of Sodom, and the sword of Joshua. 
 But these suffered not the punishment, but the natural 
 consequences of the sins of the really guilty ; and it may 
 be at once admitted that, if there were no hereafter, such 
 indiscriminate suffering could not easily be reconciled with 
 our ideas of justice in Him Who inflicts it. 
 
 Nature gives no answer to the objector. The Bible alone 
 gives a full and complete answer. " Great are the troubles 
 of the righteous, but the Lord delivereth him out of them 
 all." "Take, brethren, for an example of suffering and of 
 patience, the prophets who spake in the name of the Lord. 
 Behold, we call them blessed which endured : ye have heard 
 of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord, 
 how that the Lord is full of pity and merciful " (St. James 
 V. 10, 11). 
 
 The whole aspect of suffering innocence is changed when 
 we turn from Nature to Revelation, and still further when 
 we learn from the lips of Him Who, sinless Himself, endured 
 the natural consequences of all sin, the sacredness and use- 
 fulness of suffering and the glory which is to follow. 
 
 But still it may be said that there are examples of the 
 punishment of the innocent with the guilty in the Old 
 Testament which cannot be accounted for by saying that 
 they were not punished, but only had to bear the natural 
 consequences of the broken law. Admitting that the 
 thousands of innocent women and children who were 
 drowned in the Flood, burnt in the fires of Sodom, or slain 
 in the commanded wars of extermination in Canaan ; 
 
THE CASE OF AC HAN. 193 
 
 admitting for the sake of argument that these suffered not 
 the punishment, but the natural consequences of the sins 
 of others, and so were consoled and compensated, like all 
 innocent sufferers, in another life, the objector may still urge 
 that there are examples in the Old Testament of children 
 punished for their fathers' sins. 
 
 There is, indeed, one instance which looks like this, but 
 only one : the case of Achan, He was destroyed " with 
 his sons and daughters, and his oxen, and his asses, and his 
 sheep, and his tent, and all that he had," for stealing and 
 hiding some of the spoils of Jericho. 
 
 It is, of course, possible that his sons and his daughters 
 may have been aware of their father's crime, and willing to 
 profit by it, in which case their punishment with him may 
 have been just, however terribly severe. Neither is it clear 
 from the text that Achan's children were killed by God's 
 command. The indignation of Joshua and the rage of the 
 people may have caused them to go beyond the Divine 
 command. The "all that he hath " in the Divine com- 
 mand of verse 15 may have been intended to include only 
 his possessions, and the expression " all Israel stoned him 
 with stones " looks like the onslaught of an infuriated mob. 
 
 We have plenty of examples in modern times of mobs 
 supposed to be more civiHsed than the Israelites inflicting 
 punishments beyond those prescribed by law. The sup- 
 posed offence of one has been visited on innocent women and 
 children, and their houses and cattle have been destroyed 
 while Christian priests have been looking on. Shall we 
 expect a people just rescued from slavery, and infuriated 
 by recent defeat, to vent their rage upon the cause of their 
 trouble more leniently than a Christian mob ? 
 
 But supposing the " all that he hath " was intended to 
 include Achan's children, the case must be regarded as 
 quite exceptional and didactic, intended to produce an 
 
194 THE CHILDREN OF KORAH DIED NOT. 
 
 indelible impression upon the minds of the Israelites, just 
 entering upon a long course of terrible wars, in which it 
 was of the last importance that the very strictest obedience 
 should be rendered to their captain. 
 
 Joshua had to lead to victory a turbulent and most self- 
 willed people, and had therefore to form them into a highly 
 disciplined army. In all such cases exceptional severity at 
 the beginning is generally found to be the most merciful 
 course in the end. 
 
 In the Franco-German war we read of death being at 
 once inflicted for the breach of a Christian general's orders ; 
 and that not only in the case of French civilians who 
 attempted to defend their houses, but even upon German 
 soldiers for acts of theft or violence. 
 
 But the whole warfare of Israel against the nations of 
 Canaan is unique in the history of the world, and was con- 
 ducted upon exceptional principles, which were never in- 
 tended for the guidance of future generations. 
 
 It w^as important that the hands of Joshua should be 
 strengthened by exceptional severity at the commencement 
 of such a war. If the children of Achan were innocent, they 
 suffered only the natural consequences of their father's sins, 
 and were thus taken away from much evil to come, like 
 those of Dathan and Abiram. 
 
 These latter perished in the earthquake with their sinning 
 fathers, because they, of course, remained in the tents of 
 their parents, when the rest of the people removed to a safe 
 distance at the command of Moses (Numb. xvi. 27) ; and 
 as regards the children of Korah, we are distinctly told that 
 "they died not" (Numb. xxvi. 11). 
 
 But the best proof of the exceptional character of the 
 punishment of Achan is the fact that, in all other instances, 
 it is commanded that the actual sinner alone shall be 
 punished. 
 
THE DESTRUCTION OF THE CANAANITES. 195 
 
 A man was guilty 01 blaspheming the name of God. It 
 was apparently the first offence of the kind which had been 
 openly committed since the promulgation of the Law, and 
 so " they put him in ward, that it might be declared unto 
 them at the mouth of the Lord." The sentence pronounced 
 may therefore be regarded as a distinct revelation of the 
 will of God concerning the judicial punishment of a sinner. 
 The blasphemer alone is to be stoned to death (Levit. 
 xxiv. 10). 
 
 The flagrant sin of Zimri with the Midianitish woman is 
 punished by the death only of the actual sinners (Numb. 
 XXV. 14). 
 
 The wilful murderer, the smiter or curser of his father 
 or mother, the man-stealer, the adulterer and adulteress, 
 the Sabbath-breaker, the worshipper of Moloch, and others 
 convicted of capital crimes are commanded to be put to 
 death, but not one word is said about their children. In- 
 deed, the law of Moses, already quoted as acted upon by 
 King Amaziah, must be regarded as finally settling this 
 question : " The fathers shall not be put to death for the 
 children, neither shall the children be put to death for their 
 fathers : every man shall be put to death for his own sin " 
 (Deut. xxiv. 16). 
 
 But there is perhaps scarcely anytiiing in the Bible so 
 contrary to our modern ideas of morality or justice as the 
 command given to the Israelites to kill every man, woman, 
 and child of the nations of Canaan. And we may at once 
 admit that such a command, under other circumstances, 
 would be so monstrous that we should find it very difficult 
 to beheve it could possibly come from God. 
 
 But it must be observed that this wholesale slaughter 
 was lorbidden under all other circumstances. " When thou 
 drawest nigh unto a city to fight against it, then proclaim 
 peace unto it. And it shall be, if it make thee an answer 
 
196 THE CRIMES OF THE CANAANITES. 
 
 of peace, and open unto thee, that all the people that is 
 found therein shall become tributary unto thee, and shall 
 serve thee. And if it will make no peace with thee, but 
 will make war against thee, then thou shalt besiege it : and 
 when the Lord thy God delivereth it into thy hand, thou 
 shalt smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword ; 
 but the women, and the little ones, and the cattle, and all 
 that is in the city, even all the spoil thereof, shalt thou take 
 for a prey unto thyself; and thou shalt eat the spoil of thine 
 enemies, which the Lord thy God hath given thee. Thus 
 shalt thou do unto all the cities which are very far off from 
 thee, which are not of the cities of these nations. But of 
 the cities of these peoples, which the Lord thy God giveth 
 thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that 
 breatheth : but thou shalt utterly destroy them ; the Hittite, 
 and the Amorite, the Canaanite, and Perizzite, the Hivite. 
 and the Jebusite ; as the Lord thy God hath commanded 
 thee : that they teach you not to do after all their abomina- 
 tions, which they have done unto their gods " (Deut. xx. 
 10-18). 
 
 Here we see the reason for this otherwise monstrous com- 
 mand. It was given with a very special purpose ; and its 
 execution by their own hands, though often, as we might 
 naturally suppose, sorely against their own will, was a judg- 
 ment intended to burn into the heart of Israel, and through 
 them into the heart of all nations, a truth which the waters 
 of the Flood and the fires of Sodom had proved insufficient 
 to teach, namely, God's abhorrence of the loathsome and un- 
 natural cruelty and crimes, which were not only openly prac- 
 tised by the sensual descendants of Ham, but also formed an 
 essential part of their religion ; " their abominations which 
 they did unto their gods." 
 
 These horrible crimes and the practice of throwing hun- 
 dreds of little children into the fiery image of Moloch, 
 
THE DISOBEDIENCE OF ISRAEL. 197 
 
 constituted part of the national religion of these people, 
 and indeed of most of the nations descended from Ham. 
 
 Nothing was more calculated to impress the Israelite with 
 a horror of these crimes than the command to destroy with 
 their own hands these abominable sinners and all connected 
 with them. And it had this effect. The Israelites stand 
 almost alone among the nations of the old world conspi- 
 cuous, except when they fell away from God, for abstinence 
 from unnatural crimes and the practice of infanticide. 
 
 It was impressed upon them again and again that the 
 land of the Canaanites was not given them for their own 
 righteousness, but because God had determined to destroy 
 these sinful nations. Many centuries had been allowed 
 them for timely repentance ; and the descendants of 
 Abraham were therefore not to enter it until their iniquity 
 was full (Gen. x\^ 16). "Not for thy righteousness, or for 
 the uprightness of thine heart, dost thou go in to possess 
 their land ; but for the wickedness of these nations the Lord 
 thy God doth drive them out before thee" (Deut. ix. 5). 
 
 It was one of the sins of Israel that they did not execute 
 this terrible command as thoroughly as they ought. The 
 result was that they learnt from time to time to imitate 
 these sinners, for doing which they were often punished, 
 and eventually carried away to Babylon. Thus the Psalmist 
 complains, "Neither destroyed they the heathen, as the 
 Lord commanded them ; but were mingled among the 
 heathen, and learned their works. Insomuch that they 
 worshipped their idols, which turned to their own decay : 
 yea, they offered their sons and their daughters unto devils ; 
 and shed innocent blood, even the blood of their sons and 
 of their daughters, whom they offered unto the idols of 
 Canaan ; and the land was defiled with blood " (Ps. cvi. 
 
 34-37)- 
 
 They forgot, indeed, from time to time the warning w^ords 
 
igS THE LONG-SUFFERING OF GOD. 
 
 of God spoken by Moses : " Defile not ye yourselves in 
 any of these things ; for in all these " (a terrible list of 
 unnatural crimes just mentioned) "the nations are defiled 
 which I cast out from before you, and the land is defiled : 
 therefore do I visit the iniquity thereof upon it, and the land 
 vomiteth out her inhabitants. Ye therefore shall keep My 
 statutes and My judgments, and shall not do any of these 
 abominations, . . . that the land vomit not you out also 
 when ye defile it, as it vomited out the nation that was 
 before you" (Lev. xviii. 24-28). 
 
 It is clear, therefore, that the Old Testament gives us a 
 revelation of the moral character of God entirely consistent 
 with what we may learn concerning Him from His govern- 
 ment of the natural world. It represents Him as the 
 Author, not only of a physical, but also still more of a moral 
 law, which can never be broken with impunity, and under 
 the operation of which the sinner often involves many 
 innocent persons in the natural consequences of his sin. 
 But it further reveals the consoling truth that God is merci- 
 ful, gracious, and long-suffering, forgiving iniquity, transgres- 
 sion, and sin ; leaving no door of escape for the obstinate 
 sinner, but graciously pardoning all who repent and amend. 
 
 This is distinctly stated at the very beginning by Moses, 
 and confirmed by the prophets (Exod. xxxiv. 6, 7 ; Ezek. 
 xviii. 27-32). 
 
 It is also very important to remember, as affecting the 
 moral character of God, that He is a Ruler; because it is 
 obvious that that which is unrighteous in a subject may 
 often be righteous in Him Who rules. Even the earthly 
 ruler "beareth not the sword in vain:" with much more 
 justice therefore are life and death in the hands of Him 
 Who rules all the lives which He has given. The sword is 
 not allowed to the subject, and the death, which may law- 
 fully be inflicted by the ruler, is murder when caused by 
 
THE SACRIFICE OF OBEDIENCE. 199 
 
 the hand of a fellow-subject. Private vengeance is strictly 
 forbidden ; but punishment proportioned to the offence is 
 righteous, as expressed by the maxim, "An eye for an eye, 
 and a tooth for a tooth." Both Moses and Christ forbid 
 the individual to act on this principle, because it is written, 
 " Vengeance is Mine, and I will repay, saith the Lord " 
 (Rom. xii. 19; Gen. iv. 15; Deut. xxxii. 35). 
 
 It is a mistake, therefore, to regard the psalmists and 
 later prophets as rising above any previous teaching of the 
 Old Testament. It would be just as true to speak of the 
 Reformers in the sixteenth century as rising above the 
 Christian teaching of earlier times. 
 
 The psalmists and the prophets had a keener insight than 
 others into the teaching of Moses and the will of God, as 
 revealed from the beginning in the Holy Scriptures. Their 
 contemporaries had lost sight of the spirituality of the laws 
 of Moses, though scarcely so much as mediaeval if not 
 modern Christians have often lost sight of the spiritual 
 teaching of Christ and His Apostles. 
 
 Just as Cain thought to propitiate God by an offering 
 when his heart was not in it and his life was unholy, so the 
 Jews in the time of the prophets, the Pharisees in the time 
 of Christ, and the modern Pharisees of Christendom at all 
 times have forgotten the great truth which the heart of man 
 should teach him alike in every age — a truth which is ex- 
 pressed in the words, "I will have mercy and not sacrifice." 
 " Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt-offerings and 
 sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to 
 obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of 
 rams " (i Sam. xv. 22). 
 
 And now in the following chapter let us see what we 
 may learn of the moral character of God from the teaching 
 of Jesus Christ. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 THE WITNESS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 We have in the Person and teaching of Jesus Christ the 
 fullest possible revelation of God. Is this revelation con- 
 sistent with what we learn of Him from the natural world 
 and from the Old Testament ? 
 
 Nature and the Old Testament reveal God as a Ruler 
 Who will never allow His laws to be altered or broken. 
 Moses writes thus : " O Israel, hearken unto the statutes 
 and unto the judgments which I teach you, for to do them. 
 ... Ye shall not add unto the word which I command 
 you, neither shall you diminish from it, that ye may keep 
 the commandments of the Lord your God which I com- 
 mand you" (Deut. iv. i, 2). 
 
 Does our Saviour represent it as at all safer to break these 
 laws ? or does He in His own teaching add to them or 
 diminish from them ? 
 
 As regards the end of sinners or law-breakers, it must be 
 admitted that the teaching of the New Testament is far 
 more terrible than anything which we find in the rest of 
 the Bible. 
 
 St. Paul tells us that the Gospel of Christ is "the power 
 of God unto salvation to every one that believeth ; " but 
 also that in it " the wrath of God is revealed from heaven 
 against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men " (Rom. 
 i. 16, 18). Christ is a revelation of the extreme of mercy 
 
THE TEACHING OF CHRIST AND MOSES. 201 
 
 and the extreme of wrath. He came into the world to 
 save all who will consent to be saved. But more withering 
 curses against the impenitent, the irreverent, and the 
 hypocritical never issued from the mouth of any Old 
 Testament prophet. " Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, 
 how can ye escape the damnation of hell ? " (St. Matt, xxiii. 
 33). "Bind him hand and foot, and cast him into outer 
 darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth" 
 (St. Matt. xxii. 13). "Depart from me, ye cursed, into 
 everlasting fire" (St. Matt. xxv. 41). "I never knew you; 
 depart from Me, ye that work iniquity" (St. Matt. vii. 23). 
 
 If it is inconsistent with the moral character of God to 
 punish sinners, then we can only say that the revelation 
 which He has given of Himself in Nature and in the Bible 
 is a misleading revelation. His determination not to leave 
 the law-breaker unpunished is stamped upon the face of 
 Nature and upon the pages of common history. The Bible, 
 especially the New Testament, confirms this, though it 
 shows the sinner a widely opened door of escape by repent- 
 ance, amendment, and faith in a Redeemer. 
 
 There is indeed this marked difference between the 
 system of Moses and that of Christ. Moses instituted a 
 temporary theocracy, a kingdom of God upon the earth, 
 confined to a single nation, appointing immediate rewards 
 and punishments in this life as the sanctions even of the 
 moral law. But Christ founded an eternal theocracy, a 
 spiritual and universal kingdom of God, in this world indeed 
 but not of it. 
 
 All His rewards, therefore, as well as His punishments, are 
 deferred until the great Day of Judgment; and He no 
 longer offers a life of ease and prosperity even to His true 
 disciples, but calls upon them to bear His cross here in 
 the great battle between good and evil, that they may here- 
 after share His glory. 
 
202 ABRAHAM THE CHRISTIAN'S MODEL. 
 
 He came as the greatest of reformers, to call men back 
 to the simple and childlike religion of Eden. " It was not 
 so from the beginning." The religion of Abel, Enoch, and 
 Noah was pure and spiritual. They were strict mono- 
 gamists. It was a son of wicked Cain who introduced poly- 
 gamy. It was practised in the time of Moses. His laws were 
 framed not to abolish, but to regulate it, and this practice as 
 well as divorce was allowed for the hardness of men's hearts. 
 
 This principle pervades all our Saviour's teaching : " It 
 was not so from the beginning." He came to re-establish 
 the original and universal religion of the world — the religion 
 of Adam, Enos, Enoch, Noah, Melchizedek, and Abraham ; 
 the religion of faith and self-sacrificing duty ; the religion 
 of "faith which worketh by love" — and to add to this, not 
 any new moral truth, but higher, holier, and more con- 
 straining motives, a fuller sense of forgiveness, through 
 faith in His sacrifice, and a living power in the heart to 
 love and obey our Heavenly Father's will, resulting from 
 a spiritual and heart union with His own Divine Person 
 through the operation of the Holy Ghost. 
 
 The sayings of them of old, therefore, which Christ 
 appears either to condemn or to develop, are not the say- 
 ings of God's law, but the perversions of it by human tradi- 
 tion. The Jews ought to have known, and the spiritually 
 minded among them did know, that the sixth and seventh 
 commandments forbade hatred and lust, and that the maxim, 
 " An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth," was not meant 
 to justify private vengeance, but as a rule of justice for the 
 magistrate. 
 
 It is sadly forgotten by our modern theologians, who 
 are carried away by the mania of accounting for everything 
 by evolution, that the Christian is directed to look back 
 beyond the Mosaic dispensation, and to make the religion 
 of Abraham his model. 
 
THE MORAL LAW NOT EVOLVED. 203 
 
 The moral law has not been evolved, but revealed ; and 
 that the moral sense is innate in man, as a being endowed 
 with reason, is evident from the fact that it is never so keen 
 as in the case of an uncorrupted child. 
 
 The origin of species, and even of man, may or may 
 not be the result of some process of evolution, of natura 
 selection and the survival of the fittest. 
 
 Science also, which is only another name for an acquaint- 
 ance with the phenomena, forces, and laws of the material 
 universe, has grown by a sort of evolutionary process, being 
 the result of observation, experiment, and thought ; neces- 
 sitating, therefore, many mistakes and the demolition by 
 new discoveries of many once accepted theories. 
 
 But religion is not the result of any such process. It 
 deals with phenomena with which natural history and phy- 
 sical science have nothing whatever to do. 
 
 As Lord Macaulay pointed out long ago, neither natural 
 nor revealed religion is of the nature of a progressive 
 science. "There are branches of knowledge," he writes, 
 "with respect to which the law of the human mind is pro- 
 gress. In mathematics, when once a proposition has been 
 demonstrated, it is never afterwards contested. Every fresh 
 story is as solid a basis for a new superstructure as the 
 original foundation was. Here, therefore, there is a con- 
 stant addition to the stock of truth. In the inductive 
 sciences, again, the law is progress. Every day furnishes 
 new facts, and thus brings theory nearer and nearer to per- 
 fection. . . . But with theology the case is different. As 
 respects natural religion — revelation being for the present 
 altogether left out of the question — it is not easy to see 
 that a philosopher of the present day is more favourably 
 situated than Thales or Simonides. He has before him 
 just the same evidence of design in the structure of the 
 universe whicii the early Greeks had. We say just the 
 
204 TRUE PROGRESS IN RELIGION. 
 
 same ; for the discoveries of modern astronomers and 
 anatomists have really added nothing to the force of that 
 argument which a reflecting mind finds in every beast, 
 bird, insect, fish, leaf, flower, and shell. . . . Then, again, 
 all the great enigmas which perplex the natural theologian 
 are the same in all ages. The ingenuity of a people just 
 emerging from, barbarism is quite sufficient to propound 
 them. The genius of Locke and Clarke is quite unable 
 to solve them. . . . Natural theology, then, is not a pro- 
 gressive science. . . . But neither is revealed religion of 
 the nature of a progressive science. All Divine truth is, 
 according to the doctrines of the Protestant Churches, re- 
 corded in certain books. It is equally open to all who, in 
 any age, can read those books ; nor can all the discoveries 
 of all the philosophers in the world add a single verse to 
 any of these books. It is plain, therefore, that in divinity 
 there cannot be a progress analogous to that which is con- 
 stantly taking place in pharmacy, geology, and navigation " 
 (" Essay on Von Ranke," p. 349). 
 
 And yet there is progress in religion, though of a totally 
 different kind from that which we understand by evolution 
 in the natural world, or the growth of the physical sciences. 
 
 Revelation has had a growth, and man's perception of re- 
 vealed truth has grown from time to time, then decayed 
 and revived again; but the vital principle of that growth 
 has not been observation, experiment, or thought, but the 
 enlightening Spirit of God. 
 
 False religions may have been thought out by man or 
 invented by the vain imaginations of his heart. They all 
 contain some elements of truth. It would be strange indeed 
 if they did not. 
 
 But the true religion — (and there can be only one ; all 
 might be false ; but if one is true, it logically follows that all 
 which differ from it, or wherein they differ from it, must be 
 
THE TRAINING OF MAN FOR FREEDOM. 205 
 
 false) — ihe one true religion, the knowledge of the One 
 Living God and the way to serve Him, has not been 
 thought out or evolved, but revealed from the very begin- 
 ning. And in whatever way that revelation was made, the 
 only record of it which exists is contained in the Holy 
 Scriptures. 
 
 And in Holy Scripture it is easy to trace a growth and 
 process of training such as we should naturally expect to 
 observe. 
 
 The problem before the Great Creator, when He made 
 man in His own image, was that of training him for the 
 safe enjoyment of moral freedom, and of bringing him up 
 to the high level of sonship eventually revealed and effected 
 by Christ ; a condition in which he can be justly required 
 to walk entirely by faith, and not by sight, and has no right 
 to demand supernatural evidences of the existence of God 
 or of the requirements of His moral law. 
 
 The Bible records this process of training with great 
 clearness and simplicity. And if we are to judge of the 
 moral character of God from what we read in the Bible, 
 we must take its narratives as they stand, and not explain 
 away those miraculous elements which are so inseparably 
 interwoven with them. 
 
 According to these narratives, the earliest revelations 
 were made not by internal spiritual communications, as in 
 the case of the later prophets, but by visible appearances 
 of One called the Angel of the Lord. Nothing can be 
 plainer than the statements of Holy Scripture that God re- 
 vealed Himself visibly by the Angel of the Lord to the 
 ancient saints, and that such visible manifestations became 
 more and more rare as man became more and more trained 
 to walk by faith and not by sight. 
 
 And when we trace this gradual withdrawal of miraculous 
 manifestations and revelations to the end, we find them 
 
2o6 MIRACLES CEASED IN CHRISTIAN TIMES. 
 
 ceasing altogether when the Christian Church was tnoroughly 
 founded and organised in the world. " God, Who with 
 many different degrees of clearness and in many different 
 ways spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets," 
 at] last spoke to us by His Son. In Him He gave us the 
 fullest possible revelation of Himself. Miraculous powers 
 were necessary to confirm the authority of the founders 
 of the Christian Church ; but we do not find that any ex- 
 cept the Apostles could communicate these powers to others. 
 Authority to rule the Church they could transmit, but not 
 miraculous powers. Whence it followed that miracles 
 entirely ceased as those died out to whom the last of the 
 Apostles had communicated the power to work them. 
 
 Visions of angels indeed and miracles would have been 
 anachronisms after the establishment of Christianity, the 
 very essence of which, as distinguished from Judaism, con- 
 sists in walking by faith and not by sight. Since that time, 
 therefore, the moral power imparted by the Holy Spirit and 
 the fulfilment of prophecy, and not visible miracles, have 
 been to the Christian the principal supernatural evidences 
 of the truth. 
 
 If any knowledge of God was to be given or to be kept 
 alive in early ages, visible manifestations were absolutely 
 necessary. And without them the conduct of Abraham, 
 for example, in leaving his country, pleading for Sodom, 
 and proceeding to sacrifice his son Isaac, the child of pro- 
 mise, is inconceivable and unintelligible. 
 
 Nothing but the most absolute certainty that God had 
 commanded it, and that He had some hidden and myste- 
 rious purpose in giving the inhuman command, could have 
 induced such a man as Abraham to consent to slay the 
 very son by whom the promises of God were to be fulfilled. 
 And as regards the righteousness of the command, we may 
 at once admit that we cannot conceive that a righteous 
 
THE SACRIFICE OF ISAAC. 207 
 
 God would have given it for the mere probation of His 
 faithful servant, were it not intended to reveal to him, as the 
 father of the faithful, the tenderness of the Eternal Father's 
 compassion, Who so loved the world that He was about to 
 give His only-begotten Son to redeem it. And we know 
 from our Lord's own words that a revelation of the Gospel 
 was made to him, and probably by tiie teaching of this 
 strange transaction. " Your father Abraham rejoiced to 
 see My day; and he saw it and was glad" (St. John viii. 
 56). " By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up 
 Isaac ; and he that had received the promises, offered up 
 his only-begotten son, of whom it was said, that in Isaac 
 shall thy seed be called; accounting that God was able 
 to raise him up, even from the dead ; from whence also he 
 received him in a figure" (Heb. xi. 17). 
 
 We have no knowledge whatever of this transaction 
 except what we gain from the sacred narrative; and in 
 judging of its character, whether with reference to God 
 or Abraham, we must not treat as historical that part of 
 the narrative which suits our purpose, and reject as unhis- 
 torical — a modern euphemism for "untrue" — just that part 
 which makes it intelligible. And unless we believe what we 
 read, that Abraham had often visible and not only spiritual 
 communion with God by the Angel of the Lord, the trans- 
 action is simply monstrous and inconceivable. No mere 
 miracle or wonder which he might have conceived to have 
 been permitted for his trial could have persuaded him or jus- 
 tified his conduct. The same Angel of the Lord commanded 
 the sacrifice, who also " called unto him out of heaven, and 
 said, . . . Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou 
 anything unto him ; for now I know that thou fearest God, 
 seeing that thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, 
 from Me" (Gen. xxii. 1-2, 11-12). 
 
 But as time went on, it pleased God to reveal Himself in 
 
2o8 THE MOSAIC DISPENSATION. 
 
 another way, by the establishment of a temporal theocracy, 
 confined to one nation, upon a system of temporal rewards 
 and punishcnents, and the employment of force for the 
 suppression of error. 
 
 Without abolishing the universal religion of the world 
 estabhshed from the beginning, though soon and sadly 
 corrupted, kept pure only by visible manifestations of 
 Himself in such cases as those of Abraham and Melchi- 
 zedek, and without ceasing to be still the object of Divine 
 worship to Israel, God constituted Himself a temporal King 
 and Ruler of His chosen people. 
 
 That the Mosaic dispensation was not intended to dis- 
 place the more spiritual religion of Abraham, the religion 
 of "faith which worketh by love," but only to keep alive 
 a knowledge of the true God until Christ came, and to 
 prepare for and bear witness to Him when He came, is 
 evident from the principle which pervades our Lord's 
 teaching, already alluded to, " It was not so from the 
 beginning;" and also from the inspired reasoning of St. 
 Paul. 
 
 He teaches us plainly that Christianity is not a system 
 evolved from Judaism, but, on the contrary, a return to the 
 more simple religion of Abraham, the religion of "faith 
 which worketh by love." 
 
 He strongly contrasts it with Judaism, a system intro- 
 duced, as he explains, because of transgressions ; a sort of 
 parenthesis in the dealings of God with the great human 
 family ; a system established long after the promise, 
 given immediately after the Fall, had been renewed to 
 Abraham. 
 
 The law of Moses he represents as a stern system of 
 government, with immediate rewards and punishments, 
 rendered necessary by the growing wickedness and wilful- 
 ness of man and his rapid falling away from God; a 
 
THE COVENANT OF ABRAHAM. 
 
 log 
 
 system treating man as a slave and not as a son, dealing 
 with him as we deal with our children when they grow up 
 beyond the simple age of boyhood and reach the wilful 
 period of youth, when they require to be controlled in 
 many ways, and trained by discipline for the safe enjoyment 
 of manhood's freedom. 
 
 All this is very clearly drawn out in Galatians iii. He 
 begins by referring the Christian for his religion beyond 
 Moses and back to the religion of Abraham. " Abraham 
 believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness. 
 Know ye therefore that they which are of faith, the same are 
 the children of Abraham. . . . The covenant which was 
 confirmed before of God in Christ, the law which was four 
 hundred and thirty years after cannot disannul. . . . Where- 
 fore then serveth the law ? It was added because of trans- 
 gressions, until the seed should come to whom the promise 
 was made. . . . Before faith came, we were kept under the 
 law. . . . The law was our schoolmaster to bring us to 
 Christ. . . . The heir, so long as he is a child, differeth 
 nothing from a servant, though he be master of all, but is 
 under tutors and governors until the time appointed by 
 the father. Even so we, when we were children, were in 
 bondage. . . . But when the fulness of time was come, God 
 sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, 
 to redeem them that were under the law, that we might 
 receive the adoption of sons. And because ye are sons, God 
 hath sent forth the spirit of His Son into your hearts." 
 
 But the evolutionary mania of the present day is begin- 
 ning to show itself in a much more dangerous form in the 
 writings of some modern theologians. The teaching of 
 Christ and His Apostles is regarded as a sort of germ from 
 which a purer form of Christianity is to be evolved by 
 modern thought and civilisation. 
 
 For heaven's sake let us strive after a purer, higher, 
 
 o 
 
2IO RELIGION OF CHRIST AND ABRAHAM. 
 
 holier Christianity than any which has prevailed in Chris- 
 tendom since the second or third century ; but let us not 
 dare to add to or take away from the teaching of Christ and 
 His inspired Apostles. 
 
 If our Christianity is to be better, we must make it more 
 like the religion of Abraham and that of the early Chris- 
 tians, a religion of " faith which worketh by love." We must 
 drink of the waters at the fountain-head, not of the stream 
 polluted by human sin and strife. 
 
 It may suit modern ideas better to represent God as too 
 merciful to punish sinners. " Ye shall not surely die " has 
 always been a popular saying. And the terrible end of the 
 finally impenitent, of which our Saviour speaks, may well 
 shock the moral sense, as it is called, of the nineteenth 
 century, and tempt theologians to explain away His words, 
 lest men should reject their teaching. 
 
 But to repeat the words of Lord Macaulay, neither 
 natural nor revealed religion is of the nature of a progressive 
 science. And whatever may be the difficulties of belief, we 
 may not dare to lessen them, for an age intoxicated by the 
 excess of physical knowledge, by misrepresenting the plain 
 teaching of Nature and the Bible. 
 
 We know, indeed, to our unspeakable comfort, from the 
 Old Testament, that which Nature could not teach us, that 
 "Like as a father pitieth his own children, even so is the 
 Lord merciful to them that fear Him. That He knoweth 
 whereof we are made : He remembereth that we are but 
 dust" (Ps. ciii. 8-14). 
 
 And in the New Testament we have the fullest revelation 
 of the tender mercy as well as of the justice of God. 
 
 The two sides of His character are brought out in 
 strongest contrast in the person and teaching of Christ. 
 Infinite Mercy could not suggest, Infinite Wisdom could 
 not devise, Infinite Power could not execute an act of 
 
THE SANCTIONS OF THE MORAL LAW. 211 
 
 Divine Love more constraining than the sacrifice of the 
 Son of Man, the incarnation of the Eternal Son of God. 
 He, the only Sinless Man, bears in His own Body the 
 natural consequences of the sins of the whole world, that 
 all who believe in Him, and love Him, and obey Him, 
 may not perish, but have everlasting life. 
 
 He who rules the moral universe cannot weaken the 
 sanctions of the moral law. Rather than this. He bears in 
 the Person of Christ " the iniquity of us all." 
 
 But the revelation of this inconceivable mystery of 
 Divine Love magnifies to the highest degree the heinousness 
 of unbelief and sin, and vindicates the justice of Him 
 " who will render to every man according to his deeds," 
 and, as St. Paul explains afterwards, according to his light 
 and opportunities : "To them who by patient continuance 
 in well-doing seek for glory and honour and immortality, 
 eternal life ; but unto them that are contentious and do 
 not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation 
 and wrath, tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man 
 that doeth evil, of the Jew first and also of the Gentile ; but 
 glory, honour, and peace to every man that worketh good, 
 to the Jew first and also to the Gentile." For God is a 
 righteous God, and therefore, "There is no respect of 
 persons with God" (Rom. ii. 6-1 1). 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 CREATION OR EVOLUTION. 
 
 The discoveries not only of geology, but also of natural 
 history and comparative anatomy, have thrown much light 
 upon the probable origin of the world and of man, and 
 therefore upon those early chapters of the Bible which treat 
 of them. 
 
 It may be well, therefore, to consider how far the modern 
 doctrine that even man is the result of a process commonly 
 called Evolution is consistent with the popular language in 
 which his origin is described in Holy Scripture. 
 
 Creation and Evolution are popularly understood in two 
 widely different senses. Creation is taken to signify the 
 sudden production of things by the immediate energy of 
 the Divine will; Evolution their slow and gradual forma- 
 tion by the working, during immense periods of time, of 
 causes still observed to be in operation. But it is most 
 important to remember that neither theory excludes the 
 idea of a Personal Creator. 
 
 It is quite as likely, a priori^ that God should have 
 brought things to their present state by a gradual process, 
 advancing at every stage nearer and nearer to the pre- 
 determined result, as that He should have willed them 
 into being in an instant, or in the course of a few hours 
 or days. 
 
 There was a time when men used the Bible as a guide 
 
NOT A RELIGIOUS QUESTION. 213 
 
 to science, instead of science as a guide to the meaning 
 of the Bible. The time has now come when we adopt 
 the opposite and more reasonable course. For science 
 means knowledge, and real knowledge must throw light 
 upon any written composition, wheiher human or divine. 
 
 The persecutors of Galileo were not only cruel but 
 unreasonable when they appealed to the Bible to prove 
 that the astronomer was contradicting a revealed truth, 
 when he said that the earth went round the sun in a year, 
 and revolved once on its own axis in twenty-four hours. 
 Shall we not be equally unreasonable if we attempt to 
 refute the legitimate conclusions of the Evolutionist by the 
 inspired but popular language of Holy Scripture ? 
 
 The question, therefore, is not a religious but a scien- 
 tific question. The question is not whether God created 
 all Hving things, or whether they were evolved, without a 
 God, by some spontaneous but inconceivable process, out 
 of some original and even more inconceivable germ of 
 being; but whether, when God created them, they came 
 into existence fully developed and pretty much as we 
 find them now, or whether He made at first one or a 
 few forms of life, their present almost endless variety being 
 the result of natural selection and other slowly operating 
 causes ? 
 
 We may accept as probably true, if not certainly proved, 
 the conclusions of moderate Evolutionists; but on purely 
 scientific grounds their theory, taken alone and without 
 the constant control, if not occasional intervention, of the 
 energising will of the Creator, seems quite insufficient to 
 account for the immense variety and marked and permanent 
 diff'erences which we see in the existing forms of vegetable 
 and animal life. 
 
 The survival of the fittest in the struggle for life ; food, 
 climate, and surroundings ; the use or disuse of members ; 
 
214 T^HE THEORY OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 sexual selection and domestication, have doubtless been 
 from the very beginning powerfully modifying forces. 
 
 But why cannot the mule breed ? Where are the innu- 
 merable missing links, especially between man and the 
 highest form of animal ? 
 
 The breeder, by careful selection of parents, can produce 
 almost any form of sheep, cow, horse, or pigeon. But is 
 it conceivable that even in a million years, and with all his 
 opportunities of selection, he could change the sheep into 
 the dog, the cow into the horse, or the pigeon into the crow 
 or hawk ? 
 
 Is it not evident, therefore, that the Creator has set up 
 certain barriers, within which there may be evolved many 
 varieties of form, but whicii can never be passed over ? 
 
 Again, great stress is laid upon the fact that the embryos 
 of very different animals are at first, and for a considerable 
 time, indistinguishable. 
 
 But what does this prove? Does it prove that there is 
 no difference between the embryo of a dog and that of a 
 man? By no means. All which the likeness of the two 
 proves is this, that the eye of man, aided by the most 
 powerful microscope, cannot see the difference. That they 
 are amazingly different is proved by the invariable result, 
 and the conclusion drawn from this universally observed 
 result will remain unanswered until a dog gives birth to a 
 human being, and, we may add, until an elm tree springs 
 from an acorn, until grapes are gathered from thorns, and 
 figs from thistles. 
 
 But even if we admit, for the sake of argument, all which 
 the Evolutionist demands, is there anything in his theory 
 incompatible with tlie popular language of Genesis? Cer- 
 tainly not, if we once give up the literal interpretation of 
 the natural days. On the contrary, the expressions used 
 would rather support it. 
 
NOT CONTRARY TO SCRIPTURE. 215 
 
 The most extreme theory of Evolution, as already ob- 
 served, in no way tends necessarily to the denial of a Per- 
 sonal Creator; neither does it depreciate His irresistible 
 power or inscrutable wisdom : rather the contrary. The 
 Divine _^af seems even more inconceivably grand when we 
 think of it as embracing all time, and involving in the mere 
 germ of being the fulness and the infinite variety of the 
 material universe. 
 
 The question is not. Did a Personal God create? but 
 rather. How did He create ? Was it by instantaneous acts 
 of creative energy, or by the slow process of Evolution? 
 Does He commonly work immediately, that is to say, with- 
 out the employment of means, or mediately and by a long 
 chain of secondary causes ? 
 
 Admitting, then, for the sake of argument, that His 
 modus operandi has been uniformly what we call Evolution, 
 what does tlie writer of Genesis say about it ? 
 
 He rather confirms than denies it. God creates the 
 material universe. But having done so, He is not then 
 said to create living things. On the contrary, He commands 
 the earth, the water, and the air to produce them. The 
 words are, " Let the earth bring forth grass. . . . Let the 
 waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature," &c. 
 And He is then said to have created them, the modus 
 operandi having been first thus indicated. And even of the 
 higher animals it is said, " Let the earth bring them 
 forth." 
 
 The origin of man, indeed, seems to be attributed to a 
 more immediate act of the Creator ; and, if it is true that 
 even man owes his bodily origin to evolution, most scientific 
 men admit that something very unusual must have taken 
 place when he first appeared. Something must have inter- 
 fered with the process by which life is usually derived from 
 life. There must have been somethintr akin to an incarna- 
 
2i6 MAN INCARNATE INTELLECT. 
 
 tion of intellect, the material embodiment of a moral being, 
 the image of God. 
 
 We may safely, then, leave these questions of Evolution, 
 the continuity of Nature, and the origin of man's body in 
 the hands of scientific experts, and declare that, as theo- 
 logians, we no longer feel called upon to determine them 
 either way, or to reconcile them with the language of Holy 
 Scripture. 
 
 But it is very important to have a clear idea of the origin 
 of man, as a being created in the image of God ; and to 
 ascertain his origin we must very carefully consider what 
 he is. 
 
 He is evidently a very complex being. He has a material 
 body enlivened by an animal soul, and he differs in body 
 from the brute creation only in his higher and more delicate 
 organisation and erect stature. He is surpassed by many 
 animals in size and strength, as well as in many natural 
 faculties and instincts. 
 
 As such, he is a creature who could scarcely have held 
 his own in the struggle for life against the lion or tiger, or 
 even against the more agile and ferocious orang or gorilla, 
 supposed by some to have been his ancestor, connected 
 with him by a long line of ape-like men or man-like 
 apes, whom he is supposed to have improved off the face 
 of the earth, and who have left no traces whatever of their 
 existence. 
 
 But man is a great deal more than a highly organised 
 animal of erect stature. 
 
 He is possessed of an intellect, which has given him, 
 from the very earliest times in which there are any traces 
 of his existence, dominion over all other creatures on earth, 
 however superior they may be to him in other respects. 
 The huge size and sagacity of the elephant, the strength 
 and swiftness of the horse, the courage and ferocity of the 
 
HIS POWER OVER NATURE. 217 
 
 lion, the agility and cleverness of the ape, though they may 
 give the victory in isolated cases, are of no avail in the 
 long-run against the intellect of man. 
 
 Moreover, the most ignorant savage is not only immensely 
 superior in intellect to the most sagacious brute, but is also 
 capable, if only his education begins sufficiently early and 
 his surroundings are changed, of being brought up to the 
 level of the ordinary civilised man. And, on the other 
 hand, the ordinary civilised man, placed amid less favour- 
 able surroundings, and driven to spend all his energies 
 in providing the bare necessaries of life, is certain in the 
 course of a few generations to become degraded to the 
 level of the savage. 
 
 And this man alone can search the records of the past, 
 examine the minutest details of the present, and entertain 
 hopes and form plans, not only for the immediate, but also 
 for the most remote future. His far-reaching intellect can 
 measure the distances, count the revolutions, ascertain the 
 weight, predict to a second the transits and eclipses of the 
 sun, moon, and stars, and by analysing their light discover 
 in some degree of what elements they consist. 
 
 And all this accumulated knowledge is being constantly 
 turned to practical account, to the increase of man's power 
 and to the improvement of his condition, giving him, not 
 only bows and arrows, swords and spears, spades and prun- 
 ing-hooks, but also guides to direct him across the trackless 
 ocean, steam-engines to carry him over land and seas, and 
 the lightning to move his machinery, to light his dwellings, 
 and to carry his messages, and even iiis spoken words, over 
 the land or under the waters, from one side of the globe 
 to the other. 
 
 These are some of the facts which would strike any 
 observer, coming, let us suppose, from some other planet, 
 upon the most cursory glance at man as he now exists, 
 
2i8 THE ORIGIN OF MAN'S SPIRIT. 
 
 either as the ignorant savage or the highly cultivated Euro- 
 pean ; but they are far from exhausting the characteristics 
 which separate him by an impassable interval from every 
 other creature upon the earth. 
 
 The distance between man and the noblest brute becomes 
 infinite when we consider his moral nature, his power of 
 sitting in judgment upon his own conduct, his knowledge 
 of good and evil, and his power of choosing between them, 
 his consciousness of virtue when he makes the right choice, 
 his perception of sin when it is otherwise, his sense of 
 shame, his belief in a life beyond the grave, his knowledge, 
 fear, and love of God. 
 
 If, then, we would know what man is, we must not think 
 only of his body, but far more of his spiritual, intellectual, 
 and moral nature. And so, to determine his origin, we 
 must remember that it is the origin of his intellect and 
 spirit that we are most concerned to look for, rather than 
 for that of his body. 
 
 The inquiry into the origin of man's body may wisely be 
 left to the comparative anatomist or the natural historian. 
 As theologians, we may be well satisfied to leave in its pro- 
 found mystery the simple and popular statement of Holy 
 Scripture, that God formed man's body like that of all other 
 animals of the dust of the earth, and made him, like them,; 
 a living creature. 
 
 What then does the Bible tell us about the origin of man ? 
 Clearly these two things : That his body is that of an animal, 
 but his spirit an image of God. 
 
 So far as his bodily nature is concerned, he was made 
 by the Creator of the very same materials as all the other 
 animals, with this difference only, that there was a more 
 special and a higher purpose in his creation. He was meant 
 to be more than an animal ; he was to be raised above all 
 other animals by his intellectual, moral, and immortal 
 
MAN A SON OF GOD. 219 
 
 nature. As such, he was to be like God, a god upon earth, 
 a son of God, the supreme ruler of the world, the viceroy 
 of the Great Creator of all. 
 
 And so the Bible ascribes the bodily origin of man to 
 the material earth, but his intellectual, moral, and immortal 
 spirit to God Himself. " Which was the son of Seth, which 
 was the son of Adam, which was the Son of God " (St. Luke 
 iii. 38). 
 
 The universal experience of mankind and the researches 
 of the scientific inquirer have confirmed these two state- 
 ments. It is an unquestioned truth in this age of light that 
 man is an animal closely resembling other animals, but that 
 he is also, as it were, a god upon the earth. 
 
 By what natural process, which is only another name for 
 the exercise of the Creative Will, man's animal body was 
 formed, we are not told. It is a mystery which the Bible 
 has not revealed, and which the researches of scientific 
 inquirers have not solved ; and as such it is a question which 
 we may wisely and safely leave in the hands of the students 
 of anatomy and other kindred sciences. No theory which 
 excludes the constant presence and continuous operation of 
 the energy of the will of the Creator in the natural world 
 can account for the order, the beauty, the traces of design, 
 and the infinite variety which exist in all vegetable and 
 animal life upon the earth. But if we once acknowledge 
 that Divine Omnipresence, it is consistent with all we know 
 of God that He should bring about results partly by gradual 
 processes, and partly by sudden, and even violent changes. 
 
 This latter f^ioi/us operatidi of the Creator, however, is 
 scarcely sufficiently considered by Evolutionists. 
 
 They assume, that which has not been proved, that all 
 existing living things in the vegetable and animal world are 
 the hneal descendants of one or a few low forms of life, 
 and that their present wonderful order and variety are the 
 
220 THE BEGINNING OF LIFE. 
 
 result of those slowly operating causes suggested by Darwin 
 and other naturalists. 
 
 It is difificult, no doubt, to imagine the sudden appearance 
 in the world of a living creature fully formed but underived 
 from any ancestor. But this difficulty is simply due to our 
 inexperience. We seem to have proved that, in the world 
 as it now exists, there is no such thing as the spontaneous 
 generation of life ; that all existing living things must there- 
 fore have derived their life by heredity. And so we have 
 no experience whatever of the beginning of life, although 
 we know that it must have begun. 
 
 But what do we mean by the beginning of life ? 
 
 Life is inconceivable to us independent of some living 
 creature. 
 
 Abstracted from any living creature, what is it but an 
 abstract term, a mental conception, the name which we 
 give to a certain unique force, producing certain unique 
 results in its connection with the material elements which 
 form the body of an organised living being ? Concrete life, 
 the only condition in which we know it, or can form any 
 conception of it, is the life of some living thing, whether 
 vegetable or animal. 
 
 It follows that whenever life began in this world of ours, 
 there must have appeared a living creature, an invisible life 
 clothed in a material form. Something, in fact, must have 
 happened with more or less suddenness quite outside all 
 our present experience. 
 
 It is equally certain that this could not have happened 
 without a cause, and without a very wonderful and mighty 
 cause. And whatever secondary causes may have contri- 
 buted to this result, the links in the chain of causation, if 
 we could trace them, would bring us at last to the Causa 
 Caiisarum, the volition of the Creator, the Author and 
 Giver of life. 
 
DID LIFE BEGIN WITH ONE OR MANY? 221 
 
 Since life, then, must have begun by the appearance of a 
 living creature, we can scarcely help asking ourselves some 
 such questions as these : Was it one living creature, or did 
 a hundred, or a thousand, or a million living creatures show 
 themselves in material forms with more or less suddenness 
 on the face of the earth, in the air, and in the waters? 
 And again, were they all exactly alike, or was there con- 
 siderable variety in their nature and form, with inherent 
 possibihties of an almost endless variation and adaptation 
 to surroundings by heredity, natural and sexual selection, 
 and other modifying causes ? 
 
 That there should be an obvious unity of plan in them all 
 is what we should naturally expect to find in the works of 
 One Creative Mind ; and that the limbs, joints, and muscles 
 of all should be very much alike, because constructed upon 
 the same sound mechanical principles, varying only to suit 
 the needs of each individual or type, is also what we should 
 expect to find in the creatures of the Omniscient. For the 
 same reason we find bows and arrows of much the same 
 form in the hand of the English archer or of the American 
 savage, and the ropes and pulleys employed by Layard to 
 remove the winged lions of Nineveh differing scarcely at all 
 in arrangement from the tablet which he afterwards found 
 representing those used by the Assyrian engineer to erect 
 them there three thousand years before. 
 
 . A similar application of the mechanical powers will not 
 indeed account for all the resemblances which we find in 
 the structure of living creatures varying otherwise in nature, 
 form, and habits ; but it is one very obvious though much 
 forgotten cause of those resemblances ; and it proves, at 
 any rate, that there is no necessity to attribute them all to 
 heredity. 
 
 When life first began, millions of living things may have 
 appeared, either at once or in succession, as the earth was 
 
ALL MADE UPON ONE PLAN. 
 
 suited to them. But we may be certain that, although they 
 probably varied immensely in form and structure, they were 
 all necessarily made in accordance with the universal and 
 unchanging laws of Nature. 
 
 The clock and the watermill are not much alike ; the one 
 also marks the time and the other grinds our corn ; yet in 
 both the same natural law is observed ; in both gravitation 
 is the motive power; in both that power is directed and 
 controlled on the same mechanical principles. 
 
 All living creatures, in like manner, inasmuch as they are 
 living machines in which the motive power is the energy of 
 that force which we call life, must necessarily have their 
 joints and muscles arranged in such a manner as to illustrate 
 the application of the mechanical powers. Their likeness 
 to one another in this respect may therefore be due in some 
 measure to the same cause as that which makes the clock 
 and the watermill something alike; and so need not be 
 entirely the result of heredity. 
 
 Admitting, then, that naturalists have proved how power- 
 ful has been the influence of heredity, natural selection, and 
 other causes in modifying the forms of living creatures, it 
 cannot be said they have given us any reason to conjecture 
 that all have been derived from one or a very few low forms 
 of life. Nor have they even approached the solution of the 
 great enigma of the origin of life, or of the conditions under 
 which it was first manifested in organised material bodies. 
 
 Whenever life began, one or many living creatures must 
 have appeared with more or less suddenness. What is 
 there, then, in Nature which may help us to form some 
 conception of the sudden appearance of a visible organised 
 body? 
 
 We may compare it to the sadden, startling, and often 
 wholly unexpected results of chemical combination. Chemi- 
 cal combination is constantly going on in the great laboratory 
 
LIFE IN MATERIAL BODIES. 223 
 
 of Nature, sometimes slowly, often with startling sudden- 
 ness. Under the proper conditions several elements com- 
 bine in an instant, and form a visible body differing in many 
 properties from any one of them. One of the conditions 
 is usually the suitable temperature ; and these combinations 
 are due to certain mysterious energies and affinities inherent 
 in the elements themselves. 
 
 Life or vital force, in like manner, is a profoundly myste- 
 rious energy, acting constantly upon surrounding material 
 elements, and compelling them to combine in certain pro- 
 portions and to produce living material bodies, having each 
 their own proper nature, form, and faculties, giving to each 
 a body, and " to every seed its own body." 
 
 May not living creatures, then, have appeared with sud- 
 denness, and with much variety of form and nature and 
 inherent powers of reproduction, by the energy of life excit- 
 ing chemical combination ? 
 
 As an example of chemical combination let us consider 
 the formation of water. 
 
 It is the result of the combination in certain propor- 
 tions of the two gases hydrogen and oxygen. These two 
 elements are in their properties unlike one another, and 
 water formed by their sudden combination is not the least 
 like either of them. Bring these two gases together in a 
 receiver in their proper proportions. They float together 
 uncombined so long as they remain at the same tempera- 
 ture. Pass an electric spark through them. There is an 
 explosion, and in an instant these gases have combined ; no 
 trace 01 their separate existence remains ; they have formed 
 a drop of water. 
 
 Let us consider some of the properties of this water. 
 
 It may be decomposed again into its elementary parts 
 and become again free hydrogen and oxygen, just as a 
 vegetable or animal body is decomposed when its com- 
 
224 LIFE DEPENDENT ON TEMPERATURE. 
 
 bining vital energy has left it. But so long as it remains 
 water, it must exist, like most other substances, in one of 
 three forms, gaseous, liquid, or solid. Sufficiently heated, it 
 becomes an invisible vapour ; sufficiently chilled, it becomes 
 liquid ; and then, when further reduced in temperature, it 
 becomes solid and assumes its own proper form, which we 
 see in the beautiful crystals of ice and snow. 
 
 What we thus observe in water we may observe in thou- 
 sands of other substances which are the results of chemical 
 combination; and almost all of them have their proper 
 geometrical form, which they assume in the process of crys- 
 tallisation. 
 
 It is evident from this that there must be inherent in 
 every material substance, whether it be simple or compound, 
 some deeply mysterious and irresistible energy compelling 
 it, amid the proper surroundings and at the proper tempera- 
 ture, to assume a definite form, and always its own charac- 
 teristic form, and that often in a moment of time. 
 
 Of this irresistible energy we know absolutely nothing. 
 We only know by experience that under certain conditions 
 it produces certain results. We know also that the force 
 which it exercises bears some relation to temperature. 
 
 We must admit the same or even greater ignorance of 
 that energy which we call life, which is inherent in living 
 creatures, and which compels them to keep on assimilating 
 substances with which they come in contact, and forming 
 them into their own proper shape — in the case of vegetables, 
 directly from the material elements ; in that of animals, 
 indirectly from feeding on other organised bodies. 
 
 It is remarkable also that the energy of life is dependent 
 on temperature. Even the vegetable cannot live or grow 
 in an unsuitable temperature, and the life of the animal 
 is even more dependent upon it. The amount of tem- 
 perature necessary for healthy life also varies in different 
 
LIFE DEPENDENT ON TEMPERATURE. 225 
 
 animals and vegetables, as it does for the combination of 
 material substances. 
 
 These and similar analogies cannot indeed explain, but 
 help us to form some conception of the beginning of life. 
 It must have been thoroughly natural, but may have been 
 marvellously sudden. It must have been natural, even if 
 it happened only once, for it must have been the result of 
 causes then set in operation by the energy of the God of 
 Nature. It must have been as natural as the act of the 
 chemist in his laboratory. 
 
 To produce a drop of water, or to form some other 
 compound substance, some useful body or some beautiful 
 crystal, the chemist brings together the necessary elements 
 in the right proportions. Then he raises or reduces the 
 temperature, adds the necessary ingredient to cause com- 
 bination, or it may be passes through them an electric spark. 
 The result is commonly instantaneous ; at any rate, the 
 elements immediately obey him with more or less sudden- 
 ness ; they combine as he wishes ; the required substance is 
 formed, and in its own proper shape. 
 
 Was it harder, was it less natural, though He may have 
 done it only once, for the Great Chemist of the universe, 
 the Author and Giver of life, to say once for all, " Let the 
 earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit- 
 tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself . . . 
 Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind. 
 . . . Let us make man in our own image after our likeness," 
 and then to leave them to work out His further purposes by 
 the operation of heredity, natural and sexual selection, and 
 other forces ? 
 
 Whether life began once only in the history of our earth, 
 and from causes which operated once only and have since 
 ceased to operate, or whether the start was made on several 
 occasions, we cannot even form a conjecture, having few, 
 
226 ONE LIFE-CREATING PERIOD. 
 
 It any, well-ascertained facts to guide us. On tlie whole, 
 perhaps, it seems most probable that there was only one 
 commencement of life, though possibly by a succession of 
 acts during one life-creating period. All we know for certain 
 is, that life, having once begun, is continued by heredity, 
 and apparently has no spontaneous origin. 
 
 In like manner there are substances in the inanimate 
 world which assumed their present form under circumstances 
 which no longer exist and from causes which no longer 
 operate. The diamond, for example, is the result of the 
 crystallisation of pure carbon. But no one has yet ascer- 
 tained what was the condition of the world when that 
 precious and enduring crystal was formed. All we know is, 
 that, having been once formed, it has remained unchanged 
 for ages. 
 
 But even after the first creation of living creatures we do 
 not find the Creator w^orking always by slow processes, but 
 often by very sudden changes. Forces long working slowly 
 often end in a most sudden result. 
 
 How gradual is the embryonic process, which ends so 
 suddenly in fully developed and independent life ! How 
 strangely mysterious the growth of the chicken from the 
 vital spot, scarcely visible under the most powerful micro- 
 scope, up to the time when the egg is broken and the most 
 sudden change takes place in the living creature, which 
 then comes forth from its prison into the light of individual 
 life! 
 
 It is natural also to suppose that God would employ what 
 He has made for the formation of that which He purposes 
 to make. Not only, therefore, is it a universal law that, 
 since the first creation of living things, life can only originate 
 from life, but also that the animal can live and grow only 
 by feeding upon that which has had life. Our human 
 bodies are formed entirely of the food which we eat ; and 
 
LIFE THE FOOD OF LIFE. 227 
 
 so, that which yesterday was a grain of wheat or the flesh of 
 an ox or sheep is to-day part of a human body. 
 
 There is, therefore, nothing a priori inconceivable or 
 necessarily repulsive in the idea that man's body, as it exists 
 now, may be the result of a long chain of secondary causes, 
 of a long process of life derived from life. Our connec- 
 tion in this case with the primeval germs of life, or with 
 the apes, ape-like men and man-like apes, our ancestors, 
 according to the grotesque and unproved theory of the 
 Evolutionist, would not be nearly so close or so real as our 
 present connection with the growing plant or the ox or 
 sheep which we saw grazing so peacefully in the meadow 
 only a few days ago. 
 
 There is no occasion, therefore, to feel anxious about the 
 possible verification of Darwin's theory of the descent of 
 man, or of any similar suggestion offered as a solution of 
 tiie mystery of man's bodily origin. 
 
 Evolution, even by the admission of its supporters, is at 
 present only a theory, not wholly unsupported by some very 
 interesting facts, but flatly contradicted by many others, and 
 quite incapable of accounting for the endless variety of 
 vegetable and animal life, except upon the assumption that 
 the evolutionary process is under the constant control and 
 direction of the wisdom and power of the Creator Himself. 
 
 This theory, moreover, without the assumption of constant 
 Divine direction, if not of occasional interference, fails alto- 
 gether to account for the many impassable intervals which 
 exist now, and apparently always have existed, not only 
 between man and the brute creation, but also between many 
 orders of beings. 
 
 These intervals also keep on widening as the scale of 
 being ascends. The lower forms of life shade off into one 
 another like the colours of the rainbow, and the connecting- 
 links are close and numerous But as organic life becomes 
 
228 WIDENING INTERVALS. 
 
 higher and more intricate, the intervals become wider, the 
 connecting-Hnks more rare, and the characteristic differences 
 more numerous and more sharply defined, until we reach 
 the immeasurable gulf which separates the most degraded 
 human being from the most intelligent brute. 
 
 Clearly, therefore, there must have been some or many 
 other causes in operation besides natural selection or any 
 of those suggested by Evolutionists to produce those in- 
 creasingly wide and impassable intervals. What those causes 
 were may yet be discovered, or they may remain for ever 
 unknown ; but, as believers in the Living God, we have no 
 hesitation in saying that, whatsoever may have been the 
 secondary causes, the first of all was the energy of the 
 Divine will, the wisdom, power, and goodness of Him who 
 is not bound to explain to us the wonders of His works. 
 
 He tells us all we need know when He inspires His 
 prophet to declare that man was made in His own image 
 after His likeness, that God formed man of the dust of the 
 ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and 
 man became a living soul. 
 
 The first man was of the earth earthy ; but the full pur- 
 pose of God was not accomplished, the great evolutionary 
 chain was not completed, until the " Second Man " came, 
 Who is "the Lord from heaven." The first man, Adam, 
 was made an animal soul ; the last Adam, a life-giving Spirit. 
 
 No discoveries of science can do otherwise than confirm 
 these statements of Holy Scripture, or rob us of our glorious 
 hope that, as we unquestionably bear now the image of the 
 earthly, we shall as certainly hereafter bear the image of 
 the heavenly. 
 
 There must have been many transformations or incar- 
 nations more or less sudden to have produced the endless 
 varieties of living creatures which now exist upon the earth, 
 and to have caused the many impassable intervals which 
 
THE FINAL TRANSFORMATION. 229 
 
 there are between them, if they were not all made so in the 
 first instance, which is more probable. 
 
 We await with faith and patience in this earthly taber- 
 nacle of a God-born spirit another and a greater transfor- 
 mation, which shall cause another and a more impassable 
 interval between the animal and the man, when "the 
 mystery of God shall be finished, and we shall all be 
 changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the 
 last trump ; for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall 
 be raised incorruptible and we (the living) shall be changed " 
 (i Cor. XV. 51), when He "shall change our vile body, 
 that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body, 
 according to the working whereby He is able even to 
 subdue all things unto Himself" (Phil. iii. 21). 
 
 THE END. 
 
 KINTED BY BALLANTYNE, HANSON AND CO. 
 EUINBLRGH AND LONDON. 
 
OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. 
 
 " Dr. Huntingford is no doubt right in thinking that popular miscon- 
 ceptions are a more formidable obstacle to the reception of the Bible 
 than scientific conclusions from observed phenomena. They are some- 
 thing worse even than that ; they are not only a bar to the reception of 
 revelation, but substitute falsehood for truth in those who are willing 
 to receive it. In selecting the story of the Creation, the Fall, and the 
 Deluge for his experiment in removing some of these mistaken ideas 
 the author has chosen wisely, for there is no part of Scripture which 
 suffers so much from a merely literal interpretation, and no part which 
 furnishes so many facile objections to the unbeliever. Nothing can be 
 easier than even to make fun out of light being created before the sun, 
 or of the creation of woman, or of the serpent tempting her, or of the 
 Infinite and Absolute walking in a garden, and so on, and such argu- 
 ments have made many a young infidel. The present writer was once 
 asked by such a philosophic aspirant of fifteen, "Who was Cain's wife ? "' 
 — a difficulty which Dr. Huntingford easily disposes of. But the objec- 
 tions to the first and second chapter are to be met by a larger treat- 
 ment ; not by smoothing difficulties, but by looking at the narrative 
 from an opposite point of view. Here is a history, perhaps the oldest 
 document in the world, which compared with any other early guesses 
 at the origin of things is pure wisdom, embodying ideas not only con- 
 sistent with but essential to the best civilisation and the highest form 
 of Christianity. In a couple of pages it lays down the bases of pure 
 religion in the unity of God ; of social life in the indissoluble union of 
 man and woman and the sanctity of marriage ; of the moral law in the 
 sense of sin which follows upon yielding to temptation, and in the 
 supremacy of conscience which asserts itself when appetite is satiated 
 and passion is subdued, when ' the voice of the Lord God is heard in 
 the cool of the day.' 
 
 " To claim a spiritual rendering of a spiritual book is the author's chief 
 aim in writing, and his method is the simple one of asking what the 
 text says, treatment to which the cnix of the ' universal ' deluge and 
 of the rainbow readily yields, and which softens down the lapse of 
 Noah into a legitimate conviviality, which the occasion might seem to 
 warrant. He discusses, however, other questions arising out of his 
 subject, such as the curious consistency of the blessing on Japheth with 
 the character and fortunes of the azidax lapeti genus, as well as the 
 identity of name ; and the inevitable subject of evolution. On this last 
 point he is not quite outspoken ; he is sometimes indifierent about it, 
 and sometimes hostile. But the value of the book is that a divine of 
 
( 2 ) 
 
 undoubted orthodoxy has at last performed an obvious duty to the Bible 
 and to reasonable religion. We are grateful for it, and our gratitude 
 would be increased if he would reduce it to half its size, cutting down 
 his digressions, and avoiding repetitions, and would ask the Society for 
 Promoting Christian Knowledge to issue it in a cheap form." — Saturday 
 Reviav. 
 
 "The patient writer on Biblical difficulties is always welcome. There 
 are many patient students ; but we are deluged with publications con- 
 taining the crude conclusions of impatient enemies and defenders of the 
 faith. If for nothing else Mr. Huntingford's book is valuable as possess- 
 ing this rare virtue. No one who knows the author's other works will 
 suppose that he is patiently waiting to see whether the first eleven 
 chapters of Genesis are inspired. Of this he has no doubt. The nature 
 of inspiration is discussed at some length in the second chapter. He 
 defines it as ' superhuman power imparted to the natural faculties of a 
 man by the Spirit of God,' without necessarily implying the revelation 
 of superhuman knowledge at the same time. Hence the writings of in- 
 spired men may or may not contain a revelation ; they may manifest 
 the workings of an inspired mind dealing with knowledge obtained from 
 natural sources of information, or they may manifest both an inspiration 
 and a revelation at the same time. In either case, from the nature of 
 inspiration, inspired men must ' always speak of natural phenomena in 
 the popular language of their day.' On this clear basis he deals with 
 the ' misconceptions.' Their origin is well described : — 
 
 " ' Many have been brought up from their childhood with the idea that 
 every single word of the Bible was dictated to the writer by the Holy 
 Spirit. More than this, they have been taught that the commonly 
 received — (perhaps more correctly, popular and untheological) — inter- 
 pretation of the Bible must be true ; and this is a far more dangerous 
 error than the first. Half the supposed difficulties of Scripture would 
 disappear if men would carefully examine and find out for themselves 
 the exact meaning of the words of the Bible.' In the Mosaic account 
 of creation, Mr. Huntingford says that the truth is taught us ' veiled 
 under the symbolic language of a drama ; ' but it is immaterial to inquire 
 whether a revelation was made to the writer, or whether he was guided 
 by the Holy Spirit rightly to interpret the facts of his own observation, 
 or whether, under the same guidance, he made a selection from materials 
 derived from tradition. In the same way the account of the Garden of 
 Eden, of its first inhabitant, ' a guileless, helpless, adult infant,' of the 
 creation of Eve, and of the Fall, is a ' most truthful picture of human 
 nature,' and of ' the nature and origin of sin.' But — 
 
 " 'We need not feel bound even to make up our own minds, much 
 less to dogmatise to others, about this story. So long as we accept the 
 profound truths which it teaches as coming to us from the Spirit oi 
 God, we may fairly regard it as an open question whether it is a literal 
 narrative or a Divine allegory.' 
 
 "This is the patience to which allusion has been made. It is quite 
 different from simply affirming that it is allegory ; and it wins and 
 assures those who would be disquieted by a direct assertion either way. 
 It is always difficult to say when a critical or exegetical question has 
 
( 3 ) 
 
 ceased to be subjiidice ; yet many writers jump readily to the conclusion 
 that it is settled, long before the evidence has been weighed. It is this 
 literary contempt of court, so to speak, which gives so much offence, 
 and the absence of which will make the early part of this little volume 
 so useful." — Guardian. 
 
 " The author believes that the tendency of the present time is to reject 
 too easily whatever is objected to in the Old Testament. His book 
 is a careful examination of the subjects indicated by the title, and is 
 marked by candour and ability ; many difficulties which beset inquiring 
 minds are explained, and the reasonableness of the Bible record pointed 
 out." — Educational Times. 
 
 "The author has the courage of his opinions; without the least 
 approach to offensiveness in style or word, he combats the critics of the 
 position commonly assumed to be orthodox, by showing how many 
 details of the position are not in consonance with the word of Moses. 
 The book will materially assist young clergy who come into contact 
 with sceptics, and prevent them from defending the indefensible." — 
 Church Times. 
 
 "The learned and impartial writer of this book has not only ably 
 vindicated the teachings of Moses in the Pentateuch, but in a fair and 
 able manner has done a real service for humble and devout students of 
 Holy Writ. We commend it to the notice of teachers, few of whom 
 but will admit that they have been troubled personally by misgivings 
 from time to time. The commentators do much to clear away such 
 doubts, but we question whether the usefulness of their writings is in 
 any way on a par with a popularly written little work like the present. " 
 — Schoolmaster. 
 
 " ' Popular Misconceptions about the First Eleven Chapters of Genesis,' 
 published by Bickers & Son, is, in a brief compass, one of the ablest 
 contributions to the Biblical literature of the present. The Rev. Dr. 
 Huntingford has given to the world a number of first-class treatises on 
 kindred subjects. The one now specially before us deals with the early 
 chapters of the Bible in a truly clever way, meeting and answering 
 successfully the principal objections of the scepticism of the day, and 
 upholding these leading portions as the very history of the world and 
 of man. Published in a cheap form, this treatise ought to circulate in 
 almost countless numbers among our artisan classes, who unfortunately 
 entertain notions concerning the Genesis of all things directly at variance 
 with the emphatic statements of Divine Inspiration." — Glossop Times. 
 
 "An able and well worked out argument in defence of the facts and 
 morality of the Old Testament, explaining many common difficulties 
 therein. " — Bookseller. 
 
( 4 ) 
 
 The following Books ^ by the same Atithor^ ivill be sent Post 
 Free by Messrs. Bickers on receipt of a Postal Order for 
 the p7'ice named : — 
 
 A PRACTICAL INTERPRETATION OF THE 
 REVELATION OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 Post 8vo, 3s. 
 
 "The authoi's Interpretation of the Apocalypse proceeds upon the 
 principle of making the book its own interpreter, with constant refer- 
 ence to the explanations given in other parts of Holy Scripture to the 
 symbolical language of the earlier Prophets. 
 
 " His object has been to show the practical bearing of the symbolism 
 of each vision upon the History of the Church and upon the life and 
 trials of the individual Christian. For he is persuaded that the prophecy 
 was not given to satisfy the curiosity of would-be prophets, but by its 
 fulfilment in Christendom to prove the Deity and the truth of Christ, 
 and to comfort and strengthen the faith of the Christian in times of 
 persecution or unbelief, ' The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of 
 prophecy.' ' Here is the patience and the faith of the saints.' " 
 
 THE DIVINE FORECAST OF THE CORRUPTION 
 OF CHRISTIANITY, 
 
 A Miraculous Evidence of its Truth. 
 
 Post 8vo, IS. 
 
 " It will not be easy effectually to controvert the plain and intelligible 
 statements which make this short sketch one of the most useful publi- 
 cations on the subject which we are acquainted with." — Record. 
 
 "I have no hesitation in saying that your writings are thoughtful, 
 able, and free from rashness and over-confidence. That on the ' Divine 
 Forecast of the Corruption of Christianity ' I know best, and think very 
 deserving of attention." — Extract fro7?i a Letter from the Bishop of 
 Winchester, Nov. 20, 1880. 
 
( 5 ) 
 
 THE APOCAIiYPSE. 
 
 With a Commentary and an Introduction on the Reality of Predic- 
 tion, the History of Christendom, the Scheme of Interpretation, 
 and the Anti-Christ of St. Paul and St. John. Kegan Paul, 
 Trench 6^ Co. 
 
 Demy 8vo, 5s. 
 
 " I have read it through with my best attention, and I think it one 
 of the most satisfactory books upon that difficult subject I have ever 
 met with." — Extract from a Letter of Dr. Charles Wordsworth, Bishop 
 of St. Andrews. 
 
 "Your book deals with the symbolical language of the Apocalypse 
 in a way so reasonable as to encourage the study of it amongst people 
 who have been deterred by the difficulty of getting the right clue to its 
 meaning. It gives a more satisfactory explanation of Babylon than any 
 I have yet seen. The way in which you have traced out the fulfilment 
 of these prophecies furnishes a convincing argument for the supernatural 
 inspiration of the book, and may be of great help to doubters. I find 
 it very interesting and especially valuable in its application to the pre- 
 sent circumstances of Europe. . . . You give to your readers fresh 
 reasons for valuing the freedom of conviction which is the distinctive 
 of our Church." — From Letters of Lord Mount Temple. 
 
 ''Dr. Huntingford does not fall into the error of those who predict. 
 Those who are fond of history, or like clear exposition of Scripture, and 
 Christians who value general spiritual improvement will find much to 
 admire in Dr. Huntingford's work." — From the '■'■ Leeds Mercury.'^'' 
 
 ADVICE TO SCHOOLBOYS. 
 
 Sermons. Post 8vo, 3s. 6d. 
 
 Dedicated to the Rev. A. N. Malax, Head-Master of Eagle House, 
 Sandhurst, Berks. 
 
 " Simple, straightforward, pointed, practical, and short." — Standard. 
 
 *' His sermons ought to have had a powerful influence on the every- 
 day life of those placed under his care." — Guardian. 
 
( 6 ) 
 
 THE PARABLE OF THE LOCK AND KEY. 
 
 A Pamphlet on the Prophecies fulfilled in Christ. 
 
 6d. in cover ; 2d. (single copy) without cover ; 
 los. a hundred. 
 
 "Dr. Huntingford's 'Parable of the Lock and Key' is a thoughtful 
 and very suggestive argument, comparing prophecy and its fulfilment 
 in our Lord to the opening of a complicated lock by a master-key." — 
 Church Quarterly. 
 
 "It presents an important argument in a very lucid end persuasive 
 manner." — The Bishop of Carlisle. 
 
 "Clever, original, and very useful. We believe that a perusal of 
 this nicely printed pamphlet will prove of great value to many persons. 
 The Prophets are workmen, each of whom is supposed, as it were, to 
 form a separate ward in a lock. The wards are ultimately put together 
 and form a lock. The whole lock is Prophecy. The plan is of God ; 
 the key fitting every ward, made by divers men and at divers times 
 and manners, is Christ." — Chttrch Bells. 
 
 LONDON : 
 BICKERS & SON, i LEICESTER SQUARE, W.C. 
 
I 
 

 Date Due 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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 f) 
 
 
 
 
BS1235.8.H94 
 
 Popular misconceptions about the first 
 Princeton Theological Semlnary-Speer Library 
 
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