O0,
THE FAMILY:
ITS
CONSTITUTION AND PROBATION;
BY
JOHN HARRIS, D.D.
PEISIDI)I'NT OF'NEW  COLLiEGE, LONDON, AND AUTIIOiR O(F " I'I'E-ADAMITE  EARTH,"
"3MAN PI'IMEVAL,` " GGREAT TJEAC'iEt," " GREAT C'OM31ISSION," ETC.
BOSTON:
G O      LD AND           LINCOLN,
59 WASHINGTON STREET.
NEW YORK: SHELDON, LAMPORT & BLAKEMAN,
115 NASSAU STREET.
1855.








PREFACE.
IN " Man Primeval," the constitution and probation
of individual man were traced.  The Family is the
unfolding of the individual-the development of social
man. In the following pages an attempt is made to
exhibit the family in its constitution and probation.
The First Part is devoted to the Laws or Method of
the domestic constitution. And although the Patriarchal character of the antediluvian community, as a
form of government and a dispensation, is never lost
sight of, yet, as the constitution of the family itself is
as fixed as that of the individual, all that is here advanced on the subjects of marriage, of domestic government, and of education, is of permanent and perpetual application.
The Second Part indicates the stages and changes
through which the Patriarchal community may have
passed in the course of its probationary history. Had
the Biblical narrative of these changes been as full as
it is of the stages through which the Theocracy subsequently passed, we should have been able to. affirm
and exemplify where now we can do little more than
suggest. Owing, however, to the permanent character
of the domestic constitution, its post-diluvian history
down to the present day supplies ample data for indi



iv                  PREFACE.
eating all the probabilities of that primitive period.
And the distinct and decisive language of the sacred
historian, respecting the fullness of the trial, justifies
the inference that not one of all these probabilities
was unknown to that ancient community, as far as it
was necessary to make their probation complete.
As far as the Reasons, exhibited in the Third Part,
relate to the constitution of the Family, they are as
much in force now as ever. As far as they account for
the probation of the Family, they belong to the present only as history. Patriarchy itself was not suited
for permanence. But, though failing of its high end,
its failure was far from entire. It prepared for postdiluvian man an unknown amount of material civilization with which to begin the new world. It developed
much of the real nature of good and evil, and placed
them in vivid contrast. It showed the insufficiency of
Nature for man, even when it was yet all but paradisiacal. And it exhausted one class of possibilities in
man's great experiment to do without God. So that
its failure was not on the great scale, and for God;
but for man, or as a rich possibility which he ought to
have made actual.
In the Fourth Part, it is shown that Patriarchy,
though failing as a Dispensation calculated to be a
manifestation of God by man, was not less a manifestation of God to man. Not only was it based on a
scheme of Mercy-an aspect of the Divine character
before unknown; it placed the sufficiency of the Divine long-suffering in a light so strong that the finger
of inspiration points to it as a fact settled for all
time.




CONTENTS.
FIRST PART.
THE DIVINE METHOOD.
CHAPTER I.
A NEW STAGE OF THE DIVINE MANIFESTATION.
PAGE
Man's first sin a foreshadowing; and the occasion of a new stage of his
self-manifestation; as the head of a family.-The Family on probation.-Its probationary period.-Its antediluvian state sufficiently
known.-Patriarchy adapted only for an early stage of civilization.Introduced a new stage of the Divine manifestation.-IIypothetical
alternatives; man's annihilation; his entire reconstruction; the reconstruction of the external universe; his punishment; the Divine
adoption instead of a remedial arrangement; disclosing an attribute
before unknown-M-ercy.-AMan's history recapitulates all the Divine
perfections previously displayed.-His family nature implies properties analogous in the Divine nature... 17




Vi                        CONTENTS.
CHAPTER II.
THE MEANS OF DIVINE MANIFESTATION IN THE PRECEDING STAGE
BROUGHT ON INTO THIS.
PAGE
Tile law stated.-The first means; external nature.-Secondly, man's
constitution, and condition: implying the reproduction of his degeneracy, universally, natively.-This degeneracy is ungodliness.-Example will not account for it; nor the early development of the passions.-It is hereditary.-The loss experienced by the first man; by
his posterity.-Will it account for the universality of depravity?-Degeneracy issues in depravity.-All forms of depravity resolvable into
selfishness.-Two half-views of sin.-Man's early consciousness of
cvil.-Doctrine of derived degeneracy defensible.-As a fact, it needs
no defense in peculiar from us.-Man's constitution is still a means
of Divine manifestation. —Iis individuality not merged in the Family.-Condition of fallen man is the condition of his posterity.Thirdly, direct Divine communications...                  33
CHAPTER III.
THE NEW ASPECT OF THE DIVINE CHARACTER, AND TIHE MEANS OF ITS
MANIFESTATION; A REMEDIAL ECONOMY THROUGH THE FAMILY.
The law stated.-Nature an ever-unfolding revelation.-Direct Divine
manifestation must now precede the unfolding of man's constitution.
-Means fundamental to the economy to be distinguished from those
added afterward.-The First Promise.-Serpent and his seed.-Is the




CONTENTS.                               ii
PAGE
account allegorical?-Or historical?-Import of the promise.-Institution of sacrifice, was it Divine?-Significance of sacrifice.-Was
sacrifice piacular?-Sentiments it was calculated to develop.-Promise
and sacrifice parts of a whole.-Arrest removed from man's evolution.-Basis of the family; marriage.-The institution unique.Its high purpose.-The germ of society.-With the family came
mediation........... 65
CHAPTER IV.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE FAMILY CONSTITUTION, AND OF THE MEANS
OF MERCY DURING THE PATRIARCHAL ECONOMY.
Law of development.-Its antediluvian theater.-Means waiting to bo
employed.-Nature; why had the creative process stopped?-Nature
meant for man's improvement.-Arts successively developed.-Natural theology and language.-Material objects raised to religious symbols.-Symbols became types. —Man himself developed; in developing nature; this, favored by longevity; and implied in theological
and linguistic progress.-Sin remedied, the occasion of religious development.-The family a church.-Social man in advance of the first
individual man.-Enoch in advance of Adam; Noah, of Enoch.Each generation in advance of the preceding.-Religious means themselves developed.-Cherubim, their nature, location, and significance.
-Local manifestation of the Divine presence.-Moral government.Examples of faith and piety.-An invisible world.-A future judgment.-The great moral division.-Names.-Prophetic teaching.Plurality of the Divine Name.-Sacrificial animals and covenants. 92




Viii                       CONTENTS.
CHAPTER V.
TIIE ACTIVITY WHICI TIE LAW OF DEVELOPMENT PRESUPPOSES,
AND WIHIC   THE FAMILY PUTS IN MOTION.
PAGE
Law of activity; presupposes Divine instruction; is voluntary; derives its voluntariness from love; is increased by emulation; and by
division of labor.-Paternal authority promotes and directs it.-Excited by family migrations; by the co-existence of other families; and
by the kinship of the whole.-Moral civilization promoted by marriage; by longevity; by the laws of reciprocity; by the increase of
families; by the law of property.-Patriarchal rule strengthened by
morality.-The family favorable to religious civilization.- Man's
history, at the eve of the deluge, the history of the self-manifestation.............   139
CHAPTER VI.
THE CONTINUITY OF THIS DEVELOPMENT AND ACTIVITY IN THE
MEANS OF DIVINE MANIFESTATION.
Material civilization continuous.-Traces of progress from age to age.Continuity of moral civilization.-And of religious civilization; compatible with certain crises; with inequalities of human development;
with partial retrocession; and with miraculous interpositions.-The
miracle of the deluge in this connection....         159




CONTENTS.                            ix
CHAPTER VII.
THE FAMILY RELATIONS WHICH THE PRECEDING LAWS BRING
TO LIGHT.
PAGE
Pre-existing relations.-Relations of husband and wife.-Conjugal love.
-Numerical proportion of the sexes.-Relations consequent on marriage; parent and child.-Filial temperament derived.-Parental influence; increased with increase of children.-Children and parents;
child and child; servants and child.-External relations-of the individual to nature; of man to man; to God.-Relations of the family to
nature; to cotemporaneous families; to God.....173
CHAPTER         VIII.
LAWS WHICH THE RELATIONS OF THE FAMILY CONSTITUTION
PRESUPPOSE.
The family presupposes laws.-Union of the sexes in marriage, a law;
celibacy; licentiousness; polygamy.-Physical conditions of marriage.
-Respective spheres of husband and wife determined by nature.Iome education, a law.-Laws which education itself supposes.-Object of education in relation to society; and to God. —Education to be
harmonized with the Divine plan... 215
CHAPTER IX.
OBLIGATIONS CONSEQUENT ON THE RELATIONS AND LAWS OF THE
DOM3STIC CONSTITUTION.
Law of obligation.-The marriage union obligatory.-Muttual adaptation
of husband and wife.-The union based in affection.-Subordination
I*




X                         CONTENTS.
PA-CE
of the wife.-Union of one to one for life.-Prospective parental obligations; prospective maternal duty.-When does education begin?Number, rapidity, power, and permanence of first impressions.-Obligations arising from the child's bodily wants; fiom its social and sensational nature; from its power of speech, of reflection, reasoning,
imagination, emotion, and will.-Independence of character.-Attention.-Importance of rules.-Punishments.-Improper mode of rewards.-Religion.-The child regarded as successively existent; precocity. —Memory.-IIabits. —Iarmony of constitution.-Parental authority transitional.-Filial obligation.-Obligation of child to child.
-External obligations; local and material.-Moral obligation; justice;
property; reputation; confidence; character; sympathy; forbearance.Education should embrace all this. —Each generation had its duties;
to God. —The parent under obligation to prepare for his religious
duties.............139
CIIAPTER X.
THE WELL-BEING OF THE DOMESTIC CONSTITUTION MEASURED BY THE
DISCHARGE OF ITS OBLIGATIONS.
Law of well-being. —Every thing in the family is under law.-Its wellbeing regulated by the social condition of woman; by the degree in
which the laws of marriage are observed.-Inferior ends attained best
by aiming at the highest.-Evils of lax discipline.-Benefits of religious training.-Divine promise to such traiinig.-Tends to the good
of the community.-An ideal family.-Its possible good made equal
evil possible; illustrated from antediluvian history....297




CONTENTS.                            xi
CHAPTER XI.
THE ORDER OF THE LAWS OF THE FAMILY CONSTITUTION IMPLIED
IN ITS WELL-BEING.
PAGE
The law of order; in the conjugal union; in the formation of the family; and in its physical well-being.-Parental love begins in instinct.
— Conjugal precedence.-The parts of the human constitution appear
successively; which part to be first trained.-Order in which the
mind unfolds.-Filial affection rises to the love of God.-Means of
education, and their order.-Order of social development.-Order
itself a law........ 313
CHAPTER XII.
THE SUBORDINATION IMPLIED IN THE ORDER AND WELL-BEING OF
THE DOMESTIC CONSTITUTION.
The law stated.-The filial yields to the conjugal.-Instinctive to the
moral.-Family based on subordination.-Nature subordinated to the
supernatural.-The past subserves the present... 322
CHAPTER XIII.
THE LAW OF INFLUENCE IMPLIED IN THE ORDER, WELL-BEING, AND
DESIGN OF THE FAMILY CONSTITUTION.
Law of influence; in the conjugal union.-Supremacy of the husband.
-Rights of parents; in the various kinds of parental influence.-The
inferior affects the superior.-The family a school of excellence.What the child has a right to, educationally.-Family rights.-The
best family the most influential.-The great distinction of antediluvian tiles........ 832




XIi                      CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XIV.
DEPENDENCE OF TIE FAMILY CONSTITUTION, AND OF THE REMEDIAL
SYSTEM WHICH UNDERLIES IT, ON THE GOOD PLEASURE OF GOD.
PAGE
Law of dependence; in the relation of the sexes; in the mode of continuing the species; and in the numerical proportion of the sexes.The possible progress of the race provided for.-The long retention
of the child in the parental hand.-Choice of the region for antediluvian man.-Instinctive co-operation of families.-Families united in
generations.-Man's recovery direct from God; and of a nature to
teach dependence.-Primogeniture; longevity; period of the deluge 338
CIAPTER XV.
ULTIMATE FACTS AND NECESSARY TRUTH INVOLVED IN THE DEPENDENCE OF THE DOMESTIC CONSTITUTION.
Evil of disregarding the ultimate character of facts.-Love, the ultimate
fact of the family.-The family a collection of ultinate facts.-Ultimate facts of the mind.-Man's knowledge of God special and dependent.-Faith; the family favorable to its development.-Necessary truths; essential distinctions between love and hatred.-Obligations arising from relations necessary.-Man acts on beliefs before he accounts for them. —His redemption the expression of an eternal attribute 347
CHAPTER XVI.
THE CONSTITUTION OF THE FAMILY AND OF TIIE MEANS OF MERCY IN
ANALOGY WITH EVERY PRECEDING PART OF THE DIVINE CONDUCT.
The family economy arranged on a plan.-Brought adaptations to light.
-Community of families.-Successive Communities.-The family a




CONTENTS.                             xiii
PAGE
Divine conception; independent of all human design; in analogy
with the great plan.-The analogy of the human parent, his authority,
and teaching.-The moral use made of knowledge.-The family a
sphere of probation.-Obedience dependent on faith.-Consequences
of disobedience.-The principle of mediation.-Self-will remedied by
self-sacrifice.-Divine revelation and parental instruction.-Relation of
will to will.-The family a part of God's moral government.. 357
SECOND PART.
CHAPTER XVII.
TIlE LAW OF CIANGE; OR, HISTORY OF THE PROBATION OF THE
FAMILY.
Grounds for expecting the end of the family probation..-Conditions of
change.-Spccific design of the economy.-Its great lesson of dependence ignored.-What made the proper time for ending the economy.
-The apostasy of the Sethites.-All conjugal obligations violated.All parental and filial relations disregarded.-Natural objects perverted.-Familics unite for evil. —The apostasy universal.-The stages
passed through.-The ultimate design of the family lost sight of.Family sins became customs.-Education misunderstood and parental
restraint lost.-Material civilization aggravates moral evil.-The number of man's social duties the number of his sins.-All the means of
recovery perverted.-Every stage of error passed through.-The wholo
an attempt at independence of God.-Time of punishment determined
by guilt.-How it subserved the Divine manifestation.. 372




xiv                       CONTENTS.
THIRD PART.
TIHE REASON OF THE METHOD AND OF THE HISTORY.
CHAPTER XVIII.
SECTION I.-TnIE REASON WHICH BELONGS TO MAN'S CONSTITUTION AND
INVOLVES HIS WELL-BEING.
rAGE
The law stated.-Art and science made possible; anthropology; philosophy; natural theology; moral government. —Why? that the family
might be possible; education; property; civilization; social ethics;
history and progress.-All the laws of the method present in the
family.-Why the well-being of the family is only possible.-Virtues
and vices made possible by marriage; by offspring and their education; by separation into families; by property and civilization.-Each
advance enlarged the sphere of man's probation.-The unfolding of
the family supposes a scheme of mercy.-Why was religion made
possible only?-Why the economy continued after its failure became
apparent. —Motives to recovery always on the increase... 401
SECTION II.-THE REASON WIIICII RELATES TO TIlE MANIFESTATION OF THE
DIVINE ALL-SUFFICIENCY, AND SO INCLUDES MAN'S DESTINY.
Reason of man's well-being.-Reason of the method.-Why its evidence is limited. —The family arranged to teach dependence on God.
— Man is to recognize this dependence voluntarily.-The remedial
economy aims at the same effect; as well as all subsequent Divine
interventions.-Man's moral freedom respected. —Every increase of
power an increase of rcsponsibility.-Domestic government the highest power and responsibility.-The explosive power of sin. —The family, God's natural ordinance against selfishness.. 414




CONTENTS.                             XV
FOURTH PART.
THE ULTIMATE END OF THE FAMILY PROBATION AND
ECONOMY AS A MEANS OF DIVINE MANIFESTATION.
CHAPTER XIX.
SECTION I.-POWER.
PAGE
The economy a display of Divine Power.-All the illustrations of
Power in nature continued and enlarged in the multiplication of the
human race. —Laws and forces of the domestic constitution.-Every
holy character an instance of power.-The deluge a new display of
power....... 427
SECTION II. —WISDOM.
The Family an unfolding of Divine design.-Maternal affection.-Simplicity of the parental office.-Special correspondence between parent
and child.-Influence of conjugal love.-Variety of character with
mutual dependence.-The family a rehearsal for society.-Union of
seniors and juniors in a generatioln.-Self-accommodating power of
the family.-Special illustrations of wisdom..                431
SECTION III.-GOODNESS.
Every onward step meant to minister to man's happiness.-Love, the
basis of the family, another name for enjoyment.-Parental instincts
subservient to the child's highlest welfare.-Happy effects of family
symlpatlhies; and of family opinion. —Each family and generation unconsciously preparing happiness for others.... 438




XVj                       CONTENTS.
SECTION IV.-HOLINESS.
PAGE
Home a new paradise and probation.-Family relations, facilities for
training to virtue.-Means possessed by the antediluvian parent.Natural instincts made subservient to morality.-The child has the
best opportunity for knowing man at his best. —In training the child
to love God, the parent is but securing its love for himself.-The occasion on which all the family is harmonized into one.-The virtue of
a family essential to its well-being. —Depraved parents in favor of
their children's moral training.-The holy design of the family
avowed.-Every new family a new call to aim at this end.-Justice
the enforcement and vindication of holiness.-Divine Faithfulness
illustrated............ 442
SECTION V.-M EECY.
Mercy made the dispensation possible; the utterance of a Divine purpose; not less efficacious because not'then fulfilled.-Its aspect universal.-The saved themselves manifestations of mercy.-The ark a
symbol of mercy..                                            454
SECTION VI. —LOuG-S U1sr1FRIG.
The economy pre-eminently a display of long-suffering; estimated by
the capabilities of the family; rich in possibilities.-If the family had
yet to be set up, how much would be expected.-Hope was often kindled to be quenched.-Judgments often anticipated.-God repented
man's creation.-Every family tried the Divine patience differently.Punishment deferred for a hundred and twenty years.-The entire
period a display of long-suffering........ 437




FIRST PART.
THE DIVINE METHOD.
CHAPTER I.
A NEW STAGE OF THE DIVINE MSANIFESTATION.
Man's first sin a  BY the creation of man the earth itself may
foreshadowing. be said to have been transfigured; for its
new inhabitant consciously radiated the Divine image. In
his constitution, his dominion, and his far-reaching relations,
he stood forth the embodiment of a Divine idea-" the type
of Him that was to come."  His probation raised the earth
into a scene of moral government. Sinai itself was anticipated and even surpassed in him; for his constitution was
a living court of Divine judicature.  His temptation announced that he had joined the solemn march of events in
the government of God at a period when the great conflict
between good and evil had already begun; and that, as a
moral agent, he could not but take part in it. His first sin
may be regarded as a foreshadowing, for all time, of the
kind of contest which he would be likely to wage;-presuming on his sufficiency for himself, he brought his will
into selfish collision with the Supreme will. And the first
great lesson taught him by experience-that the well-being




1 8              A NEW STAGE OF
of the creat-ure lies in loving obedience and dependencemay be regarded as a prophecy of the moral of man's entire
history.  Henceforth, no second fall of man, as a sinless
being, is possible. His probation, in this sense, can never
be repeated.
And the occa-  But not on account of his fall was the unsion of a new staffo
sionof is se ma- folding of the Divine character to pause, or
of his self-manifestation.  man's career to terminate. His nature, unlike
that of any of the animal races which had here preceded him,
admits of a prolonged process of development; and, from
this point, a new stage of his eventful history was to begin,
and a new aspect of the Divine character to be disclosed.
According to the poet of Paradise, it was while bending
over the stream that Eve first caught sight of her physical
beauty; and it is more than poetically true, that it was by
falling man first beheld the reflection of his mortal image.
NWhile standing as in the vertical radiance of the Divine
complacency, he cast no shadow; but his guilty fall revealed hi'm to himself in dark and ominous outline. The
fountains of the great human deep were broken up. It was
the commencement of a course of self-manifestation which is
still in progress.
As the head of a  Man himself was now to become a moral
family,  governor, and the new family constitution
was to be the scene of his jurisdiction. In a new, an official
sense, he was now again promoted to be the image of God;
for, within limits, his will is to be law to beings to whom
he stands in the relation of subordinate creator. While still
charged with the duties of self-government, he was to enter
on the high office of forming the character, and pointing to
the destiny, of creatures, indebted to him instrumentally for
their existence. The scenes of Eden were to be repeated




TIE DIVINE MANIFESTATION.               19
virtually, and on a small scale, in the circle of the family.
The probationer there was now to conduct the probation
of others in an Eden of his own; to issue prohibitions and
restrain self-will; and to learn new lessons of obligation to
his Father in heaven, while encouraging the obedience of
his own children.
The family on  The Family constitution itself was now, in
probation.  a deep and solemn sense, to be placed on
probation.  And with the Divine announcement of the
promise of a SEED the new dispensation commenced. Not,
indeed, that individual probation was at an end. The probation of the first man himself had ended in one form, only
to begin in another.  As a representative and a sinless
being, there could not be " another fall of man;" for never
again could there be a first man, insulated from all the influences of his race, yet representatively related to the race.
Never, in this sense, can probation be repeated. But as
the subject of a new economy, which recognizes man as
fallen and provides for his recovery, every man is on personal probation. And the institution of the family, as the
medium through which the Promise was to find fulfillment,
secured the means for rendering such probation successful.
The event proved that it had a collective character and
function; and a period of time was assigned for its trial.
The chief occasion of its failure is specified; and the reprieve
of a hundred and twenty years shows that it had, in the
Divine mind, its own appropriate fullness of time." Indeed,
to ignore its probationary character, would be to take it
out of all vital connection with the two economies between
which it stands; and to hold it as purely exceptional.
But there are no dropped links in the chain of the Divine
procedure.




20               A NEW    STAGE OF
Period of its  The period of probation for the Family exprobationary
existence. tended, not exclusively, but specifically, and
as a dispensation, from the Fall to the Flood. Not exclusively; for its natural constitution preceded its dispensational form and use. The conjugal union, and the Divine
command, "increase and multiply," preceded man's first
sin. And being founded in nature, it survives its dispensational application. To the end of time, every family, like
every individual, will pass through a probation of its own,
with duties and obligations commensurate with its means
and advantages. But specifically; for it then existed alone,
with no national organizations encompassing it, no governing influences from without to control it. It enjoyed certain peculiar advantages-in the longevity of man, for example-never enjoyed subsequently. And it existed as an
all-connected whole: the very root of the great genealogical
tree, surviving for nearly a thousand years-a human banyan-tree-gradually taking possession of Central and Western Asia. It was charged with the duties of a dispensation;
and the Flood was its judgment-day. The stage of Divine
procedure which commenced with the calling of Abraham
(popularly, but erroneously named " the Patriarchal Dispensation") supplies a further confirmation of this view.
For his knowledge of God, his sacrificial worship, and all
that was evangelical in the promises made to him, belonged
to the religion of the antediluvian patriarchy. Saved in the
ark with Noah, the existence of the whole was once more
threatened by the rising flood of postdiluvian idolatry. The.
office of the Abrahamic family was to receive and mark, for
a time, the ancient and rescued treasure; while their jealous
separation and supernatural guardianship showed that the
human family, as a whole, had not only lost sight of its high,




TILE DIVINE MANIFESTATION.               21
original destiny, but had even become hostile to the means
of attaining it.
As a universal dispensation, then, the Patriarchal economy
may be regarded as having terminated with the deluge.
Soon after that event, its dispensational form began to be
absorbed in other modes of government, or entirely subverted from its original design. The prophetic, priestly,
and kingly offices fell off from the paternal relation, and
even separated from each other. Noah's denunciation of
Canaan predicted a condition of society incompatible with
the icea of Patriarchal rule. The Divine enactment of a
law respecting the murderer, immediately after the Flood,*
was an implied impeachment of Patriarchal government,
and a virtual institution of magistracy-of an authority
extra-Patriarchal. With Nimrod commenced a form     of
wide-wasting despotism, which defied alike paternal rule
and moral law, and acknowledged no superiority but that
of brute force. Even where the primitive Patriarchal form
was retained-as among some of the descendants of Shem
-it could not have been entirely exempt from these external influences. The calling of Abraham, and the promise
of Canaan to his posterity, made him prospectively the
father of a new economy; while the promise, that through
him all the families of the earth should be blessed, retained
him in vital connection with the antediluvian dispensation,
for it was the original promise of " a seed" renewed in a
more specific form.
Its antediluvian  The constitution of the family is essentially
state  sufficiently
known to us.  as fixed as that of the individual. And, owing
* Genesis, ix. 5, 6. By man shall his blood be shed; which the Chaldee
paraphrases, "With witnesses by the sentence of the judges shall his
blood be shed."




22                A NEW   STAGE OF
to the unchanging habits of Patriarchal life, not only may
the families of Jacob and of Job be regarded as copies of
the antediluvian type, repetitions of these copies are still
extant among the nomadic tribes of Arabia and the steppes
of Northern Asia. However few and fragmentary, therefore, the notices of antediluvian life transmitted to us in the
Bible, we need be at no loss to conceive of its great characteristic outlines. But it is with the moral history of that
early period that we are chiefly concerned. And in looking
for its traces we shall find the few Biblical hints as significant and suggestive as a fossil bone is of the entire skeleton
of some extinct species, or as the disinterred fragment of a
sphynx is of the proportions of the temple Whose entrance
it guarded. We shall find striking points of analogy between the fall of the individual and what may be called the
fall of the family. And while admiring the frame-work of
the domestic constitution-the new garden of the Lordwe shall find the trail of the serpent, the self-willed spirit of
the first sin, reappearing in every stage of the period, and
with ever-increasing aggravation of consequences; till, at
length, Forbearance itself grows weary, and the world's
destruction prepares the way for the second birthday of the
human race.
Patriarchy   It is not to be supposed that the Patriarchal
adapted only for form of government, even if it had answered
an early stage of
civilization.  its high intention, would have continued to
exist alone. By itself, it was adapted only to an early stage
of civilization. But in the exact proportion in which it
fulfilled its Divine design, it would have prepared the way
for a larger form of government; a form, for example, akin
to that of the Jewish theocracy. And that second form,
accomplishing its holy purpose, might only have opened the




THE DIVINE MANIFESTATION.               23
way for the Divine introduction of another superior still.
The domestic constitution, meanwhile, would not only have
co-existed with these enlarging and advancing stages of
government, but would have risen in importance at each
successive step, and have become the ministering angel of
each.
Its commence-  But the possibility of the family constituIts commencement introduced a tion, and of its prolonged trial, pre-supposes
new stage of the
Divine manifesta- the introduction of a new stage of the Divine
tion.        manifestation. Nothing of the kind had occurred in the history of the angelic order of offenders.
Some of them having " kept not their first estate, but left
their own habitation, everlasting chains" received them
Ic unto the judgment of the great day." * The bolt of justice followed close on their sin, taking direct and full effect.
Man also had sinned. And as his own history, up to the
present point, had run strictly parallel with that of the
angels, illustrating the power and wisdom, the goodness and
holiness of God, what shall hinder but that the parallel extend also to unmixed Divine justice?  It could not be
pleaded in arrest of judgment that man had been coerced
into evil against his will by a power without him. Had his
will remained loyal to God, Omnipotence could have crushed
the coercing power, and have set man at liberty. But he
had consented to sin; his will had yielded, and become the
leader of the revolt. Had he fallen into evil through some
unavoidable misapprehension of the Divine will, he would
have only required to be set right in his judgment in order
to be restored to happiness. But it was his informed will
which had yielded and which was now in danger of drawing
all the powers of his nature after it, and of arming them in
* Jude, vi. 5.




24               A NEW    STAGE OF
the cause of sin. Objectively and subjectively, then, he had
undergone a change. While the whole external universe
remained the same, he had undergone a change in himself,
and a consequent change in relation to every other being
and object. What can or will be the momentous result?
The following appear to be the only hypothetical alternatives:
That the Almighty, in the exercise of unIypothetical alternatives; man's limited authority, should reduce man to anniannihilation.
anihiltin.  ilation. But this result is opposed by the
consideration that it would be in violation of rectitudewould be effected by rendering might superior to right-or
allowing arbitrary will to overrule the claims of justice,
which require that man should not be dismissed beyond the
reach of punishment, but be subjected to it. Iis annihilation would seem to subvert moral government to its foundations,
is entire recon-  That God, by an act of omnipotence, should
His entire reconstruction.  reconstruct and alter man's constitution, placing it in such relation to the external universe as to render
sin impossible. So that if, for example, he look on a forbidden object, it shall fail to excite desire; or, that no amount
of attention to the visible, should divert him from the invisible. But his faculties and susceptibilities remain numerically and physically as they were before he sinned. The
annihilation of any of his existing powers, the addition of
new faculties, or the essential change of any part of his
constitution, then, is open to the same objection as the preceding hypothesis-that it could be effected only by an
act of arbitrary power counteracting the demands of justice.
And further, it would be a virtual repeal of the existing
scheme as a probationary constitution. It would be a con



TIHE DIVINE MANIFESTATION.              25
structive admission on the part of the Divine Creator that
I-Ie had not, at first, adapted the constitution of man to his
condition, and therefore could not, in justice, inflict the
penalty. Nor would such a change be a remedy for the
evil introduced and expelienced by the identical creature,
man. His identity would be lost in the change; and, in effect, another being would take his place.
Th reconstruc That man's constitution remaining as sin
tion of the exter- had made it, the external universe should be
nal universe.
altered and adapted to it. That is, that although the laws of nature remain as they were, in harmony
witl the will of God, they shall be so changed that sensual
excesses shall cease to injure health, or to incapacitate for
intellectual effort, and shall be made as conducive to man's
moral well-being as the government of the appetites is;
that the earth shall bring forth spontaneously because man
may dislike labor; in a word, that all the physical laws shall
be so adjusted to man's newly-acquired tendency as that
disobedience shall enjoy all the immunities and advantages
of obedience. This would be, however, not to remedy, but
to perpetuate the evil of sin, and even to reward it. For
as all the requirements of moral law are only the demands
of justice, the repeal of these demands would be to legalize
injustice, and to make the holy Lawgiver himself the Patron
of sin. As in the last hypothesis, too, this abatement in the
Divine requirements would tacitly imply that the original
claim had exceeded the demands of justice, and that the
law consequently required revision; which would be taking
the blame from man, and casting it upon God. But the
laws of moral government arc simply the expression of the
immutable nature of the Lawgiver; and the laws of nature
are the harmonious expressions of His will. To expect,
2




26                A NEW   STAGE OF
therefore, that the external universe should be adapted to
man's altered state is as if we should expect that because a
small celestial globe needed rectifying, the earth should alter
its position, or the whole material universe should move
and adjust itself to that little globe; and inconceivably more
irrational. It would be the error of the Ptolemean system
of astronomy repeated in the sphere of moral government.
M:il's naturre, and not the nature of the Diety, would be
the standard of law.
Man's punish-  That the law be allowed to take its direct
Man's punishment.   course, and man endure the just penalty of his
transgression. Tremendous consequence! yet as just as
tremendous. MAan himself expected it. As a self-infliction
it had even commenced. Had it actually taken place, every
holy intelligence might have united in saying, "True and
righteous art Thou, 0 God, because Thou hast judged
thus!"  But this alternative, perhaps, would have been
answering only one great end-the vindication of the Divine government. The nature of man would still be left at
variance with itself, with creation, and with the nature of
the Blessed God. Yet how can this dreadful alternative
be avoided? Why is it not actually carried into effect?
eiineaop-  That a compensative and remedial arrangeTheDivineadop-                % ^                  ^
tion, instead, of a ment be, in some manner, effected, which shall
compensative and
rcnedial arrange- preserve the authority and control of the
mont.        moral government of God over its subjects,
as truly and fully as it would have been by the personal
punlishlmenlt of the transgressor; and in consequence of
which the transgressor himself may be restored, in a manner consistent with his free agency, to a state of harmonious
obedience to the will of God. For if man is to be saved
from the consequences of sin, the arrangement by which it




TIHE DIVINE MANIFESTATION.              07
is effected must obviously possess a twofold bearing-a personal and a relative, or a subjective and an objective. As
he has taken himself out of harmony with the Divine government, and has incurred its penalty, the arrangement must
provide an objective remedy-the Divine government, that
is, must be vindicated and satisfied. And as his own nature
is deranged and depraved, the arrangement must provide a
subjective remedy, or, his constitution must be restored to
harmony with the government of God. If only the former
were provided, man might be exempted fiom inflicted punishment, but his -personal depravity would prevent him from
being happy; the provision would suit him only as the
being to whom the Divine manifestation was to be made.
On the other hand, were it possible that only the latter
should be provided, it would suit him only as the being by
whom, instrumentally, the Divine manifestation was to be
made; while his external relations would render him miserable, for he would have to endure death, the displeasure
of God, and whatever may be included in the inflicted
penalty of transgression. In the hypothetical event, too,
of either provision being made alone, the Divine all-sufficiency would remain unknown. For, in order to its display,
provision must be made both for the personal and relative
exigence; in which case it will be adapted to man both as
the being by whom, and the being to whom, the Divine allsufficiency is revealed. And still more would the all-sufficiency appear, if the same provision which remedied the
relative or objective evil were made the occasion and means
for the removal of the personal evil.
The bare possibility of such a provision,
Disclosing a nattribute before un- however, supposes the existence and exercise
known-mercy.  of an attribute of the Divine character hither



28               A NEW   STAGE OF
to unknown to the history of creation. For " every Divinely-originated object and event is a result, the supreme
and ultimate reason of which is in the Divine Nature."
This principle-the first illustrated in the "Pre-Adamite
Earth," and in " Man Primeval" —here comes forth with
peculiar luster. For if the question be asked, in relation to
the twofold provision which man's recovery requires, which
part will be made first? our theory, based on Revelation,
enables us to reply without hesitation-the objective. If
the ultimate reason of every thing which God does is to be
found in Himself, then, before man's character is restored,
and even in order to it, we may confidently expect that his
condition will be remedied; or, that provision will be made
in virtue of which the moral government of God will retain
that authority which the unconditional forgiveness of sin
would tend to destroy. Besides which, the movement for
making the provision must be not only first, but entirely, on
the part of God. And it is only as His Sovereignty can
make that provision in harmony with the requirements of
His equity that His infinite sufficiency will be brought to
light. Now, that God, in the exercise of His rich and
sovereign mercy, and in perfect consistency with every principle of moral government and of human freedom, has
made such a provision, is the great subject of Divine revelation. And that this mercy was implied in the first Promise, and the means of the fulfillment of the promise symbolized in the first Sacrifice, is our deep, grateful, and admiring
conviction.
Man's history  Here, then, an aspect of the Divine charrecapitulates all acter rises on our view which every prior
the Divine perfections previously dispensation had left undisclosed. Immeasurdisplayed.   able ages had elapsed since first the Power




THE DIVINE MANIFESTATION.               29
of God proclaimed itself in the origination of matter. At
an unknown period afterward, Wisdom proceeded to employ inorganic phenomena as means for the development of
the new and sacred principle of organic Life as an end. A
subsequent fiat went forth, and Goodness transformed the
earth into a scene of animal enjoyment. But if Power,
WIisdom, and Goodness are not to perpetuate their manifestation by multiplying physical creations alone, some
other Perfection must now appear, which shall render the
continuation of such additions unnecessary. Now, it is an
incidental disclosure of Revelation that, elsewhere, a race
of beings had come on the field of the Divine manifestation
bright with the luster of a new attribute. In their creation, Power had put forth its mightiness; in their intellectual endowments, Wisdom had shone with unwonted splendor; Goodness had surpassed all its prior displays in their
enlarged capacity for enjoyment; and Holiness-the new
and crowning characteristic of their nature — ad, in their
creation, now first prepared a throne of moral government,
around which they were assembled as accountable creatures. Some of their number sinned, and Justice appeared,
clothed in terrors for their punishment. But here, as far
as they are concerned, the manifestation of the Divine
chalracter paused. In the constitution and history of the
new-made man, however, all these perfections have been
recapitulated. On the principle of progressive manifestation, then, might it not have been expected that, if another
attribute remains to be disclosed, the new race will be the
medium of its revelation? Coming, as man does, on the
stage of the Divine procedure at a period when Power, and
Wisdom, and Goodness, and Holiness, and Justice, are already developed, we are led to expect that the great de



30               A NEW    STAGE OF
sign of another stage of creation will be the display of
another Divine perfection. Accordingly, he not only exhibits an epitome of all that has gone before: the unfolding of God's nature is actually resumed in the history of
man's nature, and is carried forward. A new constellation
appears in man's moral firmament-compassion, long-suffering, mercy, love. Man is honored to occupy an advanced
post in the sublime march of the Divine manifestation. iHe
has sinned, but is to be saved. The very heart of Love is
to be put in stress for his pardon and recovery.
We speak not now of the extent of Divine
His family natmue implies prop- mercy, but of its existence, as of a new thing
erties analogous in the earth, and, for any thing we know, new
in  the  character
of God.     in the universe.  Nor do we speak of its
means, but of itspromise and its type. And on the principle we are now illustrating-that every thing Divinely
originated expresses some property in the great Originator
-we recognize in this gracious disclosure an entirely new
aspect of the Divine Nature. On the same principle, we
are led to inquire, what, in God, does the new family constitution itself denote? Every effect in nature is, not indeed formally, but'virtually, a manifestation of some property of the Creator. Every idea which is truly suggested
and represented in creation points to a spiritual correspondence, infinitely greater, in the Divine Nature. The first
man was not only a compendium of the preceding stages
of creation, and as such an exponent of all which they had
displayed of their Maker, but, by the addition of a moral
constitution, he became a distinct and solemn utterance of
the moral character of God. Every thing else had only
disclosed a part or property of their Creator; here, at
length, was His character-His Image.    And if man's




THE DIVINE MANIFESTATION.              t31
moral nature found its infinite counterpart in the Divine
holiness, shall the fathomless mysteries of his social or family nature, with all its warm gulf-streams and ocean-currents of emotion, be supposed to denote no resembling
property in the Deity? While every other part of man's
nature is a spiritual index, shall this alone point away into
an objectless infinite void? We speak not now of its suggestive power relative to any social distinctions in the internal economy of the Godhead, but of its analogous relations to the Divine character. And we believe that, so far
from being a shadow, to which there is nothing answering
in the great Substance, the love in which the family constitution is founded, and all the deep affections which it develops and by which it is administered, are designed to aid
man in the conception of the Fatherhood, the unknown
benevolence of God toward His sinning human family, and
in which the great Promise of deliverance through the
self-subordination and voluntary suffering of another, originated. The child obtains life, and all that makes life desirable, through another. Indeed, the whole of parental
duty is a system of mediation; often attended with suffering and self-denial, but always impelled by love. And the
first promise of man's deliverance, as the result of a conflict, was a Family promise. Thus early was the great
principle of mediation taught-inwoven into the texture
of the family economy.
In treating of the antediluvian period, however, we have
to do with mercy, as a revelation to man, only in promise
and symbol. The objective fullfilment of the promise, and
the means of mercy in the actual coming of " the second
man, the Lord from heaven," belong to a subsequent dispensation. An intimation of mercy to the race introduced




32            TIIE DIVINE MANIFESTATION.
the family economy, but that feature of the Divine character which the history of the economy itself brought to
light was Long-suffering.    Man occupied himself for about
two thousand years in seeing what Nature could do for him
under circumstances the most favorable to the development
of its resources.  But his guilty experiment could not arrest the advance of the Divine manifestation; for, while
voluntarily disregarding the mercy which would have saved
him, he was involuntarily magnifying the forbearance which
spared him.*
* I have spoken of the period extending from the Fall to the Flood as
" about two thousand years." Dr. Bunsen asks " ten thousand years, or
very little more;" Philosophy of Universal History, vol. ii. p. 12. It is
well that the certainty of events does not depend on our knowledge of
their precise dates. (See Man Primeval, pp. 190, 191.) The different
dates assigned to the period in question gives an extreme difference of
1142 years. I adopt the chronology of the Septuagint, which is that
of Josephus, as exhibited substantially by Vossius, Jackson, Hales, and
Russell. I do this on the evidence there is that the chronology of the
Bible was corrupted by the Jews (as to the ages of the Patriarchs at the
births of their eldest sons), in order to put back the dial of Time for the
coming of the Messiah; leaving it to be inferred that the computation of
the Septuagint is the true transcript of the original Hebrew chronology.
This reckoning makes the deluge to have occurred, A.M. 2256.




CHAPTEE        II.
THE MEANS OF DIVINE IANIFESTATION IN THE PRECEDING
STAGE BROUGHT ON INTO THIS.
THE means of education and of Divine
The law stated.
manifestation enjoyed by primeval man consisted of external nature, of his own constitution and condition, and of supernatural communications from the Creator. And in relation to these means, we have now to verify
the law which leads us to expect " that they will all be found
brought forward"* from the paradisiacal into the family
economy.
Thefirstmeans;  Accordingly, the first of these-the newexternal nature. made world-still lay expanded before the
eye of nian. None of its ancient laws had been repealed.
None of its beauties, nor of its wonders, had been blotted
out. Power was here with all the demonstrations of its
activity and greatness. And Wisdom, with its endless
adaptations of means to ends. And Goodness, spreading a
continual banquet for the creatures, and filling them with
enjoyment. Not that these laws and objects of nature were
contilnued by any inherent and independent necessity. As
their existence, at first, was entirely dependent on the will
of God, and in order, partly, to answer a specific end in the
history of man, so, now that sin had'brought a crisis in
* Pre-Adamite Earth, p. 60, and Man Primeval, p. 10.
2*




34                 THIE MEANS OF
that history, it was dependent on the same will whether or
not these means should receive any modification. Much of
the paradisiacal in external nature might have been withdrawn, and the place which it occupied have been left a
blank.  But the whole had been devised by Him who
"seeth the end from the beginning;" and it was now continued to answer the end of its original appointment. Not
less brightly did " the heavens declare the glory of God,"
after the Fall, than they did before. For nine hundred and
thirty years did the human eye which had first gazed on
Paradise in its primal freshness, and the ear which had
there listened to the opening burst of its melodies, continue
to be regaled by the same music and the same vernal beauty.
Even the " thorn and the thistle"* did not less eloquently
speak of the perfections of God, because they served at
the same time as memorials of the sin of man. "He left
not Himself without witness, in that" man still found himself in a world, not of mere coincidences, but of speaking
signs; a worshiper in a temple whose every object and
event possessed a symbolic value, and where the service
paused not day nor night. And thus " the invisible things
of God from the creation of the world" continued to be
"clearly seen, being understood by the things that are
made, even His eternal power and Godhead."f The illuminated volume of natural theology continued to invite the
attention of mankind till the flood came and quenched in
death the eyes that should have read it.
* Gen., iii. 13: Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee-includingl all kinds of weeds. Not that they were now called into existence for the first time, but that man should now first become acquainted
with them. Leaving the garden, he should go forth into the common
wilderness                    t Roemans, i. 20.




DIVINE MANIFESTATION.                 35
The constitution and condition of man,
Secondly; man's
constitution and also, as the subject of moral government, concondition.  tinued to manifest all they had ever disclosed
of the Divine perfections. Sin, indeed, had involved him
in guilt, and had depraved his nature, but the susceptibilities and powers with which he left Paradise, were numerically the same as when he entered it. And, consequently,
his sensitive, intellectual, and moral relations to the objective universe were not numerically diminished. Whatever
the loss which he sustained, or the moral change which he
had undergone, he still retained a natural capacity for subserving the ends of the Divine manifestation, and for this
he was held responsible.
Man's degneracy  But this statement involves certain points
Man's degeneracy
reproduced.  of vital importance; and the law now under
consideration requires us to examine them. It implies that
the character of fallen man will re-appear in each of all his
descendants, and that it will appear in them natively, and
as his descendants. Were it otherwise, a breach of continuity would exist of the most radical kind. The stream
would rise higher than its source. The tree would no
longer be known by its fiuits.  1an and his posterity would
form two species in the highest or moral sense.
Accordingly, first, the degeneracy and deUniversally. 
pravity of universal man are undeniable.
There is no man who does not believe that every man he
knows might be somewhat better than he is. The records
of history forbid us to think of any man who has ever lived,
that lie never fiiled in a single duty to God or man.
Every Ian's consciousness attests the truth of the appeal
that tlhere is "none that doeth good and sinneth not."
And the testimony of Scripture respecting antediltuvian man




30                THE MIEANS OF
is that " all flesh nad corrupted its way before God;" that
evil increased in proportion to the multiplication of the
species, and that there existed a depravity which connected
every man with the entire race.
The second part of our proposition is, that
Natively.
there is a degeneracy of character native to
man. Accordingly there is a sense in which every human
being is conscious of this defectiveness as soon as he is
capable of moral agency. I employ the term degeneracy,
negatively, to denote the state of the young human being
before he comes to distinguish between good and evil; and
the term depravity, positively, to denote his state as soon
as he has become conscious of evil. It should be observed
that I am not speaking of this native imperfection as if it
consisted of a Divine iifliction. Nor do I believe it to be
any thing inserted from without-an entity-or a positive
cause of evil in the heart. Nor do I view it as any thing
actually blameworthy or simple, until the subject of it has
become a moral agent-has come to distinguish between
right and wrong-for until then he can not be said to have
a moral character. And this is a sufficient reply to those
who object to our view of the native defectiveness of the
lhuman being, that the Scriptures represent little children
as patterns of innocence and humility; for until such defectiveness has developed itself in actual sin, they can not
be regarded as blameworthy on account of it, while their
humility and innocence-mere negative virtues in them —
render them models to the positively proud and vicious.
Nor, remembering that the young of the brute creation,
incapable of moral evil, often exhibit impulses very nearly
approaching to vanity, rage, revenge, and stubborn sellt
will, would I interpret all the similar phenomena of the hu



DIVINE MANIFESTATION.                37
man infant as indications of a sinful nature. Nor, lastly,
when the child has reached the state of moral accountability,
should he be spoken of as "totally" depraved in the sense
of being as bad as he can be; but meaning, that in a constitution all-related, the defect of one part, especially if that
part be the highest, must necessarily involve the derangement of the whole. A moment's consideration will place
this subject in the proper light.
This degeneracy  The morality of conduct depends on the
lnnodliness.  motives which lead to it. Motives are distributable into the following classes-those of the appetites
and passions, of self-love, of the affections or dispositions
toward others, and a regard to the will and character of
God, each class being alike of Divine origination. These
motives range in an ascending scale, our obligation to God
being paramount. Now, as there is no duty which we owe
to ourselves, or to our fellow-men, which we do not owe
partly and chiefly because God has willed it as inherently
right, to omit all reference to Him in the performance of it,
is to lay ourselves open to the charge of ungodliness. An
adequate answer this to those who object to our view of
the native imperfection of man, that he naturally produces
good fruit as well as bad. For we are not now speaking
of outward acts, but of the motives which determine their
moral character. Now, a man may spend life in the performance of acts outwardly right; and le may even plerfm-n malny of his social duties, not merely from a native
kindliness (in which there may be no more morality than in
the gentleness of the lamb), but because he deems the peribormance socially right. Yet these very acts may be wanting in a whole order of motives, and that the higlhest-a
regard to the will of God. True morality is the practical




38                 THE MEANS OF
recognition of all the obligations arising out of all the relations we sustain. Now, as God, the Being to whom we
sustain all-comprehending relations, has enjoined those very
acts toward our fellow-men, to perform them irrespective
of Iis will on the subject, from no conscious regard to
Him, is to be found wanting in the highest obligation. For
as the regulation of the appetites would not acquit a man
fiom the charge of sin, who should yet indulge in selfishness; and as the due limitation of the appetites and of
self-love would not absolve him from immorality if he yet
neglected his social duties, so neither can his attention to
these three classes of duties exempt him from the charge
of ungodliness if he discharge them irrespective of the will
of God on the subject. The inferior classes of motives hold
and rule the man to the exclusion of the highest-a moral
vacuum this of the worst description-God is wanting. So
that even if no one of these three inferior classes predominate strongly, so asto characterize the man, to the exclusion of the other two, ungodliness must yet be regarded as
vitiating his whole conduct. Indeed, the very rightness
and excellence of his actions-considered, that is, apart
from his motives-is likely to be made by him the occasion
of forgetting God, and of virtually trying to do without Him.
Exammple wvill  Regarding the faultiness in question, then,
not account for it. in this least and lowest sense, as ungodliness,
or as the want of a due respect to the character and will of
God, I return to the proposition that this defectiveness is
native to man. Every human being is conscious, or may be
made conscious, that he is chargeable with this defectiveness as asoon as he is capable of moral agency. It is presul)posed in his first act of sin. Depravity in the concrete,
o') personlal transgression, presupposes this defectiveness in




DIVINE MANIFESTATION.                 39
the abstract. And, hence, example alone will not account
for depravity. The prodigious influence of example on the
outward conduct, indeed, is admitted; so that if the question related to actions only, and if all actions good and-bad
were equally imitated, the difficulty could be explained by
resolving the whole affair into instinctive imitation. But
the points to be noticed are, first, that the very first generations were universally depraved: to ascribe this to exam.ple
is to assign the evil itself as the cause of the evil. Secoindly,
that evil example is incomparably more operative than good,
often counteracting any amount of good. This preponderating power of evil is the very thing to be explained; and
can be accounted for only by supposing that a peculiar
affinity for it exists within. Thirdly, that while example
may influence actions and even thoughts, the depravity of
which we speak supposes a defectiveness of motives, an imperfection which imitation will not account for. Principles
of action are not thus amenable to example. And, fourthly,
that evil example is, more or less, universally imitated, so
that no one escapes it absolutely. Were the action of an
infectious disease universal, it would be ascribed to the
universality of the predisposing causes in the patients; and
in the same manner, the universal influence of bad example
pre-supposes a universal readiness to yield to it, a readiness
which dates beyond the reach of memory.
Nor the early  Neither will the early and rapid development
Nor the early
development of of the passions, as compared with the later
llie passions.
tand more tardy development of the reason,
account for the evil of which we speak. It is perfectly true
tlhlat the passions are the first in the field; that, at the very
pe'iod when the appetites are strong, the counteractive
judlg!lenct and reason are feeble; that the sclfl1rgulating




40                 THE MEANS OF
powers are slow in acquiring authority; and that, let them
ascend the throne as early as they may, antagonist habits
are already begun. But this is the very fact to be accounted
for. Instead of being itself an ultimate fact, it requires us
to look for such fact. Here is depravity, of some kind, already in actual process; and our theory is that it pre-supposes something defective in the state of the human constitution. Here is a practical result; we only affirm that there
must be something anterior to account for it. Here is a
uniform event; we only decline the absurdity of ascribing
it to nothing. Of all the myriads of the posterity of Adam
that have lived to reach the period of moral agency, it is
affirmed that every individual has in some sense "gone
astray;" that each has done this in virtue of his human
descent; that sin is " his own" in a sense in which nothing
else is; and that it is a distinctive quality identifying him
with the species.
The degeneracy  The third part of our proposition remains
hereditary.  to be noticed-that the character of fallen
man not only reappears in his posterity, that it so appears
natively, but also that it appears in them as his descendants.
Here certain previous questions arise:-What was the loss
which the progenitor of the race sustained, or what the
clhange wich he underwent?  Could any part of such loss
be entailed on his posterity, or such change be transmitted,
yet leaving man free? And, provided this were possible,
would such entailed loss or transmitted change be sufficient
to account for the sinfulness of every moral agent of the
race?
ce loss e   pe- In reply to the first question, respecting
The loss expe-                                      zn
rioncedbythlefirsct the nature of the loss or change experienced
by the first man as a sinner, the teaching of




DIVINE MAANIFESTATION.              41
the Bible appears to be this-that man was created sinless,
potentially perfect, and capable of maintaining his will in
strict coincidence with the will of God.
As a creature, man could not be otherwise than dependent; dependent in proportion to his high endowments as a
spiritual and immortal being; dependent, therefore, as a
spirit on a connatural spiritual Being-on the favor of the
infinite Spirit, and on loving and confiding intercourse with
him.
Man's well-being depended on his habitual recognition of
his dependence; for on such recognition depended the
maintenance of a loving and obedient state of mind toward
God corresponding with his dependent condition.  Any
other state of mind could only be a practical falsehood.
The powers requisite for recognizing tle fact of his dependence, in order to the maintenance of the appropriate
state of mind, belong to man's constitution, or are natural
to him. As such, they form the subjective ground of his
responsibility, or render him responsible for living in the
constant recognition of his dependence.
But as the power of obedience implied the power of disobedience, God was pleased, instead of leaving man to the
mere exercise of his own powers, as I-e justly might have
done, to superadd a direct Divine influence disposing and
determining man, in a way consistent with his moral freedom, to maintain the loving harmony of his own will with
that of his Father in Heaven.
This predisposing influence extended to the whole of
man's conduct, one solitary act excepted.  For surely it
is not to be understood that man was left at liberty to
violate every obligation, except the probationary law, with
impunity. Neither could it have meant that, if left to him



42                THE MEANS OF
self, there was no other liability to which he was exposed
than the one specified. Apart from a special provision to
the contrary, his liabilities as a free agent were co-extensive
with his multiplied obligations. This Divine provision, then,
is to be regarded as reducing his thousand liabilities to one;
but as leaving him, at that one, to the sense of his responsibility alone. Just as if a youth whose father had marked
out for him his whole course of conduct, should enjoy, in
addition, the companionship of one who constantly placed
his father's character before him in the most attractive light,
and reminded- him of his father's will in every particular
except one; leaving him in that one, in which he well knew
his father's mind, to his own sense of right and duty.
MIan's retention of that gratuitous provision, or superadded influence, was made contingent on his obedience in
that one particular. Continuing in his state of inward and
outward conformity to the Divine will, he would enjoy the
threefold result-in the continued expression of the Divine
complacency-the growing excellence of his characterand the corresponding improvement of his outward condition; or, in his relation to God, to himself; and to nature.
But voluntarily failing in obedience to the one probationary
law, he would experience a change answering to this threefold relation-his consciousness of guilt would be the signal
that he had fo:feited that mark of the Divine favor which
consisted in the superadded influence of which we have
spoken; that his own nature had become dlefective and depraved; and that a change of outward condition would
ensue answering to this change of character and relations,
or that he would, in some sense, die.
Now, in relation to the one easy law in which man was
left to his own sense of duty, as he might have been left in




DIVINE MANIFESTATION.                43
regard to every other law, man failed.* Losing sight of
his dependence and obligation, he lost the appropriate state
of mind toward God, and fell; and his fall incurred the
first of the three evils,named-the loss of the superadded
influence which had been hitherto accorded to him.
But the very act which incurred this loss from without
denoted a loss within-the loss of that consciousness of the
soul's dependence which is essential to the maintenance of
a right state of the affections toward God. In other words,
the external loss denoted, and was occasioned by, an internal change. This is the second of the three evils in question. Now this change itself, be it remarked, was twofold;
it was both negative and positive; or, as I have said, it
denoted defect and depravity. Man's non-recognition of
his dependence implied the voluntary suspension or absence
of the only act or habit which could maintain his affections
in the right state toward God. Here was defect. But this
defect itself can be accounted for, in an adult human being,
only as it is seen to imply the presence and predominance
of another's will-man's own will asserting and aiming at
self-subsistence: and here was lepravity.
Deferring, for the present, our consideration of the other
evil referred to-the change in man's condition, as not immediately bearing on the question before us, we are already
in possession of three forms of evil. Here are loss, defect,
and depravity; the loss of the auxiliary influence graciously
superadded to man's already responsible powers; defect,
or negative evil, in the non-recognition of his profound and
vital dependence on God, and in the consequent absence of
love to Iim; and depravity, or positive evil, in the replacement, or, rather, displacement of love to God by the su* See Man Primeval, p. 423, etc.




44                  THE MEANS OF
preme love of self-the substitution of self for God; a
change which could not fail to impair his sense of respon.
sibility.  And of course, in a being already responsible,
like the first man, the defect must be held to be sinful, as
well as the depravity.
The consequent  Man having  sinned, then, the  question
pels or chnge e  arises, what part of his consequent loss or of
perienced  by  his       I
posterity.   his twofold change could be shared in by his
posterity?  No reflecting mind can be startled by such an
inquiry as if all such participation were a novelty. We are
all hourly experiencing effects, natural, civil, and moral,
which can be traced back to remote generations.   "The
shallower the man, so much the more isolated will every
thing appear to him, for upon the surface all lies apart.
IHe will see, in mankind, in the nation, ay, even in the
family, mere individuals, where the act of the one has no
connection with that of the other. The more profound
the man is, so much the more do these inward relations of
unity, proceeding fiom the very center, force themselves
on his notice." *
The subject, indeed, has been invested with a repulsiveness which does not properly belong to it, by the extreme
theory of those who assume that the posterity of Adam
personally share in the.guilt of the first transgressor-are
guilty, that is, of the first transgression in the same personal sense as lie was. As if the judgment of God could
be otherwise than according to fact and truth. As if inhants could be regarded by Him before they themselves sin
as guilty in the same sense in which they will be after they
have become actual transgressors. But who of all his descendants ever felt the consciousness of such guilt? It is a
* Prof. Stahl, quoted by Olshausen in Comm. Rom. v. 12.




DIVINE MANIFESTATION.                45
commutation which the constitution of the human mind
makes impossible. The error consists in confounding culpac
with reattus; the inherent blame-worthiness of sin with the
evil consequences inseparably connected with it. In the
nature of things, the guilt of the sin is and must be the
sinner's own alone. In this respect, our relation to the first
man is the same as if the sin had been committed in his
own private or individual capacity, and quite irrespective
of any special probationary law.
But it by no means follows that because we do not partake of the guilt of an act committed before we existed
(an impossibility), therefore we are related to it in no substantial sense whatever. In the language of Julius Muller
"it is a superficial view of human nature which regards
the race as being, in a moral respect, a mere aggregate of
individual personalities, morally connected with each other,
and dependent on each other, only in so far as in the progress of their development they receive, one from another,
discipline, doctrine, example. Behind this division into
atoms may be discerned a native substantial unity, in which
the moral life of the individual is rooted as in its maternal
soil.... If the community in which he lives is not a
mere artificial one, but has a firm ground in nature, he is
not only born into it, but breathes a common life with it."
Events which are occuring to-day will affect the character
and condition of the men of future ages. The great system to lwhich we belong is interlaced in all its parts, and
the first moment connected with the last; and the very
fact, that all the race have derived life from Adam, renders
it antecedently probable, or at least not improbable, that
they have derived from him something more. Certainly,




46                THE MEANS OF
life is not the only thing which we have derived from any
of[ our immediate ancestors.
In answering the question, then, respecting the possible
loss or change derivable to us from the progenitor of the
race, I reply, first, that the original transgression incurred
the forfeituere of that superadded influence by which we
might have been secured in a state of holy obedience.
The provision was gratuitous and conditional. It was superinlduced on a nature already endowed with all the elements of responsibility. When, therefore, man sinned, this
superinduced provision was simply withdrawn; its special
object had been defeated. Mlan was now to be left, in respect to every other law, as he had been left in relation to
the probationary law-to his own responsible powers as a
being fitted for moral government. Thus he night have
been left fiom the first, as far as equity was concerned;
and thus he now was left. Now, that his posterity should
be destitute of this provision also, follows, as far as he is
concerned, as a matter of course. Unless he could have
transmitted that which he no longer possessed, the consequence was inevitable. Superior as our condition might
have been then, if our representative had maintained his
standing, and had secured for his posterity the enjoyment
of this superadded provision, I do not regard it as worse
now that he has fallen than it would have been if such a
prospect had never been placed within his reach; but he
had been left to fail, and had failed, in an ordinary manner.
On him the deprivation fell as a punishment; on his posterity it comes simply as the loss of a possible good; but
leaving us no more just ground of complaint, than as if it
had never existed, but man's failure had taken place when
left to his own moral resources.




DIVINE MANIFESTATION.                 47
Secondly, we have seen that man's original transgression
implied a personal change of a twofold nature-defect and
depravity. Abundant evidence exists to show that "the
likeness of children to their parents extends beyond the
features of their body;" that there are not only hereditary
diiCeases, but hereditary tendencies to certain vices, and
I1.hat such particular tendencies often run through a family
fior lany generations. But these are mere specialities,
trallsmissible by propagation, and dependent for their particular for1ms, it may be, on localities, varieties of organization, states of civilization, and on circumstances accidental
to humanity; and the proximate origin and fluctuation of
which are bounded by limits. They belong in their specific
forms to families, and not to the race. Our first father
stands in no relation to such transmission different, in kind,
fiom that which every other parent sustains. Underlying
these specific forms of evil, indeed, and making them physiologically possible, there exist the organic effects of the
first sin, by the shock of which bodily perfection was forfeited; the most exquisite organization being no longer
strictly normal, but only an approximation to it.
Our present question relates, however, not to the specific
degeneracy of a family or a community, but to the generic
change of a race. And since this change is of a kind
which is felt to be alien to our idea of man as made by
God, calls for incessant conflict, and is subversive of his
well-being, but is yet pervasive of the entire race, the
Scriptural account is the only adequate one-that this universal degeneracy commenced in the apostacy of our first
parents from God. But what is the nature of this transmitted change?  I believe it to consist of defect, or rather
degeneracy, such as I have previously described, and of an




48                  THE MEANS OF
impaired sense of responsibility attendant on such defect.
The voluntary defect of the first man becomes the involuntary degeneracy of his posterity. I regard the evil, as
transmitted, as negative, reserving the term  depravity for
that positive evil into which it grows.
That the change is of a nature which invariably leads to
moral depravity, if the subject of it live to the point of
moral agency; that it then assumes the second and positive form of the first sin, self-assertion as opposed to the
Divine will, I not.only admit but contend for. But that as
and wohen transmitted it is moral-moral in the same sense
in which it afterward becomes moral when the will has accepted it-seems inadmissible on these grounds. It is opposed to the plain declaration of Scripture, that " sin is the
transgression of the law;" for the infant human being, as
yet unconscious of moral obligation, is incapable of such
transgression. It implies, consequently, that moral evil is
not an affair of the will, but is constitutional and involuntary, and a part of our nature in the same sense as the appetites and passions are; a view inconceivable, and subversive of every sound theory of responsibility. It implies
further, that (as the blessed God can not be the author of
sin) souls are not successively created by Him, and connected according to a general law, with a material organization,
at the proper period,* but that they are propagated like
and with the body; or else, that if they are successively
created, the body itself, as matter, is, according to the old
Malnichean principle, inherently evil, and possesses the
power of corrupting the soul.   But whichever of these
views be adopted, the theory of a transmitted moral de* The affirmative of this view was called by the schoolmen Creationism; the theory that souls are propagated, Tradzwianism.




DIVINE MANIFESTATION.                49
pravity appears to involve the further difficulty of loosening
the very foundations of man's accountability; for if the
nature we inherit be, in any intelligible sense, morally depraved-if it actually comes to us inevitably burdened with
a debt of personal guilt-the voluntary and the involuntary,
the necessary and the free, are confounded in a manner
which destroys all our conceptions of moral government.
The guilt in question must, in that case, be held to be mere
calamity. And hence the theory further implies that the
atonement of Christ is little more than an expedient to
remedy the misfortune. The very attempt to silence complaint at the supposed arrangement of transmitted guilt,
by pointing.to the mediatorial dispensation, is to ascribe
that dispensation to justice rather than to grace.
That part of the twofold change, then, which the fall of
our first faither exhibited, and which descends to his posterity, is an evil of degeneracy. Some would call it physical depravity; not meaning. thereby material, bodily, or
physiological, as if it were wholly an affair of the organization, but simply to denote that it is not moral. If I spoke
of it as depravity, I should designate it involuntary, to denote that the action of our personal will having had nothing
to do with it, the very element is wanting necessary to
constitute it guilt. For the sake of distinctness, however,
and, as I believe, of truth, I prefer speaking of it as degeneracy. Here, then, are two of the evils derived from our
first transgressor:-the loss of the special influence originally accorded to his already responsible powers; and the
ldegeneracy which early shows itself in our non-recognition
of dependence on God, and in the consequent absence of
love to Him. Now, of these two effects, my conviction is
that the former alone is entailed by Adam, in his represent3




50                 TIlE MEANS OF
ative capacity, on his posterity; that, to them, the direct
and immediate result of his failure is one of deprivation.
Of the transmission of the second effect, in any sense peculiar to the first man-except the numerical fact that he
was the first man-I find it impossible to conceive. In
other words, I regard it as transmitted paternally from
genleraltion to generation.
And now comes the third of our inquiries:
Will it account
for the universal- Whether such inherited loss and transmitted
ity of depravity?
degeneracy be sufficient to account for the
universality of human depravity?  As to the loss of the
special provision, it is obvious that if its absence at a solitary point was followed by the fall of the first man at that
point, the failure of every other human being might have
been apprehended, inasmuch as the withdrawment of that
provision leaves us exposed to danger at every point. The
consequent disadvantage, indeed, at which we begin our
moral life is not so great as at first sight we may be apt to
suppose. For while the first man might plead that he was
betrayed into a state of which he could previously know
nothing), we, however numerous our points of danger, encounter only one at a time. We commence life, too, in the
hands of those whose office it is to protect us from each
danger in succession, till we have acquired the power of
self-government. Similar inequalities of danger, moreover,
exist in every state of society, without at all affecting our
responsibility; just because the greatest amount of such
disadvantage lies within limits which leave man's moral
agency complete. Still the mere deprivation of that special provision was, considering man's circumstances, omilnous of the universal deprivation, which has actually ensued. For although thi-a, I conceive, is the only spiritual




DIVINE MANIFESTATION.                51
loss resulting to us directly from the sin of the first man,
and although hlad this provision been retained, antagonistic
influences might have assailed us in vain, yet, being withdrawn, the will, the cause of moral action, is left exposed
to the threefold influence of whatever evil may be occasioned by the parental transmission of abnormal temperaments and organizations-by an imperfect and even pernicious example-and, especially, by the early development
and irregular action of the inferior principles of our nature.
In addition to the loss which leaves us simply to our responsible powers, our nature itself is in a state of degeneracy.
"That which is born of the flesh is flesh."  Even supposing
this to mean that the voluntary products of our unregenerate nature can not be otherwise than sinful, there is an underlying truth presupposed, namely, the great law of natural
production, that like begets like; that no generative power
can impart any thing which is not contained in its own nature.  And if every man in succession fromn the Fall is
naturally characterized by a want of disposition to recognize his dependence on God, this is only saying that every
human being is born in this state and transmits it.
Degency is-  Now to be born in this merely negative
sues in depravity. state toward God is itself an adequate solution of the positive depravity in which it uniformly issues.
The only alternative to a non-recognition of dependence on
God, is an undue or exclusive recognition of self. The
vacuum arising from the absence of love to God is filled up
by nothing but the love of self-of a fragmentary, godless
self. This love has nothing to displace. It has merely to
take possession of a vacant throne.
Now what form of sin is not ultimately resolvable into




52                 THE MEANS OF
s o d    this principle of selfism?* What is worldliness,
All forms of depravity resolvable whether as covetousness or sensuality, but the
into selfishness.
to selfishness aim of a being who has lost the infinite good
to substitute and appropriate the finite? ITypocrisy is the
mask he wears to conceal his aim; anger and impatience
the results of impediment and disappointment; envy and
malice the emotions excited at the superiority or the success of others; and hatred and cruelty the reaction of
thwarted self-will. Ambition is an attempt at lofty selfisolation; pride the feeling that we have achieved, or can
achieve, such distinction; and despondency and moroseness
the offspring of disappointed desire. Detached from. God,
man's relation to every other object is false; he himself is
a moral falsehood; and every breach of veracity is but a
particular form of the great falsehood. Living out of harmony with God and with himself, variance with his fellowman follows of course. Lawtlessness of every kind is but
the result of man's attempting to be a law to and by himself. All human governments are still occupied in reconciling law and liberty-in restraining the fierce collisions of
human wills.   And "whence come wars and fightings
among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war
in your members? Ye lust and have not; ye kill and desire to have, and can not obtain. Ye ask and receive not,
because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your
lust."  Impenitence is self-satisfaction unwilling to submit
to God; the choice to remain at variance with Him.  Unreasonableness is self-will substituted for reason and conscience. And unbelief is self-trust as opposed to trust in
God.
"But is not self-love of moral obligation?" Undeniably:
* See J. Muller's Christian Doctrine of Sin, vol. i. p. 187.




DIVINE MANIFESTATION.                 53
it is to be the measure of our love to others. But the
ground of the obligation to love ourselves, remarks Miiller,
is the same as that on which we are required to love our
fellow-man-our relation to God. MIy moral worth consists
in my having been made in the image of God, capable of
entering into His plans, and of sharing in His glory. But
if God be lost from my soul, I can not be said strictly to
love my integral and proper self, but only the ungodly remains of myself. The act is essentially different in kind,
for it is directed toward an essentially different object. A
moral element is wanting in the love answering to the element wanting in the object. It is the idolatry of a self
from which God is absent. An object of self-compassion
I may rightly be; but this implies a desire of self-restoration, and of restoration to God. And it is only as I "lose
myself,": surrender my self-predominance, and welcome
God back again to His throne within, that my regard for
myself can be morally good.
But how does this view of self-predominance, as the
characteristic of all sin, accord with the existence of those
benevolent affections which are admitted to belong to our
moral constitution? And may not guilt be incurred by the
misdirection of our benevolent affections, as well as by the
excess of our self-regard? One reply will meet these two
questions; and may, possibly, supply the defect with which
Muller's answer is thought to be chargeable. Man is capable of disinterested deeds as far as his fellow-man is concerned; deeds which have not self, as opposed to another
human being, for their object. The first sin of Adam appears to have consisted partly of mistaken sympathy with
Eve. But the question is not one merely between man and
* Matt. xvi 25.




54                 THE MEANS OF
man, or one of ordinary selfishness; it is a question between
God and man, or one of self-assertion to the exclusion of
God. All man's actions capable of a moral quality are
either deliberate and voluntary or spontaneous and impulsive. If voluntary, the charge is that however right they
may be in relation to his fellow-man, they have no relation
whatever to God. They are the offspring only of a human
will which confesses no allegiance to the Divine will;'so
that, in relation to God, they are selfish. But the clisinterested class of actions are those commonly which are impulsively performed, and which are susceptible of moral approbation, and of being consciously placed in relation to the
Divine will, only after their performance; and the charge
is that this is not done. The perforlmer does not trace them
beyond himself, but absorbs the admiration they excite.
Until performed, they can possess no moral character whatever, for they are instinctive or impulsive; and when performed, he takes the entire credit to himself. Here, then,
are two classes of actions: the small class in which he regards himself as his own beginning; and the large remainder, in which he is both beginning and end. God is in
neither. Self, as distinct from God, prevails in both.
Two half iews  All profound views of sin have regarded
of sin.  it either negatively as the privation of good,
or positively as selfishness. "Evil (says Augustine) has no
nature of its own; but the loss of good has received the
name of evil." *  "The principle of excessive self-love (says
Plato) is the cause of all the errors which every man at
various times falls into." f These are the two halves of one
truth, corresponding to the twofold change denoted by the
* Quia nec illa effectio est, sed defectio. (de Civ. Dei, sii. 7.).LLaws, 371. E.




DIVINE MANIFESTATION.                55
first sin, and answering to the degeneracy and the depravity
disclosed by every subsequent transgression.  Primarily,
and in relation to God, evil is the non-recognition of our
dependence on Him, and the consequent privation or absence of love to Him; and secondarily, in relation to man,
it attains a substantive existence as selfishness, directing his
life, and sustaining a conflict with the Divine will, in a
course of actual disobedience. MAan becomes to himself a
new center of action. " The relation of the subject to itself
intead of to God (remarks Miuller) being the point in which
all the efforts and tendencies of sin centralize, sin thus becomes not merely disorder but a-pervertecd order, not merely
dissolution of unity but a false concentration of human existence, a perverted totality. It dissolves the true unity in
order to erect a false one in its place."  The negative conception of evil alone would lead to defective views of human responsibility and guilt; the positive conception alone
would generate superficial views of man's depravity. Truth
requires the combination of the two. Augustine, indeed,
more than hints at this union, when he says, "the first act
of our evil will was rather a defection from the work of
God to its own work, than any real work; and the fruit
of such a tree could not but be evil, because it was connatural with itself, and not according to the will of God." *
Man's early c-  Our third question, then, is answered: man's
sciousness of evil. transmitted degeneracy is sufficient to account
for the universality of his depravity. And will it not also
account for the earliness of his consciousness of evil? Even
at the time of his transition from the instinctive to the accountable state, the mind of the young human being is far
from being a tabula rasa destitute of all tendency to evil.
* De Civ. Dei, xiv. 11.




56                 THE MEANS OF
Like the mere animal he comes into a system of fixed relations in respect to which his every movement and desire is
right or wrong.* He is wrong a thousand times before he
is capable of being guilty. Even the first man himself, had
he not been Divinely instructed, could have arrived at the
knowledge of right respecting many of those relations only
by first violating them. The infant can be taught this
knowledge only by slow degrees. Much of it comes to him
by painlfll experience. During the time he is acquiring it,
he lives amid sensuous objects, in the domain of the appetites and passions. Here, the animal side of his constitution, the part which is rooted in nature and subject to its
necessary laws, is daily acquiring strength. Tempers, propensities, and appearances very similar to those which in
after-life he feels to be sinful, are as yet only wrong. Every
tripping step, every pain, every check, every perception
that he is wrong, awakens in him a sense of self-dissatisfaction and discord, and forms part of that training by which
he will soon become conscious of a moral emotion. Hitherto, however, his history is only a history of effects. He
himself has not truly and properly caused. Now, all the
effects and impressions of which he has been the recipient,
and all the tendencies which the inferior part of his nature
has been receiving, are taken with him when he passes into
the sphere of moral responsibility. And hence, let him begin his contest with moral evil as early in life as he may, he
wAill yet be conscious of something wrong anterior to all his
efforts. And this will account for that sense of inward
contradiction, that collision of freedom and necessity, which
is felt when that which had been known only to be wrong
is first felt to be guilty. As it comes from the earthly side
* Man Primeval, pp. 274-2i79.




DIVINE MANIFESTATION.                  57
of his constitution, it is subject to the laws of nature, and
appears to be inevitable; but as it is adopted by the free
will-the very ground of his personality-it is felt to be resistible. In adopting that which he might have resisted,
he feels that he has put forth a power-has become a cause.
So that while the act, as a temptation, originated in the
dark, fixed, irresponsible part of his constitution, as a sin,
it truly and properly springs from his will. Wherever, and
however, it may have taken its rise as a desire, as a sin it
has a distinct beginning, and that beginning caused by the
will. Beyond this new, this spiritual cause, it can not, as
sin, be traced. Here, the individuality of the man links on
to the race. The degeneracy is derived, the depravity in
which it issues is consciously his own. In other words, our
sinfulness is not caused by our degeneracy, though it is the
consequence of it.
Doctrine of de-  If our exposition of the subject required
rived degeneracy that we should also vindicate that constitudefensible.
tion of our nature by which its degeneracy
is transmitted, we might enlarge on such facts as the following:-first, that, according to our view, guilt is in no
real sense ascribed to the young human being until he himself has willed and accepted evil. His personal responsibility begins only when he himself becomes a consciously
voluntary agent. Secondly, that the invariableness of depravity in every one who has reached the state of voluntary
agency is not to be confounded with inevitableness in the
sense of physical necessity. If the certainty of its existence in every moral agent is a fact of history, so also is the
voluntariness of its existence a fact of consciousness-a
proof this that the will is left free. Were it not so, de3*




58                 THE MEANS OF
pravity could not be felt to involve guilt, and repentance
and improvement would be no duties.
Thirdly, that the universality of human depravity betrays only the universal absence of the right dispositions,
or, at least, of the proper strength of the right dispositions.
Now all that God owes to accountable beings are the
powers essential to accountability, implying, of course, the
absence of all necessarily overpowering force. He can not
owe to them  also a disposition to employ these powers
aright, so as infallibly to secure obedience. This would be
either to make failure impossible, or else to remove all responsibility from the creature, and to devolve it entirely
on the Creator. For the presence of such dispositions man
is held responsible, just because the power and means of
acquiring and exercising them are among the grounds of
his accountability. He is blameworthy, not for being destitute of any of the elements of responsibility, but for possessing without employing them aright.
Fourthly, that while the invariableness of depravity discloses an ultimate law of the creature's dependence, it no
more casts a doubt on man's responsible adequacy than the
fall of Adam did. For he sinned, not owing to any degeneracy, or to the withdrawment of any such provision
firom the point at which he fell. There he had been left to
his own responsible powers.  The withdrawment of the
special provision fiom every other point took place in consequence of his failure in that particular. So that the difficulty with which we are now dealing is only the recurrence of the original difficulty respecting the entrance of
sin. The depravity of every separate individual is only an
additional aspect of the general question respecting "the
origin of evil." Explain (we might say) how sin is possible




DIVINE MANIFESTATION.                 59
in a sinless being, and we doubt not we shall be in a condition to explain and vindicate that constitution of things by
which man's original loss and his transmitted degeneracy
are permitted to result in universal depravity.
As a fact, it  In reality, however, the vindication of such
needs no defense a constitution-if, indeed, any vindication be
in peculiar from
us.          necessary-devolves alike on all who believe
in a personal God and the fact of the universality of sin.
Our acceptance of the Biblical account of the subject, loads
us, in this respect, with no peculiar responsibility. Even
if we reject that account, the fact of human sinfulness renmains. The Bible only finds it. The call to explain the
fact belongs as much to the Deist, who believes only in the
existence of moral government, as it does to us. While,
as we think, the view which we take, in the light of Scripture, gives us the advantage of seeing the nature of the required remedy, and of being prepared to welcome it. The
"Second Adam," by introducing himself into the line of
transimitted humanity, so as to become truly related to all
its inheritors, can not only restore our disturbed relations
to God, but, by recovering for us a Divine influence more
abiding than that which was originally lost, can heal alike
our degeneracy and the depravity in which it results.
Man's constitu-  Resuming our proposition, that the constitution is still a tion of man continued after the Fall nimeans of Divine
manifestation.  paired, as a means of Divine manifestation,
we have merely to point to the fact that he was still the
subject of moral government.  No power was lost from
the soul. Iis emotions retained their susceptibility, though
diverted from their highest object: His power of moral
discrimination was not destroyed, though overruled. His
will remained as active and energetic as before. His chosen




60                  TIE MEANS OF
motives came now, indeed, from an inferior domain; the
right disposition of his powers was gone, each being placed
in a new and a false relation to the others, but all remained.
Man's second sin was as fiee as his first.
His indiidual-  It is important to remember, also, that,
ity not merged in owing to the indestructibleness of man's rethe famnily.
the faily.  sponsible nature, his individuality is not
merged in his social relations, but is carried on into them.
The individual is made for the family only in a subordinate
sense. The family exists for the individual in this respect,
that it attains its own and best by enabling him to attain
his end, and only as it helps him to attain it. It is here
that the first crude and overbearing impulse of his personality to assert itself in all directions begins to be restrained.
Other personal beings are here found to enter into the
sphere of his personality, limiting and defining its activity.
His blind wishes and aims are reduced to personal rights as
the only form in which they can dovetail in with the rights of
others. And every step of the process renders his consciousness of his own accountableness more wakeful and profound.
Condition offal-  We are led to expect, further, that the
len oan is the  con- condition of the first man, as exposed to
dition of his posterity.      suffering and death, will be the condition of
all his posterity. And it is so. Long as had been the
lives of his antediluvian successors, and varied as had been
their moral character, concerning each of those whose
names are on record (with a single exception) it is said"and he died.",  "Death reigned from Adam."      And, as
if to put the question at rest, that their death was not the
result of their own personal transgression, we find that infants, incapable of personal transgression, died also. "In
Adam all die."




DIVINE MANIFESTATION.               61
"But are not the young of animals, though unconnected
with man, subject to the law of mortality also?" Yes, and
the young of both die by the operation of the same natural
law, though not for the same moral reason. The animal
dies in consequence of the operation of a law from which
it was never exempt; but the infant in consequence of the
operation of the same law from which the father of the
race was conditionally exempt; but which exemption, on
the violation of that condition, was repealed, and the preexisting law of death in the animal kingdom was allowed
to prevail universally. Man was recalled to the condition
above which for a time he had been raised, and was allowed
to fall down as a sinner to the level of the more ancient
law of animal suffering and death. Such, indeed, would
have been our condition if no probationary law had existed, but the first man had been guilty of some other act of
disobedience. Then, as now, death would have been introduced objectively by Adam, and would have been continued as a law of sentient existence, from which our race had
never known exemption. Notwithstanding the perverting
tendency of sin, then, man still retained the natural capacity with which he had been originally endowed for knowing, appreciating, voluntarily promoting, and enjoying the
Divine manifestation. Not less did his constitution and
condition illustrate the power, and wisdom, and goodness of
God than on the day of his creation. And even more strikingly
than at first did they disclose the holiness and justice of
which they were designed to be the special manifestation.*
The law now under consideration leads us
Thirdly, direct
Divine communi- to expect that the third means of human educations.
cation and of Divine. manifestation enjoyed
* Man Primeval, pp. 471, 412.




62                THE MEANS OF
by innocent man-namely, direct supernatural communications-will be brought forward into this succeeding economy. If no power had been lost from the human constitution, neither had any law of moral government been
repealed, nor any perfection of the Divine character obscured. The theology of unfallen man, as implied especially in the primal law, was-a powerful, wise, and beneficent
Creator; that Creator his equitable moral Governor; and
immortal happiness in prospect as the reward of his obedience; and a threatened death or loss as the deserved penalty
of disobedience. And this was no less the theory of fallen
man.
The new revelation of Mercy involved no withdrawment
of the claims of Justice; and this perhaps, in the present
connection, is the only point calling for remark. The sin
of man was no frustration of moral government; for that
government showed itself capable of enforcing its sanctions.
With man's first moment of conscious guilt commenced a
process of self-punishment, for that very consciousness involved suffering. The external sentence only interpreted
his fears, and ratified his self-pronounced condemnation.
Nor was he less a subject of moral government after Mercy
had arrested him in his guilty descent than he was before.
That mercy involved no relaxation of law, no apology for
the government under which man had fallen. So far fiom
arraigning the equity of that rule, mercy supported it, forgiveness proclaimed it. Sacrifice and expiation were the
methods of indemnifying and celebrating it. Mercy left
man in the hand of justice still, and only rescued him from
its punishment; and just so much of mercy as there was in
the rescue was there of justice in the punishment. Hence,




DIVINE MANIFESTATION.               63
the original government was still in force. Cain found himself under law not less than Adam. Each man, as he sinned, incurred the penalty.  The judgment of the flood
announced that justice had abated none of its requirements;
that law, "holy, just, and good," as at the beginning, was
as strong to vindicate itself against the last transgression as
against the first.
Whatever was implied in the original institution of the
Sabbath, continued to be implied, for the Sabbath, "made
for nman," continued to be obligatory. To what extent it
was observed, is not at present the question; though there
is strong probable evidence, from the practice of measuring
time by weeks,* that it was never entirely lost sight of, and
that in certain families, at least, it continued to be applied
to holy purposes. Not only did the original reason of the
Sabbatic appointment remain; it increased with every addition which was made to man's knowledge of God. The
impartation of such knowledge to the young would form
part of the appropriate employment of the patriarchal Sabbath, as it did subsequently of the Jewish Sabbath, into
which probably it was copied. For the pious among the
patriarchs could not fail to perceive that. the highest design
alike, of the Sabbath and of the family economy, was,'"that
they should make (such truths) known to their children;
that the generation to come might know them, even the
children which should be born, who should arise and declare
them to their children, that they might set their hope in
(;od, and not forget the works of God, but keep His commandmments;" that the knowledge of the laws and purposes
of the Divine manifestation might be carried forward from
age to age. In other words, the Divine Procedure in the
*Gen. vii, 4; viii., 10, 12.




64   THIE MEANS OF DIVINE MANIFESTATION.
past is never lost to the present or the future. A new stage
of Divine manifestation is not a commencement de novo,
standing in isolation from all that has gone before, but presupposes, includes, and even promotes it.




CHAPTER       III.
TIHE NEW  ASPECT OF THE DIVINE CHARACTER, AND THE
MEANS OF ITS MANIFESTATION; A REMEDIAL ECONOMY
THROUGH THE FAMILY.
A THIRD Law of the Divine manifestation
Law stated.
leads us to expect that the present stage will
be found in advance of the preliminary or Paradisiacal constitution, and "will exhibit the evolution of new laws, facts,
or means of manifestation."
Nature an ever-  External nature would for ages continue to
unfolding revela- present to antediluvian man a preternatural
tion.
aspect. In emerging from the garden into'
the great Edenic region-comprehending probably large
portions of Asia and Africa*-he took possession, in effect,
of a "new world;" and, for him, it was boundless. Experience was then taking its first lessons. Every step into
the wilderness brought to light a new creation. Every discovery was virtually the imposition of a new law. Even
the succession of day and night, the vicissitudes of the seasons, and the annual renewal of the face of the earth, had
yet to be classed among the uniformities of nature. The
phenomena of nature, regular and familiar as they at length
became, would all appear, as they arose first into the horiMan Primeval, p. 18.




66             THE NEW ASPECT OF
zon of human observation, to be so many wonders. The
progress of civilization would be constantly multiplying and
magnifying wonders. And even to the last, probably, the
phenomena of the heavens would continue to possess, for
antediluvian man, the exciting and alarming interest of preternatural interpositions of the Deity.
Direct Divine  Had man's career been unimpeded by sin,
manifestation the original order of the Divine procedure
must now precede
the unfolding of would have led us to look, secondly, for an
man's constitution.
mancnsttutin advance in the means of manifestation afforded by the natural constitution and social condition of man.
But sin had interposed an obstacle to this orderly progression. Between man individual and man social the Fall had
intervened. In order to the. resumption of the great plan,
therefore, and as a part of it, a direct interposition is necessary-an interposition which shall meet the twofold exigency of the case, by both remedying man's objective
condition in relation to God, and by restoring his character
to holiness.*  Apart from  such a provision, the Divine
manifestation can not proceed, and man's earthly history is
at an end. Our order of inquiry, therefore, is now reversed. Man must now stand aside till God has spoken.
Before we can resume our investigation of the human being
as a means of Divine manifestation, we must await a new
and direct unvailing of the Divine character. The manifestation of God by man must wait a Divine manifestation
to him.
Accordingly, the law which is now guiding our inquiries
warrants us in expecting such advance in the direct means
of Divine revelation. This might have been now looked
for even if man had not fallen, but had come out of his
* Supra, p. 14.




TIIE DIVINE CHARACTER.                67
probation without a stain; for progressiveness is a law of
the Divine procedure. But the fact of his having sinned
and fallen-virtually essaying to displace God, and to make
himself the end of creation-supplies a new and a most
urgent reason, entirely distinct from the designed progressiveness of the plan, why, if he is to be spared, an additional
revelation should now be made. His mere punishment, indeed, would have been just; but, elsewhere-in the doom
of the sinning angels-the fires of Justice were already
kindled; so that even if the earth had been left to career
through immensity, a stricken and "a wandering star," it
would have been only re-proclaiming an attribute already
known. But if the law of progressiveness is in force, and
if, besides, the Divine manifestation is to be continued to
man, as well as by him, then new and peculiar means are
necessary, both in order to vindicate the various stages
through which the manifestation has already been carried
-indeed, to vindicate its commencement at all, when such
a crisis as sin has brought was fully and clearly in the Divine view-and also to vindicate its continuance still, and
visibly to place the continuation of the great process on an
adequate basis. Accordingly, the course which the infinitely blessed God was pleased to take, and which had ever
formed a part of His all-comprehending plan, was one of
MEnCY;-a course, the details and wonders of which are
still only in the process of evolution.
In specifying the truths and facts belongM-cans fundamen-.
tal to the economy ing to this new stage of the Divine proceto be distinguished
froi thosee added dure, it is proper to distinguish between
afterward.  those which are coeval with, and fundamental to, tie economy, and those which were superadded
fiom time to time, as man needed or was prepared for




68             THE NEW    ASPECT OF
them. The truths fundamental to the preceding dispensation, were essential also to this new economy, were presupposed by it, and assumed into it; namely, a powerful, wise, and beneficent Creator, the object of man's worship; that Creator his equitable moral Governor; and immortal life in prospect as the reward of his obedience, and
death, standing for all that is opposed to life, as the deserved penalty of disobedience. The new means' of revelation made necessary by man's changed relations, consisted
in a remarkable Promise, and in the institute of Sacrifice
significant of the manner in which the promise would be
fulfilled; and these were laid at the basis of the dispensation. All the other disclosures and events which we shall
have to notice, were either the natural illustrations and developments of this primary theology, or else were accorded by God as man's condition appeared to require them.
These belong to the law of development.
The first Prom-  The First Sin was immediately followed by
ise.        the First Promise-the promise of deliverance. "I will put enmity between thee (the serpent) and
the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; he shall
bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." 
Serpent and his  But who, or what is to be understood by
seed.       the serpent and his seed 2 Our reply to this
question will depend on the light in which we view the
Biblical account of the Fall. From the time of Philo,t and
of the Grecian Jews in general, it has been received by
many, in every age, as a sacred allegory; and we are free
to admit that, provided the doctrinal import of the account
is retained-namely, the trial of man's obedience to the
will of God, and its guilty and judicial issue-the great
* Gen. iii. 15.     f Sacrarum Legum Alleg. Lib. iii.




THE DIVINE CIHARACTER.                 69
point, as to this particular representation, is secured. According to Coleridge, who agrees substantially with Origen's hypothesis,* the serpent "is the pervertible understanding (as distinguished from the Reason), the sophistic
principle, the wily tempter to evil by counterfeit good, the
pander and advocate of the passions and appetites; ever
in league with, and first applying to, the Desire, as the inferior nature in man, the woman in our humanity; and
through the desire prevailing on the will." And his seed
is " the same serpentine and perverted understanding,
henceforth sentenced and bound over to the service of the
animal nature, its needs, and its cravings, dependent on
the senses for all its materials, with the world of sense for
its appointed sphere:" " upon thy belly shalt thou go, and
dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life." f
Is the account  The reason for giving the narrative an alleallegorical?  gorical interpretation-namely, that if it were
foulnd in any other work of Eastern origin, it would be so
construed-admits of easy reply. For, first, if this be an
adequate test by which to distinguish the allegorical fiom
the historical, all the supernatural of the Bible (the element which makes the Bible what it is) must be regarded
as allegorical also, for such it would be regarded if found
in any other work not Divinely authenticated. Secondly,
it forgets that the very fact that other books actually contain some such accounts, implies that at some time, and in
some form, the reality itself has truly existed. Thirdly, it
ignores the peculiar character and claim of the Book in
which the account is given, and degrades it to an equality
with other books. Fourthly, it overlooks the unique and
* De princ. iv. 16. Contra Cels. iv. 40.
f Aids to Reflection; First Edition, pp. 251-253.




70              TIlHE NEW  ASPECT OF
tieinmendous nature of the occasion on which the instruinentality in question is said to have been employed, and
lets it down to the level of an ordinary occasion. Fifthly,
if the difficulty arises from erroneously supposing the
natural serpent to have spoken, it should disappear the moment the presence and agency of an evil spirit are recognized; or if it arises from the preternatural character of
the event, the answer is, that to suppose "the first sin
could come about in a natural manner, is to regard that sin
itself as a natural thing; while, on the contrary, it was just
that kind of thing which is most unnatural, and which has
only become natural."  Sixthly, the permission of evil at all
under the government of the All-perfect is the great mystery, compared with which the present and every similar
question is but as the light dust of the balance; and if it
be admitted that the introduction of sin into a new race
of intelligences be an object likely to call forth the activity
of beings already evil, the only question which remains is,
whether the instrumentality said to have been employed
was suited to the end aimed at. In addition, it is to be remarked that the allegorical view does not recommend itself
by conveying any superior instruction, for all the lessons
which it teaches are equally deducible from the literal interpretation.
The reasons for regarding the Biblical acOr historical?
count of the Fall as historical, are these: It is
organically united with the narrative of the creation, which
takes the usual formula of Hebrew history-" these are the
generations."  It appears in a Book which by uniformly
and distinctly recognizing one living and personal God, and
by distinctly defining man's moral relation to Him, leaves
no room for a mythology. The fact that, while every other




TIHE DIVINE CHARACTER.                 71
nation had a series of myths or a system of mythology, no
one has ever pretended to find more than single and detached
myths in the Hebrew Scriptures, casts discredit on such
pretense. It is recorded in the old, simple, objective style
of historical narrative.; reminding us of the significant fact
that, unlike other nations of antiquity with whom the poetic
clement preceded the historical, Hebrew poetry always looks
back to Hebrew history. While the mythological, moreover, is always national, local, and particular, the Biblical
account, both of the Creation and the Fall, has the character
of true universality. Besides, it would have been deeply
revolting to the reverential piety of an Israelite to represent
his own figments as Divine history. The account also, in
connection with that of the creation, forms the introduction
to an acknowledged history-that of the Theocracy. It is
the only account which, from its view of sin, assumes and
really possesses a historical character. In all the ancient
accounts, apart from Biblical influence, sin is either an unreal or an eternal thing. Pantheism, as in the Egyptian,
Phenician, and Babylonian traditions, by treating sin as an
unreality, renounces its historical existence. Dualism, of
which Parseeisin, Brahmaism, and the later Manilcheism,
are forms, by regarding it as eternal, make a first sin, as the
act of a free being-impossible. It is only where both the
finitude and the individual liberty of man are apprehended,
as they are in Genesis, that the nature of sin is recognized,
and a first sin is possible.*  The Biblical account, too, is
fill of historical details and facts. Thus, it contains a minute
geograptical description of Paradise: the condition of mankind, threatened in this narrative as a punishment, actually
exists: and the account of the same human progenitors,
* HIvernik's Introduction to the Pentateuch, ~ 15, p. 100.




-72        TIIE NEW    ASPECT OF
here brought into view, is continuously carried forward as
history. Then, again, sin and salvation-the two fundamental ideas of the narrative-form the germ of which the
entire Bible is the development. In addition to all which,
the historical character of the narrative is repeatedly recognized in the New Testament.*
Receiving the narrative of the Fall, then, as historical,
and applying to it those rules of interpretation which its
optical and anthropopathic nature obviously demands, we
arrive at the following conclusions: that a certain natural
serpent appeared on a particular occasion to surpass in sagacity every animal nature with which our first parents were
at that time acquainted; that this serpent, selected by an
invisible agent for its pleasing and attractive motion, color,
and form, appeared even to speak-although, as the serpent
is destitute of the organs of speech, the voice must have
proceeded from the unseen Tempter, of whom at that time
they knew nothing; and that, in the same manner, when
the temptation had succeeded, the apparent serpent and its
race were denounced, although the denunciation fell, in
reality, not on the visible instrument, but on the unseen
agent of evil; and it should be remembered that the sentence
was addressed, not to them, but to the unseen intelligence
whom it concerned, and who could well penetrate through
the symbolical language in which his doom was pronounced.
In the New Testament, indeed, the presence of this spiritual
agent in the natural serpent is distinctly recognized.f Even
the earlier writings of the Apocrypha point to the same
* Rom. v. 12-19; 1 Cor. xv. 21, 22; 2 Cor. ii. 3; 1 Tim. ii. 13, 14,
etc.
f 1 John, viii. 44; 2 Cor. xi. 3-14; Rev. xii. 9; xx. 2.




THE DIVINE      CHARACTER.                  73
fact.*  And, probably, our first parents themselves soon
afterward came to the right general conclusions on the subject.  But at the period of the Fall, when their deep sense
of injury demanded that the occasionz of their transgression
should not go unpunished, and when the punishment to be
inflicted on the invisible foe could not be made obvious to
theim, the sentence appeared to them     to fall where it was
due (although no change in the structure or habits of the
serpent actually took place,f only its peculiar reptilian habits
became symbols of deep disgrace)-thus gratifying their
sense of right, developing their feeling of the evil of sin, and
inculcating the great doctrine that every tempter to evil
shall be punished.1
The seed of th  c Who or what is to be understood by the
woman.    seed of the woman?    That it has a collective
* Wisdom, ii. 24. The same doctrine is taught in the Zend-Avesta,
the ancient and sacred book of the Parsees, Th. 3, pp. 84, 85.
+ Is it not remarkable, as a coincidence, that there should have been a
period in the ancient history of animal life when reptiles were not the
degraded class which they now are? During "the reptile dynasty" of
the secondary ages, the shrunken and footless serpent of later times was
unknown. " The Iguanodon must have been quite as tall as the elephant; the Megalosaurus must have at least equaled the rhinoceros; the
Hylmosaurus would have outweighed the hippopotamus.  And when
reptiles that rivaled in size our largest mammals inhabited the land,
other reptiles, Icthyosaurs, Plesiosaurs, and Cetiosaurs possessed the sea.
* *      Nor did the Hand that makes no slips in its working' form tl~
crooked serpent,' footless, groveling, venom-bearing-the authorized type
of a fallen and degraded nature-until after the introduction of the mammals."-Hugh Miller's Footprints of the Creator, pp. 294-298.
t On this subject see Hengstenberg's.Christology, vi. c. 2. Art.
Adam in Kitto's Bibl. Cyclo. Knapp's Theology, ~ 75. Storr's Comment.
de Protevangelio in his Opuscula, tom. II.; and Bishop Horsley's Sermons, vol. ii. 38-54.
4




74             TIHE NEW  ASPECT OF
and secondary reference to the entire body of the faithful,
there can be no doubt; for the triumph of the Deliverer is
the virtual triumph of all whom he delivers. And hence
the cheering declaration of the Apostle, " The God of peace
shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly."*  But that its
primary and principal reference is to a single individual
among the posterity of Eve-however dimly this fact was
apprehended at first-appears from several New Testament
allusions. Even two of the ancient Jewish paraphrasesthe Targum of Jonathan and that of Jerusalem-while interpreting the seed, of the Jews collectively, expressly refer
the fulfillment of the promise to "the days of the King
Messiah." Indeed, if the term seed is only to be considered
collectively, of the posterity of Eve, both of outi first parents
are excluded from the benefit of the promise. For, although
the conduct of some of their posterity might operate beneficially for those who came after, it is not conceivable how
it could so operate retrospectively. It is only by supposing,
then, that the Deliverer should be an unique individual, and
his deliverance of a nature calculated to benefit all alike, in
every age, from " the foundation of the world," t who might
desire to avail themselves of it, that our progenitors could
be regarded as included in the promise. And though this
might not have occurred to them at first, the longer they
lived, and especially as death approached, this was the only
view of the promise which was calculated to console them.
In harmony with this interpretation, we read that, " when
the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son
made of a woman.": And " for this purpose the Son of
God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of
* Romans, xvi. 20.  f 1 Peter, L 20; Romans, iii. 25.
t Galatians, iv. 4.




TIHE DIVINE CHARACTER.                75
the devil."* He was the SEED SO pre-eminently that, for
the bearing of it, woman was continued, and that but for
the bearing of it, the race would have been discontinued:
so pre-eminently, that of all who would be born prior to
His advent the most distinguished would be, at best, only
partial types; and of all born after, the greatest and the
best would be only His imitators and servants.
Import of the  Here, then, was projected a dim shadow of
promise.  the great plan of mercy.  What was the
cheering intimation which it was calculated to convey to
the minds of our first parents? To say that they could not
recognize in it a distinct prophecy of a Redeemer as we do,
is only saying that as new light has been poured on it in
successive ages, its full import has been more clearly developed, and more comprehensively understood. " This promise, as it is the first, is also the most indefinite." But, even
to their minds, it must have forcibly conveyed the impression that their sin and suffering would certainly be remedied;
that this deliverance would be the result of a struggle in
which the seed of the woman would sustain only partial
injury; that their enemy or enemies would sustain final and
fatal defeat; and, perhaps, that this triumph would be
achieved by a Being who should be, in a peculiar sense, the
offspring of the woman.
That this promise was especially seasonable and necessary
for our first parents, is evident from the self-abased and
trembling condition in which it found them. That the figure
of a conflict and a triumph in which the promise was conveyed was eminently suitable, will appear when it is remembered that they themselves had just been conscious of
* 1 John, iii. 8. Also Heb. ii. 14; Gal. iii. 16. On the latter passage,
see Tholuck on the Hebrews, App. to Diss. I.




TIHE NEW   ASPECT OF
a struggle-of a mental and moral conflict-in which they
had sustained a fearful defeat, and that they were probably
filled with indignation against the supposed occasion of
their transgression. That it was of vast importance in the
Divine estimation of Him who announced it may be inferred
from the circumstance, that no sooner had He convicted
man of his guilt than He uttered it, even before He announced the impending penalty. Not only " in the midst
of wrath did I-e remember mercy;" but by the precedence,
in the order of time, which He gave to the promise, MERCY
rejoiced against judgment even in this first moment of her
advent. It gave man a moral horizon, and kindled in it a
star. Its power of awakening expectation and inspiring
hope appears from the fact that, having been once dropped,
like a seed of the tree of life, into the human mind, it never
ceased to germinate and flourish, though the product speedily
and extensively degenerated.
In close connection with the giving of this PROTEVANGELIUM, or First Gospel, an event is recorded,* from which
we infer that it was immediately followed by the Divine
institution of Sacrifice. And our object will be to show
that the institute is related to the promise in meaning as
closely as it is in time-that, together, they form consistent
and organic parts of a great system of revelation. But in
order to this we must first determine the special truths
which sacrifices were designed to express; and prior to this
we must ascertain the nature of their origin.
Now, that sacrifices were not of human
Institution   of
sacrifice,wasitDi- invention, but of Divine institution, appears
vine?       morally certain, we think, from such considerations as these:-That it is not antecedently probable that
* Genesis, iv. 2-8.




THE DIVINE CIARACTER.                    77
God would leave man in ignorance of the manner in which
he should acceptably worship Him; and yet the first act of
acceptable worship which we find man performing is that
of animal sacrifice.  That this improbability is greatly increased by the fact that God had not only inspired man
with hope by the language of promise, but had even condescended to instruct him to clothe his body with a skinvesture; and surely He who thus condescended to meet
man's bodily wants would not abandon him to his own inventions respecting the cravings of his higher nature. That
the universality of expiatory offerings * proves man's deep
consciousness of such a want; and yet, if they were not
Divinely appointed, no provision was made to meet the exigence.  That if God had left man uninstructed, it is not
likely that man would have so early devised any settled
method of his own for approaching God; yet here we find
the first members of the first family coming before the
Lord with offerings as their familiar, established, and only
mode of worship.   That of all methods of worship, that of
shedding blood-of sacrcflcing aC    animal-is one of the
least likely to have originated in the human mind; and yet
here we find a member of the first family-one who had
probably never slaughtered an animal for himself — reject* See Magce's Disc. on Atonement and Sacrifice, No. v. xxxviii. lvi.
Prof. Ernst von Lasaulx on the Expiatory Sacrifices of the Greeks and
Romans; Bibliotleca Sacra, vol. i. p. 368, etc.' The fact that Abel was " a keeper of sheep" suggests the question,
For what purpose did he keep them, if not chiefly for sacrifice? For
surely they would not be slain solely for their skins. The notion that a
portion of the victim was eaten by the offerer is opposed by the fact that
the holocaust, or "whole burnt offering," was entirely consumed on the
altar, and that the word so translated, i:T, is used to designate the ear



78               THE NEW     ASPECT OF
ing the more simple and natural oblation of fruits and
flowers, and confidently calculating on pleasing God by putting an animal to death. That the Divine acceptance of the
first sacrifice on record confirms the conviction that the rite
was instituted by God; for as it is a fundamental rule in
the worship of God that "in vain do they worship me,
teaching for doctrines the commandments of men,"* if the
first sacrifice on record was not offered in vain, but was
honored with the Divine acceptance, it follows that it was
not a human invention, but a Divine appointment.t      And
that the acceptance of Abel's offering, and the rejection of
Cain's, was not owing merely to a difference in the worshipers, but also to a difference in their oferings; for not
only is the Divine approbation of Noah's offering attributed
to its sacrificial nature,t but as the faith which the Apostle
celebrates, when speaking of Abel, was a faith which led
the patriarchs to acts of obedience,~ who can doubt that the
faith of Abel consisted also in obedience to a Divine appointment? On these grounds we conclude that the institution of sacrifice was of Divine origin.
Si  e of   Additional reasons for this conviction will
Significance of
sacrifice.  appear in proceeding to consider the significance or symbolical nature of sacrifice. What, then, is the
liest recorded sacrifices after that of Abel, Gen. viii. 20; xx.', 8, 13;
leaving it to be inferred that Abel's sacrifice was of the same kind; although, in relation to it the more general term offering is employed, which
is applied also to that of Cain. There is no ground to believe that animal food had then been thought of; indeed, it is unknown in many parts
of Asia to this day. See also Magee, No. lxiv. vol. ii. pp. 230, 231.
* Mark, vii. 7.
f Hallett on Heb. xi. 4, in his Continuation of Peirce on the Epistle to the
Hebrews; and Faber's Prim; Sacrifice, p. 183.
t Gen. viii. 20, 21.                  ~ Heb. xi.




THE DIVINE CHARACTER.                 79
fundamental idea of sacrifice? It can not be that of a gift
merely, as an expression of gratitude. Such an offering
man might have presented, while yet unfallen, denoting by
it how entirely he felt himself to belong to God, how perfectly his own will harmonized with the will of God, and
how profoundly conscious of joy he was on account of it.
But " before Adam sinned, he was himself an offering, and
hence had no need of an offering."* WThere total union of
will exists, where all that belongs to man belongs to God
in a yet higher sense, the special consecration of a part
would have been felt to be inadequate and unsatisfactory.
But this union of the will of man with the will of God no
longer existed; sin had disturbed it, and rebelled against
it. Any offering, therefore, which ignored the fact of this
awful rupture, or which rated it at less than fatal, would
have been an acted falsehood-a repetition of the original
offense with aggravation-an indignity to the Divine nature. Nor could the offering embody mere external and
material conceptions, or be irrespective of the mind and will
of the offerer. This man's own nature forbade. For, having revolted, he could not conceal from himself a deepseated sense of guilt; and having, by the same act which
dissevered him from God, broken up the harmony of his
own nature, he could not but carry about with him a restlessness for restoration. Every sigh for self-restoration was
a sigh for return to God; and the converse. The only offering, therefore, which could now be relevant, was one by
which man might plead guilty to his disturbed relationship
with God, and earnestly aim at reparation. Hence, the
idea lying at the foundation of all sacrificial worship was
* Quoted by Thobuck on the Ep. to the Heb. vol. ii. p. 252, from a work
of Rabbi Jacob, of Metz.




80             THE NEW    ASPECT OF
that of self-surrender, by substitution, and in the hope of
pardon-a deep consciousness of having merited the death
inflicted on the vicarious animal, and an intense desire that
the insulted Deity would accept the immolation as a means
of compensation. It was an acted deprecation, for a reason. The will which had offended was seen symbolically
supplicating, on expiatory grounds, the will which had been
violated. In each of the two parties, the wzill was the supreme point; for it was an affair of will-of personality
and government-which had made the sacrifice necessary.
Springing from the requirements of holiness in the Divine
nature, it responded to the cries of conscience in the human
nature. The two natures could not be satisfied with less.
Deep called unto deep, " without the shedding of blood is
no remission of sins."  And, hence, the purest sacrifice was
preferred, not only as the most worthy of the recipient,
but also as the furthest removed from the guilty condition
of the offerer, and most condemnatory of it; and the costliest sacrifice, as most expressive of the fact that there was
nothing which he had not forfeited, and which might not
have been demanded; and the most voluntary, as that alone
which could express the idea of self-abnegation-of the offerer " divesting himself of his own subjectivity" and surrendering his "innermost" to God;-all vividly denoting
the idea which forms the essence of true religion-the offering up of self-the readjustment once more, by subordination, of our will to the Divine will, and the consequent recovery of a Divine life. Subjectively, then, the institution
of sacrifice finds its reason in man's deep consciousness of
guilt and desire of reunion with the Supreme will; and,
objectively, in a Divine appointment of holiness and mercy
which made such restoration possible.




THE DIVINE CHARACTER.                 81
Was sacrcepi-  Now, that the patriarchal and primitive
acular?  sacrifices were regarded as piacular is established by all the evidence of which the case admits. Thus,
of Job it is recorded that " he offered burnt-offerings" for
his sons, for he said, " it may be that my sons have sinned."*
When "Noah builded an altar unto the Lord, and offered
burnt-offerings upon the altar, the Lord smelled a savdr of
rest [or propitiation]; and the Lord said, I will not again
curse the ground any more." f He was appeased. So also, of
the first recorded offerings, it is said, that Cain brought of his
fruits and Able of hisflock; "and the Lord had respect
unto Abel and to his offering, but unto Cain and to his offering He had not respect.":  But why this distinction?
Considered merely as eucharistic offerings, Cain's fruits, the
products of his own tillage, were not less appropriate than
the firstlings of Abel's flock. Regarded in the light of
covenant pledges-of which a portion was eaten by the
offerer-the oblation of Cain was even preferable to that
of Abel, for animal food was yet unknown. The only inference is, that the reason of the Divine preference of Abel's
sacrifice lay in its piacular nature; but that Cain, though
sinful like his brother, and needing forgiveness, ignored the
awful fact of his guilt, and thus converted his professed
homage into an act of impenitence and insult. Still further
is the expiatory nature of primitive sacrifices to be inferred
from the Divine reply to Cain's anger at his rejection.
" And the Lord said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth? and
why is thy countenance fallen? If thou doest well, shalt
thou not be accepted? And if thou doest not well, a sin* Job, i. 5; see also xlii. 7, 8.
t Gen. viii. 21, 22; comp. Lov. xxvi 31.  $ Gen. iv. 4-'.
4*




82              THE NEW     ASPECT OF
offering coucheth at thy door." * Here is clearly the statement of a grand alternative; and it is implied that with
neither member of it could Cain be justly dissatisfied. Let
him render sinless obedience, and he shall find Divine acceptance as a perfect being; or else let him come as a penitent transgressor, suing for mercy through an expiatory
sacrifice, and, like Abel, he shall be accepted. Thus early
was redemption through a piacular medium appealed to as an
already-established principle of the Divine administration.
hWhat, then, were the sentiments which
The sentiments
it was calculated sacrifices were calculated to develop in the
to develop.  mind of primeval man?     Let the thrilling
scene of the first sacrifice be imagined. Let the offerer be
pictured, recent fiom his guilty fall, and with the last accents of his Maker still sounding in his ear. Let him be
seen inflicting on the selected victim the fatal stroke-now,
first, looking on death by violence-death inflicted by his
own hand. Let him be traced through all the stages of
the service, until the last palpitation of the animal has
ceased-the life-blood has poured its last drop-the consuming flame has burnt out-and nothing but the ashes of
the animal remain. How eminently was the impressive rite
calculated to awaken sentiments such as these:-" No more
can I come before God in the simple glow of gratitude and the
confidence of innocence; I have sinned, I have sinned; the
purpose for which life was bestowed upon me I have frus* The rendering of the last clause of this passage in the English version amounts to a truism. Chattath, translated " sin," denotes in the law
a "sin-offering," Lev. vi. 19; ix. 15; Hosea iv. 8; etc.; and rabatz, translated "lieth," describes the recumbency of a beast. Lightfoot's Works,
vol. vii. p. 209. Faber's Origin of Expiatory Sacrifice, p. 85, Horce
Mosaicce, B. ii. ~ 3, c. 2.




THE DIVINE CHAEACTEE.                 83
trated; the only condition on which I could hope to retain
it I have violated; I have brought my will in collision with
the Supreme will; my offense is heinous, death its only
proper punishment; I am unable, by any thing I can do, to
merit exemption from the penalty; and, like this sacrifice,
I deserve to die; but in the appointment of this awful rite,
God has shown Himself to be full of mercy; the way of
forgiveness may be through the substitution of an expiatory victim; but, whatever that way may be, I desire cordially to acquiesce in it; and, therefore, in faith and obedience I present this sacrifice; offering myself as I offer this
blood; surrendering my forfeited life, that I may receive
it back again as the free gift of God."  How many of these
reflections were present to the mind of Adam or of Abel,
we know not. It is not to be supposed that every offerer
could give to himself so distinct an account of what he was
doing. But the fact that Abel sacrificed " by faith,1" determines that his state off'eeling wvas in harmony with this
Divine strain, and gave to the act this significance.
Promise and  Now,, as might have been expected, these
Sacrifice parts of primary means and movements of Mercya hole   the Promise and the Institute-are found
united as integral parts of the same plan. If the one
verbally announced deliverance, the other symbolically indicated the manner in which it would be effected. If the
one pointed for its instrumental fulfillment to the woman,
the other looked for its performance to the man. Each
alike affirmed and respected man's free agency; for the
proilise wlhich is addressed to faith, man may believe or
rejec(t; and the sacrifice rwhich calls for obedience, lie may
perfbrm  or neglect-lie is not forced to either.  But,
chiefly, both the promise and tile institute strikinllly unite




84             THE NEW ASPECT OF
in the production of th-s one effect-to impress man with
a sense of his increased dependence on God. Related
to God as he was previously at every point of his nature,
and through every moment of his being, their special office
is to keep him in the habitual recognition of his new and
still profounder relationship. They find him guilty, and in
that state they arrest and fix him; or rather, they require
from him a permanent acknowledgment of the fact. They
find him depraved; and they lead him in that state into
the presence of God, as a being on whom the eye of Holiness can not rest complacently except through a medium
of Divine origination. They find him helpless and self-condemned; and in proporticn as he enters into their spirit
and design, he confesses that his hope of deliverance is derived directly from God. His first sin was an effort at independence; his first acceptable act of worship, as a sinner,
must be a profound acknowledgment that he is more dependent than ever. His first sin was an action; his first
expression of sorrow must be an act of self-condemnation.
And such is sacrifice-self-immolation " in a figure." His
sin was a virtual diversion of all the kingdoms of nature
which had been given into his hand that he as their interpreter and minister might give the glory of the whole to
God; in his first sacrifice, he is to bring them all back
again-for in the altar, the wood, and the victim, they were
all present-and is thus to take them as the witnesses of
his guilt in abusing them, and of his penitence and dependence in restoring them again to the Great Proprietor.
And thus the first promise and the first institute, like the
first prohibition, were designed to impress man with a sense
of his entire dependence, and to augment his motives of
obedience; so that they belong, in this respect, to the one




THE DIVINE CHARACTER.                85
great system of means-proclaiming the same truths, and
promoting the same end. And this principle, we repeat,
we may expect to find pervading the whole economy of the
Divine manifestation; exhibiting the blessed God as taking
occasion from man's guilty and helpless condition to unfold
a new aspect of his own all-sufficiency.
Arrest removed  ith this grand remedial arrangement on
from man's evolu- the part of God, the arrest was removed
tion.    from the evolution of man.  The God of
holiness had appeared as the God of mercy, and therefore
the manifestation of man individual was allowed to proceed
to that of man social. Now, supposing sin had not intervened, we should surely have been justified in looking for
a new illustration of the Divine character in the constitution of social man, on the same grounds in which we were
led to expect it in the individual; for the command, " increase and multiply," preceded the Fall. The end proposed
by the existence of man and his race was one; and every
onward step in his history-and therefore his social development-was to be a step toward the attainment of that
end. But the ground for expecting such progress now, so
far from being diminished by the new arrangement of
Mercy, is greatly increased. Every previous reason continues in force; and this new ground has been added to
them-that the proposed remedy for man individual is to
come instrumentally through the family. The very step in
advance which sin had threatened to cut off is actually converted into the means of indefinite progress. On the highest ground, therefore, we are warranted to expect an advance in the means of the Divine manifestation in the constitution of the human family, on.all that had preceded it
in the animal kingdom.




86             THE NEW    ASPECT OF
Antec t  Prior to the existence of the first human
Antecedent
questions.  family, the questions might, hypothetically,
have been asked, What will be the nature of the relations
between man and wife, between them and their descendants,
and among these descendants themselves? What will be
the strength, the tendency, the duration, and the distinctive
characteristic of these relations? What will be the order
of their importance? How will they modify each other;
and how will they affect the multitudes that will be born?
Will man live in isolation like some of the animal tribes?
or in gregarious juxtaposition like others? or in a state of
social intercommunion different from any thing which the
earth has yet exhibited? This last might have been expected, as we have seen, from the essential difference both
of man's constitution and of his destiny. Accordingly, we
here find the evolution and existence of the domestic constitution; a constitution which was evidently contemplated
at the institution of marriage, and subsequently pre-supposed
in the giving of the first Promise, but the peculiar nature of
which was yet to be developed.
Basis of the  The foundation of this new constitution was
Basis of the
familylaid in mar- laid in the Divinely-instituted union of husriagc.
ria.    band and wife. "Have ye not read (saith
our Lord)* that Ile who made them [man and wife] at the
beginning, made them [a] male and [a] female; [as intending to prevent both polygamy and divorce] and said [as the
formal authentication of the great law of marriage already
inserted in the constitution of human nature], For this cause
[or, on account of entering into the married state] shall a
man leave his fatther and mother [the nearest relation he
had previously sustained], and cleave unto his wife, and
* Matthew, xix. 4-6, referring to Genesisi ii. 24.




THE DIVINE CHARACTER.                87
they twain shall be one flesh. Wherefore, they are no more
twain, but one flesh." A union this so intimate, that every
other is to yield to it; so sacred, that the Divine proclamation concerning it is, "What God hath joined together let
no man put asunder;" so indissoluble, that nothing is to
separate it but that which separates the soul from the body;
so spiritual in its ultimate relations and aims, as to find its
antitype only in that Divine union which, as the fruit of
redemption, is to survive every other, and to attain its consummation in heaven.*
The institution  Now, here was not only " a new thing in
unique.  the earth," but an immeasurable advance on
every previously existing arrangement in the animal kingdom, as well as the occasion of the grand development of
the individual man. Duality in unity, indeed, is a principle
pervading even inanimate nature. The botanical kingdom
brings us acquainted with the antithesis of sex, and even
with so-called social plants. Very different, however, is
this antithetical unity in the more advanced classes of the
animal kingdom; and especially as seen in its results among
the few labor-dividing and apparently social species. But
it is to be borne in mind that the nearer the animal appears
to approach to man in these respects, the more distinctly
the phenomena proclaim themselves to be purely instinctive.
Not only are the same phenomena in the human sphere
different in degree, but also in kind. The acts are estimated
by the agent himself; the ends are deliberated on and propoised by an act of freedom.
Divine idea of  If man's destiny, regarded as an individual,
the family.  is different from that of all the rest of animated nature, it was to be expected that every part of his
* Ephesians, v. 32.




88             THE NEW ASPECT OF
constitution would point to this difference, and in some way
subserve it. And our examination, in a preceding volume,
presented man to view as a being capable of enjoying and
subserving the highest ends of the Divine government, and
therefore as held accountable for it; leaving us to the conclusion that the conjugal union is not necessary as the moral
complement of either sex, but that such accountable completeness is pre-supposed by marriage. But if every part
of the individual man is thus found to be relative to his high
spiritual destiny, there is still stronger ground to expect
that the union which makes of two individuals one, will
point to the same end; and stronger still is the ground for
expecting it, when it is viewed as a union in which, by the
birth of offspring, man becomes instrumentally an exponent
of that life-giving, creative power by which he himself was
made in the Divine image. Why can he have been invested
subordinately with the prerogative of multiplying his own
image, but in order that he might transform his offspring
into the likeness of the Creator? Procreation itself is not
an end; nor is his own character the standard of perfection.
Education is only the continuation and complement of procreation, and the end of both is to assimilate the human to
the Divine.
For this profound conception of the conIts high purpose.
jugal union, we are indebted exclusively to
the Bible.* The derivation of the woman, and of only one
woman, from the man-the domestic supremacy of the man
-the entireness or oneness of the union-and its sacred
indissolubility-all point to this high spiritual aim as the
normal idea of marriage. Only on this ground have two
beings, made obr God, any right to give themselves up to
* Tholuck's Exposition of the Sermon on the Mount, p. 319.




THE DIVINE CIIAIrACTER.              89
each other in a union of love. But the fact that the union
is one by which the Creator actually admits man into fellowship with Himself in the accomplishment of His highest
ends, makes the mutual surrender, otherwise inexplicable,
consistent with human dignity by consecrating it to the
Divine glory. In the primal union, all the foreshadowings
of nature on the subject were interpreted and fulfilled. The
instinctive affections acquired the sacredness of moral principles. Animal appetites became the means of religious
improvement. The gregarious instinct was exchanged for
a sociality whose tendency is to become perpetual. That
which, in the lower creation, had been only sexual and transitory, now became sacramentally related to the spiritual
and eternal. The paternal will found itself enthroned over
other wills. Man was the representative of God. The
family became the seat of moral government-the very
image of the Divine. As its members multiplied, its relations became diffused and attenuated, till they even ceased'
to be specifically named; but still an indestructible network of affinity held them all in union, and from every relation sprang a corresponding obligation. To individual
man, the first table of the law only would have been known;
with the family, came the second table. Aspects of the
Divine character, hitherto unknown, were now unvailed;
and the family constitution, rightly understood, became a
new volume of Divine Revelation.
The germ of so-  In the bosom of this primal union lay the
ciety.  germ of the great genealogical tree of the
human race. "Individuals (says Howe)* are elements of
families; families are elements of which both Churches and
kingdoms or commonwealths are made up; and as the one
*Vol. v. p. 511.




90             THE NEW    ASPECT OF
of these is purely civil, the other purely sacred, that which
is elementary to both must be both." So that here we find
ourselves looking in on the elements of all the forms of human society. And this constitution-unique as compared
with all that had gone before it-will be found pre-eminently to characterize that stage of the Divine manifestation
which stretches from the Fall to the Flood. We may call
it, interchangeably, the Domestic Constitution, the Family
Economy, or the Patriarchal Dispensation; the last name
being especially descriptive of the Domestic Constitution
in its state of utmost development, and of its dispensational
aspect as distinguished from the Mosaic economy and the
Christian Church.
With the family  Fmnally, with the rise of the family, there
came mediation. come into view a new aspect of the sacrificial
institute-that of mediation; for, if the offering up of the
animal symbolized the idea of substitution, equally did the
offerer, as the father of the family, express the idea of
mediation. Even from the first, man stood not alone. Not
one of all his progeny can be truly viewed as an isolated individual. He is a member of a race. His individual life is
connected with the life of the collective race. In that collective capacity, worship is due from the race to God. How
significantly would this great truth be embodied as often,
and as long, as the father of the race himself continued to
officiate at the altar in his representative capacity! For
centuries, the unity of the race could not be doubted, for
there, at the place of sacrifice, the first man was seen interceding for his human family. Having instrumentally originated their bodily existence, and having, by his fall, vitiated
their normal condition, it was now his high office to represent them all at the altar of propitiation. They who from




THE DIVINE CHARACTER.                91
sex and age were incapacitated for offering, and they who,
as heads of younger families, were entitled personally to
sacrifice, were all alike present in the person of the officiating patriarch. The life-blood of the victim flowed for the
"one blood" of humanity. Thus early the human family
was seen symbolically drawing near to God, as one living
organic whole, through a mediator. And, in a similar manner, Abraham, and Noah, and every antediluvian patriarch,
represented their offspring and dependents at the place of
sacrifice, transacting with God on their behalf. And the
idea which lay at the root of primeval mediation corresponded with that at the basis of sacrifice-a deep sense of
guilt and of estrangement from God on the part of those
represented-making it necessary that he who represented
them should himself be a holy, accepted, consecrated worshiper, concerned alike for the honor of God and for the
acceptance of those for whom he mediated. Surely it might
have been said, the blood-relationship of the human family,
thus represented and consecrated at the altar, will prove
too strong for the exploding selfishness of sin! Love will
triumph!




CHAPTER         IV.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE FAMILY CONSTITUTION AND OF THE
MEANS OF MERCY DURING THE PATRIARCIIAL ECONOMY.
Law of develop-  EVV  have seen that the threefold means of
ment.   human education and of Divine manifestation
enjoyed by paradisiacal men-namely, external nature, his
own constitution and condition, and direct communications
from the Creator-have all been brought forward into the
family economy. The law of development leads us to expect that these means, " besides being brought forward, will
be here Divinely expressed in higher forms, or applied to
higher purposes, or else that it will be in the power of the
human being so to express or apply them." It will be remarked that so far from favoring the popular error of human
perfectibility as a fact of inherent necessity, we view man's
progress as made possible only by the progress of the means
Divinely supplied to him. All history is a protest against
the notion of man's advance on any other condition. Since
the world began, History might have written alternate
chapters on man's material perfectibility, and his moral corruptibility.
Its antediluvian  "Man (says Montesquieu) is born in sotheater.  ciety, and there he remains."  Even the first
man was made for the associate which the Creator provided.




THE FAMILY CONSTITUTION.               93
Nor was the region which they came forth firom Eden to
occupy less adapted, after its kind, to become the theater
of the development of the family constitution than they
themselves were adapted to each other. Of antediluvian
topography we can of course do little more than form conjectures. The garclen of Eden was, as we have elsewhere
stated,* probably situated on the southern slope of Arnienia. But Eden itself may have embraced the fairest portion of Asia and a part of Africa. Over large tracts of this
widely extended territory, especially'of that comprehending the lands lying between 25~ and 40~ N. latitude, and between 30~ and 80~ E. longitude, the antediluvian families
may have been diffused. But it would aid us little toward
verifying our views, even if we were able to determine the
precise boundaries of the districts inhabited, unless we could
also ascertain their physical condition at that time, as compared with the changes which they may have since undergone. The probability is, indeed, that the physical geography of those portions of the earth did not then materially
differ from what it was in, at least, the early portions of
their postdiluvian history.t Doubtless, they were wisely
adapted to be the theater of the great transactions for
which Providence had destined them.
And who that had seen the primeval pair
Means of development waiting to come forth from paradise to take possession
b employed.  of their new world, could have pictured to
himself the amazing degree in which it was to become the
occasion of human development, and to be filled with the
indications of " what was in man," or of his self-manifestaMan Primeval, p. 18.
f See an admirable article on the Physical Geogr. of W. Asia in the
Penny Cyclo.




94 1THE DEVELOP3IENT OF
tion! True, the elements of the whole race were slumbering within them; and some of those elements were already
in a state of incipient activity and development. Already
they had been, to a certain extent, Divinely instructed in
the knowledge of nature. But before them now lay a vast
domain to which such knowledge had never yet been applied, and where it would be receiving perpetual accessions.
There were the cattle upon a thousand hills, yet unherded
and untamed; the fields and forests yet unclaimed, and intelligently untrod; its mineral and other resources yet unemployed; its still unexhausted treasures yet to be intelligently looked on for the first time. Yet, with its still unnumbered objects, and its changes of times and seasons,
the whole, even to the atom too light to fall to the earth,
was under law. And by his study of this diversified law,
and his growing perception of its all related operation, man
was to be led in adoring wonder to the Law-giver, and to
increase his knowledge of natural theology. Already had
our first parents been Divinely taught to anticipate the
subsequent multiplication of their species. But at present
they stood childless and alone. The tender names of father
and mother had yet to be uttered for the first time; the
endearing relations of brother and sister, yet to exist; the
first shelter yet to be provided, and the first couch spread,
for infantine weakness. And as they stood yet thus alone,
look where they would, " the world was all before them
where to choose."  "There was much land to be possessed;" and wherever they chose to abide, and on whatever they chose to lay their hand, it was their own. No
landmark yet existed. The laws of property were not yet
expressed. The whole system of social ethics had yet to
be evolved; and thus to increase their knowledge of hu



THE FAMILY CONSTITUTION.               95
man nature.   And already had a special revelation of
mercy been made to them in the first promise, and in the
institution of sacrifice. But the various effects of these on
different classes of character had yet to be seen. The deep
and hallowed emotions they would excite had yet to find
their images in the objects around. The first Edenic altar
had yet to arise. And in all the widely-extended solitudes
which lay before them, they were the only worshipers. If,
fiom some Pisgah height, they surveyed the goodly prospect which stretched on all sides round, what did they behold but a world filled with the selected and arranged
manifestations of the Deity, all of which were as yet undisturbed and untouched; and awaiting their descent to become the scene of their own activity, and the occasions and
means of human manifestation.
Now had it been our privilege, as beings of a different
order, to have gazed with them on that virgin earth; and
if then, after an absence of about two thousand years-on
the eve of the Flood-we could have looked on the same
region fiom the same spot, how strangely revolutionized
should we have found the scene! Might we not have supposed that it must, in the interval, have beentaken possession of by colonies from other worlds? Civilization, in
many of its most transforming processes, would be seen to
have changed its active face; an ever-active being to have
left marks of his presence every where.
In proceeding to illustrate the development
Nature; why
had the creative which took place in the means of manifestaprocess paused? tion during the period in question, we have
to begin with those of external nature. The inquiry may
sometimes arise in the mind, Why did the creative process
stop when it did; or, why do not the Divine perfections




96            THE DEVELOPMENT OF
continue to be displayed by additional exhibitions of creative glory? To which it might be replied that, in other
parts of the universe, such creative displays may, not improbably, continue to be made; and many a holy being,
once an inhabitant of this world, may now be looking on.
In relation to this earth, the process has not reached its
final termination. That it has paused for a few thousand
years-as it did probably during its earlier stages-we admit. But after awhile the pause will probably cease, and
the process be resumed again, when the earth shall have
passed through its regenerating fires. Meantime, the questioner may properly be met with the counter question,
Why should the creative process be, for the present, continued?  Surely, he would not assign any reason for his
wish inferior to that of being afforded an opportunity
of admiring the power, and wisdom, ard goodness of God.
But the earth is still stored with unclassed and unexplored
illustrations of these perfections. Till these are exhausted,
therefore, the glory of God does not need that any such
new illustrations should be added, whatever man's curiosity
and frivolity might desire; besides that it may be for the
honor of the Divine regard to our welfare, as free beings,
to withhold them. But the direct and sufficient reply to
the question is this, that the very production of a creature
such as man-capable of reading aright the signs of power,
and wisdom, and goodness, which the objective universe
already displays, and of making the right use of themwould form, in his own person, so perfect a complement of.
mere creative manifestation, as to render further additions
of the creative kind, for the present at least, unnecessary.
A mere irrational creation, however enlarged and diversified, could not carry the manifestation of the Deity beyond




THE FAMILY     CONSTITUTION.            97
the point which it has already reached-the illustration of
Goodness. While a rational and responsible being, such
as man, not only requires the display of the moral perfections of his Maker, but actually constitutes such a moral
manifestation, and, as such, desires, and is prepared to appreciate, whatever other and higher disclosures of moral
excellence God may be pleased to grant.
WVhat, then, are the media through which
Nature meant                                 n 
for man's im- man is to express his need of such higher
provcmcnt.
provent.  manifestations; or, what the vehicle through
which God is to impart them? The constitution of man
mighlt have led us antecedently to expect that " the things
which are seer" would, in some way, be employed to suggest and to signify the invisible, and the material to subserve the spiritual. And when we remember that, previous
to creation, the selection of the planet which man should
inhabit, the choice of the form, the appearance, and the
complicated relations of every object on it, was entirely dependent on the will of God, it is only rational to expect
that the whole would be made conducive, in some way, to
one chief and ultimate end, as well as variously contributive
to the principal means subsidiary to that end. Accordingly, on the coming of man, nature assumed a new aspect,
and showed that she had been awaiting his presence, by
forthwith presenting him with the occasions and materials
appropriate to his comfort and improvement.
Arts success-  Starting fiom a point far in advance of the
ivelydeveloped. savage' state, man's first easy occupation in
Eden had been " to dress it and to keep it."  But now he
had left the garden for the field, the plain, and the wilderness. Nothing was absolutely ready to his hand, but every
thing offered itself to his use. The cultivable nature of the
5




98             THE DEVELOPMENT OF
soil, and the knowledge which had been Divinely imparted
on the subject, made agriculture possible; and " Cain was a
tiller of the groundl."  The habits of certain animals invited
man to practice the art of anzimal domestication; hence
pasturage arose, and " Abel was a keeper of sheep."  One
animll seemed to offer to man its fleece, and another its
milk; one became his companion, and another contentedly
bore his burdens.  The properties of certain ores made
metalllr9y possible; and Tubal-Cain was " a smiter or
hatmmnerer in brass and iron."  The laws of form and friction,* which characterize some materials, made architectture possible; and hence arose the first 1" city," or collection of stationary buildings; and, afterward, the construction of the stupendous ark, and the attempt to rear
the tower of Babel. The nomadic habits of some tribes
made tent-makin.g desirable, and the skins of animals made
it possible; and " Jubal was the flther of such as dwell in
tents."  The tenacityf and pliability of some substances
made plakting and weaving possible; and the intertwining
of leaves by our first parents for a covering renders it
highly probable that textile fabrics, hand-made, early came
into use.  The apparent motions of the heavens made
chronology and elementary astronomy possible; and the
exact manner in which the ages of Seth and his descendants
are recorded, together with the precise statement of the
year, month, and day, in which the ark was both entered
and left, imply an acquaintance both with the lunar and the
solar year.: The constitution of the atmosphere made
* See an interesting chapter on Friction in Whewell's Astronomy and
General Physics.
+ J. S. Mill's Principles of Political Economy, vol. i. p. 31.
* Thle Iebrewv word for year, h:' —repetition, iteration, a return to the




THE FAMILY       CONSTITUTION.                 99
ztusic objectively possible; and " Jubal became the father
of all such as handle the harp and pipe."       Owing to the
same provision, poetry (as far as the rhythmical arrangcment of sounds is concerned) was known as well as music
-indeed, as the music of the feelings, poetry would precede instrumental harmony, and create the want of it; and
hence the poetical address of Lamech-the effusion of excited emotions.   Nature itself, besides being a grand hieroglyphic and suggestive picture for man's deciphering eye,
presented lhim with materials for transcribing her records;
and, having received an impulse from      the same beneficent
power which had endowed him with speech, he early practiced some art of wr'iting-recording events by, most probably, alphabetic signs.*   Thus, the objects and powers of
same point, favors this conjecture. For even if it be not the precise
vocable which was employed in the antediluvian computations of time, it
most likely corresponds in signification with that which was employed.
* The antediluvian origin of alphabetic writing is thought to be probable from reasons such as these:-That the genealogies of the patriarchs
are recorded with an exactness superior to that of tradition: that the
poetical address of Lamech possesses no internal recommendation to be
preserved, during a tract of centuries, by tradition, and "yet differs essentially from all the specimens of known ideagraphic poetry:" that the
Mosaic account of the Flood has the air of a description derived from an
eye-witness, or placed on record by him: that the formula, " This is the
book of the generations of Adam," and "These are the generations of
Noah," imply a transcript from authentic genealogical tables regularly
kept in the patriarchal families: that the earlier part of the Book of
Genesis is marked by differences of style denoting distinct compositions,
from which Moses, under Divine direction, compiled his history, and
that these archives were authentic memorials of and from antediluvian
families: that (even supposing alphabetic signs were not the result of
Divine suggestion like articulate sounds) the longevity of the antediluvians was highly favorable to the discovery; that we " never heard of




100             THE DEVELOPMENT          OF
nature gradually took rank in the service of man.       One
after another they came into his presence, owned his dominion, and received their commission.    Things, befbre apparently useless and even evil, disclosed " a soul of goodness;" secret affinities came to light; laws and relations
teery where sprang up; startling adaptations presented
themselves; objects apparently slumbering and inert became instinct with life; "the trees of the field clapped
their hands."  And as time advanced, these ministries went
on multiplying, till Nature appeared full of the objective
conditions of art and science.*
DI)velopent of  The laws and objects of Nature served a
natural theology.  higher purpose still, in supplying the materials
of a nlatural theology.  At this altar they began to minister
even in the gcrclen of Eden.    Primeval man, indeed, had
not been then left to learn the Divine existence and government fiom this source.   To say nothing of the Divine communion which he there enjoyed, the fact of his own immediate creation was, for him, an ever-resoundingl proclamation
of the Creator; and his subsequent history had kept him
conscious of his amenableness to natural law.   As time advanced, and the race multiplied, the first faint intimations
of nature on the subject grew louder and more distinct,
until ten thousand voices united in the acclaim.  Proofs of
any society which had made such progress in the arts as the antediluvians
certainly did, without being acquainted with the use of letters:" and that
it is favored by the traditions of the most widely separated nations and
of almost all religions. See Dr. Wall on the origin of alphabets; HIale's
Analysis of Chronology, vol. i. pp. 369-373. Edinburgh Cyclopedia,
article Antediluvian. Faber's Pagan Idolatry, vol. ii. pp. 150, 151.
Cory's Ancient Fragments, pp. 23-29, 57. Smith's Sacred Annals, pp.
52-86.                 * Man Primeval, chapters vii. and xvii.




TIIE FAMILY CONSTITUTION.             101.
the wisdom and goodness of God increased with every new
adaptation which came to light; and natural law, in its
application to man, went on accumulating precedents, and
establishing its authority. lMan, in his wilfullness, might
resist it, and, in his ignorance, arraign it, but not the less
eloquently did it reason with its pretended judge " on
righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, until he
trembled.'" The earth gradually became a great justicecourt, in which the administration of law was constantly and
consciously going on.
fIn the department of lacnguacye, nature was
Of language.
found supplying man with images of the
moral, the spiritual, and the Divine. Every thing in creation represents a thought of God, for it must have been
thought of'by Him. Nature is a great system of Divine
thoughts eternalized, and externalizing themselves in things.
Man came therefore to find that things, as the exponents of
a universal mind, were here before him; and here to be the
vehicles of his own thoulghts-the exponents of his own
mind.  Whatever the subject which might occupy his
thoughts, he found Nature had so spoken on the theme
before him as to provide the very prototypes of the words
he wanted.  As a poet, a world of impressive images lay
around him; if he reasoned, analogies crowded to his aid;
if he theorized, prolific suggestions met his eye; if he worshiped, the finite and the visible referred him to the Infinite
invisible. With the new ideas of Revelation, came a new
demand on the materials of language. Besides the new
words which would be thus called into existence, language
would be exalted by the secondary or derivative sense
in which it would be now extensively employed.  That
man was already in possession of a portion of natural knowl



102            TIIE DEVELOPMENT OF
edge was pre-supposed in the very fact of his being capable
of receiving supernatural additions to it; for to that previous
knowledge of Nature the supernatural must appeal, and on
it must be grafted. Names, besides being descriptive of
the natural qualities and uses of objects, extended their illustrative power to Divine things. Spiritual ideas had to
be translated into humnan language; and thus terms which,
before, had only a natural meaning, acquired a metaphorical
and theological value also. luach,* for example, signifying
brcarth, came to mean also life, soul, spirit, Spirit of God;
aor,f light, was extended to mean knowledge, and security
as resulting from knowledge, and happiness as flowing from
both. Thus language was progressively molded and enriched by Revelation. As things were emblematical, possessing a value beyond their material forms and uses, so the
words describing them, besides their primitive signification,
developed a succession of senses, in proportion as man's
horizon was lifted up and    enlarged.  Words became
"figures of the true." M3an could not even speak on earthly
subjects, without employing terms, some of which had acquired also a consecrated sense, and were consequently ever
suggestive of loftier conceptions. He " who seeth the end
firom the beginning" had forelaid the entire plan, and it
proceeded with the uniformity of law.
atcriaobjects  Here we come to the principle which lies
Material objects
raised to religious at the basis of all Biblical symbols-or represymbols.
sentation of truth by object or action.  The
Creator had so adapted external nature to man's prospective
constitution, that all its phenomena should serve as exponents or signs of loftier correspondences-indexes of the
spiritual and the Divine. If Nature is spirit translated into
*.n                          f -iNh




TIIE FAMILY CONSTITUTION.               103
matter, in religion, matter is translated back again into
spirit. On this principle, the same material universe whose
objects first served to illustrate the power of God; whose
complicated relctions and exquisite adaptations, next, set
forth i-s wisdom; and whose peculiar sentient enldowments,
afterward, proclaimed His goodness; had, subsequently, in
Paradise, shown their susceptibility of receiving a new and
a higher application to a new and a loftier order of truth.
The Being who, with infinite foresight, had surrounded man
with a world of things emblematic of thoughts, was tlere
pleased to cppoint one of these to be the symbol of a great
principle. The tree in the midst of the garden was the
chosen symbol and instrument of moral government. Otler
trees might speak to man of goodness, but this proclaimed
Divine Supremacy and Equity. So easily might this symbolic arraingement be pictured to the eye, that some have
actually supposed, with Rosenmiiller,* that the Biblical narrative is derived from a hieroglyphic or pictorial representation transferred to alphabetic signs. And now that man's
altered moral relation required the impartation of new
knowledge from God, is instruction by symbol to be disparaged and dismissed?  That nothing in Nature can, of
itself, suggest remedial truth is admitted. The directness
with which the new revelation came from God himself, implied that, as a source of instruction for sinful man, Nature
was dumb. So far, however, from being superseded as a
channcel of Divine instruction, it now took a wider range,
and discharged a higher office. Symbolism was not only
called to minister at the gate of Paradise; at the altar of
sacrifice it might be said to have been consecrated with
blood.
* Repertor. th. i. s. 160; see Knapp's Theology, ~ lxxv.




104            THE DEVELOPMIENT OF
Symbols become  esides the development of symbolism
Symbols become
types.  which now took place, types, or acted predictions, were Divinely appointed. In going to the altar of
sacrifice, a thousand wayside objects might have suggestively
appealed to his emotions, owing to the general harmony of
man with Nature. But, arrived at the altar, the death of
the victim impressively symbolized his own deserts; while,
as a means of expiation, it typified a nobler victim yet to be
offered up. In each instance, his emotions were appealed
to; but, in the first, the appeal was made chiefly through
his imagination; in the second, through his understanding;
and in the third, through his faith. The first pre-supposed
nothing more than man's power of interpreting natural
signs and latent affinities by sympathetically communing
with Nature; the second implied this to be an explicit
Divine cappoointment in addition; the third implied both
these, and pre-supposed besides the Divine promise or predictioz of an antitype. While the first was only suggestive,
and might awaken very different trains of thought at different times, the symbol /figred fixed specific truth-was a
scenic representation of the worshiper's penitence and of
the Divine acceptance; and the type, advancing still beyond,
pre-figured the great sacrifice on which that acceptance
rested. If the first implied that the temple of Nature was
filled with objects suggestive of truths beyond themselves;
the second implied that, in the Divine hand, they could be
made vividly to symbolize truths which they could never
have possessed the power to reveal; and the third denoted
that they belonged to a grand scheme of things in which
the present is not more certainly related to the past than
the fitulre is to the present.*  Iere was development-the
* Bishop Marsh's Lectures on the Criticisme and Interpretation of the
Bible, pp. 374, etc.; and Fairbairn's Typology of Scripture, chap. ii.




TIlE FAMILY CONSTITUTION.               105
lifting of another fold in the vail which concealed the Divine
purposes-the disclosure and adoption of an alrrangement
which had never been absent from the Divine plan, although
now first made present to the mind of man.
Man's own dcvel-  In the preceding chapter, we have seen the
opmcnt.  progress which the family constitution exhibits as compared with every previously-existing arrlangement in the animal kingdom; here, we have to illustrate
the development of social man as we saw him " brought
forward," in the second chapter, as a means of Divine manifestation.
Prior to the Fall, man himself was a revelation. He
had been made in the image of God, that he might be to
himself a manifestation of God. I-Ie, the subject, was to
become indirectly his own object, and to behold in that
object the brightest reflection within his horizon of the Divine likeness. And even now, though morally defaced by
sin, his natural capacity for excellence remains. He still
retains the Divine image in this high and indestructible
sense-that, unlike all the orders of creation which preceded him, he is a personal being; one by whom God is
revealed that He may be also revealed to him. "But has
not sin arrested forever the process of his development?"
We have already had occasion to admire the arrangement
by which the same promise which intimated that the Divine manifestation was to proceed signified also that the
family constitution was to unfold; for it taught that the
progrless of the former was to be secured instrumentally
through the mediuml of the latter.
The earth, we have seen, presented a 1grand
In  developing,nature Aan un- systeln of objective meanls for manl's develfolds him-self.
opment. Accordingly, every advancing step
5*




106            TIlE DEVELOPMENT OF
which we have marked in man's employment of them, implied that his own development was in progress. While
occupied in cultivating tile earth, he was cultivating himself. In training the animals for his use, he was learning
the art of self government. While interpreting Nature, he
was interpreting himself. Even when transforming some
natlural substances for his use till no trace of their original
fiOrm was left, he was still more transforming himself by
the process. Nature, indeed, supplied him with more than
mlaterials-with powers; but even when he had to do least
for the attainment of his ends, that little involved a conscious assertion of will, a revelation of mind.  The remoteness of the starry heavens might seem to have almost
withdrawn- them fiom his range of study; but while yet he
could do little more than gaze at the sublime spectacle, the.apparent whirl subsided, and took order under his eye;
"Arcturus appeared with his sons, and the bands of Orion,
and Mlazzaroth (the zodiacal signs) in his season. "*  In
the process of unvailing Nature, man developed his own
resources,   externalizing and painting himself on the face
of the midnight sky, and peopling it with the creations of
his own imagination.
Now, as a being capable of such development, the family
provided for man's constant progress. He came into it,
not like tle animal, to begin and end where all his progenitors did, but to inlherit all the past, and to add to it somethingl of his own for all the fiture. lie came, generation
after generation, to finld many experiments in art and Nature already comnpleted, and the results laid up for his use;
many of' thle ways of error explored, and a warning placed
over the entrance fi)r the blenefit of ifture travelers; many
* Job, xxxviii. 31, 32.




THE FAMILY       CONSTITUTION.               107
proverbs, the generalized results of hard-won experience,
"floating on the lips of the wise;" and many facts observed and collected, and waiting only the arrival of some
generalizing mind to classify them-thus rendering them
useable, and a step to higher and wider generalizations
still.
This favored by  These, indeed, are advantages of a nature
longevity  still enjoyed; but the longevity of antediluvian life added to them, in various ways, tenfold.     It enabled men to acquire inconceivable dexterity in many of the
mechanical arts.    In this department, the     proverb that
" practice makes perfect" emphatically applies. How great,
then, must have been the tact and proficiency resulting
fiom  the continued practice of centuries! The prospect
of such longevity would encourage men to lay out comprehensive plans, and to enter on vast undertakings with the
expectation of completing them, and of enjoying the fruits.
Added to    which, that in proportion     as this longevity
was physiologically dependent on superior climatic influences, it would be also conducive to bodily and mental
exertion.*
* On the great age of the Patriarchs, physiology is of necessity silent.
Haller speaks of it as a problema ob paucitatem datorum insolubile.* Buffon regards it as possible.f But what says history?  Josephus writes,
"I have, for witnesses to what I have said (respecting the great length
of patriarchal life), all those who have written antiquities, both among
the Greeks and Barbarians; for even Manetho, who wrote the Egyptian
history, and Berosus, who collected the Chaldean monuments, and Mochus, and Hestiseus, and those who composed the Phoenician history,
agree to what I here say; Hesiod also, and Hecataeus, Hellanicus, and
Acusilaus; and besides these, Ephorus and Nicolaus, relate that the ancients lived a thousand years."t Diodorus, Pliny, and Plutarch. indeed,
* Elem. Physiol viii. p. 21.  t Hist. Nat. v p. p. 85.  Antiq. book. i. chap. 3.




108              THE DEVELOPMENT           OF
The gradual development of the means of
Theological de- 
celopmcnt is self- natural theology  implied  the development
development.   of the theologian himself.     To give a single
illustration;-the family constitution, viewed in connection
with the prolonged duration of antediluvian life, supplied
pre-eminent advantages for observing the consequences of
actions, and of courses of action, and of thus ascertaining
the will of God as expressed in the laws of Nature. The albreviation of human life has greatly diminished our opportunities in this respect.  Otherwise, we should often see early
tendencies of character, almost too minute to be noticed,
ultimately leading to consequences almost too vast to be
measured. But the knowledge we inherit-the accumulated
results, in an important sense, of the experience of all the
past-renders the enlargement of our actual opportunities
would make the ancient year of the Egyptian to consist of one month.
But this attempt of theirs (says Ideler)* rested on no information, but
was a mere hypothesis invented to explain the long duration of life
assigned by history to the earliest men.f The Institutes of Menu state
that, in the first age, men lived four hundred years. And, according to
3M. Be Guignes, the early annals of China represent the eight emperors
of their first dynasty as reigning 695 years, which is only seventy-seven
years less than what may be called the patriarchal reign of the first
eight postdiluvian Patriarchs. A singular coincidence. Not only do instances of great comparative longevity still occur in every country,: statistics show that they occur in constant proportions. What does this
imply, but that our constitution includes certain possibilities and properties, of which longevity is one (gigantic stature and extraordinary
strength might be named as others), which are not often permitted fully
to evolve, and to attain their utmost limits? During the early period
of the world's history this development was, for wise purposes, allowed
to take place to a much greater extent than at present.
* Iandbuch d. Chron. i. p. 93.  t IHavernick's Introduction, ~ 16, p. 107.
S haron Turner's Sacred Hist. of the World, vol. ili., letter 23.




TIlE FAMILY CONSTITUTION.             109
unnecessary. In an antediluvian family, however, the natural laws had time to work themselves out in the history
of the individual and the family. As to the laws of health,
for examplle, slight infractions which might be persevered in
with comparative impunity for the limited period of fifty
or sixty years, could not be multiplied by five or six hundred without beginning to vindicate and avenge tlhelselves. The deposition of a single seed of disease by some
early excess, would have time, like the aloe, fabled to
bloom only once in a century, to blossom again and again,
till it even " brought forth fruit unto death."  As to selfwill and self-indulgence of various kinds, leading to pecu.liarities of temper and perversities of conduct, and which,
owing to their now being so early arrested by death, are
known to us only under the names of idiosyncracies and
harmless eccentricities-many of these would have time to
ripen into their proper forms of insanity and madness.
The same of the various degrees of industry, veracity, and
benevolence;-how certainly a very slight error in either
of these respects, admitted into the character in very early
life, and allowed to go on self-multiplying by practice,
would be found, at the close of five hundred years, to have
involved the violator in social ruin. And thus man would
come to find that i his history was an ever-advancing argument for the being and government of God.
Linguisticdel-  The progress of language proclaimed the
Ln -ulstlc devel-              I-)
opmentimpliedin- progress of man. Every new thought is a
tellectual progress...
creation-a spiritual emanation, calling for a
body to clothe it. In the infancy of language, every such
body is an image fresh from the treasury of Nature. The
first word which is recorded to have burst fiom the lips of
Adam, after the voice which announced the Promise had




110           THE DEVELOP3MENT OF
ceased, was of this description:-and he " called his wife's
name Eve* [Life] because she was [to be] the mother of all
living."  Every such appropriation fiom Nature was a new
synthesis between it and the human mind; or rather be-;tween the mind of man and the universal mind underlying
the objects of Nature. Every time a word, besides its primary and physical signification, became the representative
of a moral idea, a new stage was reached. How limited
the conception awakened in the mind of Adam by the term,
nachashft-serpent, prior to the Fall, compared with the
host of painful associations which it was calculated to suggest afterward, when it'had become the opponent of the
great spiritual Foe, and stood for the ever-increasing f:action
of evil, which divided, until it almost engrossed, the human
family. How contracted the notion which the word cmizchah — offering, would convey to the mind of Cain, who
contented himself with the presentation of fiuits and flowers, suitable only for a sinless being, compared with the volutne of theology which it would lay open to the mind of
Abel, who regarded it as synonymous with sacrifice, and
whose faith it pointed to a true expiation:  Thus, words
which at first had only a specific sense, came to be generic;
and, in that generalization included ideas of heaven as well
as earth. " Enoch (it is said) walked with God; and he
(was) not, for God took him." In the first clause, the familiar phrase he walked, by being connected with God, is
made to denote piety of the highest order; but in the latter part, as if language as yet had received no term to express even by metaphor the translation of the Patriarch, a
* mrr. f irla. These may not have been the identical vocables employed; but the same statement would equally apply to their equivalents.
$ tnr;u.




THE FAMILY CONSTITUTION.              111
negation is employed, he was not, and this receives the explanation that God took hin. The event was a prodigy for
which language had not yet prepared a descriptive term.
Similarly would language be taxed, with the rise of every
new relation in the family, and in order to give utterance to
the world of feeling belonging to each relation. The origination of music-the inarticulate language of the heartdenoted that man was conscious of depths of feeling which
no words could reach. Music came to the aid of speechtold of emotions which had not yet become thoughtswhich were greater than all his thoughts-and which made
him feel allied to the infinite.
As the descendants of common parents, too, the antediluvian population spoke a common language. Slight dialectic
peculiarities might have begun to appear, but the uniformity
was such that the one language, as it measured from time
to time the progress of some, might have been the means
of improvement to all.
Sin remedid, th In a similar manner, the Divine appointSin remedied, the
occasion of relig- ment of religious symbols was the creation of
ious development.
a new scene in the world tzithout, denoting
that man had become conscious of an entirely new world
within, which nothing previously existing in Nature, as Nature, could represent. The predictive character of the type
pointed man away from the present, and showed him capa1-)e of the greatness of inheriting and even anticipating the
listant future. But both these Divine appointments, as
parts of the new scheme of mercy, remind us of the farreaching action of sin as an occasion of human development. Of man's capacity for progress-on the hypothesis
of his having remained unfallen-there can be no question.
Equally certain is it that sin is an arrest of man's progress




112           TIIE DEVELOPMENT OF
in one direction-the highest-and an acceleration of the
development of his inferior nature. The law of development which should be diffused through the whole man,
concentrates its force on a part. But we speak now of
sin as itself arrested, or of man as living under a remedial economy. And who can question that as sin became
the occasion of a new manifestation of the Divine character,
so, owing to that restorative manifestation, it became the
grand occasion of man's development? Powers previously
hidden below the depths of his consciousness, now emerged
and were evolved. Susceptibilities were awakened which,
otherwise, would have slumbered on forever. He stood as
in a new world. His dependence on God was unutterably
more profound than ever. New and more affecting relations to God surprised him; and obligations, unknown before, claimed him. A whole order of sensations awokethe hopes and apprehensions, the joys and sorrows, of pardon and penitence. The events immediately subsequent to
man's transgression-the sentence, the expulsion, the flaming sword, the dying victim, the accepted sacrifice-were
all re-enacted in his breast, or pictured what was passing
there. His fearful recoil and fall, on coming into collision
with the Divine will, disclosed to him the measure of power
which he had put forth, and told him that he could exert
the same, and incomparably greater, in a pursuit after holiness; that, advancing from that original freedom, in which
he was conscious only of the power of resisting evil, he
could attain to that high state of excellence which excludes
the practical possibility of evil. The sinfulness of the race
supplied new occasions and incitements to his piety. The
state of protest and antagonism which his holiness had to
maintain, strengthened it. The surrounding ignorance and




TIIE FAMILY CONSTITUTION.              113
depravity opened the fountains of his compassion. Every
instance of misery presented a new field for his activity, a
new occasion for intercession; and, in the event of his success, a new source of gratitude and joy. And thus an
event, which God had not seen fit to prevent, He had been
pleased so to remedy as to bring forth new aspects of man's
moral being, and to show him capable of attaining a degree
of holiness and happiness which might otherwise, perhaps,
have remained unknown,
The family, a  The paternal relation, viewed in connection
society for the with the remedial scheme, and indeed as a
same-a church.
part of it, afforded a still deeper insight into
the human constitution. In the family, the first man himself would receive lessons on self-government such as even
the garden of Eden did not supply, and perpetual occasion for its exercise. In what a variety of ways would he
have to repeat to his children the substance of the Divine
prohibition to himself; " Thou shalt not eat of it!" How
soon would he who had Paradise for a home discover that
if he would convert home into a Paradise, he must guard
his offspring at this point-subordinating their lower propensities to their superior powers! At first, the parental
attention has nothing else to occupy it. As if to intimate
that this is the deep groundwork of the child's subsequent
well-being, the earliest ardor of parental solicitude and love
is left to concentrate and expend itself on this point alone.
The parent has to advance the Divine glory by subserving
the grieat end of creation, and by what arrangement could
he enjoy a greater opportunity for so doing, than by that
which the family constitution affords him? It gives him,
in addition to his own individual relations, a young immortal to train for the service of God, and facilities for the pro



114           TIIE DEVELOPMENT OF
cess such as can not be exceeded. How could the circle of
objects which his eye surveys be more enriched than by the
introduction into it of a young mind which is to expand
under his own observation, so that he may study and aid it
in its progress? How profound the satisfaction of a Patriarch who could regard himself as the channel of his children's double life-temporal and spiritual! To be the
means of securing their earthly well-being would yield him
exquisite delighlt, but to have succeeded in training them
up fob the life which is unending, and to see them occupied
as agents for advancing the great scheme of Providence,
comprehending time and the race, would yield him a satisfaction truly godlike. It at once revealed to him his vast
capacity for happiness, and occupied and enlarged that
which it revealed. How dignified and ennobling his position-the very copy of that whicl his heavenly Father had
sustained to unfallen man in Paradise! For, placed at the
head of the family, the Patriarch shadowed forth more definitely than any other image, the Divine supremacy. Engaged in the religious training of his family, he was still
the representative of God on earth. Officiating in intercession, or as a priest at the altar of sacrifice, he was both
symbolizing a great evangelical truth, and typically mediating between God and man. From the moment that the
first Adam sinned, he sunk to the office of becoming a type
of the second Adam;* rather, in becoming that type, he
found his true position and his highest dignity. And each
of all his posterity rose in the scale of true nobility in proportion as he intelligently relied on the ultimate appearance
of the great antitype, and was so brought "to the obedience of faith."
* Romans, v. 14.




TIIE FAMIILY CONSTITUTION.            115
l mn in d  In this mnanner, the family constitution
Social man in advance of the first would develop and exhibit the social manl in
individual man.
advance of the same properties and pow ers
in the first individual man. His appetites would be found
to have taken a wider range, and yet to have become subservient to nobler purposes. His self-love would be found
to have projected. itself to a greater distance of time and
place, and to have included in its calculations other objects
as parts of self. His affections would be found to have
multiplied its objects, and to have often subordinated selfinterest to their happiness. And each of these three springs
of action would be found, in every instance in which the
laws of the human constitution were duly developed, to
have been subordinated by the will of God, and ennobled
by love to Him.
If the first man, for example, became the subject of penitence and progressive holiness, what an immense difference
would there be between the Adam leaving Paradise, and
the Adam of about nine hundred years after! It would be
hardly correct to institute a comparison between him and a
man who should have lived, hypothetically, fiom the close
of the tenth century of the Christian era to the present
time; nor indeed, between him and any man who might be
supposed to have lived during a similar lapse of centuries.
Still, the allusion may serve to suggest the vast development which must have taken place in his intellectual and
moral character in the course of that time. Think of the
man whose very knowledge of mcatericl life, Divinely communicated, had as yet, with very slight exceptions, to be
practically applied, compared witll the same man standing
in the midst of a busy population, and a comparatively reclaimed and cultivated region. Think of the man who left




116           TIIE DEVELOPMENT OF
Paradise childless, as compared with the same man when
the Patriarch of wide-spread families and distant tribes!
Think of the man who yielded to a temptation to tat of a
forbidden tree, as compared with the same individual authoritatively warning the human race-and that race his
own family-to flee temptation, and affectionately pointing
them to the way of lie! And then imagine the ever-widening and deepening stream of thought and feeling daily
pouring through his mind, enlarging its channel, and forming his character.
Enoch in ad-  Still greater would be the opportunity for
vance of Adam.  the development of the mind and character
of Enoch. The advanced point of time at which he commenced litf, as compared with Adam, would enable him to
survey material civilization fiom a more commanding position, and to take a more comprehensive view of the relations and influences of social life. He recognized some of
the first traces of a providential scheme. He saw some of
the minor and earlier purlposes of that scheme attained.
Divine manifestations multiplied. " He walked with God,"
and his assimilation to the Divine image was quickened.
Year after year lie became conscious of higher spiritual attainments; acts of piety became confirmed habits; his
views of the Divine character became more enlarged and
ennobling, and his increasing endeavors to ameliorate the
condition of the world, brought and kept him  more in
communion with God, and thus rendered him more godlike.
Noah in adance  The advantages enjoyed by the Patriarch
of Enoch.  Noah for mental and moral development
were greater still.  From his advanced post, he could
waltchl thle coming of the grtat crisis, gradually resulting
fiomm all the past. The very fact that man had been spared




THE FAMILY CONSTITUTION.               117
and the race continued, proclaimed aloud to the world, and,
perhaps, for the first time, to the universe, the great doctrine of the Divine long-suffering. Every sinful inhabitant
of earth might have borne about on his forehead, through
his life of centuries, the inscription —- I am a monument of
the Divine forbearance."  Of that forbearance Noah became the minister. And yet the certainty of retribution
at a given point of time was believed in by him not less
confidently than the continuance of long-suffering up to
that point.  "By faith Noah being warned of God of
thingcs not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to
the saving of his house; by the which he condemned the
world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by
faith."*  le was heir already of a greater knowledge of
material lift, and of human nature, than any of his predecessors had the opportunity of possessing; and now, standing near the awful point where forbearance would cease and
judgment commence, his own character revealed to him
the transforming and developing influence of the character
and government of God.
Each generation  It hardly need be stated that the birth of
might have been every individual from the first-born of Adam
in advance of the
preceding.  and onward, afforded an opportunity for a
new development of the capabilities of human nature.
Every man might have exhibited the modified excellence
of a Seth, an Enoch, or a Noah. Each patriarchal family
might have displayed its own distinctive phase of excellencee; while it yet stood in harmonious relation with the
great whole. Every succeeding year, from the first man to
the flood, might have added a new page to the volume of
Divine manifestation transcribed from the character of man.
* Heb. i. T.




118           THE DEVELOPMENT OF
Ehch human being, differing as he necessarily would, in
some respects, from all the rest, might have presented, in
his own character, a distinct exposition of the Divine excellence; and thus each might have presented a study for
all the rest, and for angelic beings. There was no necessitating reason why the day that poured down the deluge
on a world already drenched with evil, did not see it flooded with heavenly light in approbation of its spiritual proficiency.
The remaining class of means of which we
Relitious means
themselves devel- have to speak consists of what we have called
oped.       the secondary means employed in illustration
and development, both of the primary truths which were
laid at the foundation of the new economy of mercy, and
of the preceding revelations of Paradise.  Of this class,
we may speak first of "the cherubim placed at the east of
the garden of Eden."  What were they? What did their
particular occasion denote? And why was it so denoted?
Cherubim; What    t is to be understood by the cheruCherubimn; what
were they?  bim? The popular notion is that, as they
here appear at the gate of Eden, they were angels;
that they were armed with burning weapons; and that
they occupied their station'solely to bar the way to the
tree of life. The Biblical account of this Divine arrangement, however, is as follows: " So he drove out the maln:
and he caused to dwell [stationed] at the east end of the
garden the Kerubim,* and the flame of the sword [i. e.,
a flaming sword] which was [continually] turning itself to
guard the way to the tree of life."t Here, the presence
of the article before cherubim denotes that, when the narrative was written, their appearance, whatever it was, was
* The Hebrew word in English letters.  f Gen. iii. 24.




THE FAMILY CONSTITUTION.               119
sufficiently well known to those who were addressed to
render any description unnecessary beyond that of their
mere name.    On the next occasion in which they are
spoken of,* when Moses is directed to make cherubim for
the ends of the mercy-seat, the same familiar acquaintance
with their form is assumed, for the Divine directions which
he receives relate exclusively to the material and the position of the figures. When, at length, however, their actual appearance is given as they were seen in vision,t it is
evident that they could never have been viewed otherwise
than as unreal, emblematic beings. In the book of the
Revelation, they are carefully distinguished from  angelic
beings1-the order with which they were most likely to be
confounded. Indeed, as if to make it impossible that they
should be regarded as beings of another world, all the
characteristic parts of which they are compounded are derived fiom the earth. While their merely figurative existence is demonstrable fiom considerations such as thesethey are described as uniting the attributes of several beings of dissimilar kinzcs-each having the faces of a man,
a lion, an ox, and an eagle-that is, of the highest beings
of the highest divisions of animated nature; besides four
wings with hands under the wings-denoting the predominance of the human element; and as covered with everwakefil eyes, and having a motion unique and incessant.
They are sometimes spoken of anonymously and anomalously as living crecattres~-creatures of no specific or existent order, but whose office it is to represent the idea of
life in its height and intensity. Their form, so far from being definite and permanent, varied from time to time; in* Exod. xxv. 18-22.        + Ezek. cc. i.-x.: Rev. v. 6-14; vii. 11.   ~ Ezek. i. 5, etc.; Rev. iv. 6.




120           THE DEVELOPMENT OF
deed a progressive development is traceable both in their complexity of appearance and in their office,* indicating at once
their unreal existence, and providing against the danger of
their becoming objects of idolatrous veneration.  And,
notwithstanding the stringent and oft-repeated Mosaic prohibition of making any likeness of any being in heaven,
earth, or ocean,f the cherubic figures were yet to be placed,
by Divine command, on the ends even of the mercy-seatthe symbolic throne of Jehovah; and, as such, they could
be regarded only as ideal beings.
What their par-  What, then, did the presence of the symticular location de- bolic group at the east of the garden of Eden
noted.
denote? From the concluding cause of the
verse-" to guard the way of the tree of life:"-it has been
hastily assumed that this was the office-the only office-assigned to the cherubim. Doubtless, this was one of the
effects which their presence was intended and calculated to
produce. But it is quite consonant with the construction
of the verse, and more in harmony with all the requirements
of the case, to regard the flaming weapon alone as placed
there specifically for this purpose. For it is to be observed,
that although there was more than a single cherub stationed
there, yet only one weapon is spoken of.  Nor are the
cherubim represented as wielding even that single weapon;
on the contrary, the awful sword-flame is expressly described
as self-brandished and self-revolving (hJammithhacppeketh,
continually turning itself) to guard the way of the tree of
life.
The question returns, then, respecting the ulterior and
emblematic design of the Edenic cherubim. To the sanctio Exod. xxv. 20; Ezek. i. 6: Rev. v. 6-14.
t Exod. xx. 4; Levit. xxvi 1; Deut. iv. 16, etc.




TIHE FAMILY CONSTITUTION.            121
fled imagination the sublime spectacle would doubtless be
ever appealing in favor of the unearthly and Divine. It
pointed man away to the regions of the possible. It gave
him a visible starting-point from which to ascend to the invisible. It reminded him of the voluntary subserviency of
other orders of beings to that supreme will which he had
violated, and of the glory they found in obedience.
But we speak not now of the mere suggestive power of
this Divine arrangement: our question relates to its symbolic design. Now, on taking the question to every other
instance in which the cherubim are spoken of, it is found
that they form the invariable symbol of the Divine presence, or else are attandants on it. That such was their
recognized office under the Jewish economy can not be
questioned. In the construction of the tabernacle and the
temple, they formed the awful focus, and reflected the very
splendor, of the Divine glory. He that " dwelleth between
the cherubim," came to be one of the Biblical titles of the
manifested God.* So closely was their presence associated
in the Hebrew mind with the Divine presence, that the verb
shakan, which is employed to denote their stationing or
dwelling in Eden, was appropriated by the Talmudists to
express the dwelling of the Divine glory in the temple as
the Shekinah.t And not without reason, therefore, is it
supposed that the Apostle John purposely employed the
word Skenoun-to erect a tent, to dwell-in order to represent our Lord as the true Shekinah, the embodiment of the
Divine presence. The only just conclusion is, then, that
the same symbol had the same significance from the beginning; and that the Jewish Targum correctly pharaprases
the verse thus: "He drove out the man, and caused the
* 1 Sam. iv. 4; 2 Sam. vi. 2; Ps. lxxx. 1.  t See Gesenius in voce.
6




122s          THE DEVELOPMENT OF
glory of his presence to dwell of old, at the east of the garden of Eden, above the two cherubim."
Now, if the appearance of the Edenic cherubim denoted
the reality of the Divine presence, the following are some
of the great truths which the arrangement significantly expressed: That although God had shown himself justly offended with sinful man, and that He could not be disobeyed
with impunity, yet He had not withdrawn from the world,
but was still " a God near at hand and not afar off." That
restoration to immortal life was not impossible. Such impossibility might have been emphatically signified by destroying the sign of immortality-the tree of life. But thcct
being allowed to stand, the thing signified by it might be
supposed to remain also. The presence of the sword-flame
in the way which led to the sacred pledge, however, denoted man's utter forfeiture of the blessing, and that if it ever
became his, it could only be by an act of sovereign mercy.
And thus the ever-speaking symbol proclaimed both the
justice and the grace of God, and tended to keep alive in
the human breast the emotions of penitence for the past
and of hope for the future. It formed, in connection with
the first promise and the institute of sacrifice, an organic
part of the new outline of the Divine manifestation.
But besides being symbols, to the Divinely-instructed mind
they may have been types; not only "figures for the time
then present;" but prefigurations of " good things to come."
Here were " Living Ones,")-collections and concentrations
of life-of life in its essence and idea; might not man himself, at length, prove to be its antitype? They are allied
to man, for, in their complex form, the human prevails; and
they are equally allied to God, for it is with His life they
are supposed to be preternaturally instinct, and His presence




TiHE FAIILY CONSTITUTION.             123
which they symbolize; might not this alliance point to some
sublime union, in the future, between Divinity and humanity
of a kind unknown at that time to the universe?
To the third inquiry, respecting the reason
Why so denoted. 
of their employment, we may reply, generally, that as a symbol, they only constituted a new hieroglyphic in the great emblematic roll which man was just
beginning to read, and by which, partly, he was to decipher
his Maker's will. All nature was to be to him a disclosure of
the supernatural; the actual, a manifestation of the ideal; the
visible, of the invisible. So that here was only a new sign
inscribed on a page already instinct with significance.
HIere was only the insertion of a new emblem in a Divinelyinstituted system of symbols; just as the truths which it
implied formed part of a great scheme of Divine revelation. Reasons may be suggested also for the adoption of
this particular symbol, always bearing in mind, however,
that the unknown may be far more important than those
which are apparent. How easy and natural the transition,
for example, from the contemplation of the animals on
which the first man had so recently bestowed descriptive
names, to the consideration of the same forms as they were
seen compounded in the cherubic vision. And yet how
much loftier the order of truth to which, in the latter instance, they directed his mind! Then he looked on them
as the living signs of the Maker's power, and wisdom, and
goodness, but now they impressively symbolized His everwakeful Providence, and His blended justice and grace.
Then, the very act of their coming into the presence of
man was a sign of homage to their earthly lord, but now
their symbolic office proclaimed that, were it the will of
the Supreme, creation in all its beings and elements, would




124           TIIE DEVELOPIMENT OF
instantly arm to avenge their Maker. They taught him
that though by a single act of sin he had threatened the
coherence and well-being of nature-" showing that all
material beauty and blessedness is but, as it were, the
clothing of one good thought, which, if it become evil,
straightway all departs like the shadow of a dream"-yet
that he was now encircled by a system in which the moral
should transmute and exalt the material, and nature become a ministering angel, subserving and sharing in his
highest interests.
Local manifst  There is evidence of the local manifestaLocal manifestation of the Di- tion of the Divine presence as the scene of
vine presence.
patriarchal worship.  "And Cain said unto
Jehovah... Behold, thou hast driven me out this day
from the face of the land [from the region which I have
hitherto inhabited and cultivated] and from thy face shall I
be hid;.... And Cain went out from the presence of Jehovah, and dwelt in the land of wandering, on the east of
Eden."5*  The only inference to be drawn from this language is, that there was a place to which the visible indications of the Divine presence had been hitherto accorded
and confined. Now, such a spot the presence of the cherubic vision actually designated.  That place might have
been a field, a mount, or a district: judging from the imagery of Ezekiel —' thou hast been in Eden, thou art the
anointed cherub, thou wast upon the holy mountain of
God "f —the hallowed scene was an elevation, attracting
the eye, and inviting the approach of penitent man" another morn risen on mid-day."  And the mode of
special Divine manifestation, when he did approach, might
have been by oracle, by the consumption of the sacrifice
* Genesis, iv. 13, 14, 16.  f Ezekiel, xxviii. 12-17.




THE FAMILY CONSTITUTION.             125
laid upon the altar by a heaven-descending flame, or by the
brightening glow of the cherubim. But however this may
have been, it is clear from the language of the fratricide,
that communion with God had been hitherto maintained in
a given locality-that in that scene of the Shekinah he now
expected his complaint to be heard and answered, but that,
if exiled beyond its precincts, he should be driven forth
beyond the circle sacred to the worship of God, and to the
visible displays of His presence. Upward of a century had
then elapsed from the hour of the Fall, and numerous children had probably been born to Adam meanwhile, besides
the fratricide and his brother, and here, during the long interval, God had graciously met with His first human worshipers, "from between the cherubim," and " communed with"
them.
Moral goven-  Events occurred to develop and illustrate
ment.  the doctrine of an all-encompassing Providential government, administered in equity, but based on
mercy.  Already, in the fearful results of the Fall, the
grand disclosure had been made for all time, that to sin is
to suffer. In the detection of the fratricide, the proclamation again went forth through all his posterity, " Be sure
your sin will find you out." The question, " Where is Abel
thy brother?" showed that "to smite a saint on earth, is to
create a commotion in heaven."  The declaration, "thy
brother's blood crieth to me from the ground," was more
than metaphor; it implied that nothing is dumb to God;
that every thing man thinks on or touches, carries up an
appeal on high, either for him or against him; that, already,
materials for the final assize were collecting. His actual
punishment taught him that " God is no respecter of persons;" that an eternal law of morality could not be sus



126           THE DEVELOPMENT OP
pended for considerations of primogeniture, of passion, or
of any thing which might weigh with an indulgent earthly
parent; indeed, the interrogation-" if thou doest well,
shalt thou not be accepted?"-carrying with it the force of
a strong affirmation, implies that the Divine impartiality
was already so amply illustrated and firmly established, that
even the evil-doer Cain might be confidently appealed to
on the subject. While the haunting remorse which went
with him into exile disclosed that the sinner can not be
exiled beyond the domains of justice; that besides the external Eden there is an Eden within, and that to lose that
is to pluck up the tree of life by the roots, and leave the
world one wide howling wilderness.
Viewed in the light of a penal infliction,
Death.
from which man was at first conditionally exempt, Death must have originally come to him almost
with the startling effect of an appalling revelation. The
death of Abel would not, perhaps, on account of its violence, weigh much with the early generations of men, as an
illustration of the original sentence against sin. But when
the first natural death occurred-and, still more, when at
length, after the event had been suspended century after
century-when he had seen his descendants in the ninth
generation-when he had reached his nine hundred and
thirtieth year-the report went forth of Adam " he is dead;
the father of the race has expired," what a deep shadow,
as from the throne of justice brought near, must have fallen
on the face of nature! And as, age after age, it had to be
recorded of each individual of all these generations, "and
he died," what an affecting proof was furnished of "the
exceeding sinfulness of sin," what a demonstration of the
fidelity of God to His word, and of the amplitude of _His




TIlE FAMII,Y CONSTITUTION.             127
schemes who could defer its fulfillment either for a day or
for a thousand years; and with what strained gaze, we may
suppose, would the survivors labor to pierce the darkness
which hung over the grave.
Examples of  Examples of eminent faith and piety formed
Faitihnd Pmaiet  a distinct method of revealing and enforcing
festations by Man. the great principles by which they were originated and sustained; and thus contributed to the ends of
moral government. They satisfactorily answered the question to which the Fall had imparted a profound interestIs a life of holy obedience possible? As an indication of
the Divine presence on earth, they were more conclusive
than the radiance of the Shekinah itself-for they proved
the presence of God in the human heart. Of such incarnations of piety, Enoch stood forth an illustrious example.*
To what heights of excellence Abel might have attained;
had not his life been so early terminated, we know not.
Neither can we say how many were known and named, in
their day, among "the sons of God," as proficients in spiritual excellence. But of Enoch it is briefly, yet significantly stated, that " he walked with God." t And, as if
to intimate the singularity and eminence of the piety which,
in his case, the language denotes, it is again repeated that
"he walked with God.'"  He had come to place himself in
entire harmony with the will of God. The autonomy or
selfishness involved in the first sin, and which, in every
separate sin, brings the human will into collision with the
Divine-internally uniting all sins in one-was in him terminated. Although once disposed, like others, to alienate
* We have already adverted to the piety of Enoch as a Divine manifestation to himself; here we speak of it in its relation to others.
t Gen. v. 22.                        t Verse 24.




128           THE DEVELOPMENT OF
himself fiom God, he had come to seek the perfection of
freedom in the perfection of obedience-freedom, not
merely from sin, but from all the outward and conscious
restraints of law, because it is a law unto itself. His reconciliation with God resulted in a spirit of devotion: that devotion, in habits of practical obedience; and that sanctified law of habit, in the progressive attainment of holiness.
His character was well-nigh normal. He had passed within
the circle of the Divine attraction, and lived there. He
walked on a mount of transfiguration. Every step took
him nearer to the beatific vision. His translation is spoken of
as the appropriate result:-" Enoch walked with God, and he
was not, for God took him;"-as he thus walked, he approached so near to the central attraction that the earth
suddenly saw him depart.
What a revelation, both of God and man, did this embodiment of piety, and its sublime result, exhibit! For, it
is to be remembered that the whole was traceable-and by
an Apostle it is traced, to a principle attainable by all-to
faith. He walked with God, not by virtue of some undisclosed secret, not in consequence of any thing necessarily
peculiar to himself, ]but by faith in the word and character
of God. The faith which took Abel to the altar of sacrifice in early life, led Enoch to repair to it habitually for
more than three hundred years. The faith which induced
a comparative few barely to enter the way of life, induced
him steadily to.advance in it until he had attained to
heights of holiness which, but for him, they might have
been almost excused for deeming inaccessible-heights
where he could freely expatiate over the sublime scenes of
his future existence, and fiom which but little of earth remained visible, except what was calculated to repel by its




THE FAMILY CONSTITUTION.             129
depravity, or to alarm by its exposure to a gathering cloud.
The faith which the irreligious around him were reposing
in each other and in " the father of lies," he reposed in the
infinitely blessed God. And thus he virtually rebuked all
inferior piety; condemned the unbelief and practical atheism of the day; moved the world and overcame it, by
standing on a position out of it and independent of it; and
became so distinguished a witness for God, that God himself saw fit to signalize His approbation by the miraculous
removal of His servant fiom the earth.
An invisible  The miracle of Enoch's translation was
world,  another event pregnant with Divine intimations, especially as pointing to the existence of an invisible
world.  " He was not, for God took him."   "He was
translated that he should not see death." Death had no
doubt, by this time, come to be looked on by the skeptical
world as a law of nature, from which man had never been
even conditionally exempt. The solemn fact that, in his
case, it is the penalty of transgression; or that he could,
by possibility, have left the earth by any other mode of
exit, only served to excite the general ridicule. But here
was an event which re-proclaimed man's original condition;
which affirmed that the law can never become superior to
the Lawgiver; that the uniformity of nature for any given
period simply proves that, during that period, such uniformity answers the Divine purpose better than the interruption
of it would have done, but that it is nothing more than the
expression of the Divine will for the time; for here, the miraculous became natural. The natural body was transformed
into a spiritual body. Especially the visibleand the earthly
confessed their subordination to the invisible and the heavenly. There is ground to conclude that, as a public servo*




130             THE DEVELOPMENT OF
ant of God, the existence of an invisible world, and of
many of its awful characteristics, had formed the subject
of his warning addresses.   "Knowing the terrors of the
Lord, he persuaded men."    But his message had excited
derision.  Here, however, the truth of his doctrine was
Divinely attested, for that world had now absorbed him.
The fcet that " the spirits of the just made perfect" were
all livilng unto God, could not now be rationally doubted;
for there was ground to believe that he, a living saint, had
gone to join them. The great doctrine of future rewards,
and therefbre of punishments, was now proclaimed by miracle; for here was one who, having walked with God till
he had come to live in the very precincts of heaven, was
now, as by a hand all but visible, suddenly drawn into-the
radiance of the Divine throne.
A future judg-  The doctrine of a future and final judfgment.    ment formed the subject of a distinct prophetic revelation.   "Enoch, the seventh     from  Adamn,
prophesied of these [the irreligious of his day], saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousand of His saints, to
execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they
have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches
which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him." *    Here
* Jude, 14, 15. Whence did the Apostle derive this language? There
is no doubt of the existence of a very ancient book called "the Book
of Enoch;" and that the Ethiopic version of it, which we now possess,
was derived from an earlier Greek translation, and that again from the
Chaldee or Hebrew original. The learned are about equally divided as
to whether it was written in the first century of the Christian era or in
the century preceding. Nor is it material to decide. For whether the
Apostle was indebted to tradition or to this apocryphal book for the




TIHE  FAM3ILY   CONSTITUTION.               131
we learn a part, at least, of "the burden of the Lord"
which his messengers delivered.   Even in that dawning of
time, the eye of prophecy, piercing through all the intermediate ages, descried the pomp and solemnity of the final
judgment with all the vividness of an impending event.
Doubtless that final scene was foreshadowed and foreseen in the threatened deluge.    How impressively did the
Divine prediction of the flood proclaim   the calm, certain,
and majestic movements of justice.     The world probably
then, as now, derided the idea of its destruction; scientifically demonstrated, in its way, the physical impossibility
of a general deluge; proved historically that such an event
never had taken place; and congratulated itself on the
superior notions which it entertained of the Divine benevolence-notions which rendered it politely horrified at the
bare mention of such a catastrophe. But on went the note
of preparation, in the building of the Ark, without pause
or relaxation.  And many a sinner would see in the coming
crisis, a prediction, by fact, of the last judgment.  And the
"preacher of righteousness" would solemnly point to it as
an installment of the great doom predicted by Enoch; and
which, from   the moment of its first announcement, has
prophecy, the inspiration which guided his selection is a sufficient attestation of its truth. As, however, the writer of the book of Enoch, if he
wrote before the Apostle, must have been indebted to tradition for the
prophecy, there is no reason whatever why the Apostle might not have
derived it from the same source. The probability is, that it is one of
those winged sentences which came aross the flood; and that it continued its flight from age to age, like a messenger from God, till the
Spirit was pleased to give it a place in the record of his living oracles.
The Book of Enoch the Prophet, by Dr. Laurence. Amer. Bib. Repos.
1840. Silvestre de Sacy's Notice du Livre d'Enoch in the fMagazin Encycloopcdique. an. vi. tom. i. p. 382.




132           T,IIE DEVELOPMENT OF
never ceased to loom and lower in the dark back-ground
of time. And new and agitating thoughts of God, as the
heart-searcher, the All-knowing Judge, would spring up,
and forestall the doom of many a sinner.
But the deluge was not to be an indiscrimThe great mor-           z
al division-the inate judgment; it was to present an episaved and the lost.
tome of the last great crisis in this respect
also, that it would exhibit the salvation of some attended
with the destruction of others, and that the destruction teas
subordinate to the salvation, and in order to it. The popular notion is, that the waters of the deluge sustained the
same relation to Noah and his family which they did to the
world at large; and that the only deliverance which he
experienced, in connection with the flood, was deliverance
from the death in which it wrapped all the other families
of mankind. But no, the sense in which he was saved
from it, is only a low, accidental, physical sense; as the
champion of a people's liberties might be said to have been
saved from the casualties of a conflict in which numbers
had fallen, although, in the highest sense, and in reality,
he, and liberty, and his people, were all saved by the conflict. So, says the Apostle Peter, Noah was "saved by
water;" and hence he represents it as the emblem of baptismal water under the present economy. There was a
moral deluge flooding the earth long before the physical
deluge was predicted-" the floods of the ungodly;" and
it was to save the Patriarch fiom these floods that the ma.
terial deluge came. It was not sent to show how God
could rescue His servant from its drowning waves; but in
order that it might be, in conjunction with the Ark, the
means of saving him from an already existing deluge of
wickedness which had advanced and risen until piety was




THE FAMILY CONSTITUTION.              133
driven to its last refuge. The destruction of the world
was not an end, but only the means to an end; and that
end, the salvation of Noah, and of a principle to which
even the Patriarch's deliverance was to be subordinatedthat of the progress of the Divine manifestation in the history of humanity. And however unwelcome this interpretation of the predicted deluge may have been to the irreligious, and however vaguely it may have floated before
their eyes, during the hundred and twenty years which
elapsed before the prediction was fulfilled, the Patriarch
doubtless beheld in it only a new and enlarged illustration
of the great principle, characteristic of the Divine government from the beginning-that judgment is subordinated
to mercy; that evil, whether permitted or inflicted, exists
only for the sake of good, and in order to it.
Teaching by  Another mode of Divine instruction and
Names,   revelation was the bestowment on certain
individuals of names* commemorative or predictive of
great truths and events. Names, at that time, were not
arbitrary or numerical signs. They stood for primitive
ideas; clothed great principles; reflected the vicissitudes
of history; ranked with institutions. The human heart
was then travailing with a great hope; and every new
event, especially the birth of a child, became significant
and kindled expectation. What a solemn disclosure was
made in the earthly appellation given to the first man!
What a flood of hope and joy gushed forth in the first
utterance of the new name which Adam, just released from
the expected doom of immediate death, bestowed on the
mother of the species —Chavah (Eve) -Life, "because she
was [to be] the mother of all living."  The names of Cain,
* See the Onomastion Sacrum. Mathai Hilleri.




134             THE DEVELOPMENT OF
Abel, and Seth, could -never be intelligently pronounced
without recalling, and virtually repeating, the    leading
events in the first family of man, and thus tending to familiarize the mind with all the principles of the Divine administration which those events illustrate. The Biblical idea of
God was itself a sublime revelation, and of that idea His
Name was significant.   The earliest names by which the
Divine being was pleased to make Himself known to His
human worshipers appear to have been El,* Eloalt, and
Elohimz-rendered in our common version, Gold-and denoting the Supreme, the Adorable Power.     And though it
would not be safe to infer the earliest conceptions of God
from these primeval appellations, we may warrantably conclude that the minds of the faithful were constantly growing up to them, and more clearly reflecting them. In process of time, the Divine name, El, came to be compounded
with human names, showing with what a power religion
penetrated and possessed the mind. To say, Jcahelaleel,
was to sulmon to the Praise of God. Still more marked
was the period when all the faithful came to be called collectively the sons of God —implying as it did the recognition of their profound relations to Iim, their obedience to
His will, and their faith in His word; and uttering, in
* One proof that this is the earliest name by which God was known
to man is, that it is the only one which is found incorporated with antediluvian human names. The name Jehovah, therefore, as employed by
the sacred historian in his account of antediluvian times, must not be
supposed to imply that it was known dispensationally, if at all, during
those times, but only that it was the Divine designation appropriately
and generally employed at the time that Moses wrote, or at the time
when the account which he adopts, under Divine guidance, was first
made known by tradition or by writing. Ex. vi. 2, 3.




TIlE FAMILY CONSTITUTION.             135
effect, a continuous prediction of the coming of the promised deliverance. At a later period, we come to names
indicative of the mighty thoughts which were agitating the
hearts of the sons of God, and pointing then to the pregnant future. Thus, to say Noah, was to repeat a prediction which looked on to the flood and beyond; while the
names of his three sons dimly foreshadowed the history of
three great branches of mankind.
Prophetic Teach-  Prophecy, including preaching or public
ing.   admonition, was an additional vehicle of Divine communication to sinful man. At first, the venerable
Patriarch would address his instructions and rebukes only to
the numerous members of his own family. But when, in
the lapse of time, they who should have been united as
teachers and taught, banded together in a league of irreligion, the mission of the "man of God" took a wider range
and a more solemn character. Noah was a " preacher of
righteousness." * That there was a succession of such messengers from God can not be doubted; for when the wickedness of man proved at length incorrigible, God said,
" MIy spirit shall not always strive with man." The meaning of this language may perhaps be best explained by the
parallel language in Nehemiah,t "Yet many years didst
Thou forbear them, and testified against them by Thy
Spirit in Thy prophets; yet would they not give ear." In:; similar manner, the Spirit of God, in IIis prophets, strug-:(led with the giant forms of antediluvian impiety.
Plurality of the  Iln  sice to the greatness of the subject, I
Divine Name. can not forbear pointing attention to the intillnations of a plurality in the Divine essence contained in
11he opening pages of RIevelation, and of which the language
* 2 Peter, ii. 5.         f Neh. ix. 30.




136              THE DEVELOPMENT          OF
quoted in the preceding paragraph is peculiarly striking.
How remarkable, for example, that the plural term, Elohim,
should be applied to the Divine Being; especially when
there was not the least necessity for so doing arising from
the Hebrew language itself.     How much is this apparent
anomaly increased by the fact that these plural names are
construed with singular verbs, pronouns, and adjectives.*
How awakening and suggestive the fact that Elohim, God,
thus designated by a plural appellative, should also speak
of Himself in plural forms: "And God said, Let us make
man in our image, after our likeness!"f while in the declaration, " My Spirit shall not always strive with man," the
idea of plurality combined with unity is still more fully developed. As I could not, however, open the discussion of
this subject here, without forestalling proofs and illustrations
belonging to a later stage of the Divine proceedings, and
as I do not claim for it a distinct dogmatic form   in antediluvian times, I will only add that, for us, and with our su* The attempt to account for this peculiarity by the Rabbinical rule of
grammar called plur. majestaticus-made to meet this particular exigence
-is now well-nigh exploded. Ewald affirms that " it is a great error to
suppose that the Hebrew language, as we find it, has any feeling for a
so-called plur. majestaticus; and that the word Elohim appears always to
have remained in the pl. in prose from that (the earliest) time."-Gram,
of the HIeb. Language of the Old Testament, transl. by Nicholson, 1836.
~ 361.
1 The attempt to explain this peculiarity by saying that it is the style
of regal authority, assumes, without proof, both that it was the style of
Hebrew rulers, and that it was the style of sovereigns at the early period
of the Mosaic writings. In truth, it involves the solecism of attempting
to resolve a suggestive peculiarity of the Divine language into an affectation of human language, which most probably remained unknown for
centuries afterward.




THE FAMILY CONSTITUTION.              137
perior light, the language appears to make an important
disclosure, both of the internal economy of the Divine nature, and of some of the relations of that economy to the
process of man's restoration. The Divine essence includes
a subsistence designated the Spirit. The Spirit, already
spoken of as transforming the material chaos, sustains the
office of contending with the chaos of the moral world, rebuking and condemning the rebellion of the human heart;
and the world is here at length warned that this contest of
mercy draws to a close, and that Justice is about to unsheath his sword.
Sacrifici.   n-  Other illustrations of the gradual developSacrificial Animals and Cove- ment of primary truths and appointments
nants.
might have been noticed. The distinction
between beasts clean and unclean,* for example, denotes
that an enlargement of the sccrificial ritual had already, at
some time, taken place. And the manner in which the
covenants made with Noah f are introduced, implies that
the ideas which they embody were already familiar to his
mind. But abundant evidence has been adduced that the
development of the means of Divine manifestation, spoken
of in our second and third chapters, had been constantly
going on. Objects in nature had been consecrated to new
and exalted ends. Man himself had become a new revelation. The voice of prophecy was no longer strange. Glimpses into the unseen world had been afforded. The fundamental principles of moral government had been republished,
in effect, again and again. The family economy had shown
its vast capabilities as a part of that government. The doctrine of mediation, embodied in Patriarchal intercession,
had become familiar. Particular judgments were general*Gen. vii. 2.            Gen. vi. 18; ix. 11.




138        THE FAMILY CONSTITUTION.
ized into the prospect of a coming judgment all-comprehending and final. Pre-existing means of manifestation
were not only brought forward, they were employed for
higher purposes than before; and even the fundamental
truths of the new economy were themselves constantly
placed in new lights and received additional verifications.
The mercy which had been promised had been also and
often experienced. In the highest sense men had been
saved.




CHAPTER V.
THE ACTIVITY WHICH THE LAW OF DEVELOPMENT PRESUPPOSES, AND WHICH THE FAMILY PUTS IN MOTION.
IN the preceding chapter we have exemLaw of activity.
plified thefact of man's development during
the antediluvian period; in the present, we propose to
specify some of those principles of man's nature which
that development appealed to or pre-supposed. In other
words, the law of activity justifies the expectation that man
" will be found to manifest all that he is calculated to exhibit of the Divine nature, by developing or working out
his own nature.'"* Even a material creation, if devoid of
regulated activity, could be no manifestation of an everliving and ever-acting God. Still more may activity be expected in that order of creatures whose distinction it is,
that not only to them but by them the manifestation will
be made. Such activity may be looked for in them, if only
to help them to understand, by sympathy, the same property in the Divine nature. Accordingly, man has certain
possibilities of active excellence stored up in him, by the
voluntary employment of which he becomes an image, to
himself and to others, of the Divine activity in creation and
providence.  These possibilities the family constitution
tends to develop and to make actual.
* For the grounds of this law, see Pre-Adamite Earth, p. 61.




140               THE ACTIVITY     OF
Prc-supposesDi-  Man's individual activity pre-supposes a
vine instructions. world of objective conditions.*  He carne to
find every part of his nature the center of innumerable
appeals. But in addition to this pre-constituted harmony
between man and nature, the very first movements of the
first Patriarch pre-supposed the possession of a certain
amount of material knowledge.f    "That man could not
have made himself is appealed to as a proof of the agency
of a Divine Creator; and that mankind could not in the
first instance have civilized themselves, is a proof, exactly
of the same kind, and of equal strength, of the agency of
a Divine. Instructor."  Men are apt to imagine that the
advantages resulting fiom a course of conduct when it is
completed were the motives which led to it; and therefore
erroneously infer that every step of their civilization is the
legitimate result of a previously-digested plan. But of all
the truths developed by history, there are none more certain than these: first, that, with all man's freedom as an individual, yet in the great process of social civilization,
" effects are generally produced before the causes are perceived; and that, with all man's talents for projects, his
work is often accomplished before the plan is devised." ~
And, secondly, that not only has no savage family ever
been known to emerge from barbarism by its own unaided
exertion, but that the tendency of every tribe in such a
condition is to grow worse instead of better.ll The means
of amlelioration must come to it from without-from a people already civilized. Had the first man then been created
* Man Primeval, chap. vi.          + Ibid, pp. 111, 178.: Archbishop Whateley's Political Economy. Lect. v.
~ Dr. A. Ferguson's Essay on Civil Society, section 1.
1| Dr. WV. C. Taylor's Natural History of Society, vol. i. chap. xiv.




THE FAMILY CONSTITUTION.              1-t
and left in perfect ignorance, in perfect ignorance lie would
have remained; or, rather, in that ignorance he would have
speedily perished. Even if he could have imagined what
is meant by civilization, the prospect of the complicated
means necessary to attain it, and of his own utter helplessness in devising them, could have produced but one effectthat of annihilating hopelessness. But the very conception
itself-even the consciousness of the want of improvement
-pre-supposes an amount of acquired knowledge; for entire barbarism is unconscious of the want, and even resists
the first attempts to impart it.
In harmony with these views, we have found the first
father of the species Divinely put in possession, at the beginning, of a certain stock of civilizing knowledge. The
great Parent himself gave man's activity the first impulse,
and the right direction; indicating to him the fields in
which his offspring might most profitably employ their
energies. Doubtless, the knowledge imparted was of a
kind not to supersede but to quicken the exercise of his
own powers. It was a pound likely to " gain ten pounds
more."
Famy a y  But in vain would man have possessed
Family activity
voluntary.  this knowledge as the means of self-development, unless the constitution of the family had been of a
nature to leave his activity voluntary. Every one acquainted with human nature knows that the activity compelled
by a force from without tends to cease the moment that
force is removed; and this, notwithstanding many considerations of self-interest, may combine with that force to induce the continuance of the activity. Hence, it is always
the wisdom of those in authority to encourage effort, to
fan emulation, and to make activity voluntary. Here, in




142              THE ACTIVITY OF
the first family, no external force existed even to compel
it. Love was the mainspring of every movement; in love
every effort was intended to find its ample reward.
Derives its vol Thb family constitution secures the activity
Derives its voluntariness from of its members by deriving this voluntariness
love.
from the powerful motives of gratitude and
loe. Love carries the mind beyond itself; and is the sense
of its emotional relation to another as its proper object.
That affection, which is the first great stimulus of the young
of both sexes, is no sooner gratified in the attainment of
its object than it turns its attention to the pleasant task
of enhancing the happiness of that object. The new pursuit may often apparently involve the comparative disregard
of the object beloved; but it is only because enlightened
affection thinks of the future as well as of the present, and
is prepared to sacrifice the pleasure of the passing moment,
as the husbandman appears to cast away the precious seed,
only that he may afterward reap a plentiful harvest. And
most wisely and benevolently is it ordered, that the affection should operate with the greater force for encountering
difficulties; that its ardor increases in proportion as it benefits and renders its object happy; and that the longer it
continues, the mutual exercises of generosity which are
brought to light, and the joint trials of fortitude which are
involved, all tend to bring over the best passions of the
mind upon its side. Now, from the moment the social
constitution was founded, in the union of our first parents,
this mighty spring of activity began to uncoil and expand,
requiring  an  ever-enlarging  sphere for its operation.
Who can imagine them, as at first, alone in the world,
without picturing their efforts for each other's happiness?
How would a sense of their mutual dependence endear




THE FAMILY CONSTITUTION.              1,13
them to each other, and convert that labor into enjoyment
which contributed in the least to the good of the object
beloved! But what an accession to the strength of their
mutual activity came with the birth of their first-born
child! The new and powerful emotions awakened, as they
gazed on his helplessness, loveliness, and new-born innocence, involved a new and sleepless principle of civilization,
which asked an additional sphere of activity. For him a
softer couch would be spread than had before been known.
New words would be coined-words of tenderness and
yearning love; to be uttered in tones new to the eartones of music to mingle with his dreams.   Invention
would be taxed in his service; and man be anew surprised
at the discovery of his own resources. Every additional
child would be a new bond of conjugal affection, and a
fresh impulse to parental activity. And thus, while new
demands continued to be made on their diligence, and the
circle over which they had to extend their foresight and to
exercise their superintendence went on enlarging, they
were acquiring the habits necessary to fill that circle to its
circumference with their industry.
Increased by em- As the members of the family increased,
Increased by emulation.  they would be actuated by a spirit of affectionate emulation. This is seen even among young children.
"The plays of natural lively children are the infancy of art.
Children live in the world of imagination and feeling. They
invest the most insignificant object with any form they
please, and see in it whatever they wish to see."* While
each, it may be added, strives to excel the other in the expression he gives to it; and thus to win the good opinion
* Oehlenschladger, in Mrs. Austin's Fragments from German Prose
Writers, p. 162.




1-I-             THE ACTIVITY OF
of those around him. As age advances, the same efforts
are transferred to a wider sphere; and that which the child
was believed to be, the youth strives to become. Here,
opposite qualities, finding themselves side by side, are taxed
to the utmost in a variety of ways, but all tending to the
development of humanity.   Strength puts forth its last
efiorts and seeks to become stronger, in the presence of
weakness; and weakness repays it by admiration, reliance
and the gentle ministry of its attentions and comforts.
Wisdom itself is instructed, while sifting and simplifying its
knowledge, and answering the keen inquiries of youthful
curiosity; and youthful ignorance learns humility, industry,
and habits of obedience, while in the act of acquiring the
knowledge of other things. Each member, by living and
moving under the eye of the whole, would feel himself
constantly incited to vie with every other in his endeavors
to minister to the general good. Every offering laid on
the domestic altar is repaid with gratitude; every mite of
pleasure added is an increase of the common fund of enjoyment; and idleness, if only for its unproductiveness, is
treason to the domestic economy.
By division of Still further would this activity be secured
labor.  by the division of labor of which the family
constitution admits, and for which it provides.  Labors
which the isolated individual would never think of undertaking can here, by combination, be accomplished with ease;
and a sphere which one alone would never dream of even
entering can be filled with activity in every part. If Abel
undertakes to herd the cattle, Cain can give his undivided
attention to the cultivation of the ground, and so increase
his knowledge, and improve his methods, of agriculture.
Tubal Cain, by confining himself to metallurgy, can acquire




TIHE FA AIILY CONSTITUTION.            145
a facility and a skill in his lepartment which enables him to
work up his material to the greatest perfection, and to produce it in the greatest abundance. And thus the history
of the progress of civilization before the Flood, as since,
would be found to be a history of the ever-increasing subdivision of the objects of humanl labor.
The authority with which the father, as
Paternal authority promotes and head of the family, is naturally invested, would
directs it.  enable him to turn the activity of its membei s
to the best account by giving to it direction, unity, and
strength. The knowledge and position of the parent give
him the opportunity of discovering, as from a height, the
peculiar aptitudes of his children in their earliest symptoms,
and of furnishing the appropriate means for their development; so that a Jubal and a Jabal may not, by changing
places, find their respective professions a drudgery, and
leave them  entirely unimproved.  Every art, and every
portion of every art, has a "mystery" which may engross
the whole of a man's attention; but it is only when he gives
himself to it con amzore that lie so masters it as to carry it
to a state of greater perfection than that in which he found
it. The parent, too, possessed the power of so directing
the pursuits of his children as that the labors of one should
enhance the value of the labors of all the rest; the, husbandry of one subserving the pastoral employments of
another, and the labors of both these contributing to give
unity and value to the activity of the whole. And the
authority which thus distributes to the children their several
departments of activity is, of course, presumed to be the
furthest removed from ignorance, caprice, arbitrariness, and
selfishness; for it is not only the authority of age and experience, but also of a father, and therefore the authority
7




146              TIE ACTIVITY OF
of affection; while the obedience which hastens to fill those
departments is plesumed to be voluntary, grateful, and
cheerfil, for it is the obedience of youth, inexperience, and
filial love.
The multiplication and co-existence of famExcited by the
co-existence of ilies which had branched off from the parent
other families.  stock would still further excite to activity.
Thle emulation which had existed within the single family
would find a much wider sphere for friendly competition in
endeavoring to surpass the efforts and the possessions of
neighboring families. And if the division of labor among
the members of the same family enabled them greatly to
extend the nange of their activity, how much more would
that range be enlarged by the friendly co-operation of distinct families, even in the same district?
ye m n  This activity would often be heightened to
By the migration 
of families.  enterprise and daring vwhen families migrated
into remote districts teeming with new products, and furnishing new lines of industry, and new incitements to it.
And if the physical geography of Western Asia resembled
then what we know it to be now, almost every remove
would exhibit the variety supposed. The families left behind, eager to share the attractive products of the new
field, would have fiesh inducements to labor in order to
procure them; while the emigrants, accustomed to comforts
they had left behind, and unable to create them in their
new locality, would be furnished with powerful motives to
enterprise in order to procure them in exchange. The corn
and timber of the terrace-regions would be bartered for the
products of the " land of Havilah, where there is gold, and
bdellium, and the onyx-stone;" the rich fruits and balms
of the lowlands, for the rock-salt of Anatolia; and "horses




TIlE FAMILY CONSTITUTION.              147
from the house of Togarmalh" (Armenia), for the herds fed
on the table-lands of Iran.
And the relations of kindred in which they
Bry the fanlily
relationship of the all stood to each other-to say nothing of the
whole.    identity of their languarge —tended to the
same advancement, by furnishing motives to constant and
frielidly intercourse. To the question of their numbers we
sliall presently allude; but whether they were comparatively
great or small, they must all have appeared to each other,
even to the last, in the light of one family, the latest-born
of which was related, not remotely, to the parents of the
whole.
ol cviza-   Ascending from material to moratl civilizaMoral   civiliza- 
tlon; howpromot- tion-which kinds, though distinct, are ined by marriage.
separable and mutually reactive-we have to
speak first of the great law of marriage, as founded in the
constitution of human nature.  The Divine appointment,
which limits the married state to individuals who are exclusively united to each other for life-as proclaimed in the
creation and union of the first pair-was calculated to exercise an exalting influence on human character. It took the
conjugal state out of the class of mere animal indulgences,
and pointed to ennobling ends. It is essential to a HOME.
The relations arising out of the conjugal state are calculated to touch every spring in man's nature. The parents
themselves have been drawn to each other by a power
which makes them one. Their children are parts of themselves. How powerfully adapted is the sight of an infant
family to terminate improvidence, and to produce thoughtfulness and foresight-thus giving the future its due ascendency over the present. How softening and purifying
* Ezekiel, xxvii. 14.




148                THE ACTIVITY OF
-what a fountain of moral civilization in the bosom     of a
family-is the helpless little one, with its tears, its prattle,
and the radiant innocence of its face! In communion with
such fieshness, how many a father has then first felt ashamed
of his vice, and has hid it, if not even abandoned it! The
relation of children to one another, especially that of brothers
and sisters, operates to the same benign effect.   Between
these, love is seen in " sexual separation." The affections
are cherished, while sentiments of chastity and delicacy are
strengthened.   And thus-as it has been beautifully expressed, "in giving us sisters, God gave us the best of
earthly moral antiseptics."*
The family constitution provides a nursery for the benevolent affections.  Not only is "sense consecrated in marriage," or its pleasures denied to the mere appetites that
they may be ennobled and given to pure affection; not only
does self-love, in the case of each of the parents, enlarge the
sphere of its operation, forecasting and providing for each
other and for their offspring, as parts of one whole; but in
the family, the children, by being surrounded by objects of
love, are detached from that selfishness which would otherwise place them in isolation from all around, and are trained
* Guesses at Truth, p. 306. First Series.
But must not the brothers and sisters of the first family have intermarried? Yes. But let the following facts be borne in mind:-First,
that the same ground of necessity for such unions could never exist
again to the end of time. Secondly, that the social and moral evils which
such unions would certainly engender at any subsequent period, could
have had no existence at a time when there were no other families in
being. The natural necessity for the act ceased before its tendency could
be felt. And, thirdly, the God of nature prohibits the repetitions of such
unions by a law-the physiological law that the offspring of such unions
tend more and more to degeneracy.




THE FAMILY CONSTITUTION.               149
to regard themselves, not merely as units, of which society
is the sum total, but as organic parts of which it is the vital
whole.
The longevity of Patriarchal life, too, afBy Longevity.
forded an extended opportunity for contrasting the effects arising fiom the violation of the laws of
chastity and marriage with the consequences resulting from
their. observance. As to the number of offspring, for instance, ample time was then enjoyed for observing, on the
largest scale, the fact, that while the laws of marriage tend
to the steady multiplication of a people, polygamy, promiscuous intercourse, and licentiousness in all its forms, tend
to reduce the fecundity of the species, and have, in some
instances, led to the extinction of whole tribes. God would
be seen signifying His will, on the same subject, in the
physical surperiority of the offspring of marriage as contrasted with the fruits of licentious intercourse. It would
be apparent also in the quiet and comfort of a home, as
contrasted with the bickerings, jealousies, and strifes of a
harem; and especially in the training and education of the
children of lawful marriage, as contrasted with the neglected
condition of others.
B te l    Another element of moral civilization which
By the laws of
Reciprocity. the family was calculated advantageously to
develop, was that which relates to the laws of Reciprocity.
The first family would present, in effect, a mimic rehearsal
of all the tendencies to evil which society afterward came
to exhibit on a gigantic scale; but most admirably adapted
was the domestic economy to restrain them, and to develop
the opposite virtues. As to the sanctity of human life,
what constitution so adapted to waken and cherish the sentiment as one in which all were nearly related, and daily




150              THE ACTIVITY OF
moved in the presence of their common parents? As to
Personal Liberty-the first child was born with rights equal
to those of its parents; for it brought into the world a constitution, or a separate and complete system, which rendered
it capable of self-government, and separately answerable to
God for the use of its powers. But, then, as its condition
was not equal, how admirable was the arrangement which
placed it in hands which, so far from invading'its rights,
would be ever ready to protect them, and which placed no
limits to its liberty but such as led to its right application,
and its full enjoyment! And when, as would naturally be
the case, the superior strength of the first-born would be
occasionally put forth, if only in innocent playfulness, to coerce the movements of the second, how well calculated was
the parental voice which arrested the proceeding to call out
the sentiment of justice implanted in the infant breast!
As to the right of property, one of the earliest sentiments
developed in childhood-how could the child be placed
more advantageously for having it developed correctly?
The too ready meuml of the first child would come to be
limited by the ttuiz of the second.  And as the family increased, and little questions of childish property multiplied
and required arbitration, what hand so likely to hold the
balances impartially as that of parental love?
The same may be said of Justice, as it respects character,
reputation, and veracity in general. WVhat eye likely to be
so quick in the detection of any thing calculated to weaken
moral restraint, or to excite evil dispositions, as that of the
affectionate parent? Who so loth as he to listen to any
tale affecting the reputation of one of his children, even
though told by the lips of another; or so prompt to examine
into its truth, and to rebuke the slander? Or where could




THE FAMILY CONSTITUTION.               15]
the child be placed in circumstances in which he would
naturally be so likely to be trained to truth as under the
parental roof? Here the first object is to train its senses
to report truly; then to teach its tongue to express truly
its own thoughts; and then to report no thought as truth,
either of the past, the present, or the future, either of testimony or promise-but such as it believes to be true. And
in no place could there be less interest to deceive, or stronger motives to speak the truth, than in the family.
In all these respects, too, the children of a family live
under the influence of an example the most likely to affect
them, and enjoy it during the most impressible season of
life. For in the spirit and conduct of their parents toward
each other, they behold justice administered by love; reciprocity, anxious only not to take more than it imparts; the
voluntary denial of self, gaining its reward in a higher and
a nobler whole.
By the ultipli-  It is interesting to imagine the expansion
By the multiplication of Families. and application of these sentiments as families
branched off, multiplied, and subsequently co-operated in
voluntary associations. As to personal Liberty, there would
be ample room for its development and assertion, physically,
intellectually, and religiously. And although as the family
relations become more and more collateral and removed
fiom the parent stock; and as other relations, such as those
of master and servant, came into existence, human liberty
would be increasingly endangered; yet the Patriarchal
form of government would tend in that early age, more
than any other form, to respect and preserve it. The sentiment which it was calculated to cherish was beautifully expressed by Job, when, centuries after, he said



152               THE ACTIVITY OF
"If I denied justice to my male hireling,
Or to my female hireling, when they disputed with me,
What then should I do when God maketh inquest?
When he inquires, what answer should I give?
Did not He who formed me, form them?
Were we not fashioned alike in the womb?"
By the law of  As to Property, there was scope for the deProperty.  velopment of the sentiment in all its various
stages. There was the right arising from  discovery; and
the still higlher arising from possession; and the highest
arising fiom appropriation, or transformation, by labor and
improvement. This right of subordinate creation-this feeling respecting a certain place or object, that it was nmine,
and that all which I can make of it will be mine also, is a
most powerful stimulant to effort. At that period, too, human life, prolonged though it was, would be comparatively
little less than a prolonged wonder. Every new movement
would have all the uncertainty and excitement of an experiment. Every instance of success would be hailed as a discovery and a triumph. The raw material of the world was
given into man's hand, and every new form which he gave
to it, or new purpose to which he applied it, would call forth
the applauses of his cotemporaries, and promise him immortality. But the rights of any one family, in respect to
property, were the rights of all. As the families which had
diverged in different directions multiplied into tribes, and
as, by that multiplication, they approached each other again,
it would become necessary to have these rights defined.
And what parties so likely to prevent Judah and Ephraim
from vexing each other, by establishing an equitable adjustment, as the Patriarchs of each, whose wisdom taught them




THE FAMILY CONSTITUTION.              153
their mutual dependence, and whose unforgotten relationship made them to love as brethren? *
Patriarchl rul As to Character, the Patriarch would conPatriarchal rulo
strengthened by  tinue to feel, even when his family had inMorality.
creased to a tribe, and every father in the
tribe would feel with him, that whatever tended to impair
its morality, tended in the same degree to impair parental
authority. H-ence, even when higher motives failed to influence, a reason for the maintenance of morality would be
ever present and operative in the desire to conserve the
necessary Patriarchal rule. And as the human family went
on to multiply, tile duties affecting reputation and veracity
would-increase in importance also. Greater reliance would
have to be placed on unsupported testimony. Mutual confidence became more and more essential to mutual co-operation. And in such confidence and co-operation would be
found the bond of a union, not solemnized, indeed, by
formal treaties, but which yet invisibly cemented all the
children of Adam in a fimily compact.
The Family vmi-  Ascending, aga-in fiom moral to religious
nentl favorableto  ion      h kinds like the material
Iteligi ous Civiliza- liztllo  llll lxn s, llke tue matelial
tion.        and the moral, though distinct are inseparable and nmutually reactive-the three being parts of one
Awholc-we find every thing in the family supposing it, and
conducilng to it. As to the children, what facilities the domestic constitution affords for their religious education!
For here it may be commenced before their hearts become
pre-occupied with conscious evil; while they are in a state
of great susceptibility to impression; disposed readily to
believe the parental word; and with the certainty that this
impressible and improvable state will continue for a succes* Gen. xiii. 8, 9.
7*




154              THE ACTIVITY OF
sion of months and even years. In an antediluvian family,
indeed,' When still a hundred years beheld the boy
Beneath his mother's roof, her infant joy;" *
and where the children were never entirely dismissed from
parental authority and oversight during the parental life,
these flcilities and their salutary effects would be enjoyed
for centuries.
As to the Parents, how inciting to holy diligence the
relations they found themselves called to sustain! On becoming a parent, Adam would first know emphatically
what a Father in Heaven meant, and feel more than ever
his dependence upon Him. Respecting the knowledge
they had to impart —what a tale had the first parent to
tell! and during his long pilgrimage of nine hundred years,
could it ever lose its affecting interest for his posterity?
How many a question wouldl he   ave to answer again and
ag'ain respecting his paradisiacal state?  And although the
parents of later times would only be channels of many of
those Divine communications of which he was the appointed fountatin, the character of those truths, by awakeninc the curiosity, and exciting the imagination, of their
children, would firnish their own minds with constant occasion for devout consideration. Such would be the case
especially with the doctrines involved in the institution of
sacrifice and the family character of the first promise.
Respecting the duties they had to perform —especially the
i)iestly duties of intercession and sacrifice-how affecting
to the aged Patriarch himself to lead the devotions of a
multitude of all ages who had sprung fiom his loins, and to
remember that, in doing so, he was typifying a mysterious
* Hesiod's Works and Days. Elon's Translation, line 175.




THE FAMILY CONSTITUTION.              155
arrangement on which he was not less dependent than his
offspring!
As to the family, viewed collectively and in its successive generations. The manner in which the Divine revelations had been imparted-the proofs by which their authenticity could be established-the meaning of many of the
figurative expressions employed (as; for example, in the
first promise)-the period of the fulfillment of that promise-all this required more or less of induction, and would
lead the devout inquirer to "search diligently what was
the mind of the Spirit."  Now the family was a constitution admirably adapted:for repressing crude thoughts and
dangerous theories, and for conducting such inquiries to a
wise and successful issue. For, here, youth could sit at the
feet of age, history correct and guide speculation, and authority and reason find the most advantageous point of
union. Here, too, death came all the more solemnly for
having delayed his stroke for long centuries, and, by leading the venerable Patriarch of generations down to his
dark chambers, would impressively remind the survivors of
their common relationship to each other, and of their near
alliance to another state of being. But chiefly would the
hallowing influence of religion be felt by the stated observance of the Sabbath. Then, reminded of their common
origin, hopes, and destiny, they would be prepared for the
activities of this world bly being made to feel their relationship to God and to the world to come.
Iere, then, in the family constitution, we find every
thing presupposing the tendency of man to work out his
own nature by activity, as well as conducive to such development. If this world was prepared for the coming of the
first man, not less was the family economy designed, as an




15 6 aTHE ACTIVITY OF
inner world, for the reception of the infant; whence, having received impressions from every object in the family,
and having influenced them in return, he is to go forth to
repeat the process in a family of his own, and to multiply
and extend the relations of man to external nature. The
milk which rushes to the mother's breast at the birth
of her first-born, is but an emblem of the adaptations and
activities of the domestic constitution. Here, by the sedulous affection which is ever developing the faculties of the
child; marking every new trait in its character with wondeling admiration; attracting its eye with colors; amusing
it with sounds; by motions exciting its motions; guiding
its random steps; teaching its first words; and thus preparing it to take part in the opening drama of life; new
energies and resources are developed in the parents themselves. Here affection finds ample scope for denying itself, courage for daring, and industry for its manifold
labors. Here is abundant room for patience to endure,
authority to reward or to punish, fidelity to counsel and to
warn, imagination to combine and originate, memory and
hope to possess the past and the future, and piety to watch
and pray and perform its thousand acts of holiness and love.
an's history at  Now if, before the great process of human
the eve of the del- development began outside the garden of
uge, the history of
his self-manifesta- Eden, one could have been made acquainted
tion.        with all the powerful springs inclosed in the
human constitution, and about to press on every resistance
they could encounter-if one could have foreseen that,
fiom the first two a family was to spring, and from that
family a multitude of others in successive generations, each
member of which would bring with him the same principles of ceaseless activity; that every onward step would




THE FA3MILY CONSTITUTION.              157
only prepare the way for a step further, and furnish the
means for taking it, in the cultivation of a fallow world;
and that even the day of rest was not to terminate on itself, but was, partly, to give to activity the character of devotion, and to constitute religion the great element of civilization-" man (we might have said) will require an extended area for the full play of his activity, and centuries
of time to reap its higher, moral results, and a vast variety
of unvwrought material on which to exercise, and by which
to develop his untried powers."  Accordingly, we have
seen that the area assigned him was the fertile and varied
regions of Western Asia. Here, every thing awaited his
coming ifvorable to the evolution of his powers, and a stock
of knowledge was given him for the right commencement
of his active career. And, here, for about two thousand
years, the family constitution-so favorable to civilization
in its highest sense-was laboring and enlarging, and constantly multiplying its external relations.
Every object, every event, and every trace, then, which
that area was found to include at the close of that period,
and which it would not have included but for his coming,
is to be viewed as related in some way to the manifestation
of man. In all this it might have been said to a spectator
-in all this, you behold an exposition of humanity. True,
you see not the whole field of results. Generation after
generation has passed into the unseen world, and "their
works have followed them."   But the influence of their
works remains and is active in the character of the existing
generation. And true also, much of what you see is interesting in inferior respects; as, for example, the mutual relations and the capabilities of much of the material placed at
man's disposal. -But this is as nothing compared with the fact
that he has discovered these relations, and taxed these




158    ACTIVITY OF THE FAMILY CONSTITUTION.
capabilities, and that by so doing he has unfolded his own
capabilities and relations. "Property is nothing else than
the application of man's individuality to external things-;
or the realization and manifestation of man's individuality
in the material world."* And, here, as civilization has advanced, he has laid his hand on object after object; ever
seeking to multiply his image and enlarge his power. Those
cultivated fields and numerous herds; those mechanical
devices, and that substitution of brute strength, by which
human labor is economized; those toys by which childhood is amused, and those symbols by which love is expressedel those lines drawn by the hand of justice around
property, and those walls and fences which speak of insecurity; those clustering tents and more substantial houses,
those tombs built by bereaved affection, and those altars
reared by piety-what are they in relation to our present
subject but a great hieroglyphic writing, in which man has
inscribed flis history on the surface of the globe, he himself
being the great Hieroglyph. For by these means, each
man, each fimily, each generation, has disclosed its own
character, las influenced that of others, and by reaction
molded its own.
In this scene of man's self-manifestation, we behold, as
far as it proceeded according to original lazw, the scene
and means of the Divine manifestation. This is its highest,
its ultimate relation. Man was revealing his own nature in
every movement of his activity, and in every impression
which it produced.  But God was revealing Himself in
every spring and power inclosed in human nature. As far,
tlerefore, as man's fiee nature was rightly evolved, it was
a manifestation of the Divihe Nature. Here, God manifested himself by man that he might be manifested to him.
* Lieber's Political Ethics, book ii. sec. 9.




CHAPTER VI.
TIE CONTINUITY OF TIIS DEVELOPMENT AND ACTIVITY IN
THE MEANS OF DIVINE MANIFESTATION.
THE whole of the progress made in the unfolding scheme
of Divine manifestation during the antediluvian period was
continuous; so that, whatever the advance made by the
eve of the deluge, it was either the growth and expansion
of all the past, or else in perfect harmony with it. During
each successive stage of that period, every department of
art and science, of morals and religion, existed in this sense,
in an all-related connection; and this, owing to the fact
that the scheme of Providence consists, not of detached
parts, but is one continuous and ever-evolving whole. MAan
himself, individually considered, is a continuous being, both
as to his constitutional and his historical development;* and
the history of the individual is only, in this respect, a foreshadowing of the continuous development of the family,
and of the community or tribe.
aial civii-  This is true of the material civilization of
Material civilizationcontinuons. that period. "Who then educated the first
human pair? (asks the elder Fichte, in a burst of common
sense too strong for the bonds of an infidel philosophy.) A
spirit bestowed its care upon them, as is laid down in an
* Man Primeval, p. 190, etc.




160         CONTINUITY C (    THIE MEANS
ancient and venerable original record, which, taken altogether, contains the profoundest and the loftiest wisdom,
and presents those results to which all philosophy must at
last come."  With the precise amount of the information
directly imparted by the Divine parent to the first members
of His human family, we have not now to do. For even if
we could determine every thing which relates to it, the
manner of its communication, the subjects to which it referred, and the advantagcs derivable fiom it, we should
still be ready to assume that, for the most part, it would be
only gradually applied and adopted.  And then, having
received its appropriate practical application, the skill which
that application would impart, the hints and analogies which
it would suggest, and the means it would supply, would ask
for a wider sphere, and gradually lead to experiments and
new discoveries.
Traces of pro-  Now, the fiagmentary history of antedilugross from age to vian improvements in the arts of life, as reage.         corded in Scripture, harmonizes with this
law. In the secon(d generation we find a division of labor,
and the recognition of the rights of personal property.
"Abel was a kCeeper of sheep," and briings of "the firstlings
of his flock."  Cain, the husbandman, becomes in course
of time, the builder of a city; or of a group of structures
more permanent than the nomadic tent. Ancient tradition
represents Seth, about a century later, as " possessed of a
knowledge of astronomy."*   The third'genelation is signalized by the statement, " Then began men to call upon
the name of the Lord."t That the popular interpretation
* Jos. Ant. I. c. 2.. This phrase may be rendered-" Then was a beginning made for
calling by the name of Jehovah," that is, His namo was in some way




OF DIVINE MANIFESTATION.                     161
of this language, that " now piety began to prevail," or that
" public worship began to be general," is not the correct
one is evident, from the fact that aleout this time the great
religious apostacy began to develop itself in forms unusually
monstrous and gigantic.     Probably the correct interpretation is that which reconciles both extremes, by representing
the two great parties, the Sethites and the Cainites, as
drawing off more widely fiom     each other; the irreligious
more openly avowing their impiety, and the religious, more
unitedly and definitely than before, " came out from among
them," avowed themselves the " sons of God" (a Hebrew
adopted by his worshipers; or, " a beginning was made for calling upon the
name of Jchovah," that is, in public worship; or, "a beginning was
made for preaching in the name of Jehovah." The authority of great
names can be adduced for each. I prefer the first chiefly because, if the
clause be taken in connection with Genesis, vi. 1, as it should be (the
fifth chapter which is interposed being a genealogical table), it immediately receives the explanation, that those spoken of were actually called
the sons of God. In the text, however, I have.united the three senses
inasmuch as they who took the appellation sons of God, would also, if
consistent, publicly call upon His name, and in His name call others to
repentance. There is, indeed, a fourth interpretation of which the phrase
is capable, directly opposed to what we have given, and sustained by
Onkelos and the chief Jewish expositors, as well as by Selden and many
other learned Christian interpreters. It is this, " then men began profanely to call themselves by the name of Jehovahl;" applying the Divine
name to themselves; just as the Selucidie impiously took the name
Trieos. And it is not a little remarkable, though I have not seen the fact
noticed in this connection, that in the fifth and sixth generations we find
two Cainites, MBehajael and Methusael, in whose names one of the Divine
names (not indeed Jehovah, but El, whence Elohim), is incorporated-the
first name probably meaning according to Gesenius, smitten of God, and
the second mnan of God. For the reason stated, however, I prefer the
previous view, as harmonizing best with the context.




162        CONTINUITY OF THE MEANS
idiom for disciples), separated themselves to the worship
and service of God, and began to " preach in the name of
the Lord." In proportion as men ceased to worship God
in their family capacity, it became necessary that the pious
individuals and parts of families should associate, and form
a separate community or Church. If we choose to have
recourse to the Phoenician annals,* and to the Indian Puranas,f we might show how one discovery is supposed to
have followed another, generation after generation. But
the Scriptures, true to their high religious aim, occupy
themselves for the next three generations in reoording only
Patriarchal names, and the growing dissoluteness of the
times, leaving the material progress which that very
dissoluteness implied, to be imagined or inferred.  In
the seventh generation we have a development of evil
in the polygamy of Lamech, and of piety in the history
of Enoch.    During this generation, according to thd
Chaldean records copied by Berosus, reigned Alorus, the
first of the antediluvian kings.  And the Scriptural account of the period warrants the conclusion that the Patriarchal form of government was about this time invaded,
and, in some localities displaced, by the "mighty men,"
and "men of renown," who then appeared. In the eighth
generation, Jabal gave an impulse to a nomadic life; Jubal
became famous for his improvements and inventions in
music; and Tubal Cain, as a skilful artificer in metals. The
cotemporaneousness of these latter advances reminds us
how constantly an impulse given to improvement in one
direction communicates itself in others; and as it arises
partly from division of labor, so it tends to multiply such
division.
* Cory's Ancient Fragments.  t Asiatic Researches, vol. v. p. 241.




OF DIVINE MANIFESTATION                 163
The ninth generation is remarkable only, in the Biblical
account, for the predictive character of the name given by
the Sethite Lamech to his son Noah. The building of the
ark, however, in the tenth generation, implies the existence
of arts which are not named; an indication that the few
discoveries and improvements which are recorded, and
which stand like lights along the pathway of that time, are
only specimens of the progress made, and that the wide intervals were doubtless illuminated by other similar discoveries.
Vitruvius imagines that he finds the rudiments of architecture in the form of a Scythian cottage. The origin of
instrumental music may have dated centuries before Jubal;
and many an improvement would be made, after the time
of Tubal Cain, by the artificers in iron and brass. For
then, as now, the desires of men would require time to
enlarge; and, being enlarged, would require time to be
gratified. Then, as now, man would be unconsciously preparing himself for progress without proposing it; and
would often find the means of improvement, without seeking them. And, in this way, new adaptations of means to
ends, and new collocations of related objects, would be
coming to light, the number of perceived resemblances
would be multiplying, the linked chain of causes and effects
would be lengthening, and the sphere of human thought
and action be constantly enlarging.
Continuty of  As the numerical increase of antediluvian
Continuity of
moral civilization. population would necessarily be gradual,*
* Any attempt to calculate the numbers of mankind at the epoch of
the deluge must rest on mere conjecture. One arrays his statistics to
show that they may have reached twelve hundred millions, a number
immensely larger than that which subsists even at the present time.
Another judges "the number to have been small; and that it was in a




164          CONTINUITY       OF THE MEANS
the same character of progressiveness would mark the
practical illustration of all the laws.of morality which that
increase tended to exemplify.     New relations, offices, and
duties were constantly coming into existence.    Every additional family was an additional experiment of the domestic
constitution, calculated to place it, in some respects, in a
new light.
The will of God was clearly indicated, for example, respecting the number to be united in marriage, by the creation, at first, of one man and one woman.       But the continued balance of the number of the sexes, age after age,
notwithstanding their perpetual increase, was an everincreasing confirmation of the same law.        As time advanced, too, the evils resulting from   polygamy would furnish still further and stronger corroboration of the law.
And the same would be the case with the laws of reputation, character, property, and general justice.  Laws would
be acted   on before they were adopted by any mutual
agreement to that effect; perhaps they would not be formally adopted until they      had   been  occasionally transcourse of rapid progress toward extreme reduction, which would have
issued in a not very distant extinction." One argues that the longevity
of the Patriarchs was to compensate for the slowness of human multiplication. Another infers a rapid increase from the length of life, the infrequency of death, and the absence of every thing to prevent early
marriages. One sees in the genealogical records a list of all that were
born to the Patriarcls who are named; and another regards them only:Is units, compared with the multitudes born but not specified. In a
word, the elements for a correct computation are wanting.  The old
world can not be measured by the standard of the new. One fact, however may be taken for granted, the certain effect of the tyranny and
licentiousness which prevailed in diminishing the fecundity of the human
species.




OF DIVINE MANIFESTATION.             165
gressed. Every age would be adding to the mass of evidence in their favor; every district would, in effect, have
its Sinai, where the voice of law " waxing louder and
louder," would be heard enjoining, " thou shalt not kill;
thou shalt not steal; thou shalt not covet!" And then
would follow, in many instances, a perception and enforcement of the law from a regard, not merely to the personal
and immediate consequences of its gross violation, but to
the general social effects of the remotest departure from it.
So that in addition to the sense of violence done to the
moral nature of man by disobedience, there would be next
the ever accumulating evils accruing to the individual and
to society; and then the many motives arising from the
will of God, and from the advantages of conformity to it.
And thus, as mankind increased, morality was not merely
extending her domains, but increasing her authority; she
was at once objectively multiplying her laws, and giving
stability to her throne.
And for this continuity of purpose, the longevity of the
antediluvians was strikingly adapted. It gave them an opportunity of watching the operations of human conduct on
a large scale. If they doubted respecting the morality of
a certain line of conduct one century, they would perhaps
witness its legitimate fruit in the next. Deviations fiom
natural laws, well-meant, and for a century or two apparently answering well, would, during the life-time of the
transgressor, and while the origin of the deviations were
yet fresh in remembrance, begin to "bring forth fruit unto
death."  And thus the great laws of social life, subjectively
written in the human heart, would come to be objectively
written and increasingly verified in human history.
The continuity of the religious civilization of the period




166        CONTINUITY OF THE MEANS
Continuitv of appears, first, in the serial character of
I'eligious Civiliz- the Divine revelations.  We have shown
ation.
already that all the Divine communications
made during the period were only, in effect, so many expansions of the great parent-truths disclosed in Paradise,
and laid at the basis of the Patriarchal economy. All of
thetii find their places under one or other of the two heads
-that God is a moral governor-but that he is ready to
exercise mercy to the guilty, and to save the penitent,
through a medium of His own providing. These were the
great truths illustrated alike in the first promise, and the
institution of sacrifice, and in all the circumstances attending the preparation of the ark. While all the intervening
comnlunications were relative to the existing wants and
circumstances of mankind; so that if these were continuous in their nature, those were also. Even the miracles
belonging to the economy, were only the continued employment of an order of means in which the dispensation
had commenced. If Noah prophesied, he was but the inspired medium of Divine communication, as Enoch and
Adam had been before him. If Enoch was translated, it
was an event which did but echo the faith, or corroborate the
fears, of all who heard of it. And if a deluge was predicted, it was only in accordance with the deepening consciousness of human demerit; with the simple fact that the laws
of nature were not lazless, but would be found to be as
subservient to human punishment as they might have been
to human happiness; in a word, that the moral government
of God was more than a name, that it implied that He
would continue to govern.
Secondly, the views of Divine revelation which the youth
derived from his parents, would only form the basis for the




OF DIVINE MANIFESTATION.              167
additional views imparted by such new revelations as might
be made in his own day, or as might be acquired in argument or in meditation as the result of his own independent
reflection. This continuity is observable even in the changing errors of the period-for they appear to have advanced
fiom the denial of a future judgment to the denial of a
present providential government, and from that to the denial of the Divine existence. And if error, which is related
only extrinsically, was thus continuous, the probability that
the views of Divine truth entertained by the sincere believer would be continuous and ever-expanding is stronger;
for truth is both self-consistent and all-related in itself; and
the belief of it implies a mind in a self-consistent and allrelated state with itself. So that every present view of
truth would only prepare the way, both objectively and
subjectively, for progressive enlargement. The wise anticipations of early life would often become the settled convictions of old age. Some of the conjectures of Adam
would form a part of the creed of Enoch; and some of the
opinions of the wise and the good in the time of Enoch
would form part of the faith of the Patriarch Noah.
This continuity of the changes, material,
Continuity com- 
patible with cer- moral, and religious, which formed the course
tain crises.  of the antediluvian history is quite consistent with the following admissions: first, that it was not unmarked by striking crises and revolutions. Such "seasons
of convulsion present the phenomena on which men dwell,
and the eras by which they date, in the moral as well as in
the physical world, where the silent process by which nature elaborates her productions, the slow moldering of
mountains into new plains of inexhaustible fertility pass
almost unobserved and unappreciated; but the attention is




168         CONTINUITY OF TIE MEANS
roused and compelled when the destructive powers of the
hurricane and earthquake are let loose."   But great
events are not to be viewed as isolated. They are the
summation of long preceding trains of silent and unnoticed
influences. Hence the folly of expecting sudden changes,
whether great or small, in the progress of mankind. Nature never does any thing per saltum; and for this obvious
reason, that every thing in her domain is all-related. A
small change, therefore, or a change in any one relation,
will avail little. Yet, doubtless, there Were those at that
time, as there are still, who in looking indulgently around
on the evils with which society groaned, fancied that topical remedies alone were necessary; that if a particular
change could be effected, all would henceforth be well;
forgetting that all other relations must consent to it and be
drawn along with it, and that in order to this, time is necessary; that for the benefit to be permanent, it must be universal in respect to the case to which it relates. Events,
which have erroneously passed under the name of sudden
and important revolutions, have often taken place with
great and lasting advantage. But they were only the last
term of a long series of changes which had been silently
preparing the way for them-the launching of a vessel
which had been long in building-and, as such, they were
simply continuous.t
With inquali- Secondly, all the departments of human
ties of human de- development, material, moral, and religious,
velopinent.
velopme.  were never seen, probably, at the same point
of progress, at any one moment, during the whole antediluvian period. To develop the entire man, without unduly
* Historical Parallels, p. 394.
f My Old House; or, the Doctrine of Changes, p. 44.




OF DIVINE MANIFESTATION.              169
eliciting or depressing any one part of his constitution, is
the great problem in the education of the individual. The
same difficulty, with its attendant evils, appears in gigantic
proportions in the history of every commnunity. Material
progress, belonging to the province of the senses and the
understanding, may advance with the steadiness and certainty of a law of nature; but such progress, so far fiom
securing any corresponding advance in the moral and religious sphere, may be the direct occasion of man's decline,
and the exact measure of it.  -Iere, will and motive come
into play; and he may choose so to employ his material
prosperity as shall make certain his moral degradation.
In the primitive world, the Cainites devoted themselves
almost exclusively to the advancement of a material civilization; and the degeneracy to which it led was the first of
a series of lessons which Providence has ever since been
giving to man on the utter inefficiency of mere knowledge,
power, and esthetic progress, to save him from ruin; or
rather, on the certainty of their conducting him to it, apart
from the supreme influence of religion. The Sethites maintained, for a time, a high religious standing; but, descending from their holy elevation, their morality vanished with
their religion, and they sank through the successive stages
of a refined but death-struck civilization.
With patial re-  Thirdly, some branches of the antediluvian
troccssion.  family of man exhibited signs even of retrocession. Such probably was the case with the family of the nomadic Jabal. He " was the father of such as dwell in tents;"
a proof that this was not the primitive manner of life. Contrary to the pagan notion, that man commenced life on the
earth as a savage, we here see that he has to retrogade in order
to approach that condition. Nor, indeed, have we any trace
8




170        CONTINUITY OF THE MEANS
of the strictly savage or hunting condition of life, until after
the Deluge. In the conduct of Jabal, however, who introduced or promoted the change fiom a settled to a wandering life, we see the way in which a course of retrogradation
might easily begin. And yet the change which led to this
deterioration was probably advocated at first on the ground
of its tendency to promote civilization; and its introduction
hailed as promising a millennium-the last and best state of
human society. In this way, an untried change often takes
an unexpected direction, baffling all previous calculation
and threatening to impede indefinitely the march of human
progression. So far from the progress of mankind being
the result of an inherent necessity or fate, all history shows
that it is only the unfolding of a plan, which continues to
unfold solely because it is never out of the hand of God.
In proportion as man has been left to himself, he has ruined
himself. He has laboriously constructed a palace of knowledge, wealth, and power; and has then converted it, morally, into a funeral pyre, in the flames of which he has expired.
In virtue of the great plan of Providence alone it is that
events which, when viewed in relation even to the long
term of antediluvian life, appeared fraught with unmixed
evil, might when contemplated in relation to the entire
scheme of Providence, be found to be contributary of extensive good; as the stream which appears to be arrested
by the mountain, flows round its base to receive fresh tributaries; or as the avalanche of snow which suddenly dams
up the course of a river, gradually loses its own nature, and
swells the stream.
And with miracu-  Nor, fourthly, were the miraculous interlousinterpositions. positions which took place any breach of the
law of continuity. For, first, such interpositions were




OF DIVINE MANIFESTATION.              171
necessary in order to prevent the termination of all progress; and, secondly, they were to be expected, as parts of
a plan from which the Deity has never departed.  The
world itself originated in miracle; and contains in its bosom
the memorials of having been, at distant intervals, the theater of successive creations.  aln himself, originated in
miracle, is preconfigured for the recognition of the supernatural as truly as he is for the belief of the natural. Hence,
when it occurred, as in the translation of Enoch, it brought
nothing new into human belief; the doctrine was there befoie. VWhen an inspired communication was made, the Divine Being was but continuing the employment of a method
for the impartation of religious knowledge, to which man
had owed, at first, the elements of even nmcterial knowledge
-the Parent was but once more speaking to His children
on affairs of great urgency; and hence the revelation did
but corroborate the pre-existing fears of the wicked and the
hopes of the righteous. The seasons selected for such interpositions, too, would be such as to invite, or to excite,
the expectation of them; and, when they did occur, so
adapted would they be to the exigences of the time, as to
stop nothing natural, and to set nothing unnatural in motion; their tendency being only to impair the force of the
evils which threatened to destroy all human progress, and
to give to that progress continuity and impulse.
The miracle of  One part of the Divine procedure there is,
the deluge in this however, which appears to deserve distinct
connection.
remark-the prediction of a Deluge.    In
reference to that event, the antediluvian skeptic would
probably object, as the scoffer of " the last days" will do,
relative to another catastrophe, saying, "where is the
promise of His coming? for, since the fathers fell asleep,




172         CONTINUITY OF THE MEANS
all things continue as they were from the beginning of the
creation? *  All observation and experience are against
such an event. Nature is uniform in her operations. The
laws of the human mind compel my disbelief. I reject the
prediction as unreasonable."  Now, here the first error lay
in confounding that inner circle called the course of nature,
with that larger outer circle-the course of providence,
which preceded nature and encompassed it; which originated it, employs it, and, at distant intervals, adds to it, or
modifies it, at pleasure. That no similar event had taken
place from the time of the Adamic creation might have
been true. But, is that sufficient to prove that nothing like
it ever will or can occur? Experience is, in this sense,
against every thing till it occurs. Before the first family
existed, the experience of Adam was against its existence.
Indeed, during the first ages of the human dispensation,
events were, and, from the nature of the case, must have
been, constantly occurring for the first time. The existence
of man himself was contrary to all that had previously taken
place on the earth. If the proposition that nothing will
take place but what has taken place is to be admitted, it
must be because it is a principle of the Divine Being; and
if it be such at present, it must ever have been such; and
if it has ever been such, even before creation began, no
creation could ever have taken place. There was no precedent for the creation of a world, any more than there is now
said for its destruction.f Thus, the objection becomes an
intellectual absurdity. The fact is, however, that the root
of the error lay, as in the case of the scoffers of the last
days, not in the intellect, but in the state of the affections.
"For this they willingly are ignorant of"-that the exist* 2 Pet. iii. 4.  f Binney's Discourses on the Power of Faith, p. 160.




OF DIVINE MANIFESTATION.             173
ence of man himself, and of all those material laws on the
stability of which they rely, were once unknown to the universe, and owe both the time and manner of their existence
entirely to the will of God. It may suit the purpose of the
skeptic, indeed, to reason from the analogy of a thousand
years; but why, if he assume to be a man of enlarged and
comprehensive views, why will he not rather reason from
the analogy of ten thousand years? Of this he is willingly
oblivious. It suits not his purpose.
Another error involved in such an objection consists in
reasoning from experience acquired in one state of things
to what is likely to take place in another state of things
entirely different. That no deluge had taken place all the
time the earth was not "filled with violence," was no rational ground for concluding that the event would not take
place when the earth was so filled. If the new event was
to occur when the earth had reached that new condition,
and not till then, there was no contradiction of previous
experience in the matter. There had been no experience
whatever on the subject. All prior experience had related
to a different state of things. But here was now a new
state of things; " all flesh has corrupted his way;" and, if
experience was to have any voice in relation to it, one would
have expected to hear it suggest that this new condition of
man would most likely call forth some new and correspondent movement on the part of his Maker. Inasmuch as such
a moral crisis had never before been known in the history
of man, for aught he knew to the contrary, the natural crisis
which was in consequence threatened was its proper accompaniment. Events were constantly occurring, at that early
period of the world, for the first time; and, for aught he
knew, the natural crisis would recur as regularly as the




174        CONTINUITY OF THE MEANS
moral crisis. Experience on this subject he had yet to acquire; and until, or rather unless, he had acquired it, to
pretend to argue from it was to make the not unimportant
mistake of arguing from his ignorance as if it had been
knowledge.
But the principal error lay in testing the probability of
the threatened event by evidence of which the nature of
the case did not admit, and in rejecting that which was actually adduced. That God had spoken to them, " at sundry
times and in divers manners," was susceptible of the clearest
proofs. One of His servants attested that He had spoken
to him, announcing the approaching punishment of the
guilty world. The points for examination were, therefore,
Was the prophet deceived, or was he deceiving others?
Every objection which did not relate to the credibility of his
testimony was irrelevant. If to this it were objected that
human confidence, moral government, every thing essential
to man's improvement, is made dependent on our faith in
the constancy of nature, it might be sufficient to rejoin, that
man was designed to tell the truth, and that his general
observance of the laws of veracity is essential to the stability
and progress of society. What, then, if, while pretending
the greatest jealousy for the honor of nature and its lawstruth, justice, liberty-all the laws of the moral world were
set at naught by him? What if, while protesting against
the possibility of a deluge, as involving a doctrine subversive
of all human progress, it should appear that his own subversion of moral law had actually arrested that progress,
and made all further hope of it impossible; would not this
appear to be a suitable occasion for God to interpose, with
a view to a better state of things? Still more, if society
had reached a state of ingrained depravity and moral dis



OF DIVINE MANIFESTATION.              175
organization, in which the last traces of a moral government
were fast fading away; in which the bare idea of a moral
Governor was derided, and the only thing deified was an
abstraction called Nature-and this on account of the stability of her laws-would there be righteous retribution in
the arrangement which should employ their idol as the instrument of their punishment?
But chiefly and conclusively, it might have been replied
to such an objection, that, as to the threatened deluge interfering with the confidence and progress of the species, it
was not a question of progress but of extinction; and of
extinction on account of having violated all the conditions
of progress: that the same authority which threatened the
deluge, had suspended the sentence for a hundred and
twenty years, evidently making its execution at all conditional on man's conduct in the interval: but that if the increasing guilt of that conduct should, after all, call for the
infliction, the only parties whose confidence in the stability
of nature would or could need to be renewed, would be the
survivors of that catastrophe and their posterity; and that
it was competent for the same authority which threatened
the deluge, to promise, after its'occurrence, that it should
be repeated no more forever.   He might even make a
covenant with them, and engage that "while the earth
rernaineth, seed-time and harvest, and cold and heat, and
summer and winter, and day and night, shall not fail."*
And this, we know, He actually did. But as for the antediluvian sinner himself, whose disbelief of the threatening
was a virtual daring of the Almighty to carry it into execlution, it was an adequate answer to all his objections to
remind him that the only kind or class of events with which
* Genesis, viii. 22.




1760       CONTINUITY OF THE MEANS
he could properly compare his threatened removal from the
earth, was that series of wonders which attended his introduction; and that so far from being out of harmony with
that, on account of its preternatural character, nothing attending the destruction of the world could possibly surpass
the wonders of its creation. And, it might have been added,
that as at his creation, all the pre-existing laws of material
nature had been summed up in his own constitution, and
subordinated to his use for the highest purpose, so now
some of them were to be temporarily employed in another
manner, but still in entire subordination to the same ultimate end.
Indeed, the objection to the existence of miraculous phenomena, as calculated to affect the orderly course of human action, is the offspring of the merest puerility. It is
enough to appeal, in reply, from speculation to fact. They
never have produced this imaginary effect. Their existence has been confidently believed; and to those believing
them they have had all the reality of fact; yet the results
apprehended by the objects never ensued. True, had such
phenomena been at the disposal of man, he might have employed them with an irrelevance and a frequency which
might have produced the effects in question. But it is to
be remembered that they are the interpositions of the
Framer of the entire plan of providence; and that, as
such, they form parts of His plan, and have their places in
it, as much as the stars. All the miracles of Scripture, too,
aim at high religious ends. And it is literally amazing how
securely man can intrench himself from all sympathy with
such, even though the assault be made direct from Heaven.
"Men build over earthquakes." And if the repeated
shock and ruin of an earthquake will not move him from a




OF DIVINE MANIFESTATION.             177
favorite spot, his earthly course is not likely to be materially disordered by a phenomenon the belief of which would
involve the revolution of his moral life.
The state of the world, then, at the time of the Flood,
exhibited the result of all the preceding states of the world.
It was what it was relatively to all the past, and as such it
was a manifestation of God. Even the progress which
man had made in evil did but show the progress which he
was capable of making in good; and occasion the ever-enlarglng display of the Divine long-suffering. While the
progress, and the continuity of that progress, which he
made in religious knowledge, in moral excellence, and in
happiness, showed that the plan in which he was comprehended, united all generations into one ever-increasing family and united them in a career of indefinite progression.
8*




CHAPTER       VII.
TIE FAMILY RELATIONS WHICH THE PRECEDING LAWS
BRING TO LIGHT.
A COMPLETE view of the relations involved in the Family
requires us to notice the pre-existing relations belonging to
each of the parties entering into the marriage state; the
relations which that state itself supposes; and the relations
consequent on it.
As to the first; each of the parties conPrc-existing individual relations templating marriage includes already a disofmanandwoman. tinct system of internal relations, and is encircled by a corresponding system of external relations.
These have been considered in "M an Primeval." * Under
this head, therefore, it only remains for us to remark, as we
proceed, how these pre-existing personal relations are affected by being brought into the new sphere of the married state.
" Man was created in a totally different manner from
other creatures. God created one person, a man; but He
created them wonderfully, both male and female in one, in
His own image. In the sleep of the man He separated
from him one woman, and He caused them to be man and
wife, and He called their name Adam. The first man con* Chap. vii On m=a an al-reated being.




THE FAMILY CONSTITUTION.             179
versing with his Maker in innocence, was the first prophet
also whom God inspired with a knowledge of the future.
He was not yet a father, and knew not, by any means of
human judgment, how children would act toward their
parents, or how the economy of families would be conducted in ages to come. Yet thus he sang:'This is now
bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called
Isha, because she was taken out of man. Therefore [God
said] shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall
cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh.' The circumstance alone upon which all marriage depends was one
in which polygamy was impossible; and that is, a prohibition of nature. But the words of Adam are both a prediction and a law, and in them the inter-marriage of his posterity is declared to be a legal reunion of what in the first
beginning were naturally one-the man and his one wife.
They represent marriage and monogamy as simple synonymes. And so they are." 
Relations of hns- rThe most natural general division of the
bnandandwife. relations of the married state, like those of
the individual man, is twofold-the internal and the external, each of these again being divisible into relations coexistent and successively existent.  Beginning with the internal relations of the Family, we name first those between
the sexes, as man and wife.
It might have been antecedently expected, that the laws
of the universe would be found to have been established in
prospective harmony with the designed constitution of the
mind which is to expound and to profit by them. T/cat
mind has come; and we have found that it is so constituted
as to touch those laws at all points. In other words, man,
* Nimrod, vol iv. p. 468.




180              TIE RELATIONS OF
besides his own incdependent character, is connected with,
and influenced by, all the objects and relations of the external universe. Similarly, it might have been expected
that the constitution, physical, intellectual, and moral, of
the first man, was prospective and anticipative of the creation.of woman; and so also all that is specific in the constitution of woman is found to pre-suppose, and to form the
completion of, that of man. The union of the sexes, then,
in marrliage, which is the root of all other social relations,
is a Divine appointment, to which every thing -specific in
their respective constitutions, is pre-configured.
But more particularly; in saying that man's nature is a
constitution or system  of relations, of course, woman is included. No single characteristic of her constitution could
be changed, without remodeling the whole  The organic,
animal, sentient, reflective, vocal, rational, voluntary, and
moral parts of her nature, are mutually related and dependent. The last pre-supposes the first; the first is prospective of the last. And this fact may serve to determine all
that can be meant by the " vexed" question, Whether or
not the minds of the sexes differ. Whether or not they
differ essentially, or, in themselves, abstractedly considered,
is a question which may as well be left till we can witness
such a thing as their abstract or disembodied manifestations. But, that their manifestations ever have and ever
will continue to differ as long as they remain embodied,
admits not of a doubt. To suppose the contrary, is to suppose the existence of a solecism in creation; of a creature
in whom a specific difference in one part of its nature
leaves unaffected the manifestations of the other parts of
its nature; and, in so far, a creature of unrelated parts, or,
without a constitution. But "His work is perfect,"




THE FAMILY CONSTITUTION.               181
If the constitution of woman be thus all-related in itself;
and, consequently, characteristic in all its parts, it follows
that her relations to man are just as numerous as are those
characteristics. Whatever is found specific in the one may
be expected to find its counterpart in the other. The physical difference of stature, size, and strength, in the one, is
relative to the corresponding particulars in the other. The
greater nervous sensibility of the one, points to the superior muscular development of the other. The consequent
weakness and apprehensiveness of the former looked to
the strength and courage of the latter for- protection and
support. As social beings, the peculiar sphere of activity
belonging to each corresponds; for, while woman by her
presence and gentler virtues, beautifies and blesses the domestic circle, the peculiar attributes and duties of man call
him into a wider sphere beyond. As intelligent, the knowledge and habits which he acquires in that sphere deserve
and secure the affectionate deference of home; and prepare him duly to appreciate the agency which fills that
home with attractions. As emotional, the same objects
affect them with the same relative difference; even the
very love which they feel for each other, manifesting itself
in acts modified by the same constitutional distinction.
Remarkable is it, if not even antecedently inconceivable,
that this relation should be found to obtain even in the voluntary part of their nature; that two distinct wills should
in any respect so harmonize as to become practically one;
that two personal beings of the same mature age, having
certain distinct interests, and who, in the just pursuit of
those interests, might have been expected to require spheres
of activity so distinct as never to approach, should be found
to attain even their personal ends best in one and the same




182             THE RELATIONS OF
sphere. And yet, so true is this, that marriage is actually
a compact of wills; a union in which each receives a certain right in the person of the other, and is voluntarily
brought under obligation to the other. How precious is
that self-denial by which the parties are, to a certain degree, converted into each other: and each finds something
"better than a mere self, by becoming part of a nobler
whole;" by which the authority of the husband is subdued
into a feeling of regard, as for his own flesh, and the obevience of the wife is raised into the dignity of an alliance
with Law. And even as moral beings, the same relations
of dependence and influence unite them. Neither sex
alone is the standard of human nature. Each is to receive
an impress from the distinctive excellences of the other,
and to impart the spirit of its own. Each is to the other
the image of distinct aspects of the Divine character; and,
by being disentangled and drawn out from the inner circle
of self, and made to find excellence and happiness in the
love of the other, they are trained to look away together
for their highest good to a union with that Objective Excellence, of which their own union is the sacred type and
the mysterious pledge.
Still further illustrative of the Divine GoodConjugal love.
ness, would it be, secondly, if the man and
woman should be made and moved to enter into the married
state by the mutual perception of some excellence, real or
supposed, in the persons sustaining it; thus determining
each to a particular object. A vivid delight would thus be
felt by each in the contemplation of the object selected;
and, as a consequence, each would desire nothing but good
for the other. Now, this is conjugal love; an affection
which supposes the existence of some quality or qualities




THE FAMILY CONSTITUTION.               183
in the beloved object, which, by virtue of the constitution
of the mind, are capable of yielding it pleasure. And, of
this affection, marriage is the visible symbol or means of
ratification.
Numerical ro-  Thirdly, and for the same reasons, it may
portion of the be expected, that the sexes will be found to
sexes.
be numerically related. For it is only in this
way that the social, intellectual, and moral claims of the
sexes can be equally respected. Consequently, the peace,
happiness, and well-being of the husband and wife can only
thus be secured. Accordingly, not only were one man and
one woman created at first for each other, but the same numerical proportion has been maintained substantially ever
since. No science has yet traced the laws by which this
result is attained. We can only perceive that untold myriads of particular incidents must have been placed and sustained in exquisite adjustment in order to produce it. This
numerical relation of the sexes, then, is as much an indication of the Divine Will respecting the proportion in which
they are to be united in marriage, as the distinct constitution of each is that they are to be united at all. If the one
intimates his purpose that they should be united, the other
denotes that the union is to be limited to individuals who
are to be exclusively united to each other for life. And thus
the appointment of nature coincides with the laws of social
happiness and of morality; and all these arrangements and
laws harmonize with the great end of creation-the Divine
manifestation.
Each of the relations between the sexes to
Relations of husband and wife sue- which we have adverted, begins, from the
essively existent. time of marriage, to be drawn gradually
closer. The existence of many of these may not at first




184             THE RELATIONS OF
have been thought of; or, if so, they may not have been
felt. But if the union be what it ought to be, time develops
and confirms them. Every cay discovers something to increase admiration on the one hand, and to excite gratitude
on the other. Their voluntary acts of affection speedily acquire the force of habit, until each, from being more constantly present to the mind of the other than any human
being besides, becomes an ever-active element in the current of the other's thoughts and feelings. Every event,
whether pleasant or painful, which their memory treasures,
becomes a new bond of sympathy. Every present object
engages their attention in common; while every event in
the future excites them mutually to hope or to fear. Love
impels them to look at every thing which occurs with each
other's eyes; and to practice a kind of substitution, or mental metempsychosis, which tends to convert them, as far as
the laws of humanity permit, into each other's nature. A
process of assimilation this which only requires time in order to make the character, mental and moral, of the one the
perfect counterpart of the other; and which, probably, in
many an antediluvian family was actually completed.
lations conse  The great occasion which demonstrates and
Relations consequentonmarriage; displays their relation is that by which they
parents.
become Parents. Mysterious arrangement
this, by which two human beings become the means of giving existence to a third; of producing by means, what God
at first produced by miracle-itself a greater miracle; of
producing out of themselves a creature in their own image,
as the Creator at first made man "in His own image."
Equally striking is the arrangement by which the birth of a
child, while it necessarily gives a new object to their affections, and in so far divides their attention, should yet multi



TIE FAMILY CONSTITUTION.               185
ply, instead of diminish, their ties to, and double their interest in, each other. And yet from the moment they
become parents, not only is every pre-existing relation
modified, new ones are created. And, with every addition
to their offspring, till they are encircled with new objects
of affection, they go on becoming objects of increasing importance and interest to each other.
In proceeding to speak of the connection
Internal family
relations; parent between Parent and Child, we find ourselves
and child.
involved in so fine and so complicated a web
of relations, that no hand but His who wove them can minutely trace and analyze them. The law of propagation
might have been, that the child should be related to its
parents simply as one of the same race, or possessing the
same human nature; though such a relation, besides having
other disadvantages, would have been, perhaps, of too obviously artificial a kind. But, besides this general relation,
every part of the constitution, physical, mental, and moral,
of each of the parents, is found to be related to the constitution of the child —related, not separately, but blended in
proportions, which are dependent on conditions, and determined by laws, of definite and exquisite operation.
ilil tmpera-  That the physical constitution of the child
ment derived. is, to a great extent, a transmitted constitution, is too obvious to need remark. During its intra-uterine
life, it is even a part of the maternal constitution itself. It
consequently commences its extra-uterine, or independent,
life with a derived temperament; and this physical tem-.
perament imparts a tinge to all its actions, and, within certain limits, a character to all its mental and moral manifestations. Its form and features are derived; often are they
perpetuated in a family for ages; and sometimes they are




186             THE RELATIONS OF
reproduced after lying latent and disappearing for generations-while form and feature often react, and impart a
character to the mind and a bias to the life which they could
not otherwise have taken.
It does not follow from this, indeed, that " fortes creantur fortibus et bonis," * or that " ebrii gignunt ebrios." On
the contrary, children are often found to differ mentally
from their parents (even twins) under very great apparent
similarities of organization; a fact which reminds us that
"the Father of Spirits" imparts original differences of mind
which are not traceable to organization as their cause,
though their manifestation is affected both by moral and
physical conditions.
Nor does it follow fiom the doctrine of a transmitted nature, that "the moral constitution essentially varies with
the physical structure;" though the semblance of truth
which the statement possesses, and the relaxation of moral
obligation which seems to follow from it, have served to
make it welcome and give it currency. That moral tendencies are transmitted, is a doctrine which has been receiving confirmation daily since the birth of the first transgression. "( For by one man sin entered into the world." And
equally beyond a doubt is it, that the manifestation of
these tendencies will be affected both by the conditions of
the physical structure and of the mind. Indeed, this is a
fact which our subject leads us to affirm. But tendencies
are not qualities, nor is the manifestation of moral qualities, the qualities themselves. These can be affected only
by qualities of their own nature-by moral influences. And
it is to be borne in mind that whatever moral tendencies
may in this way be derived, man's moral nature, considered
* Hor. 1, iv. Od. 4.




THE FAMILY CONSTITUTION.               187
as a constitution, is as substantially unaltered and unalterable as that of his body; and even more fixed, because
based on unchangeable laws, and appealing to immutable
principles.
It will be seen, then, that the constitution of the child is,
as far as we can understand by its manifestations, a transmitted nature. And it is found that the influences transmitted depend on the kind and degree of health enjoyed
by the parents, individually and unitedly considered; or
their respective ages, relative tQ each other, and to the
average term  of human life; on their intellectual and
moral states, absolutely considered and as compared with
each other; and on an incalculable number of the modifications of which these various states are susceptible.
From the time the independent existence of the child
commences, these relations, or their effects, begin to operate
in a new manner; and innumerable others are added to
them. At first, the child is almost as dependent on the
mother for sustenance as it was prior to its birth; while
every strong emotion of the mother affects the condition
of the child, through the medium of its natural nourishment, much more deeply than it does the mother herself.
Her bosom is its first paradise. Her face the first object
on which its wandering eye learns complacently to settle.
Her tones lull it to repose, and mingle with its dreamswith its being. Her eye discourses with its infant mind,
while yet words are, to it, mere inarticulate sounds. Her
every movement gives to it a new sensation. And thus at
the moment of its birth its education begins; and, from
that moment, never knows a pause.
Pa l  Whether or not the child shall be subParental influence.  jected to certain influences depends on the




188             THE RELATIONS OF
will of the parent; but, if it be subjected to them, it no
longer depends on his will whether it shall be affected by
them or not. By the appointment of God, the laws of dependence and influence operate uniformly. As soon as the
mind of the child begins to open, it is susceptible of impressions from every object and event within its little horizon. The looks, the tones, the most indifferent acts of the
father, are its laws. His authority is an ordinance superior
to every other; and on which the child is prepared to believe every thing-even the most casual remark-which is
often treasured up as an oracle. His example is copied,
even to its least actions and gestures; and his every movement, like a living seed in fertile soil, reproduces itself in
corresponding fruit. Owing to the love of his child, he
may be regarded as ever working in fire.
odifid by cir-  The kind of influence shed oh the child by
Miodified by circumstances.  his parents differs, indeed, as his age advances, or as his susceptibilities of impression change with
time. Thus he is influenced by the amount of knowledge
imparted by them, and by its kind; by the time of its impartation; by the order in which it is communicated; and
by the manner in which it is conveyed. But from day to
day, and fiom hour to hour, he is handed on from one class
of influences to another; or, rather, he is never out of the
plastic and molding hand of parental influence.  "Some
parents talk of beginning the education of their children:
the moment they were capable of forming an idea, their
education was already begun-the education of circumstances-insensible education, which, like insensible perspiration, is of more constant and powerful effect, and of
far more consequence to the habit, than that which is direct and apparent. This education goes on at every instant




THE FAMILY CONSTITUTION.               189
of time; it goes on like time-you can neither stop it, nor
turn its course..... Here, then, is one school from
which there are no truants, and in which there are no holidays." *
On the birth of every additional child a
Increased with
increase of chil- new element of influence is introduced into
dren.
the family, by which the parents are placed
in new relations to the children already existing.  Not
more important is the addition of a province to an empire,
than is the addition of such a member to the domestic
circle. Every movement of the parents in relation to it
has a relation, in a different manner, to all the rest. In
their conduct toward that one, the parents are moving and
influencing all. And in proportion to the increase of the
well-regulated family is the increase of authority and power
which the parents acquire over all its members.
Relations sc-  Supposing the family constitution to be
Relations   suc-  1   5r.  
cessisely existent. complete, and, as such, to be adapted for
action, we have next to regard it in relation to time. The
first moments of its existence shed an influence on every
succeeding moment. The parents are constantly writing
their own history, physical, intellectual, and moral, on the
characters of their children and domestics; and, on the
former especially, the transcript is deep and ineffaceable.
If, indeed, the impressions which are thus daily imparted
were obliterated every night, and the character restored to
a tabula rcasa, the consideration would lose much of its
solemnity; although, even then, the fact that, during so
large a portion of their active existence -the characters of
all within the domestic circle had taken their hue principally from parental and other domestic influences, might
* Anderson on the Domestic Constitution, p. 380.




190             THE RELATIONS OF
well awaken an anxious sense of responsibility. But these
relations of influence, so far from intermitting, are ever
widening and deepening in their onward course. Yesterday lives again in to-day. Impulses become principles;
wishes pass into purposes; actions into habits-habits of
imitation, obedience, and enduring resemblance. And thus
"the child is father of the man." The character of the
family at the close of every month, and of every year, includes the sum-total of all the influences of the past multiplied into each other. How mighty the sum of influences
involved in the completed character of an antediluvian
family!
Children andpa-  The relations of influence existing between
rents.  children and parents are mutual, though by
no means equal. After the principle of conjugal love, the
birth of a child is the next great element or spring of civilization. Even before the child can consciously receive impressions, it begins to occasion them. " What though man
is born the most helpless and dependent of all living! In
the first hours of his existence, when a few indistinct or
unmeaning cries are his only language, he exercises an authority irresistible over hearts, of the very existence of
which he is ignorant and unconscious; nor will the infant
wait long before he advances in his claims and in his influence. A few weeks only will pass away, when the smile
and the tear, signs of emotion peculiar to his species, will
bind the two parties together by ties of peculiar strength.
And if the infant be of a determined character, it may soon
be seen to rule a weak parent, and even to exercise an influence over a whole family."
And this hold on the parental affection goes on increasing
with time. " A fact worthy of remark," says Aime Marltin,




THE FAMILY CONSTITUTION.              191
"is, that maternal (or parental) love only lasts in each animal the time necessary for the preservation of the species... In the morning the parent would have waged furious
war for those young ones whom in the evening she can not
recognize. And this indifference awakens no regret, leaves
no remembrance, enters the mind at the very time when
gratitude, and habits long formed, seemed to render it impossible."  Now, the love of man for his offspring, as distinguished fiom mere instinctive impulse, begins where
that of the animal terminates. Their presence acts on his
whole nature, as the influence of a constant and strong appeal. His every act of self-denial for them only serves to
endear them to him the more. In many most important
respects he regards them as parts of himself. They soften
his heart, and develop and dignify his character. He cultivates his own mind in the very act of teaching them, as
well as in order that he may " feed them with knowledge
and with understanding."  And fain would he "impart to
them even his own soul also."
By the same increase of family, the chilChild and child.
dren are placed in new relations to each other,
and brought under a new influence. A new object of affection is introduced among them, whose tender helplessness
operates on them like a softening element, cherishing and
strengthening their natural susceptibilities, and thus prolonging the period during which they themselves are easily
impressible. This influence, again, is varied, according to
the sex of the children. That love which forms the domestic bond is capable of unlimited diversity, according to the
diversity of its objects. However delicate and difficult the
analysis may be, the love of the brother and sister differs
from  the love of sister and sister, and of brother and




192              THE RELATIONS OF
brother. In a subsequent page we shall see the wisdom
and goodness of this Divine arrangement. This influence
also varies according to the age of the children. Each, of
course, stands related to the others in the relation of elder
or younger; and consequently of weaker or stronger,
teacher or taught, imitator or imitated, superior or inferior.
The presence of servants in a family creates
Servants and child.'other relations between parents and children,
as well as between the servant and children themselves.
The authority which the parents, as master and mistress,
are seen to possess over the servants, operates as so much
influence on the minds of the children. In addition to
which there is the parental authority which is delegated to
the servants over the children; and the involuntary influence which they naturally possess over them as their superiors in age, and knowledge, and power; and the subtle influence which arises from the perception, that, with all this
superiority, yet, in ralnk, they are inferior.
External rela-  Passing on to man's external relations, we
tions; of theindi- have to notice, first, the relations of the indixvidual to nature.
vidual man to nature, including in that term,
the climate of the district in which he lived, its soil, external features, and scenery, its botany and zoology, its relative
situation and extent.  Each of these particulars, indeed,
would operate as a distinct element of influence; but as
they are themselves mutually related, and as any one or
more of them, by affecting any single part of the human
constitution, would indirectly affect the whole, we can speak
of their relations to it only in a general manner.
As a being physical, organic, and animal, the natural
geography of his locality would be found related to his
physical development, his instinctive propensities, and to




THE FAMILY CONSTITUTION                193
the period of their reaching maturity; to the character of
his diseases; and to the quality, if not also to the quantity
of his food-determining, at least, what they should not
be, and thus affecting his occupation, by inducing him to
scour the country as a hunter, to remove from district to
district as a shepherd, or to become stationary as an agriculturist or an artizan.
As a being sensient and perceptive, the flavors, odors,
and colors of its vegetable productions, the forms of its
animal life, the beauty or boldness of its landscapes, the
brightness of its atmosphere, the length of its days and its
seasons-would be all found related to his sensibility and
taste, and disposing him to be more or less objective. The
duiae7o al.o o of Greek literature partly accounts for the
surpassing excellence of Greece in every artistic representation of beauty, and for its objective character and life.
In the case of the antediluvian, these causes, and others
combined with them-such as the attainableness of minerals,
metals, and colors, would partly decide in what particular
branch of art his perception of the beautiful or sublime
should chiefly express itself; just as the marble quarries of
Pentelicus and of the snow-white Megarian, invited, by
their splendor, the chisel of Phidias and Praxiteles. The
same influences would affect the character of his architecture. From these causes, too, his dress would take much
of its character; being more or less durable, according to
his materials; more or less warm and changeful, according
to the seasons; and more or less gay, according to the atmosphere-for " under a perfectly clear and blue sky, nothing is gaudy." And the same causes would be found related to his amusements. In the " Paradise Lost," Raphael,
" the affable Archangel," shows to the father of mankind
9




194             THE RELATIONS OF
his degenerate antediluvian posterity, dancing and carousing, late at night, on the open plains: and the character of
the climate would determine the point.
The physical geography of his residence would be found
related to him as a refective being-by the length of its
day, and the nature of its seasons, inviting him to sensitive
objective pleasures, or shutting him up to his subjective resources-by the number and variety of its natural phenomena-especially, at first, of its meteorology-being so
few and unvarying as hardly to need arrangement, or so
numerous, changeful, and distracting, as to discourage and
defer the hope of classification. By its productiveness-its
extreme fertility and resources, rendering labor for food
comparatively unnecessary, and thus tempting him to retrograde in civilization rather than inciting him to advance;
its extreme poverty, by consuming all his time in labor,
leaving him little opportunity for improvement; or its
medium character, exercising alike his body and his mind.
By its climate allowing him to lay ip a store of food, so as
to secure him seasons of leisure; or requiring him to prepare and procure it from day to day; dissolving him to a
state of indolent lassitude which disposes him to seek no
answers even to his own inquiries, to be content that effects
should have no causes, or bracing him to an ever-inquiring
activity, which finds many causes for a single effect. By its
atmosphere, inviting, for example, to the contemplation of
the midnight heavens, as in Italy, where " the sky is so
clear you seem to see beyond the moon;" or on the plains
of Chaldea, where the stars appearing larger and brighter
than they do to us, and as if let down from the firmament,
invited to astronomical studies. And by its zoology-the
prevalence of the lion or of any beast of prey tending to




THE FAMILY CONSTITUTION.              195
retard civilization; the presence of a domesticable animal,
such as the ox or the horse, the ass or the camel, tending
to promote it.
As endowed with the higher gift of reason, it would be
found related to him variously. For its facts, according to
their number and character, would, more or less, call for
theories to unite and account for them. In proportion as
its phenomena, either by their connected, their sublime, or
their startling nature, favored inquiry, it would lead him to
ask for the noumnenon-even the " eternal power and Godhead." In certain states of mind, the sight of a vast landscape, or of "the great and wide sea," would awaken an
idea of the illimitable. While his leisure, and the climate,
would be more or less friendly to the exercise and development of his subjective tendency.
As a being capable of language; besides calling for
names for all its objects, its phenomena would furnish him
with numerous epithets, and suggest idioms and comparisons. While his voice would insensibly harmonize with
the prevailing sounds of nature around him, and his pronunciation more or less accord with its general voice.
Its relations to his emotional nature need hardly be
pointed out. It is obvious how its mere meteorological
changes may, at times, keep his hopes and fears in play;
how its produce may affect his gratitude; its scenery conduce to his cheerfulness or otherwise; its climate elate or
depress him; and its every familiar sight and sound be to
him an occasion of aversion or of desire. The very fact
that what he beholds is his own, endears it to him, and
implants in him a wish to retain it, enlarge it, or improve it.
As a voluntary being, its climate would affect him; by




196             THE RELATIONS OF.
its tendency to enervate and relax the frame, until every obstacle to action becomes " a lion in the way;" or by so tensely
bracing it for activity, that motion itself becomes a pleasure; by its soil, botany and zoology, as they were more or
less calculated to invite and reward industry and enterprise. The original grant of the different kingdoms of
nature for man's dominion is, in effect, repeated in every
instance in which he goes to take possession of a new district. He then receives investiture to govern a province
of creation; and, as he looks on his new domain, that domain, with all its thousand voices, may be regarded as
asking him, "Have you the necessary strength of will to
subdue me, and have dominion?" The process of subjugation is a perpetual exercise of the will, which strengthens
by exercise. Every cultivated field, and every domesticated animal around him, is a triumph of his will. By its
scenery-the voice of the mountains, and the voice of the
sea, each shouting, though in different accents, " Be active,
energetic, bold, and you shall be our king; be otherwise,
and you must be our slave."
On all these accounts it would be necessarily related to
him as a being capable of moral distinctions. By favoring
the undue development of any one part of his nature, it
indicates to him the class of moral distinctions most endangered. Its general tendency would be toward the extreme
of self-indulgence or of asceticism, Stoicism or Epicureanism,
Polytheism or Pantheism. The aspect of nature, whether
stern or cheerful, would tend to become his own aspect.
But this again would materially depend on his occupation
-with what part of nature it brought him mostly into contact, and what leisure it left him to hold communion with
it. Who can conceive of the stern majesty of the Mosaic




THE FAMILY CONSTITUTION.              197
Law speaking from any throne but that of a thunder-riven
Sinai? The flower, the gloomy forest, the quiet nook, the
burning sun, the objectless plain, the midnight sky, the
cataract, the mountain, the ocean-each has a voice of its
own in which it speaks to him of the future or the invisible,
as containing the sanctions of right or wrong, and to
which, in corresponding tones, the voice of conscience
within him replies, " Deep calleth unto deep." It whispers
a fable, or sings in poetry, or thunders in prohibition; but
always with a moral, which says "thou shalt," or "thou
shalt not."  It is ever renewing its imagery on his imagination, so that its brightest scenes will mingle with his visions
of future happiness, and its most repulsive with his ideas
of future misery; rendering virtue proportionally attractive and vice odious. His visible will be ever tending to
embody for him the invisible.
a Man is to be viewed also as a being sucThe same rela- 
tions successively cessively existent. In infancy, the relations
existent.
in question are of the most despotic kind;
and parental tenderness and skill are busied in mitigating
and adjusting them to its passive helplessness.  Objects
engage attention; not merely a succession of objects, but
a succession of properties in the same objects-motion,
color, form. " Hence it is that our life in childhood is so
inconceivably significant. At that age, every thing is of
importance to us; we hear every thing, see every thing,
and all our impressions are vivid; whereas, at a later age,
wetdo every thing with design, and we lose in depth what
we gain in extension of impressions." * At that early age
external nature imprints itself photographically on the
* Heinrich Heine, in Mrs. Austin's Fragments from German Writers,
p. 62.




198              THE RELATIONS OF
mind, without the formality of preparation for the process
From objects and events, the child comes to notice their
internal changes, and to find an interest in their connection.
He consciously theorizes on their causes, efficient and final,
and moots inquiries which exercise his rational powers.
Thus is erected a demand for words and forms of speech
which enlarge and enrich his faculty of communication, and
still further exercise and develop his mind. In this way
external nature erects itself into a vast theater, in which
every thing appeals to one or other of his emotions. In
proportion to the energy of his will, however, he imprints
on surrounding nature his own character, molding its objects, and linking its events, to suit his own purposes; and
thus comes to control that which, at first, threatened to
vanquish him. While every step of his course is calculated
more deeply to convince him that the hand of law is on
every thing; on himself in relation to every thing, on every
part of his nature; and that, in the eye of the Lawgiver,
his every act bears the impress of right or wrong. Thus
his relations successively multiply and change. He who at
first appeared to be almost at the mercy of external nature,
comes to subordinate it to his own purposes. And though
it is true, to a certain extent, in this, as in other respects,
that " the child is father to the man," it is also true that;" when he becomes a man he puts away childish things,"
rises above nature in this most important respect, that he
ascends by it, and then from it, to the supernatural.
OMian himself is a part of the objective -uniOf man to man.
verse to his fellow-man. As such, he sustains
relations specifically different from those which connect him
with the inferior parts of creation-a system of co-relations
arising from identity of constitution and of destiny.




THE FAMILY CONSTITUTION.              199
As a physical, organic, and animal being, inhabiting the
same earth, dependent on its material means of subsistence,
and susceptible of being similarly affected by its physical
geography, he is related to him by space or neighborhood,
as well as by activity and strength. By these he is physically able to displace and dispossess his fellow, or to aid and
protect him; to co-operate with or to molest him.
His fellow-man is related to him as a sentient being, by
personal appearance; by the frequency of seeing him; by
the voice, and every thing by which he could appeal to his
senses; and by the identity of the impressions derived by
both fiom the same objects. He is reflective; and here is
a being who has surrounded himself with the manifestations
of his own mind; and who, besides thus acting on him
suggestively, like nature, can directly impart his own knowledge, and who will influence him according to the particular
direction of his knowledge. As capable of speech, his fellow-man is related to him according to his greater or less
command of the right language; his oath-like veracity or
otherwise; and according to the degree in which he employs respectively, the persuasive or the didactic, the argumentative or the dogmatic, form of communication. He is
emotioncdl; and here is a being who can not merely, like
natural objects, excite his emotions, but can also return
them. He is voluntcary; and here is another voluntary
being; each conscious, from his own self-knowledge, that
he can not force the will of the other, but that he can not
fail to affect it, by his patience, perseverance, and by the
degree of his ascendency over the inferior parts of his own
nature, and over outward objects. And as a being capable
of moral distinctions, his fellow-man stands related to him
by the degree in which these distinctions are embodied in




200             THE RELATIONS OF
action, and in which he thus becomes a living manifestation
of God. Each of these relations admits of being graduated
by a scale of innumerable points. Nor is the individual
related to any two of the race in precisely the same manner.
Successively  Viewed as successively existent, he may be
existent,  said to be born into an artificial man-made
world; such, at least, is the circle immediately around him.
Custom has pre-arranged the manner of his reception. His
first toys come from the hand of man. His impressions of
yesterday are displaced or deepened by his impressions of
to-day; and as his horizon enlarges, and new objects come
into view, they do but increase his acquaintance with man.
Every man around him is, more or less, a representative of
the age in which he lives, and, therefore, of all his cotemporaries; so that by being brought into contact with any
given individual, he is brought into contact with the age,
and is increasingly molded and influenced by it. His physical inferiority renders him dependent on the use which
others make of their superior strength, even as to the
amount of personal liberty which he shall enjoy; and his
very consciousness of this fact can not fail to influence him.
Even the scenery of nature acquires a character from the
presence and activity of man; the Acropolis with the Parthenon and without it, for example, would affect a Greek
very differently. An object which he would otherwise have
passed by unnoticed, might burn itself into his memory on
learning that it was, or had been, deeply interesting to
others. Little of his knowledge is derived from his own
observation, but is conveyed to him as the fruit of the experience of others. The first maxim or proverb he received,
contained, probably, in a condensed form, the generalized
experience of thousands. Custom after custom would leave




TIIE FAMILY CONSTITUTION.             201
its impress on him. Law after law would impose its obligations on him. One object of friendship after another would
engage his affections; and one opinion be modified or succeeded by another, until, had he written memoirs of himself, after living through centuries, he might have fancied
himself at times to have transmigrated, or to be writing the
biography of distinct individuals. And, in looking back
over so long a tract of time, how difficult, not to say impossible, would it be for him to determine the occasion or
the manner of his adopting this or the other view, which
yet, in the course of time, came to exercise no inconsiderable
influence over his entire character. And if the influences
which acted on him directly on all sides, as he passed through
life, defied calculation, how much more so would the complicated and far-reaching relations of which these influences
were the results.
ins relations to  Equally obvious are the relations in which
God.    man stood to all those Divine remedial means
glanced at in a preceding chapter. Thus, the return of the
Sabbath invited him to rest from the fatigues of bodily
labor. In harmony with his sentient nature, there was the
cherubic glory, distinguishable from every other spectacle
in creation. Or, supposing that to have been withdrawn,
there was the place of sacrifice, and the solemn symbolic
rites; the prophetic ark; the venerable preacher of righteousness; and the ever-speaking place of burial. For death,
then, considering the comparative recency of the doom, and
the great length of human life, must have had a preternatural voice.
The appointment of a certain time and place for religious
instruction and worship, recognized man's reflective nature
-his power of attention, the force of habit, and the law of
9*




202             THE RELATIONS OF
association; while the subjects of the Divine communication
were of a nature to answer every inquiry of a practical importance likely to interest an intelligent being situated as
man was. They explained him to himself; his origin and
moral history; the nature of his own inward conflicts, and
the source of the prevailing depravity around him-tracing
it to that apostacy from God by which both the laws of
self government and of the Divine government were violated,
and man, as an all-related being, put himself out of harmony
alike with God and with himself. They announced to him
the promise of a deliverer, and placed within his reach the
means of present interest in his deliverance. They told
him that life, both for himself and for his race, was disciplinary and probationary. While, by the preaching and the
translation of Enoch, they hinted of other worlds, and
pointed to a time of judgment, and to a state of future
rewards and punishments.
In harmony with man's power of communications by
signs, God speaks to him either in the oral exposition of the
Divine revelations, or in the tables which record them. On
the one hand, thoughts which have dwelt from eternity in
the Divine mind, are thus committed to the vehicle of
language that they may be revolved for the coming eternity
in the mind of man. On the other hand, man could not
utter a word in prayer which was not heard by God; nor
express a thought which did not blend, so to speak, with
the Divine thoughts-which did not detain the Divine
Being in communion.   In harmony with his emotional
nature, every part of Divine revelation was a manifestation
of one or other aspect of the Divine character; each aspect
appealing to a corresponding emotion in man, and calculated to keep his entire nature in sympathy with God.




THE FAMILY CONSTITUTION               203
One truth said, "Hope in Him with all thy heart;" another,
"Be filled with sorrow;" another, "Rejoice;" another,
" Admire;" all were summed up in the command, " Thou
shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart." And
what must the Divine excellence be, when all creation is
but a counterpoise to its attracting power; when, even as
it came fresh from the Divine hand, all the visible glories
of creation did but furnish the centrifugal balance to His
centripetal power!
As man is a voluntary being, God signifies to him his
own will. Obedience or subordination to that is the only
condition of the liberty of man's will. Insubordination is
derangement, lawlessness, and slavery to some other part
of his own nature. Still, no force must be employed to induce obedience. Motives to subordination are presented
sufficiently strong to render man inexcusable if he does not
comply; but not such as to frighten or force him into submission. Indeed, forced obedience is a self-contradiction.
So that, although the Supreme will announces itself in the
imperative form, and declares, "Thou shalt," or "Thou
shalt not," man is still at physical liberty to disobey; and
although the evidence that God hath so spoken is sufficient,
it is not, therefore, efficient, but may, if man pleases, be
denied.  It must not be irresistible. And although the
Holy Spirit reclaims the disobedient will, it is simply by,
not forcing it, but setting it at liberty. Regeneration is
self-restoration; so. that truth is no longer treated as falsehood. In harmony with man's moral nature, he found his
relations to God increased; each new relation giving rise
to a new obligation, and all his obligations enforced by corresponding motives. Every part of the new dispensation
of mercy might be regarded by him as " a tree of knowledge




204             THE RELATIONS OF
of good and evil," placing him on a higher probation than
at first; but making every thing to depend, as then, on
"the obedience of faith."
Successively ex-  As one of a race originated by creation,
istent.  but whose members come into being consecutively and by means, he stood related to God as his
mediate Creator. Every step through life, too, by unfolding the adaptations of nature and of man to meet his
wants, to develop his constitution, and to influence his
character, placed him in new relations to that Providence
which had included the whole in its plan.
The idea of God, however early and gradually it may
have taken its place in his mind, was the admission of an
ever-active and transforming power. As the great pre-existing facts of Divine revelation were brought within his
view, opening successively new aspects of the character of
God, his relations to God went on increasing. And as
other facts were added for the first time in his own day,
these relations multiplied still further. The preparation of
the ark, for example, converted the earth, in effect, into
the judgment-hall for the awful proceedings of the descending judge.
If the individual sustain these external relations, every
antediluvian Family, as composed of individuals, would
necessarily sustain them also.
Co-existent re-  Physical geography would partly deterlations of the fam- mine the marriageable age; the occupations
ily to nature.
ilytonature.  of husband and wife; the time which each
would have at disposal for the company of the other, and
their fitness for such companionship; and would thus exercise a powerful influence on the whole domestic constitution. As parents, it would be found related to the average




THE FAMILY CONSTITUTION.               205
number of children in a family; to the consequent amount
of labor necessary to provide for them; to the time they
could bestow on their education, separately and jointly; to
their fitness for educating them, and to the length of time
the children would remain unmarried. Nature would be
found related, through the parents, to every part of the
constitution of the children; to their early amusements,
tastes, and habits; and to the choice of their subsequent
pursuits. And, similarly, it would affect the relation of
master and servant; as to the number of the servants
wanted, the nature of their occupation and consequent influence on each other, the trust reposed in them, the closeness of their intercourse with the family, and the nature
of their servitude.
Successively ex- The family sustains relations successively
istent.  existent. In contemplating man as successively existent, we saw that the last moment of his life was,
to a certain extent, influenced by his first; here, we see one
age linked to another in a similar manner.
" The empire of climate (says AMontesquieu) is the first,
the most powerful of all empires."  Without admitting
this statement in its unqualified force, climate must doubtless be allowed to exercise a powerful influence. But the
climate of one region is much more despotic than that of
another. The same climate is much more despotic over
the same people in the early stages of their civilization
than it is subsequently. Civilization may even considerably
modify the climate itself. Besides which, man becomes
progressively powerful in his influence on man, and at
length the chief agent in his civilization. In the early
stages of human improvement, the sea appears to be, what
the Roman poet calls it, dissociabilis; but, in proportion




206                THE RELATIONS OF
as the art of navigation advances, it changes its character,
and becomes sociabilis-" the great highway of the nations."  The antediluvian world, probably owing to their
central situation, knew little of navigation.  Still the extent
of region occupied would naturally include great geographical variety. And the effects of this variety, accumulating for more than two thousand years, would be summed up-modified, of course, by circumstances-in the
character of the latest generation. The necessary occupation of one region might tend to develop a spirit of enterprise and create "men of renown;" the character and
climate of another would be favorable to the growth of
"giants in those days;"   while that of another might go
* Almost every record of antiquity hands down the tradition of a family or race of giants. Nor does their existence appear to be any more
enigmatical than the amazing strength, magnitude, and duration of many
of the structures of the ancients-the pyramids, for example, and the
hundred-gated Thebes. And yet if we had only the tradition that such
structures once existed, it would be regarded, by those who sapiently
measure every thing ancient by a modern standard, as simply mythical.
Such, too, would be the certain fate of any mere records of the departed
giants of the vegetable and animal kingdoms. Geology points us to past
worlds of gigantic ferns, tree-grasses, and lofty mosses; and to reptiles
tall and bulky as the elephant, rhinoceros, or hippopotamus. "There
were animal-giants in those days;" and why not human giants in later
days? Representatives of the fossil monster-growths of the coal-measures and of the reptile dynasty, indeed, still exist. But the existing
giants, of the reptile class, for example, " the crocodiles and boas, hardly
equal in bulk the third-rate reptiles of the ages of the Oolite of the Wealden." The size of the body oscillates between certain extreme limits.
During the early period of man's history, the extreme development of
his bulk and strength took place to a much greater extent than at present; though the instances of gigantic stature which still occur are more
frequent than is commonly supposed.
It is erroneously inferred by many that these antediluvian giants sprang




THE FAMILY CONSTITUTION.                   207
to account for the fact respecting its women "that they
were fair. "  Each region, according to its peculiarities,
would tend to develop corresponding characteristics in its
inhabitants; while that part of the constitution so developed, whether physical, intellectual, or moral, would tend
to modify all the rest. In one Patriarchal family, stationary residence and hereditary occupations would gradually
develop qualities which it might yet require centuries to
mature; while, in another, similar qualities would be gradually obliterated by removal and change, and be replaced
by their opposites. And thus the history of one family, as
compared with that of another, might exhibit a prolonged
struggle with the influences of external nature, ending in
mastery, or in a gradual adjustment and consenting to
them; or else in a general compromise with them.
To cotempora-  Every cotemporaneous family would susneous families. tain, to every other, relations of distance or
neighborhood, of number, sex, and personal attractions,
determining, partly, the nature and amount of its intercourse with them, and the degree of its influence over
them.   The family or tribe most advanced in civilizatzo
would be found giving law to opinion as to what constitutes competence and wealth; as well as on all subjects of
fashion and usage, and of laws regulating family interfrom the union spoken of in the context between the sons of God and
the daughters of men. Whereas the statement seems constructed expressly to guard against such an inference: "In those days were the
(well-known) Nephilim in the earth. Also after that the sons of God,"
etc. Two periods are spoken of Giants existed prior to the period of
the unions in question, and continued to exist afterward. The ungodly
mixture of the two races and their offspring denoted the licentiousness
of the period, and the insolent conduct of the giant race marked the violence of the times.




208             THE RELATIONS OF
course. In this connection, too, langu.age would make
slander possible; in other words, we advance from speech
respecting things to speech concerning persons. Intercourse between family and family would multiply the objects of emotion, and quicken its activity. Nor could the
sphere of its operation be thus enlarged without robbing
or enriching the immediate circle of home, and benefitingr
or injuring other circles.
By these means, the voluntccry power, as developed in
the family government, would be affected; for, in proportion as the emotions are excited, the difficulty of carrying
theml out into appropriate action increases, while their demand for excitement goes on increasing also. In proportion as they are allowed to terminate on themselves, the
will is enfeebled; the consequence of this is, that hopes
and fears are not so easily excited-rewards do not so
easily secure obedience, nor correction restrain fioml evil.
And in this important respect, each family, by its exalnple,
influences others.
And thus each family would be found sustaining to the
others moral relations; multiplying them by multiplying
the objects of thought, desire, and pursuit; tending to confound them by calling good evil, and evil good; or virtually defeating them by making convenience, custom, or expedience, the motive for attending to them instead of the
will of God.
Successively ex-  As the first human pair had multiplied into
istent.  a family; giving rise, for the first time, to
the endearing relations of parent and child, brother and
sister, so that family again had branched off into a new
generation of other families, giving rise to the additional
relations of uncles and aunts, nephews and nieces, and




THE FAMILY     CONSTITUTION             209
cousins; and these again into remoter affinities, until the
connection of kindred became so attenuated as no longer
to receive specific names; while relations arising from
neighborhood, or country, or physiological similarity, or
identity of temporal interests, would begin to grow into
importance. Still, however great the number of families
living at the time of the flood, and however marked their
physical differences may have been, the identity of the
whole as the progeny of the same stock, would, owing to
man's longevity, be of such easy verification as to remain
entirely unquestioned. If, as we have remarked, the physical and mental development of the members of one family would be influenced to some degree by the peculiarities
of its relations to external nature, the corresponding developments in the members of another would be influenced by
that family; while the characteristics of each, acting and
re-acting, would be carried on to the next generation. Social intercourse, marriage, exchange of produce, the commerce of mind, would ever be tending to multiply, and to
cast wider and wider over society the ties which should
have kept them bound into one brotherhood. Each generation, as it rose, would enter into the possession of all
the accumulations of the past. Laws awaited the coming
of its members, and were ready to bind them. Customs
were ready to mold them. Ideas and proverbs were current to inform them.* Language, in which to express
* I may suggest that some of these, in the form of moral maxims,
are, not improbably, to be found in that book of (I believe) co-Mosaic
antiquity, the Book of Job, chap. viii. 8, etc. "Ask now of the former
generations, and attend to the search of their fathers; for we are of yesterday, and know nothing; because our days are a shadow upon the
earth. They will speak unto thee, and give thee instruction; and will




210                THE RELATIONS OF
those ideas.   Paths had been worn for them.          "Great
names had been among them," which historically influenced
them.   Family sepulchers, before they were born, awaited
their decease.  Many an altar, gray with antiquity, told of
past generations of worshipers, and was invested with such
precious associations that "they favored the dust thereof;
and took pleasure in its stones." As time advanced, the
year became a calendar of great events.
Each generation, too, would be influenced by anticipations of the future.    "Coming     events," casting   " their
shadows before," would appeal to its hopes or its fears.
Those, for instance, who were both after the building of
the ark was commenced, would, doubtless, be affected differently from   all who had gone before.      Great changes
then, as now, would be always considered to be impending;
and, according to their character, would work like leaven
in the general mind. And thus each generation receiving
from the past, added to it something of its own, and devolved it on the future. So that the generation living at
teach thee from their observations." The proposed inquiry is to be
made, not merely of older men, but of former generations; and the reason assigned is, that we are both a recent race, and are short-lived, compared with those fiom whom the maxims had come. These begin at the
11th verse, and are characterized by most antique simplicity. Similarly,
the so-called "statutes of Adam," or "precepts of Noah," no doubt date
from antediluvian times. Their form and number, as found in Maimonides and Selden, may have been different; but who can suppose that no
moral and religious maxims whatever were floated across the flood?
And if some such traditions may be expected, what more rational than
that they should have expressed the simple and fundamental elements
of all religion and morality: to abstain from idolatry-To worship the
true God-To commit no murder-To abstain from licentiousness-To
administer justice, etc.?




THE FAMILY CONSTITUTION.               211
the time of the flood became the heir, and was found in
possession, of the results of all the relations of dependence
and influence which had originated in the first man.
Co-eisnt r  The family is divinely related in its parts
Co-existent  relationsof the fam- and as a whole. The husband, as such, is
ilyto God.   the subordinate representative of God to the
wife; and the father, as such, to the children; but in a different respect to the two parties, answering to the different
relation in which he stands respectively to each. So alsr
the wife, as such, is related to God mediately in the repre.
sentative character of her husband; while she herself sustains a representative relation for her children. The children, as such, are related to God mediately through their
parents; while each child, and every part of each, enters
into direct relations of its own, answering to the progressive development of its constitution. The servants, by
placing a part of their nature at the disposal of another,
sustain new and additional relations to God.
The family constitution is an organic whole; having, like
the individual, ends of its own to answer, and a similar
ultimate relation to the great end-the former harmonizing
with the latter. As such, it brings to light new views of
the various attributes of God already revealed, for the family is placed in new relations to each. It is a government,
representative of the Divine government. As the head
of the constitution, the parent is to teach, intercede, and
rule, as prophet, priest, and king, and to do every thing for
God.
In speaking of the relation of the family to God, we
have to recall the distinction, before referred to, between
the truths which introduced the dispensation and formed
its basis, and those Divine communications made subse



212             THE RELATIONS OF
quently, from time to time, as the state of the antediluvian
human family made them necessary.
The same sue-  The remarkable manner in which the pricessivelyexistent. mary truths of the dispensation-the promise of a Deliverer, and the institute of Sacrifice-harmonized with the domestic constitution, is obvious.- To name
only the following respects: the promised Deliverer was to
be of the seed of the woman; was to come through the
family constitution. Every child born, therefore, was a
new and a living memorial of the great promise. Every
prayer offered in faith, for offspring given, bore a relation
to the "seed" yet to come. Sacrifice would be offered by
the parent for the family before the children were in a capacity to present it for themselves. Both the promise and
the institution would be received on parental testimony.
While the stationary symbol of the Divine presence would
invite them to sacrifice and worship in their collective or
family capacity.
Especially is it instructive to remark in what various
ways the second class of the Divine communications recognized and corroborated the domestic constitution. Thus
the principal agents employed by God as "preachers of
righteousness" were heads of families; such were Adam
and Seth, Enoch and Noah. In harmony with the weight
naturally due to parental testimony, it does not appear
that miracles were performed to substantiate it. The
translation of Enoch, indeed, was God's own testimony to
the truth of His servant's message; but neither Enoch nor
Noah appear to have been empowered to perform miracles.
Had such been the case, their claim to be believed even by
their own children, when they testified for God, would
have rested, not on their parental relation, but on the




THE FAMILY CONSTITUTION.             213
supernatural evidence they adduced. The parental office,
too, would be greatly enhanced by the longevity of the
Patriarchs. For nine hundred and thirty years the father
of mankind continued in the midst of his multiplying offspring. And as their lives were of corresponding length,
the chain of testimony by which Divine communications
were transmitted from him to the cotemporaries of Noah
consisted at most only of a few links. The necessary effect
of this arrangement would be to increase the importance
of the paternal relation. The same effect would be produced by the method adopted, doubtless by Divine direction, for perpetuating the remembrance of certain informations, whether historical or prophetic, by giving significant names to children. This was calculated to make
Divine communications as enduring as the family constitution itself, by making them a part of it. By the times
most probably selected by God for the employment of the
paternal agency to impart Divine revelation. If there be
one season more than another in which the heart is prepared to receive lasting impressions, it is surely when listening to the closing accents of a dying parent. This is
emphatically the mollic temnpora fandi.. Yet this was the
season when the postdiluvian Patriarchs were led, by a
Divine impulse, to gather their children around them, and
to tell them  of things to come."* The probability is,
therefore, that this method characterized the Patriarchal
dispensation from first to last. And in proportion to the
greater length of antediluvian life, must have been the
greater solemnity of the scene in which lips, which had
been revered as almost oracular, for centuries, uttered their
last accents. Nor did the Divine procedure ever cease to
* Gen. xxvii. xlviii 1. 24, 25.




214   RELATIONS OF THE FAMILY CONSTITUTION.
harmonize with the family character of the dispensation;
for those eventually saved from the general wreck were
Noah and his family. It is not improbable that there
were some antediluvians whose character might have sustained a favorable comparison with that, for example, of
Ham.    But the Divine conduct, true to the last, to the
Patriarchal character of the economy, selected, not the
individual members of different families, but one family.*
Noah is represented in Scripture as a prevailing intercessor with God. It is not improbable that owing to his earnest entreaties, either the deluge was delayed as it was, or
else that some mitigation of the world's doom took place.
And very likely it is, that as the preservation of his family
would naturally form   the frequent subject of prayer to
God, it was accorded, partly at least, as an answer to
prayer. And thus God himself sustained, from first to last,
the relation of Pater-familias to the antediluvian; while in
an especial manner he was "the God of all the families"
that called upon His name.
Here was a great system of relations, touching in space,
every part of every human being, and of the world which
he inhabited, and-reaching to the throne of God; while,
in time, it reached from the first moment of creation to an
indefinite futurity-a mighty web-work of dependence and
influence.
* The fact that Noah was five hundred years old when he became the
father of Shem, Ham, and Japhet, is no ground, indeed, for inferring
that he had no children previously. The average age at which the other
antediluvian Patriarchs became fathers would lead to a contrary conclusion. But these three were born to him after the Flood had been threatened: and the probability is that they were selected or sent by God to
furnish a parentage for the new world as little as possible saturated with
the corruptions of the old world.




CHAPTER VIII.
LAWS WHICH THE RELATIONS OF THE FAMILY CONSTITUTION PRESUPPOSE.
The family pre-  THE flmily is not a system of mere vague
supposes laws.  relations; it is a constitution pervaded by
definite laws. Supposing it to have originated in the Divine purpose, it is only to be expected that it would be pursued on a plan; and a plan supposes the orderly arrangement and concurrent operation of certain sequences of
events for the attainment of certain ends.
We have seen that each preceding economy-mineral,
vegetable, and animal-was respectively impressed with
the regularity of law. The constitution and history of individual man form a nobler illustration of the same fact.
If the family be only the further development of the individual, we are justified in expecting it to report a further
development of law. Accordingly, we find that nothing
belonging to the family is indifferent in its effects.
If, as we have seen, the natural laws of the preceding
dispensation are brought on into the family, its welfare
requires that the family should fall in with and obey them.
Even in those respects in which the Creator deemed it
necessary, at first, to initiate and instruct men, He was but
practically enforcing His own laws. Had He taught man




216                LAWS OF THE
any thing else, it would have been unavailing, because incapable of application. Apart from the stability of nature,
the discoveries and improvements made by Jubal and Tubal
Cain, and other antediluvians, in agriculture and the mechanical arts, would have been impossible; and so also
would have been the training of others in these arts, for
the laws of one day could not have been relied on the day
after. Discoveries were made, then as now, just in proportion as men were content to learn the laws of God in the
material world from Himself. The moment they looked
away and began to speculate what these laws might be, or
ought to be, the progress of discovery stopped, and it
stopped just because they were then virtually legislating in
a sphere which God had legislated already.
n of t    If the view which we have taken of marUnion of the sexes in marriage, a riage be correct, every thing relating to it
law. Celibacy.
must be either an act of obedience to a law
of nature, or a violation of it. If, for example, the sexual
desire be a part of the human constitution, it can not be
immaterial whether or not it be gratified. The Roman
Church may plead that it is a carnal affection, and that, in
the instance of men set apart for the service of God, it
ought to be repressed. But woman is not to be thus
branded as "a pollution" with impunity. Never has this
violence been done to a natural law, even on a small scale,
without recoiling in some form of, at least, secret evil; and
where practiced on a large scale, and for a length of time,
it has uniformly drawn after it a train of festering social
evils. That many have passed their lives in consistent celibacy " for the kingdom of heaven's sake," is not to be
questioned. But as little is it to be doubted that it unfitted
them for sympathies and duties which properly belonged




FAMILY CONSTITUTION.                  217
to their sacred office; for marriage is not less deeply written in man's soul than in his body. In vain is it for Church
or Council to attempt to elevate celibacy into a virtue; a
deep-seated law of human nature cries out against it.*  A
large proportion of those who take the vow, come to regard
it as a restriction against which nature rebels, or as involving an abstinence from one form of gratification which may
seek compensation in other forms, deeply polluting to
themselves and to society.t
Violations ofthis  If the sexual desire be a part of the human
law.    constitution, the manner and the degree in
which it is gratified can not be immaterial; for, as the constitution of man includes a variety of other laws, the desire
can be rightly indulged only in harmony with those other
laws.
Then it can not be indifferent whether or
Licentiousness.
not the desire be gratified indiscriminately,
or to any excess. This would be to abolisl the very name
of HOMrE, to reduce the parental relation to the bestial, and
the social to the gregarious; so that man would be distinguished from the mere animal only by his excessive sensuality. It is as evidently the will of the Creator that the
desire should be yielded to only within certain limits as
that it should be gratified at all, and for the same ultimate
reason.
The intercourse of the sexes, apart from marriage, has
been pleaded for, permitted, and even legally sanctioned,
on the plea of preventing greater enormities, Man was
* In M. Souvestre's Mlinstrelsy of the Bretons, an account is given of a
distinct kind of poetry called the sone, which has almost entirely grown
out of this kind of feeling.
f See Quart. Rev. vol. xciv. p. 157, etc.
10




218                LAWS OF THE
thus striving to improve on the Divine legislation. But, in
the obvious tendency of such an expedient to diminish
marriages, in the disease propagated, the habits of lewdness produced, the contempt poured by society on the
parties chiefly concerned, and in the injuries inflicted on
social morality, the laws of nature proclaim their violation,
and loudly call for redress. To see the evils of such a departure from the law of chastity in their proper light, however, we must wait until we can find a country in which
marriage, and every thing answering to it, are, and long
have been, abrogated; and where the sexes live in common. Nay, a country in which nothing like marriage ever
existed; for, if it have once existed there, the posterity of
such unions can never be certain how much they continue
to be indebted to that former state of things. But the unnatural experiment of sexual intercourse without marriage
has never been avowedly made in civilized society, except
in countries where the law of marriage prevailed; that is to
say, in a country where marriage was the rude, a very small
party, pretending to a new discovery in social law, has
sometimes been suffered to form the exception; and has
escaped, owing to the very fact that it was the exception,
the worst consequences of its guilt. Sometimes, indeed,
these consequences have become so threatening that other
parts of the community (though by no means of fastidious
morals) have sternly demanded the abatement of the nuisance.  The law of marriage, however, is so obviously
fundamental to society, that it has formed the rule of
communities, even in their worst condition. Hence, in
that monstrous state of mankind which called for a deluge,
we are told that "they married and were given in marriage, till the day that Noah entered into the ark."




FA.IILY CONSTITUTION.               2 9
It may, perhaps, be objected that occasional aberrations,
and individual instances of licentious indulgence need. not
be followed by all the evil consequences we have described.
To this it is sufficient to reply, that by every such act a
law of God is violated; and that, as the least evil which
can result, two minds are polluted; habits of evil are confirmed; and a member of society already lost to it, perhaps,
in the highest sense, receives the renewal of her sentence
of degradation.
Polygamy is only an ill-concealed comPolygamy.
promise between lust and law; between the
law of marriage and the indulgence of sensuality-the
former being bribed to throw a vail over the latter. And,
doubtless, in a corrupt state of society, where unbridled
sensuality was threatening social disorganization, a plurality
of wives would be deemed an almost virtuous expedient.
And probably, not a few specious arguments would be advanced in its defense. But it was an infraction of a natural
appointment; and the injured law proved too strong for
the sophistry. The inequality which it produced in the
distribution of the sex, and which, by leaving many men
single, would lead to prostitution; the distraction of affection; the domestic jealousies; the degradation of the
woman, who, by ceasing to be the equal and the companion
of man, becomes his timid slave, or the mere instrument of
his sensual gratification; the prison-like surveillance of her
movements thus made necessary; the diminished number
of healthy children resulting from such concubinage; and
their necessary want of parental education*-all proclaimed
that polygamy is a violation of the domestic constitution.
Perhaps, the most favorable circumstances in which such
* Cuvier's Animal Kingdom, vol. i. pp. 6,.77.




220                 LAWS OF THE
an experiment could be made, was in Patriarchal times.
But those are the very times which denote that in no case
can the Divine arrangement on the subject be departed
from with impunity. Indeed, the first reference to the
evil, in the fiagmzentary allusion to antediluvian Lamech,*
is of a kind ominous of a train of alarming results.
Physical condi-  If, as we have seen, animal propagation
tions of marriage. takes place according to definite laws, and if
these laws- have been brought on into the human economy,
it follows that the ages, health, and other physical conditions of the married pair, can not be matters of indifference. Accordingly, these natural laws are found to hold
on their way without any respect to the character or purposes of those concerned. Lycurgus might well ridicule
the indifference of men to the physique of their own race,
contrasted with their attention to natural laws in cultivating the breed of their horses and dogs. And, though his
aim was low, and most of his methods barbarous and immoral, and therefore unnecessary, the men of Sparta was
the result. Nature was justified of her children. Statistics
undeniably prove that marriages too premature bring on
sterility; that they produce children more subject to mortality than others; that precocious marriages generally
produce a greater number of daughters than of sons; that
the period of the greatest fecundity is before the age of
thirty-three of the man, and twenty-six of the woman;
that all things being equal, the marriages most productive
are those in which the man is, at least, as old as the
woman, or older, yet not much exceeding her time of life;
and that the products of marriage are subject to the in* Gen. iv. 19, 23, 24.




FAMILY CONSTITUTION.                221
fluence of city and country, freedom and slavery, want,
and plenty, climate and occupation.*
Interest, policy, and expediency may make it desirable
that health and disease should be united; or youth and
age; or that marriage should take place independently of
affection, and of all the physical facts we have specified.
But these laws are no respecters of persons nor expedients.
However virtuous the parties may be, natural laws require
their appointed condition of fulfillment; or, however vicious, they ask but the same; and having obtained them, they
know no partiality, keep no sabbath, but run their appointed course. Morality is highly favorable to their accomplishment, because temperance, health and social propriety are
promoted by it, and these are in harmony with the laws of
offspring. Both the natural and the moral form, in different degrees, parts of the same great whole. And wherever
this proximate end of marriage-the production of healthy
offspring, is not attained, it is just because the laws relating
to marriage have been, in some respects, disregarded.
The respective  That the respective spheres of the hussphercsofhusband band and wife should correspond to the reand  wife  determined by nature. spective differences of their constitution, is
another law of the married state. This difference, indeed,
has been, in almost all ages and countries, unduly magnified
by the husband, to the consequent depression of the condition of the wife below her proper social rank. It was a
saying of Cleobulus, one of the seven sages of Greece,
"Let your daughters, when you give them in marriage,
though girls in age, be women in understanding;" "by
* Sur l'Homme, et le Developpement de sos Facultes, par M. A. Quetelet, t. i c. ii.




222                LAWS OF THE
which (says his biographer, with obvious astonishment) he
implied that event girls should be instructed."*  With the
Athenians, woman was merely the household drudge, incapable of rational intercourse and friendship. The fact that a
large proportion of the female children are destroyed in
China tells its own revolting tale.t "Here, wolf, take thy
lamb," is said to have been the old Russian formula of marriage. "As the prophet has not assigned any place for
women in his paradise (says Ali-Bey-Badra), the Mohammedans give them no place in the mosques;"t and hence
the Mussulman idea that women have no souls. Because
they do not belong to man the sex, they have been too
generally treated as not belonging to man the species.
But women can not suffer alone. Every other part of the
family organization suffers the loss of her just influence, and
shares, by re-action, in her degradation.
"Chivalry (said Rahel) was a poetical lie, necessary to
restore the equality of the sexes."  But if much of man's
politeness betrays an uneasy sense of his injustice, we must
not be surprised if woman herself, in calling for redress,
should be occasionally found asking for something more;
something either unattainable or destructive of the family
economy. If she is not permitted to paint even her own
ideal of "an interior," she may be expected to attempt a
Rubens, a Michael Angelo, or a Fuseli.~  Withhold from
her the power of being the vestal priestess of home, which
* Diog. Laert, Lib. i. ~ 91.
{ Gutzlaff's Journal of a Voyage, etc., pp. 174, 188.
i Travels, vol. i. p. 69.
"You must change the physical organization of the race of women
before we can produce a Rubens or a Michael Angelo. I wish to combat that oft-repeated, but most false compliment, that genius is of no sex.




FAMILY CONSTITUTION.                  223
she was meant to be, and it will not be strange if she aims
to assume some character grotesque and unnatural. Deny
her that equality of rights to which she is entitled, and we
can not be justly surprised if she aim at an absolute equality
of condition. Such is ever the retributive reaction of unrighteousness.
But as long as woman retains her distinctive constitution,
and continues to be, by that very fact, unfitted for certain
extra-domestic spheres, no human arrangement could place
her in them, without immediately beginning to develop a
train of social, and therefore of personal, evils. That she
has a power treasured up in her nature-a reserved power
beyond that which the domestic function requires, and
which has never yet been developed and applied, I fully
believe. Bttt let that energy take a direction which should,
even indirectly, ignore or disparage home, and, if the misapplication were to begin to-morrow, nature would begin
to reassert its injured claims the day after, and would
continue to do so till things had reverted to their natural
state.
ome education  If the infant human being is introduced!lome education
a law.  by a Divine ordination into the bosom of the
family, it is implied that all the requisites for the development of his constitution exist there; and they exist there
for the express purpose of his receiving the gradual and
orderly development necessary to his well-being; and no
part of this Divine arrangement, delicate and complicated
as it is, can be tampered with without incurring proportional evil.
There may be equality of power; but in its quality and application, there
will and must be, difference and distinction."-JMrs. Jameson's Sketches,
vol. ii. p. 120.




224                LAWS OF THE
Then " home education" is a law of nature; and to send
the child forth from the circle into which the hand of God
hath led it must be a violation of that law. Plausible reasons may be assigned for such a step-and for what can
they not? "' Cosmopolitism, in particular, has endeavored
to substitute a sort of universal citizenship, in place of the
family affections-regarding these as so many disturbing
forces." * Lycurgus may take the new-born infant from
its parents, with a view of propagating a sound and superior race.t Plato may abolish the family, in his Republic,
on the plea of reducing multiplicity to unity, and of drying
up one of the sources of division among men. And Aristotle may advocate the same procedure, in order to escape
the difficulty of placing women on a footing with free men,
as if they were " by nature capable of the same virtues."$
Or society itself may come to be in a state which may render it difficult to pursue any other course; and the evils
resulting fiom it to the individual may be of subtle operation; and those resulting to the family and the community
may ask a considerable time and an extended scale for their
development, and may even be partially disguised and neutralized by counteracting agencies; but if domestic education be a duty devolved on the parents by God, it is untransferable by man.
"From motives of high-toned though mistaken benevolence, persons have sometimes tried to devise a substitute
in a case for which no substitute or scheme can be foundthe negligence or indisposition of parents."  Rules, too,
lmay be devised for rendering the evils attendant on such a
departure froln the course prescribed by nature, as innocu* Chalmers' Bridgewater Treatise, vol. i. p. 233.
f Plutarch's Lives.: Polit. Lib. i. c. 8.




FA3MILY CONSTITUTION.               225
ous as possible; but the tones of the mother's voice can
not be imitated, and the house in which they are never
heard, has nothing but hollow echoes for the heart of the
child.  Nothing can compensate for the want of the
paternal smile and frown. The Being who has made tile
parents the instruments of the child's existence has placed
in their hands exclusively the key to the recesses of its
heart; and, if they fail to employ it, those depths remain
closed to every other agent. In a word, no extra-domestic
tuition, however well administered, can make up for the
absence of that instructive sympathy and parental influence
which tuition and discipline pre-suppose.*
The very fact, we have said, that the child is introduced
by the Divine ordination into the bosom of the family, distinctly intimates that there, and there only, all the requisites for his education were intended to be found. The
child is naturally loving and sympathetic, admiring and
imitative; and where should parties be found more likely
to return its love, and more interested in setting it an example worthy of imitation, than the parents?  The child
is naturally inquiring, believing, and confiding; and where
can parties be supposed to exist more interested in feeding
it with knowledge, telling it the truth, and winning its confidence, than the parents? The child is naturally disposed
to follow the guidance and to obey the dictates of another;
and whose government is more likely to be exercised without abuse, and solely for the good of the child, than that
of its own parents?  Every thing good and great which
man accomplishes is effected, more or less, by a division of
labor. The education of the human being pre-eminetly
requires such division; but where can that "labor of love"
* Isaac Taylor on Home Education, c. i.
10*




226                   LAWS OF THE
be found more minutely and wisely divided than between
the father and the mother, between patience and power,
tenderness and authority, the instinctive love of offspring
and tlle moral regard for the excellence and well-being of
that offspring?  The welfare of the child depends on the
acquisition of good habits; but habits are formed only by
the fiequent and long-continued repetition of the same
measures; and where can the patience and perseverance
which such repetition requires be looked for so confidently
as in the steady affection of married parents?     The child
is disposed to look up with reverence to that which is in
any sense above him; and who are so likely to pray for
him, and with him, and to point his attention and affectiops
to God, in order that he may attain the high end of his
being, as they who have been the means of giving him being?
Whatever tends, then, to invade this Divine constitution
of things, or even to weaken the ties between parent and
child, can not fail, sooner or later, to be productive of evil.
The pretexts for such a violation may, as we have seen, be
strikingly plausible, and the facilities for falling in with it
may be greatly multiplied; but if there are such things as
seitlexecuting laws of nature, it will infallibly bring its own
punishment with it.*: Let me not be misunderstood:-In the actual state of society, public schools are indispensable for some classes. My remarks apply to the
state of tltings whicll has not only made tlhem necessary as the suppllellme't of hlollom education, but which regards them as an ample substitute
fr it. amld to time evils wlnich must necessarily result. "So true is walt
I'PS:Il;lo;zi s:i.-' Thl' r are no better teachers than the house, or the
father's and mlotherl's love, and the labor at home, and all the wants and
necessities of lilf.' It is tlis 1dombstic education, which, of all others, is
most wanting in all classes under our present system. Without it public
edclla(tin,nay le good in a:1?itlletua.1,  p)oint of view (thhoulgh even that




FAMILY CONSTITUTION.                    227
Laws which -  Their education supposes laws.    "Every
Laws which education itself sup- power exerts its agency under some laws."
poses.        Here is a being full of powers; powers awaiting development, and capable of endless and unlimited
application. How important to examine the constitution
of this being, and reverentially to study it, in order to
ascertain the laws under which its capabilities are to be
developed, and its agencies exerted! For as, from its very
nature, its education must be simply the gradual utterance
and orderly assertion of all its latent susceptibilities and
powers, the forcing or the repression of one part must lead
to the detriment of the whole; so that the best and only
proper process must be that which develops not any one
part alone-even the highest-but every part in the greatest
unity.  "It is not a soul, it is not a body that we are training up (remarks Montaigne), but a man, and we ought not
to divide him. As Plato says, we are not to fashion one
without the other, but make them draw together like two
horses harnessed to a chariot." — "l The exercise of one
faculty will only improve that faculty, and is not adapted
to improve any other.t  Nothing has more retarded education than ignorance and disregard of this great principle."1
Pestalozzi represents the preservation of harmony and
equilibrium between all our powers, as the first law of education.
is difficult); in a moral, it must be defective, if not worse. The tendency
of modern institutions-fond of masses, and co-operation, and broad
effects, and sudden display-is to weaken and limit these home-bred
influences."-Education Reform; by T. Wysc, Esq., M.P., vol. i. p. 81.
* Montaigne's Essays, xxv.
f This remark, though substantially true, requires limitation.: Simpson's Philosophy of Education, p. 93.




228                LAWS OF TIHE
What, then, shall we think of the fatal error-an error
which one might laugh at, so egregious is its folly, did not
its universality and its pernicious effects call rather for
tears-which trains a section of the human being; taking
a faculty here, and a member there; virtually turning the
entire being into a magnified limb; practicing the foot of
one as in dancing; the hand of another as in writing- and
music; the memory of another; or the. bodily movements
of another; and whicl miscalls the one-sided process education?  What shall we say to the destructive mistake
which confines its training to any one part of the human
constitution, and leaves all the other parts undeveloped and
without direction; which under the notion of preparing it
for some one relation in life, incurs the hazard of not merely
leaving it unfitted, but of actually disqualifying it for every
other relation; and which, by disturbing the internal relations and destroying the constitutional balance of the youthfill being, commences a conflict within him between his
various powers, which more or less embitters his existence,
if it does not destroy his character. The multiplied evils
resulting from what generally passes under the name of
education, proclaims in accents loud enough, one would
think, to startle stupefaction itself, that nature has been outraged in this most important respect among others-the derangement of the physical harmony and interdependence of
the different parts of the human constitution.
Other laws might be named, pre-eminently instructive
and fiuitful of obligation. Such are the following: That
education begins with life. Nature does not study, in this
particular, parental convenience; knows nothing of accommodating delays nor of formal beginnings. The child
is born into her school, and receives its first lessons with its




FAMILY CONSTITUTION.               229
first breath; a school in which every thing teaches, and
where every moment brings its lesson. That teaching, to
be useful, must be accurate. Nature's teachers are laws;
and her instructions, truths-the knowledge of things as
they are. Her pupils, indeed, may graduate in blunders if
they will; but this is not her fault. She sets no false lessons; and never has to recall her words or to correct her
statements. That habits of correctness can be acquired
only by a process of repetition and revision. The power
of seeing and of walking is the result of ten thousand corrected actions of the eye and the foot. "Line upon line,
and precept upon precept," is the Divine rule in nature as
well as in providence. That nature, while thus profuse and
untiring in her lessons, invites the independent efforts of
the child, and does nothing for him which he can do for
himself. She neither grows crutches nor makes machines.
Stumbles and falls without number, are permitted, rather
than that we should be kept too long in leading-strings.
And if (like the Greek physician with the king of Persia)
she puts a spice-filled mallet into our hands, the medicine
on which she relies is the muscular effort of using it. That
nature, while thus full of incitements to independent effort,
knows nothing of an "intellectual forcing house."  Nothing is done for mere effect, or to gain a medal. Buds are
not opened with a needle, nor fiuit "brought forward" by
an oven. Winds, fiosts, and a whole magazine of checks
are employed in order to secure late seasons rather than
early. The mind is assumed to bring with it a principle of
spontaneous activity; and nature shows itself expert, not
indeed in retarding the growth of the child as a whole, but
in delaying the development of any one part or faculty to
the prejudice of the rest, and in thus training and regulat



230                LAWS OF THE
ing the easy and orderly expansion of the entire compound
being. That in this natural training and development of
the human being, no power is entirely repressed, nor even
met with a directly opposing force. Nature destroys neither
her poisons, nor our appetite, lest we should eat them; but
hides them among a vast number of wholesome edibles.
She does not deprive a child of sight because his tendency
may be to become all eye, but makes a counteracting appeal to all his other senses. She quietly permits our errors
to-day; foreseeing that to-morrow we shall be in a situation
to see and to correct them. That nature associates pleasure
with right, and pain only with wrong. All her commands
are pleasant as "apples of gold in baskets of silver;" thou
shalt eat, thou shalt observe, and run, and rest. Duty is
not made hateful, in her school, by being assigned as a
punishment. Her pupils are never made to read her Bible
as an infliction for misbehavior. Ier rebukes are always
well-timed, exactly proportioned to the offense, strictly consequential on it, and never administered in anger, but as
the remonstrances of a fiiend. So far from ruling by fear,
she, like Montaigne's father, would have all her children
awake to the sound of music, and render obedience another
name for enjoyment. That nature not only provides for,
but pre-supposes the happiness of the child. Indulgences,
stimulants, and officious interference may kill its enjoyment,
but rags, dirt, and houselessness can not. It does not need
to be made hlappy, but asks you only to allow it to be happy; to " stand out of its sunshine."  The simple air is its
"laughing gas;" a stick and a stone its crown and scepter.
It finds happiness without seeking it. It enters on life, a
sealed fountain of joy; all that nature does is to break the




FAMILY CONSTITUTION.                 231
seal, and to dig channels for the gay and dancing waters as
they flash and glide away in the sun.
But if these are facts and laws of nature, one thing is
clear, that we are bound to act in harmony with them.
And yet how generally parents act as if being at cross-purposes with nature were the same thing as being at one with
it. Rather they ignore it altogether, as if the family were
an excepted territory, and nature lived only out of doorsin the fields. They set the house-clock, without once thinking of the place of the sun; forgetting that as the child
will look only at the former, so much the more is it their
duty to regard the latter. Walk as fast as they may from
east. to west, the earth will carry them still faster from west
to east.
Not only is it the object of a true educaObject of cducation in relation to tion to develop the human being in the
society.     greatest unity with himself and with nature;
but, as we have seen that he is one of a society, its further
design must be to place him in harmonious relation with
that society, as a member of the organized whole. He
can not live to himself. As a social being, his existence is,
anld must be, relative. Of all the multitudinous objects
the earth contains, his fellow-men are to him the most important; so completely are their interests bound up with
his, that his social welfare and theirs are one. Ilis natural
rihllts are the exact measure of their natural rights. The
justi(ce, veratlity, and compassion which they owe to him,
is the standard of his duties toward them.  Whatsoever
le would that they should do to him, he is to do also to
tlt ln.
Then all sectional or denominational education, by being
excllusive of some part of the humnan famlily, is a violation




232                  LAWS OF TIIE
of a general law. It erects a barrier where, if such a thing
had previously existed, education should have been employed to break it down. Instead of developing the mind,
it develops a prejudice; it "gives up to party what was
meant for mankind;" and, by so doing, defrauds the man
of much of the happiness for which he was intended, and
the community of much 6f his usefulness.  For awhile, the
evils of a party education may not be apparent; it may
even promise advantages and success. But while these are
partial and temporary, those are universal and permanent.
Truth, justice, and benevolence have been violated; and
the fiagmentary man is seen in a fiagmentary and disordered society, which' is wasting its powers in fruitless contentions with itself, when it might have been presenting
the glorious spectacle of one harmonious family, in which
each cared for all, and all for every one.*
But even supposing an education to be inIn relation to God.
elusive of all the human family, so that each
was taught to live as a portion of the whole, would this
exhaust all its legitimate objects?  Is there no part or beinlg in the universe besides to be included?  Or is the glorious ORIGINATOR AND SUSTAINER OF THE WHOLE SO very
irrelevant and unimportant to His own system, that He
may be omitted, and yet the education be sufficient and
complete?  Or is all that part of the human being which
* The writer must not be here supposed to be speaking of a professional as distinguished from a general education. This was the chief
difference between the systems of Pestalozzi and De Fellenberg. The
former aimed only to develop, the latter was designed to fit for the particular social position of the pupil. A good education should aim at
both, making the general development the basis and starting-point for the
special adaptation.




FAMILY CONSTITUTION.               233
relates to Him, so very insignificant, or so loosely, if at all,
connected with the other parts of the human constitution,
that it may be left either to languish, or to take care of
itself, with perfect impunity? His appointment of a Sabbath would seem to imply that He attaches some importance to religious instruction and worship. And the office
of the Patriarch to sacrifice for his family and to lead their
devotions would seem to intimate that the place which the
Divine Father has assigned to Himself in the arrangements
of the family is not of a secondary nature. But notwithstanding all. such considerations, and whatever may have
been the habits of the antediluvians, we could tell of times
in which religion commonly formed no part of education;
in which to say that a youth was educated by no means
implied that he had received even a first lesson in religion;
and in which, if he had received any religious instruction,
it was necessary, at the peril of being misunderstood, to
prefix a specific term, and to say that he was religiously
educated. And is it to be supposed that this contravention
of a primary law could take place with impunity? It has
come to be a somewhat familiar method of intimating to
the public the perfect absurdity of certain proceedings, to
compare them with the senseless blunder of a party advertising the drama of "Hamlet," with the part of Hamlet
omitted. Here, however —if the ludicrous and the lamentable may be compared-is a blunder of a similar kind; but
of a magnitude so surpassing as to overwhelm one with
consternation at its possibility. Here is the grand spectacle
of creation exhibited for years before eager and inquiring
eyes, with the part of the Creator omitted; and, it might
be added, with the connivance, if not by the special desire,
of the parents.  Here is a succession of human beings,




234                 LAWS OF THE
professedly instructed in the laws and duties of societywith the character and even the existence of the Lawgiver
omitted. Here are -a number of parents, supposed to be
intelligent beings, professing to teach their children a multitude of important things, but with the grave omission of
adverting to any intelligible end as the design of the
whole. "We learn (said a heathen who saw something of
the enormous blunder*) to play on musical instruments,
and to dance and to read, to farm and to ride.... we
are taught to do all those things which, without some instruction, we can not do well. But the object for which
all this is done-to live a good and happy life-remains
untaught; is without the direction of reason and art, and
is left altogether to chance."  And is it to be supposed, we
repeat, that this contravention of a primary law can take
place with impunity?  One of the first evils naturally resulting is, that the importance of education itself comes to
be undervalued, for its most vital part is omitted; then
something else is substituted in its place; then the supreme
influence of God being lost to the family, the subordinate
influence of His representatives, the parents, follows; as
the consequence of this follows a more general spirit of
social insubordination and license; then, as it begins to be
felt that " something must be done" to remedy the evils, and
as the parties feeling this still misunderstand the nature
and end of education, their expedient is of a kind to aggravate the evil. In the antediluvian period, these evils were
allowed to work themselves out fully, and to reach a crisis.
If the family constitution be thus pervaded
E(lucation to be
harmonized with by general laws, it follows that its end can be
the Divine plan. attained only in proportion as the heads of
* Plutarch.




FAMILY CONSTITUTION.                235
families harmonize their proceedings with the Divine plan
which the whole pre-supposes. Each parent is, to the child,
a personification of law; the only law which it knows. The
example of one, therefore, must accord with that of the
other, not merely in acts but in habits. Their habitual example must agree with the precepts of each, and enforce
them. Nothing in the customs or by-laws of the family
must counteract their precept and example. The variety
of daily occurrences must only furnish varied illustration,
of the selfconsistency of the family system. " It was the
care which Lycurgus took to harmonize the discipline of
the school with the laws of the state (says Plutarch) which
infused his laws into the manners of the children, and made
them suck in a zeal for his political instructions with their
very milk; otherwise his zeal would have signified but
little. So that, for above five hundred years together, his
institution continued in force, as if it had taken a deep and
strong dye, which could not easily be washed out."  So
also, one element of contradiction in the family may vitiate
the whole economy. Every part must be in harmony with
every other part, and the whole with the will of God as expressed in His laws. These, like so many straight lines,
must pervade and symmetrize the whole, and render it true
to His own government. This is expressly why He has
organized the family constitution. Surely if He has deemed
such a plan necessary, it can not be safe to omit any part
of it; still less to run counter to any part of it; and less
still to live and act in neglect of the whole. What shall we
say, then, to the astounding faict, that society, taken as a
whole, never thinks of this Divine arrangement; and that
any serious and detailed proposal to square the general
education of youth with these laws of education, would be




236                LAWS OF THE
scouted as fanaticism? They can not, any more than mere
physical laws, be infringed with impunity; they never have
been; and hence the Patriarchs themselves justly suffered
the consequences of their violation.
But perhaps it may be said that as the family constitution
was meant to attain more ends than one-ends in subordination to each other-though it should fail to attain the
higlhest, it may yet attain the inferior ones. And true it is
that the animal and social ends may be partially gained
Iwhile the great ultimate one is lost-but only partially
gained. One law is never broken alone; nor is the breach
ever followed by only-a solitary effect. The violation of
one part of the domestic economy contravenes the spirit of
the whole, and vitiates all its designs. What then, we ask,
can be thought of the family in which the whole is ignored;
and in which the same ignorance and the same random proceedings prevail generation after generation?
Instances occur in which the evils attendant on such disregard of natural and moral laws become so apparent and
startling, that the most unreflecting parents are, at times,
alarmed by them. They admit to each other that " something must be done."  But " what to do" is the question.
If a wzish could but effect the desired change, it would be
effected at once. If resolutions for the future; or if an occasional, and perhaps a passionate passing effort would
avail, every thing would be rectified. But more than this
waould suppose principle and plan; and of that they have
never dreamned. And, as less than system will not avail,
nothing, in effect, is done. Life is spent in miserable cxpedients, not so much for removing the evil, as for keeping
it in abeyance a generation longer, leaving the next generation to do the same. A political government which man



FAMILY CONSTITUTION.               237
ages to survive from month to month, only by resorting to
temporary stratagems and by the dislike of the people for
a change, is justly chargeable with a want of sound statesmanlike views. Yet, here is a constitution meant to run
parallel in its happy results with the moral government of
God, by being based on the same principles; but, through
losing sight of those principles, the subjects of this constitution, so far from embracing the happiness of the eternal
future in their plan, are compelled to resort to every kind
of subterfilge and device for warding off the pressing evils
of the present.
And that which renders this view of education or famlily
government disheartening, even to depression, is-not the
insensibility of parents to its unsound condition; though
that is ominous enough-but the fact, that of those who are
in some measure alive to the disease, comparatively few are
aware of the nature of the remedy. According to the Divine appointment, the formation of the youthful character
takes place agreeably to laws, and the family government
must be harmonized with a predetermined plan; but these
persons, however well-meaning, are quite content with expedients. With them, every change promises a cure; and
a succession of devices is the only remedy.
There is, indeed, one stage deeper in evil, of which this
state of things admits, before it reaches a crisis; and that
is when, even supposing the nature and necessity of the
remedy have come to be generally seen, its application
proves morally impracticable. That men should come to
be generally impressed with the idea that a recurrence to
first principles is necessary, is, we admit, in the highest degree improbable; and improbable just because it presupposes their knowledge and appreciation of those principles




238   LAWS OF TIIE FAMILY CONSTITUTION.
which their education did not include. But surmounting
this improbability, and supposing them to have arrived at
the conclusion that, as every thing else has failed, there
might possibly be something worth trying in a return to
the first principles of the family constitution; how conceivable is it that such a conclusion would find them in a state
of moral inability for making the attempt. Now, such a
state we deem it morally certain the families of the antediluvian Patriarchs had reached.
During the whole of that period, the domestic economy
was pervaded by general laws-organic and intellectual,
social and moral. In the absence of these, the training and
even the existence of the family would have been impossible. Parents would have been not only exempted fiom
responsibility, but would have had ground for more than
complaint. But these laws were ever present and available.
So that on the eve of the deluge, after generations of families had passed away, and after every law, perhaps, natural
and moral, had been variously perverted, not one had been
repealed. Man's nature was more than ever developed for
evil, and all the laws of the family were daily experimented
on, and subjected to some fresh form of perversion. But
even their violations only illustrated by the fearful results,
how definite, permanent, and universal was their obligation.




CHAPTER IX.
OBLIGATIONS CONSEQUENT ON THE RELATIONS AND LAWS OF
TIE DOMESTIC CONSTITUTION
EVERY human being exists under an obliLaw of obliga- 
tion.   gation to promote the great end of existence
commensurate with his means and relations. For as every
thing necessarily expresses something of that Divine Being
whose manifestation is the end of creation; and has received existence in order to manifest that resemblance, and
so to contribute toward that end; and is placed in a system
of relations in order that such manifestation might be possible, it follows that there are as many obligations as there
are relations, and every change and increase of the relations is attended with a change and increase of the obligations.
Pursuing the same order here as in the chapter on the
relations of the domestic constitution, we begin with the
obligations of the family, internal and co-existent.
The marriage  For reasons already specified, it is obviousThe marriage
union obligatory. ly the will of the Creator that, as a general
rule, every man and woman should be united in marriage.
For, as at the first, it was " not good for man to be alone,"
so at any subsequent period, celibacy, in proportion to its
extent, would tend to defeat the Divine designs.




210             OBLIGATIONS OF THE
For the same reasons that this union should
Mutual adaptation of husband exist at all, it should exist between parties
and wife.    adapted to each other; the union, that is,
should be as perfect as possible. It is evident that the
elements of union between the married pair, may be as
numerous as are the distinctive parts of the human constitution. Was the first man, for example, a being organic,
animal, social, intellectual, emotional, voluntary, and religious; then, the first woman, if the union between them
was to be complete, must have sustained a relation to him
in each of these respects. To make this apparent, it is only
necessary to imagine what that union would have been, had
either the man or the woman been entirely destitute of any
one of these distinctive parts of human nature. If, then,
the entire absence of any one of these elements fiom either
of the parties-say, of the intellectual, involving idiocy; or
the emotional, involving utter insensibility-would have
been fatal to the happiness and design of the union, any
rdefect of either of these parts would, in the proportion of
such deficiency, affect the happiness and the design of the
union also. That is to say, if no part of the human constitution be a matter of entire indifference, it can not be
indifferent what the particular state of any part is; since
there must be some one state which, for the well-being of
the parties united, would be better than any other.
In order to the perfection of the union, then, each party
must be, in all respects, the counterpart of the other.
This, however, by no means implies that any of their
qualities, physical, mental, or moral, should be precisely
equal. On the contrary, the perfection of their union may
require a slight diversity in all the respective parts of theii
constitution.




FAMILY CONSTITUTION.               241
And then, as all these parts are not of equal importance,
it follows that, could we graduate the scale, we should be
able to estimate the exact degree of the closeness and perfection of the marriage union in any given instance. We
could determine for example whether or not the union cemented by their animal sympathies was equally strong as
the union arising from the sympathy of their intellectual
or their moral nature.
Now, when the number of the faculties and susceptibilities of the human constitution are remembered, and then
the innumerable combinations of which they are capable, it
may be inferred that there are no two persons of either sex
equally eligible in all respects for union with any individual
of the other sex. In other words, there is always some one
person more eligible for union with any given individual of
the other sex, than any other in the world.
It may be objected that this fact can never be of much
practical value, since life might be spent in vain in discovering the most eligible party, in any given instance, for the
marriage union, and that omniscience alone could in any
case attest the truth of the discovery. To which it may be
replied that at the first the difficulty could not have been
great; that had the principle of uniting the most eligible
always been acted on, the difficulty would never have been
insurmountable-and that even now, however difficult and
hopeless the selection of the one right individual may be,
the selection of an individual from the one right class of
character is easy enough, if judgment be allowed a voice in
the proceeding. At all events, it will be admitted by all
that the principle of adaptation never should be, and never
is, entirely lost sight of. Every approach to an utter disregard of it is denounced or derided by the voice of public
11




2-42           OBLIGATIONS OF THE
opinion.  But, if the entire neglect of it would be wrong,
then every degree in which it is neglected is proportionally
wrong. In other words, the marriage union ought to be
formed between such parties only as are in every respect,
if possible, adapted to each other.
This adaptation would relate, as we have already remarked, to every constituent part of the human constitution. But, besides these, it would relate'to the age, and
health, and strength of the parties; as well as to their
tastes, habits, and acquirements. And, then, as population
increased, and property distributed men into classes, those
points of adaptation would be further multiplied; extending to wealth and social rank. It can hardly need to be
repeated, however, that those points of adaptation are of
immensely different value. Generally speaking, those of
the highest value are the least considered. And "what
(asks Johnson), can be expected but disappointment and
repentance from a choice made in the immaturity of youth,
or in the ardor of desire, without judgment, without foresight, without inquiry after conformity of opinions, similarity of manners, rectitude of judgment, or purity of sentiment? Such is the common process of marriage. A
youth and a maiden meeting by chance, or brought together by artifice, exchange glances, reciprocate civilities,
go home, and dream of one another. Having little to divert attention, or diversify thought, they find themselves
uneasy when they are apart, aVd therefore conclude that
they shlall be happy together. They marry, and discover
what nothing but voluntary blindness before had concealed; they wear out life in altercations, and charge nature with cruelty." * Whereas, it is just because "nature"
* Rasselas, c. 29.




FAMILY CONSTITUTION.                24t3
is not consulted in the affair; because they thoughtlessly
act as if nature had given them a dispensation fiom all
attention to her laws, that the evil arises. The probability
is, that the amount of domestic misery springing fiom all
the conjugal violations of chastity, added together, is as
nothing compared with the concealed wretchedness origin
ated by ill-assorted unions.
The union based  The marriage union is based in an affecin affection.  tionate preference for each other of the parties united. Not only should they be conscious of a mutual regard, but of an affection stronger than that which
they feel for any others. The act of seeking this union
implies such preference; nor can there be any rational prospect of happiness without it. This preference is quite distinct fiom the mutual adaptations of which we have been
speaking; commonly springing from the real or imagined
perception of some of these very adaptations; and not unfrequently (such is the compensating power of love), supplying the absence of others; or even calling them into
existence.
Subordination of  This union recognizes and implies the parthe wife.  tial subordination of the woman to the man.
Subordination there must be, as between the right hand
and the left. The only condition on which this or any
society can exist, is, that each member surrenders somethling to the other, or that there be some things enjoyed by
them in common. The extent of the surrender involved
in the married state is clearly indicated by the social nature of the union; for it must include every thing necessary to attain the ends of this union. But as it was antecedently possible that the husband and the wife would
entertain a diversity of opinion respecting many of those




244             OBLIGATIONS OF THE
things, it was necessary that the right of decision should
rest with one or the other. For sufficient reasons, this
right belongs to the husband. But as his authority is only
official, implying no inherent mental or moral superiority,
so her submission, not only implies no inherent inferiority,
but contains an element of excellence to which mere authority can make no pretense. But this subordination is
partial; and the social nature of the marriage union indicates its limits. The woman is as much an individual, an
integer, a personal being with rights and responsibilities, as
the man. Their marriage is a compact of persons, of two
normal human beings, having certain distinct and independent interests. Prior obligations to others, such as those
to parents and to society, though modified, remain unrepealed. Responsibilities, also arising from the moral part
of our nature, and which respect our relations to God, can
not be overruled by marriage.
Union of one to  The same relations which give rise to these
one for life.  obligations, denote also that the marriage
union be of one to one for life. This law may be violated
by polygamy, licentiousness, and divorce. From which it
follows that every thing leading to such results should be
scrupulously shunned. All lascivious representations and
obscene books; all unchaste conversation, looks, and gestures, and the indulgence of all impure thoughts; every
thing, in short, is to be avoided which tends to the only
evil that justifies the dissolution of the marriage bond, because it defeats the great end of existence-practical licentiousness. The resolution obligatory on each is, "I will
walk within my house with a perfect heart; I will set no
wicked thing before mine eyes." *
* Psalm ci. 2, 3.




FAMILY CONSTITUTION.               245
Conuglobli-  As the preceding duties arise out of the
Conljugal obliga- 
tions internal and different parts of the human constitution,
successive.
considered in its conjugal relations, those
which we are about to specify respect the period during
which these relations continue.
As sexual, the primary object of the marriage union is to
be remembered, in order to the avoidance of every thing
likely to defeat it, and the observance of whatever tends
to attain it.* This is quite consistent with the apostolic
view of marriage, as a discipline in purity.f " The body is
not the prison of the soul, but its holy organ, which, like
the soul itself, must be preserved pure and undefiled. And
marriage is that state in which the soul is to master the
body as its true instrument, instead of abandoning it to
the fierce violence of the passions.":
As partakers of animal life, the health and sentient wellbeing of husband and wife are, to a considerable extent,
given into each other's hands. This, therefore, they are
bound mutually to watch over and preserve. As social
and mutually dependent, each has an appropriate sphere to
fill from day to day with the "labors of love."  On him it
devolves to provide for the necessary support of his wife;
and to her it belongs to turn the provision which he makes
to the best account. But while their respective duties are
properly distinctive, circumstances may arise to devolve
some of the duties which belong to the one upon the other.
Their lines of duty may intersect. They are to know no
rival interests. Their well-being is undivided, one.
They enjoy, as intellectual beings, the best opportunity
for acquiring an intimate knowledge of each other's character.  Such opportunity they are bound to improve
* 1 Petor, iii. 7.  { 1 Thess. iv. 3, 6.: Olshatisen in loc.




246             OBLIGATIONS OF THE
in every possible way. By the kind correction of each
other's errors, as they come to light, and by the enlargement of each other's knowledge, they are to aim at such a
course of mental improvement as shall fit them to become
the teachers of their children, and as shall render them the
cheerful and useful companions'of each other's declining
years.
As emotional, each is to aim to be worthy of the love of
the other. Not by mere verbal professions of regard; nor
by the slender attractions of external accomplishments;
nor by capricious acts of kindness; but by the habitual
avoidance, on the part of each, of every thing calculated
to give pain to, or to diminish the love of, the other; by
each, whenever individual gratification is concerned, preferring the pleasure of the other to his own; and by each
evincing a constant desire for the happiness of the other as
essential to his own enjoyment. In this way each becomes
to the other "the desire of the eyes."
They are voluntary beings, and as such they enjoy the
best means of mutual endearment and improvement, by
making every service required of each other a reasonable
service. By explaining, as far as possible, the grounds of
his wishes; and, where that is impossible, by showing that
his will is swayed by love, the husband is to transform his
authority into affection. While the wife, by
" Those graceful acts,
Those thousand decencies that daily flow
From all her words and actions, mixed with love
And sweet compliance, which declare unfeigned
Union of mind," *
* Milton.




FAMILY CONSTITUTION.                247
is to show that, by following his will, she is obeying her
own.
As moral and accountable beings they are, by respecting
the decisions of each other's conscience, to strengthen its
authority. By the exercise of forbearance, where forbearance is necessary; by the mutual admiration of every
thing estimable; and by prayer for each other's highest
welfare, they are constantly to improve each other's character, to convert marriage into a discipline of virtue, and
thus to be ever finding in each other new cause for affection, and for gratitude to Him who has given them to each
other. Although perfection, in the highest sense, is unattainable, they are, in this way, to be ever advancing toward it. And for this they are responsible, increasingly
responsible.  Obligation accumulates with opportunity.
And at every onward stage of their course-say, at the
return of every anniversary of their union-they are held
responsible for all the excellence and consequent happiness
which they might have possessed on that day, had they
discharged their respective duties toward each other during every hour of every preceding day.
Obligations as,  As parents, the relation of the husband
and of, parents.  and the wife gives rise to additional obligations. Each becomes an object of augmented interest and
importance to the other. All the duties, which we have
already specified, are now bound on them by an additional
tie. And every child born to them does but increase their
claims on each other, and give them a new interest in each
other's health, and affection, and virtue, and qualification
tor domestic usefulness.
The parental relation involves obligations extending to
every part of the constitution of the child, and reaching




248             OBLIGATIONS OF THE
fiom its birth, and even before, to the moment of separation by death. Next to the personal, the parental relation
is tle most sacred and momentous which man can sustain.
If the creation of the first man was an event of universal
and unending interest, the birth of every infant human
being partakes largely of the same interest; and the parent
can properly apprehend his responsible position only as far
as he regards himself as standing to his offspring in the relation of a subordinate creator. The birth of his child
intimates that the great end for which the first man was
made is yet unattained;. that means continue to be employed for its attainment; and that, in the final summing
up of those means, he will be held responsible for having
made the most of the young human being for the attainment of that ultimate end.
Prospective pa-  If the healthiness of children depends
rental obligations. partly, as we have seen, on the healthiness
of their parents, it most obviously follows that unhealthy
and ill-assorted unions should be conscientiously avoided,
since they can only be the means of propagating deformity,
wretchedness, and disease. Within certain limits, parents
frequently live -again in their children.  "Yet we every
day see very sensible people, who are anxiously attentive
to preserve or improve the breed of their horses, tainting
the blood of their children, and entailing on them not only
the most loathsome diseases of the body, but madness,
folly, and the most unworthy dispositions, and this too
when they can not plead being stimulated by necessity, or
impelled by passion." *  And may we not add that we
every day see, not merely sensible, but some religious peo* Prof. J. Gregory's Comparative View of the State and Faculties of
Man, etc., pp. 18, 19. Dr. Pritchard's Researches, vol. ii. pp. 536-551.




FAMILY CONSTITUTION.                  249
pie, who ignore all such considerations, if they do not even
deem  their religious sensibility shocked at having their
attention called to them. They would not be at'all surprised at an insurance company requiring a regular list of
searching questions respecting habits and health to be answered, before undertaking the risk of a small sum     of
money; but when they are about to marry, though they
"have, in the generality of cases, the health and happiness
of five or more human beings depending on their attention
to similar considerations,"* they either do not give the
subject a thought, or else dismiss it as belonging to the
domain of providence.t   They should remember, however,
that the Bible is not insensible to a fine physical organization,; and therefore the professed reverer of the Bible
oulght not to treat lightly the laws which secure it. If the
mens sena seldom exists apart from  the coepore sano, still
more rarely is a healthy piety found in such isolation.
That tree of righteousness is likely to yield the fairest fruit,
and to reach the nearest heaven, all other things being
equal, whose roots strike the deepest in the earth of our
nature. The very command that "children should honor
their parents," looks back with a most inquiring and significant aspect to the entire life of the parties to be honored.
That "the sins of the fathers shall be visited on the children to the third and fourth generation," is not an arbi-:: Combe's Constitution of [Man, seventh edit., p. 163.
f If thou knowcst that every black thought of thine, or every glorious
independent one, separated itself from thy soul, and took root outside of
thee, and for half a century pushed and bore its poisonous flavors or
healirng roots, 0, how piously wouldst thou choose and think! And dost
thou, then, so certainly know that such is not the case?-Richter's Lev.
ana, or the Doctrine of Education, p. 34.: Ex. ii. 2; 1 Sam. xvi 12.
11*




250             OBLIGATIONS OF THE
trary threatening, but a law of nature; and no parents lend
themselves to its fearful operation so directly as they who
ignore the conditions of a healthy progeny.
Prospective ma-  If the infant, before it is born, is liable to
ternal duty.  be affected by the physical condition and
mental impressions of the mother, she is bound to act, during that period, conformably with its well-being. Like a
lens, collecting and transmitting be ams of fire, while itself
is dark and cold, she may be the medium of effects to her
child more deep and lasting than any of which she herself
is conscious. This, too, is a law recognized by Scripture.
For if Sampson is to be a Nazarite fiom  the womb, his
mother, in the prospect of giving birth to him, is strictly
forbidden to drink wine or strong drink.    As to the
manner in which both parents should provide for the
comfort of the infant at birth, the conduct of the Divine
Parent toward his first children is to be received as a
pattern in this respect, which every human parent should
copy.
When does edu-  If the education of the child begins with
cation begin?  the moment of its birth, it follows that with
that moment begins also a series of sacred parental duties.
Its education can be no more suspended than its life. Prior
to its birth, the mother may be regarded as living in the
soul of the child; at that moment the child begins to live
for a time in the soul of the mother. While the father is
yet marking the moment of its birth, its first pulse has already dated its training for eternity.
That moment introduces it into a circle in
The number.
which every motion and tone, every color and
form is a symbol fbr its sense, and sheds an influence on its
awakening emotions.   Solitary and unrelated as it may




FAM ILY CONSTITUTION.              251
look, cascades of influence stream on it from all sides round.
Every object soon becomes a book; every place a schoolhouse; and every event plows in some winged seeds which
will be bearing their appropriate fruit ten thousand ages
hence.
Besides the number of the influences rained
Rapidity.
on the youthful human being, the rapidity
with which he absorbs them is to be considered. As he
never grows so rapidly in after life, in proportion to his
nourishment, as he does during his earliest infancy, so it
is the period of his greatest mental and moral assimilation.
After that, the power of absorption gradPower.
ually diminishes. " Life has first a flight, then
a leap, then a step, then a halt." If, during the first six
years of life, children learned only as much as we could teach
them, they would continue to be children all their lives
long. But these six years form their creation-week, during
which chaos subsides, elements separate, continents upheave, forms of life and power take their appointed places,
and toward the close of which the future man appears.
While we have been teaching him to walk, he has been mentally running and flying in a thousand directions. While we
are filling his little hands with flowers, the garden and the field
are pouring all their botany and zoology into his mind.
We think we have done much in drawing a little fingerfurrow, and carefully depositing therein two or three selected seeds; but nature meantime has been shedding her
spores by millions over the whole surface.
And a third consideration, which renders
And permanence
of first impros- thlis early period of transcendent importance,
sions.that the impessios then received are
is —that the impressions then received are




25 2            OBLIGATIONS OF THE
seldom, if ever, entirely effaced. "Every first thing continues forever with the child; the first color, the first music,
the first flower, paint the foreground of life. Every new
educator effects less than his predecessor; until, at last, if we
regard all life as an educational institution, a circumnavigator of the world is less influenced by all the nations he has
seen than by his nurse." * Fable tells us that the cat, transformed into a lady, on seeing a mouse, forgot the decorum
required by her new form, and sprang from the table at
which she was sitting, to seize on her prey. For the vessel
will long retain the scent of the liquor first put into it: t a
fact happily einployed by Horace to illustrate the necessity
of early imbuing the minds of the young with principles
of virtue. Words and looks fall on the little one with
greater force than the laws and deeds of after years. Much
of its formal education consists in correcting the impressions
and disentangling the associations of its first years. The
crooked limb has to be loaded with iron in order that it
may be straightened. Yet, no sooner is the constraint removed, than the previous tendency to distortion proclaims
itself again. In the great majority of instances, the hand
of artificial cultivation is no sooner withheld than the underlying strata begin again to " crop out." If formal education is dyeing in the piece, the spontaneous education of
early childhood is dyeing in the wool. And even beyond
this, the thread so dyed is then, if ever, held by the fates
of ancient fable to be tangled for life with good or evil.
Obviously, then, the parent should keep the fact distinctly in view, that, from the earliest childhood every thing is
* Richter's Levana, pp. 16, 87.
t Quo semel est imbuta recens, servabit odorem
Testa diu.




FAMILY CONSTITUTION.                253
calculated to affect the formation of character, and that
nothing relating to character is absolutely indifferent; but
that every thing viewed in this connection is right, and
ought to be; or is wrong, and ought not to be. At first,
indeed, parents can do little more than protect it fiom ungenial influences, and give it the southern aspect of a cheerful home. Let there be no thorn in its soft lap-nest, and
no cloud in the maternal heaven that hangs over it. Save
it fiom uttering the cry of impatience and passion, and surround it with the clear, quiet atmosphere of a happy spirit,
and it will spontaneously evolve all that is sparkling within, and meet, like an opening bud, all that is joyous without.
The world into which the little sojourner of earth comes,
is, in every respect, preconfigured to his constitution. The
maternal womb in which he has been silently preparing for
birth, was not more exquisitely adapted to every part of his
bodily frame, than the larger sphere into which he comes
at birth is related to his bodily, mental, and moral nature.
And the nice adaptation of the lungs, which had previously
lain motionless, to the surrounding air which they forthwith
begin to breathe, is only a specimen of the hidden adaptations and slumbering relations which he brings with him
to the different parts and aspects of the great system into
which he comes. Now education is simply the gradual
awakening' and development of those latent adaptations and
susceptibilities, by the measured adjustment and orderly
application of the different parts of that great surrounding
system into which he has come. When the Father of
spirits provided for the creation and education of the human race, He wisely determined the nature of our impressions, the extent of our knowledge, and the subjects of our




254            OBLIGATIONS OF THE
ideas, by determining the extent and character of the objects which should compose the system into which we were
to be introduced, and the laws by which they should excite
and affect our minds. And, in a similar manner-although
much of the scene into which the infant comes is wisely
pre-arranged by a Hand above parental control-that same
I-and has strewn unnumbered objects around the infant,
leaving it to the parent to select those which are appropriate, and requiring him so to place and to employ them
as to elicit and direct the tendencies of his child, and to
form his character.
The bodily appetites and wants of the child
Obligations arising
from the child's claim the first care of the parent. This oblibodily wants.
bodily wants.  gation is violated in various ways; by inattention to those primary conditions of health-air and
exercise-for the child is both plant and animal; by indulgence of the appetites; by enfeebling effeminacy of
treatment; and by a hot-house forcing of the intellect.
Seeds of sickness are sown at the very period which should
be devoted to the cultivation of health. And a diseased
body is the greatest despot upon earth, tyrannizing over
the mind and soul, and holding the man in life-long
slavery.* The parent should remember that the child is
not an angel but a human being; and its physical demands
must be met and gratified by objects appropriate to their
nature. If the shaft of a column is to be firm, and the
sculptured capital to point to the skies, the base resting on
the earth must not be neglected. The higher faculties can
not say to the lower "we have no need of you."     The
* Plus le corps est faible plus il commando; plus il fort plus il obeit.
Toute les passions sensuelles logent dans des corps effemines; ils s'en
irriteot d'autaant plus qu'ils peuvent moimls los satisfaric.-Emile, Liv. I.




FAMILY CONSTITUTION.                 255
robust and joyous gymnastics which nature dictates to children-girls as well as boys-proclaim the vital truth that
a healthy mind presupposes a healthy body.
As a social being, the child comes into the
From  its social,
world with instincts which prepare it to seek
and cleave at once to the maternal bosom, as to its proper
home. But the physical nourishment which it there imbibes is by no means all that it derives-though nothing
more may meet the eye. In the quiet and holy communion
which there ensues, every part of its social nature is solaced
and nourished also. Though it is for a time unconscious
as the flower of the falling dew, its affections find their first
impulse in the element of love which there encompasses it.
If its birth is the reproduction of the mother's physical life,
its love and trust are the reproduction of her emotional
life. All its early looks, tones, and movements are one
prayer and thanksgiving to maternal affection, predictive
of the wider range the same emotions will take at a later
period. When first it throws its little arms around her in
gratitude and love it is foreshadowing its wider embrace
of society. Hence the sacred duty of the mother to nurse
her child herself, if possible. By transferring it to " a cold
hired bosom," she is depriving herself of a rich natural enjoyment, and depriving her child of an aliment more important to its welfare than even her milk.
And sensational  The education of the senses is the basis of
nature.  all education. The objects of sense lie around
fite child, range beyond range, from  those of touch to
those of sight, immeasurably remote; and to the distinctive
chlaracters of all these classes, it is the duty of the parent to
direct the attention of his child. Such was the method
adopted by the Divine Creator for the percipient discipline




256            OBLIGATIONS OF TIlE
of the first human being. Having formed the various objects of animate creation, He "brought them to Adam to
see what he would call them."*  And this, we may suppose, was only a specimen of the "Lessons on Objects"only a part of an extensive system of easy illustrative instruction -which the Maker of the mind adopted, as that
which was best suited to awaken and direct its activity.
And still the book of nature has inexpressible charms for
the opening eye of the infant mind. The country is God's
school-house, play-ground, story-book, and picture-book, all
in one. Nothing tends more directly to cultivate and delight the young percipient being than the sounds and
colors, the forms and motions of natural objects, and the
varied sensations occasioned by them. They are "the
georgics of the mind," nourishing it and filling it with
pleasure, while they engage it to look beyond themselves.
But here, as was obviously implied in the Divine training
of the first man, accuracy is every thing. Vagueness of
idea, and language, inconsecutive reasoning, and a mental
and moral life of cloudiness, are the natural fruits of illeducated senses.
From its power of  As soon as infantine gestures begin to pass
speech.  into speech, parents incur a new responsibility.
Languaoge has well been called the gate of the soul. With
every new word the mind of the little one emerges a step
further. Every object which it names is mentally taken
possession of, and a fresh bond is established with the world
without. In proportion to the rapidity with which it learns
to speak, is likely to be its want of accuracy. But parents
should remember that language is not the utterance of
words, but the art of using them as the signs of ideas. "It
* Gen. ii 19.




FAMILY CONSTITUTION.                 257'
is a matter of infinite importance to acquire this distinctness at an early period. The idea should be kept clear and
precise. The word should be kept steadcy to the id(ea.
These are the two great rules."*  Half the vices of society
owe much of their currency to an indolence of thought,
content to live in a hake of ambiguous words, which shades
their deformity. A crystal perspicuity of diction tends,
especially in youth, to secure clear and truthful distinctions
and definite moral judgments.
reection.  As the relations of things within and
Of reflection.                       I &
around the child are calculated to awaken
and exercise reflection, it is the parental duty to point his
attention to them. The relations of resemblance and difference early attract his notice; and on the strength of these
relations, the young philosopher forms many a mental classification which he has subsequently to re-arrange.  His
ever-recurring why? and what? are the true gerns of the
inductive method of tracing effects to their causes. Hence
the importance of the parents being able to aid the opening
effort of the mind, instead of hurtfully repressing or ignorantly misdirecting it. How much may depend on their
calling his attention to the relations of his own constitution; for how often, owing to their neglect of this great
duty, has he rued their guilty omission in the loss of health,
of intellectual vigor, or of moral character! The great
system of relations around him is the natural ordinance of
God for perpetually proclaiming " His own eternal power
and Godhead."   But the parent who neglects to call the
attention of his child to it, leaves him, in effect, in the
midst of a fragmentary, unrelated, disordered world; and
liable to complain of the want of that very wisdom and
* Wise, on Education Reform, vol. i. p. 116.




258            OBLIGATIONS OF THE
goodness of which the world is full. And yet, how few the
schools in which there is as much care taken to illustrate
the "power of God as to teach the power of the Greek
particle!"
The child early evinces a capacity for reaReasoning.
soning.   But how much skepticism    and
misery would many a man have escaped, had the child or
youth been taught the laws of thought, and been shown
how all reasoning reposes, finally, on instinctive beliefs and
ultimate facts. At first, indeed, the ultimate fact in which
all infantine excursions of thought terminate, is the testimony or authority of its parents. And though, as its power
of intellect increases, the field of its excursion widens, the
same creative wisdom which predisposed it to rest at first
on the parental word has provided that it shall repose, at
last (if at all) on the perfections and purposes of the
Great Parent. And to that ultimatum it should be trained
to lift its eye as soon as it begins to look away from the
circle of sense. Nearly all the reasonings of our natural
theology in later life are merely an attempt to retrace our
steps through early misconceptions to that idea of God
which was meant to be seen by its own light.
The imnagination is as much a part and
Imagination.
power of the human constitution as the appetite, and equally requiring to be regulated and fed. "Children are little Orientals," each with an Aladdin's lamp and
Arabian Nights of his own. Nor should the former be
extinguished nor the latter shortened, except by the slow
dawning and progress of knowledge. Children personify
every thing. Every scene is dramatized, and they will address and reply to themselves, rather than that the drama
should be incomplete. While their elders are only listening




FAMILY CONSTITUTION.               259
to a tale, they are acting in it. A good story or picturebook, is more to an imaginative child than the discovery
of America to Columbus. On turning over every page, he
stands looking "firom  a peak in Darien."  Nature makes
them free of the region of romance; but, according to our
utilitarian notions, nature is wrong, and one of the first offices of education is to lay this whole region under interdict. The child's head, forsooth, must take precedence of
his heart. The rainbow must be explained. No sooner i
he caught enjoying than he is required to reflect. He
must stop eating that his bread may be analyzed and expounded. Nature has designedly cast a film over his eyes,
by which every thing is clothed with a poetic halo; but
he must needs be led, as early as possible, to the tree of
knowledge-his parents often the serpents on the tree-that
he may know that he is naked. If religion holds the sanctumG sanctorumn of the human temple, imagination in childhood occupies its outer courts; but it seems to be thought,
judging from prevailing usages, the sooner the altars are
overturned, or turned into "the tables of the moneychangers," the better.
A wise parent will follow the Divine method of education; according to which the child is placed from the first
in a circle of wonders; and finds, in the opening pages of
Scripture, scenes of enchantment never to be surpassed.
Hle will remember that it is the books which the child reads
out of school which leave the deepest impression, and,
therefore, require the most carefil selection. Let him distinfguish between children's books and childish books. Let
him not fall into the mistake that every thing must be
written down to the comprehension of children.  Their
sense of interest runs ahead of their understanding, and




260            OBLIGATIONS OF THE
helps it on. He should know that manhood is not distinguished from childhood by the growth of all the powers, so
much as by the simple exchange of some-not so much by
superiority as by difference of capacity-and that no book
suited for the child's department can be too old for it.
Genius is requisite in order to cater for the imagination of
children. They will cast aside many a book through which
an adult is plodding, not because they do not understand it,
but because it is not true to nature. Let a child's book
correspond to his keen and fiesh perceptions, and then, the
richer it is in interest, and the more exquisite in art, the
more intensely will it be relished. An imagination wholesomely fed in early life, prolongs our youth, invests even
the common-places of life with interest, erects an ideal in
the mind which is always drawing it upward, and which
may be rendered auxiliary to that religion in whose department alone it can be realized.
The emotions and dispositions of which
Emotions.
the infant being is susceptible open a wide
field of parental duty. As each of the innumerable objects
included in the family circle is of different value in the
great system of things, its degree of emotion should be
different also. Then the parents should early begin to arrange them before the eye of his mind, rank above rank;
always aiming to place the most important in the most attractive light. Some of these-whether they appeal to his
animal, social, intellectual, or moral nature-it may, for a
time, be improper that he should desire or even know; and
such should, if possible, be removed from the eye of his
mind. If fire be brought near to inflammable gases, even
the safety-lamp is no infallible guarantee against ignition.
Other objects which can not or need not be kept out of




FAMILY CONSTITUTION.                 261
sight, may be made the occasion of an early exercise of
self-denial.  Others, though desired at the moment, may
be properly withheld for a time; and may thus become the
means of both exercising and rewarding patience. Others,
not improper in themselves, may be best at distant intervals, and in regulated proportions; and may thus be made
to inculcate lessons of moCderation, economy, and foresight.
Toward other objects it may be necessary to stimulate him;
aiming, however, to inspire him with the emulaction which
consists in the love of excellence, rather than with the desire of excelling; and with the wish of acquiring it himself, rather than witll a feeling of displacency that it is possessed by others-which is envy.
In the circle of visible domestic objects, the most important are the child's kindred and fellow-men; and to
tlese lls relations must be pointed out, in order to the
cultivation of his social and virtuous dispositions. As they
are sentient beings, capable of pleasure and pain, they
should be made the occasion of exercising his humanity.
And tlhe same disposition should be exercised universallyto the mere animal as well as man. Shriek at the sight of
any creature, and the sound will echo through the whole
of the child's life, begetting that fear which is as nearly allied to hactre(l as hatred is to crutelty. On the other hand,
caress a (do, or any animal, in the presence of a child, and
you are giving it the best lesson on benevolence, and nourishing its kindliest feelings. Teach the sacredness of life.
Let not pity be wasted on the occasion of a fall, or on his
suffering some trivial pain, for the dangerous luxury of selfcommiseration, to which it will lead, tends to produce a
sense of exacting self-importance.
As those around him are intelligent beings, and he is
v. Vv, Vv~,.   V  ~vV zD




262             OBLIGATIONS OF THE
constituted to impart his mind to theirs, and the converse,
lhe should be taught the value of truth and sincerity, without which he himself could know and believe next to nothing, and the whole system of things would go into confusion. Teach him to abhor a falsehood; let him see, that is,
that you yourself abhor it.  Nothing is so self-punishing
and irreparable as a lie. Correct the first and least deviations from accuracy. " If a thing happened at one window
(says Dr. Johnson),.and a child, when relating it, says that
it happened at another, do not let it pass, but instantly
check him; you do not know where deviation from truth
will end."  Occasionally refuse to take a hasty answer, that
he may learn to reflect. Belief is natural to a child. He
has to learn not to believe, and often it is a painful effort.
Do not ask him to conceal a thing; this itself is enough to
bring a cloud into his clear sky.  Sacredly fulfill every
promise you make to him, or satisfactorily explain your
reason for not keeping it. In this respect, be what you desire the child to be.
Surrounded by beings equal to himself, he is to be taught
that his rights are only equal to their rights; and consequently, that in all his intercourse with them there is to be
justice, or right feelings and right actions. There could
be no sphere so favorable as the family for teaching him
that every individual is as deserving of his love as he is
himself; and that, therefore, he should do to each of them
as he would that they should do to him. This would tend
to inspire him with generosity toward the needy, and compassion for the suffering, and gratitude when he himself is
the object of the kindness of others.
This brings us into the region of moral esthetics, where
the noble and the pure, the beautiful and the good reside.




FAMILY CONSTITUTION.                263
The feeling of shame artificially taught by modern civilization tends to hasten the evil it pretends to retard. Mystification stimulates curiosity; warnings alarm rather than
prevent; and instruction robs the child of its innocent
want of shame, before the time for conscious modesty arrives. In this way, the sculptor stains his own marble,
though its value depended on its perfect whiteness. If
girls especially, "like the priestesses of antiquity, should
be educated only in holy places," what sanctuary so sacred
from all that is rude or immoral as home! And if " nothing so roughly brushes the tender auricula dust, or flowerpollen, off the minds of girls," as prudish alarms, where
can such alarms be less called for than in the hallowed inclosure of the family?
Children love the beautiful; and nature looks to the parent to unfold to them her ten thousand attractions. Examples of constancy, self-devotion, and heroic aims, awaken
their acmicration and high-souled enthusiasm, and make
them  conscious of a greatness which belongs not to the
present nor the visible. On this account, they should be
taken as much as possible into the presence of ennobling
objects; and be encouraged to linger often and late in the
silent temple of the mighty past.
Love is social holiness; and the family was meant to be
the home of love, and its chief occupation to train the affections. In the presence of conjugal love, the children
begin life in an atmosphere of affection which prepares them
unconsciously to breathe love to each other. They do not
wait for parental caresses, or for self-sacrificing proofs of
affection, before they begin to love; the enjoyment of affectionate words and looks suffice. It is much more difficult to make one's self disliked by them than to be loved.




264            OBLIGATIONS OF THE
And the best way to nourish their love is to let them understand it by action, to encourage them to taste the
pleasure of loving by serving the object loved.
In developing the right emotions and dispositions, the
less said didactically on the subject the better; exaample is
every thing. The parent who does not exemplify the qualities he inculcates, can not be surprised if his words produce
nothing better than words. On the principle that like propagates like, deeds alone beget deeds, and only life kindles
life. " Sidney and Hampden will make patriots, though the
wisest maxim that ever fell from their lips should fail."
And the parent who would successfully teach, must himself
be the great lesson and the spirit of all lessons. He can
teach love only by loving. His example, filling up all the
intervals of formal instruction, acts with the silence, constancy, and power of a law of nature. Je ne suis pas la
rose, maisj'ai vecu avec elle. His children will imbibe excellence by living in its atmosphere.
The emotional nature of little children is never stimulated
without injury. All they ask is play-room, and the removal
of every thing painful. Before they begin to play with
the external world, the world plays with them; or, rather,
it plays on them a perpetual stream of impressions of
which they are little more than the delighted recipients.
And even when they begin to select and employ objects,
they are embarrassed with their riches. Yet, it is at this
moment, when their little hands are already full of flowers,
that the inconsiderate parent attempts to fill their arms
also. Nature dilutes her oxygen, but he would fain administer it to them pure, and even " above proof."  More
activity surrounds them with a heaven of sunny cheerfulness, in which the affections quietly unfold and grow; but




FAMILY CONSTITUTION.                265
he must needs employ a burning-glass.   Few children
are more to be pitied than those who are exposed to the
jading influence of a constant succession of sights and
toys. Pleasures force and forestall their nature; and by
irritating and exhausting their emotions, shorten the season
of youth. The Nil aclmirari is the natural result. And
yet, as if this were not inflicting a sufficient evil on their
moral nature, the same parent would not unlikely guaird
them against the least religious emotion as alarmingly dangerous. The tendency of his treatment is to render them
insensible to every thing which is not artificial and unnaturally exciting, and yet to repress the finest part of their
nature, and the best preservative against all that is low and
evil.
The will determines the amount of a man's
Will.
power.   According as it is influenced by
right motives or wrong, it determines his character. In
this complex sense, the will is the man. In the early discipline of the will, the object is to restrain the child alike
fiom the extreme of obstinacy and of too great pliancy.
In the latter instance, the child must be led to see that he
is in danger of becoming the slave of circumstances, of
bleing dragged at the wheel of every folly, written on by
every finger, and of willing only with the will of others.
Gradually he must be slown that in allowing his emotions
to terminate in themselves, he is wasting the very impulse
which was meant to carry him out into appropriate action;
that even good wishes are valuable only as they harden
into purposes; and that purposes require for their acconplishment a reiteration of acts which strengthens into confirmed habits. Another child may be self-willed; requiring
to be frequently shown the errors of his obstinacy; to be
12




266            OBLIGATIONS OF THE
left at times to suffer its effects; and to have it inculcated
in various ways that he oily is fit for the society of voluntary agents who is prepared to yield as well as to exact
subl:nission. Now, the only way in which the will can be
trained to govern is by being, fiom the first, wisely governed. And one of the most difficult problems of education is, to form the child to obedience without imlpairing
his freedom. Indeed, the solution of the same difficulty in
relation to their subjects forms the chief occupation of
every human government.
No original quality of the mind, even though existing in
dangerous excess, should be opposed directly or crushed.
Brought within proper limits, it will have its value; and
this is best effected by cherishing, appealing to, and developing a counterbalancing disposition. In other words, attention should be given, not so much to the weakening of
any one quality, as to the strengthening of its opposite.
The mother who saw her little one running unconsciously
to the edge of a precipice, did not attempt to save him by
a shriek or a scold; but kneeling down, and baring her
bosom, the child ran back to it.
The parent should never clespair of bringing harmony
into the character of a child by thus counteracting the excess of one quality by the compensative influence of another. The evil deplored may prove to be only a fit-tile
idiosyncrasy of childhood. At all events, the child himself
should never be led to imagine that the disease is deemed
incurable. An unpromising spring not unfiequently issues
in an abundant summer; and an intractable childhood (as
Bacon remarks), like a crooked piece of oak which makes
the knee-timbers of a ship, may be qualified to occupy an
imnortant post in the vessel of society.




IFAMILY CONSTITUTION.                 267
The apparent incapacity or intractableness of some children is only the early indication of inzividclulity of character.  An nnreflecting educator strives to force every
mind into the same press, and to force it in the same
mold; resenting the least obstacle offered by the child as
treason against his machinery.   Like tie Red Indian's
squaw, who fastens every child from   birth to the same
board, he would reduce his pupils to the condition of mental mummies.   But the wise parent, instead of laboring
merely to reproduce himself, aims to produce the ideal
child. Michael Angelo saw, in the unhewn mass of marble, the future statue; and in each mass a different statue.
And the parent will aim to liberate, not roughly, but with
care, the spiritual individuality which every child unfolds.
Unpromising as it may at first appear, it may only await
the coming of the proper object or occasion, in order to
explain its anomalies, and to run a successful career. Home
education affords peculiar facilities for such discrimination
of treatment. And how many a youth might it have rescued from the mortification of having his mind misunderstood and dwarfed by an unsuitable training, as well as of
making the subsequent discovery of having chosen an unsuitable profession.*
Independence of  Inzcepenzdence of character, without which
character.  man, meant to be a cause, becomes only an
effect, is not unfrequently prevented or destroyed by overhelp. In the present day even the teacher is in danger of
being bewildered by the endless Guides, Translations, Aids,
Helps, and Explanations of every thing by which he is
beset. So much the greater is his danger of forgetting
* Newnham's Principles of Physical, Intellectual, Moral, and Religious
Education, pp. 228-230, and 380, 381.




268             OBLIGATIONS OF TIIE
that, in teaching, the nicest art consists in knowing when
to leave the pupil to teach himself. While the watch is
being wound up it does not go; and many a child is not
only subjected to this process continually, but the consequence is that his goizng is prevented forever after. The
bad effect can never be rectified. Instead of being shown
the way to the living streams, that he might slake his thirst'
at pleasure, they have been brought to him and decanted
into him. Knowledge has been given to him instead of
the power of observing, judging, and acquiring knowledge.
IIe does not even know that he knows. Ideas have been
taught; not the power of using or of adding to them. In
effect, the mind has been impaired by the very process
which should have given it power; and the child might
adapt and adopt Hadrian's epitaph, " The multitude of
physicians killed Caesar.5" *
In the education of the will, the first aim
Attention.
should be to interest the attention. Judging, indeed, from the representations of some parents, one
might be led to suppose that the unwillingness of their
children to attend, or a propensity to flit fiom object to
object, without settling on any, was a proof of cleverness.
And even their mode of teaching, instead of tending to
collect, concentrate, and fix the too-easily dissipated and
weak, is calculated to dissipate and enfeeble the strong.
But this is to prolong the mind's infancy. At first the
child simply perceives; its mind is passive, and observes
nothing. It does not see for looking. Gradually it becomes active; directs itself to certain objects in preference
to others; attends to them. When it becomes capable of
this tension, the duty of directing it begins. To occupy it
* " Turba medicorum perdidit Csesarem."




FAMILY CONSTITUTION.                269
fully, without exhausting it, should now be the twofold
rule. Accuracy, promptitude, and extent of range, are the
qualities to be aimed at; and books, subjects, and methods
are to be valued according to their tendency to develop
them.
Importance of  Will alone can train and govern will; in
rules.  other words, there must be laws. Parental
rules are to children what the laws of nature are to us;
forming habits of instinctive compliance, giving unity to
the conduct, and imparting confidence in the future. Care
should be taken, however, that they be not too numerous.
IHere the rule pas trop gouverner should be observed.
Children are easily bewildered by the multiplicity and
variety of commands; so that law itself becomes an impediment to obedience,* and tempts to resistance.
The law of laws is, never to give a command which is
not obeyed. Once authority is established, obedience becomes a habit. In order to its establishment, the edicts of
the parental monarch should, at first, be unaccompanied by
explanation or reason.  Voluntas stet pro ratione, otherwise the child-subject is likely to occupy himself with the
preamble of the bill when he should be obeying its requirements. And even when the time comes for explanations,
reasons for assertions should not be given so early as reasons for requests; the former may lead to doubt and questioning, for the understanding does not move so promptly
as the heart; the latter appeal to the affections and call for
action. Every appearance of indecision, is to be avoided.'ietcer lay traps to catch a child in his fault, nor wait for its
full development; but remove, if possible, the least incite* Obest plurumque iis qui discere volunt, auctoritas eorum quidocent.
Cic. de Nat. Deor. L. I.




270            OBLIGATIONS OF THE
ment to it, and repress its earliest indication. No must,
not be weakly changed into Yes. Rules and refusals must
not be sugared over and concealed, this, besides betraying
weakness and practicing delusion, begets self-will while
seeming to cultivate a sense of duty. Equally to be deprecated is that uncertainty of mood which is ever oscillating between the extremes of relaxation and rigor; and
which seeks to recover the lost authority of one hour by
the severity of the next. Obedience should be inculcated
neither in a doubting nor in a defiant manner. The will
speaks only in the imperative mood; and the calm and
quiet tone of its utterance should denote the determination
of a mind conscious of strength. Never threaten, only
state. Do not mistake scoldings for lessons or injunctions.
A child easily distinguishes a decided from an angry tone,
and the tendency of anger is to awaken resistance. On
this account a thing should never be suddenly snatched
from the hands of a child; its earnest request should not
be met by a passionate refusal; violence should not be opposed by violence; it is an attempt to extinguish fire with
oil.
Laws imply sanctions. As far as an appeal
Punishments.
to fear is concerned, the following rules are
of, principal importance: Let every culpable omission be
followed by that which should be shown to be its just consequence, rather than by a so-called punishment. Thus, if
the lesson be neglected during the hour of study, it should
be prepared during the hour of recreation; by which means
the deprivation is connected not so much with the teacher
as with the child's own negligence. Except in the case of
very young children, a short delay between the fault and
the punishment may be tranquilizing and useful to the




FA MILY CONSTITUTION.               271
parent, and even more salutary to the child than the punishment itself. At first, forbid as gently and punbish as
lightly as possible-by word or look; that you may have
resources left. He who begins with a twig will soon come
to a stick; for the skin hardens under the lasli (this is, of
course, only a metaphorical illustration). Certainty of punishment is of vital importance. Why is it that " the burned
child dreads the fire" more than the cut child dreads the
knife, even though the cut may be worse than the burn?
Partly because the fire will certainly burn, but the knife'w}ill
not certainly wound. Never punish by lessons, making
that distasteful which should be always welcome. It is better that the severity of the punishment should fall below, than
that it should exceed the fault. Exaggerated reproof and
rigor are likely to make the child think more of the injustice he suffers than of the evil he has done, to lead to
equivocation and concealment, and to harden instead of
correcting him. Still less should punishment be accompanied with taunts or derision. "Making a public example" of a child is the way to paralyze a delicate mind, and
to render a high-spirited one defiant. The correction which
is administered seriously and sorrozwfully is likely to purify
the sorrow of the child; and the perception that you respect its feelings will tend to render ifs feelings more tender. Peculiarly precious is the moment when, as the excitement of correction subsides, and its young heart yearns
for a look of forgiveness and love, its whole nature is softened and open to receive " the word in season."  Quietly
and apart, the child may then, if ever, be won to salutary
self-inspection. Gradually this may be made to lead to a
habit of daily self-inquest, somewhat after the tabular plan
suggested by Franklin. Meantime, probably, the parent




272            OBLIGATIONS OF TIIE
could not occupy himself much more profitably than in
seeking for the faults of his children in himself.
Improper mode  Perhaps there is no department in which
of rewards. the art of miseducation has more nearly approached to perfection than in that of incitements and rewards. In how many families is the heart indulged and
spoiled as a reward for a little exercise of the head; and
the child is allowed to be self-willed and capricious as a reward for being clever. A little bit of finery is made the
adequate reward of morality; and a small intellectual feat
is taught to find its goal in something extra to eat and
drink. A little violet-like virtue no sooner modestly peeps
above-ground than it is proclaimed, bepraised, magnified,
and killed; or turned, by being made ever present to the
consciousness of the child, into a poison-plant. Show-children are got up and exhibited, as if they were as insensible
to flattery as prize poultry. Emulation is provoked in a
manner which calls into activity some of the worst qualities
of the heart.
Now, instead of pursuing this thoughtless and ruinous
course, the aim should be so to stimulate and reward lower
degrees and kinds of excellence as to lead to the attainment
of the higher. If the child must have rivals, let him compete with himself; the boy or girl of to-day emulating the
same child of yesterday. Let not success be praised so
much as the effort to succeed. Let it be seen that a higher
value is attached to diligence, perseverance, and good conduct, than to any external accomplishment to which they
may lead. The will to obey and the desire to please, may
often be present and active, even where the form is defective; in which case, the former should receive more of
commendation than the latter of blame. Both praise and




FAMILY CONSTITUTION.                273
blame should be distributed in such degrees as will produce
the desired effect, and in no greater. Rewards bestowed
lavishly wear themselves out, creating an appetite not to Le
appeased. While in a well regulated family, pervaded by
a sentiment in favor of order and excellence, a smile, an
approving word, the gentle pressure of the hand, fills the
whole house with sunshine. In the former instance, tlhe
craving is after the sensuous result; in the latter the preference is given to the excellence which rises above it. The
wise parent will seldom have to seek obedience; he finds
himself in the enjoyment of a love out of which all obedience grows, and which finds its richest reward in his approving smile.
There is nothing deserving the name of
Religion.
education apart fiom religion. In addition
to the properties which place the child in relation to the
visible and the social, there is that which makes him consciously akin to the unseen and the eternal. And a religious education is that which surrounds him with a sense of
the Omnipresent, and builds up within him an altar to it;
which rears his conl>ci','le into a higher tribunal than any
earthly, and pointing-:atw;iy to the highest; which meets his
vague dreams of Intinity, by spreading a clear heaven over
his head, with a guiding pole-star in it; and his deep yearnings to be loved, with the knowledge of Him in the
thoughts of whom the young spirit shall delight to sun itself, and the love of whom shall be in the stead of the Ten
Commandments. Heaven is nearer to us in infancy than
ever after. Surely that alone is education which causes it
to pass into us.
At first the mother stands to the child for a religion.
His earliest piety is mother-love. He sees every thing by
12*




274            OBLIGATIONS OF THE
her light. Iis dependence and her support symbolize, and
prepare him for all that can follow. Gradually his love
radiates around and above. Extending his regard fiom
her to her injunctions, he can not become aware that they
bind his parents also, without feeling dimly conscious that
there is something greater even than they. And as one
dreamy presentiment after another wakes up in the depths
of liis soul, he is prepared to look up, as the maternal finger
points to heaven, and to find in God that which he had previously found in her.
The love of God is the earliest form of adoration. Fear
mnust not be allowed to create the god of infancy. Reverence will not fail to temper its affection; but its first piety
should be eminently the love of the heart.  Neither is
argument or discussion in place at first. Proofs presuppose
doubt, and may tend to awaken them. Whereas the child
knows no logic but that of the heart. It climbs not laboriously by a ladder, but mounts on wings. Parental assertion and example are its only evidence; emotion its best
proof. Here, therefore, example is every thing. In proportion as the spirit of piety educates, the mnecos become
unimportant.  It finds them  without seeking.  Newton
reverently uncovering his head at the great name of Godwhat an affecting exposition of the third command  But
imagine him to have immediately after taken that name in
vain! No one can teach religion who is himself without it.
Mere catechizing is not religion. A chaptex in the Bible is
no amulet against evil habits. Loose general precepts and
theological prate may deaden sensibility and engender hypocrisy, but are little likely to kindle or foster piety.
Motives are of different classes; and the clild is to be
taught the supremacy of those which recognize the spirit



FAMILY CONSTITUTION.                275
ual and the infinite. If' he is not to be unduly sensuous, let
him not be led to regard the pleasures of sense as the appropriate reward and end of good conduct. If he is not.
to be selfish, let him not encroach on the rights or comforts of others, especially of dependents. If his affections
are not to be limited to his parents, let them not resent his
waywardness as directed against their authority alone, nor
allow him to look on their forgiveness as all in all. While
his heart is yet sore at having wounded their feelings, he
should be led to ask the forgiveness of his Father in Heaven.
Every thing happy, beautiful, and sublime should be made,
by some grave and passing remark, to point his mind in the
same direction. And especially should he be trained, by
short and simple prayers, to give utterance to those sentiments slumbering within him which no other language can
express.
Apart from religion, our teaching may only serve to
illustrate the vast distinction between knowledge and wisdomr; for it may only prove its efficacy as a means of perversion. And the necessity for religious training increases
with the increase of intellectual acquisition. Instead of
vulgarly computing the value of knowledge by the number
of the things known, let it be seen that the parent estimates
it by its influence on the child's character; that it belongs
to religion to give tenfold value to every part of his nature;
that it is infusible into every duty, and gives dignity to
every station; and that it does this by placing him in harmony with the will of God. As he lives for many ends, lie
is to be impressed chiefly with the supremacy of the grelat
end. And as he approacles the period for becoming himself the head of a family, lie is to be shown that even the
domestic constitution itself is only a means to that end; and




276             OBLIGATIONS OF THE
that its own immediate ends are attained best by the constant subdrdination of them to that ultimate end. In a
word, the whole of his training should tend to prepare him
for the time when he will be given into his own hands, and
for the remoter time when he will have to govern a family
of his own, as part of the great community of families designed to carry on the process of Divine manifestation.
The responsibility of the parent is greatly enhanced by
tle fact, not only that these properties of the human being
are all-related, and that each has its proper value differing
from all the rest, but that they come into operation successively, and accordingly as they are each, in turn, placed and
regulated, they project an influence for evil or for good on
all his subsequent history. Even if they were all developed at the same time, and were of equal importance, so
that like the parts of a machine, they could be put together,
and set a-going at once and forever, the parental office
would be the most responsible on earth. But owing to
their differing values and successive development, that responsibility is raised to the highest point; for not until the
clild is capable of self-government is he out of the parental
hand; the relative adjustment of all these parts and properties alone can impart this capacity, and this capacity, moreover, relates to a being who, after training others, is himself to live forever.
The child re-  In this connection, parents need especially
garlcd as success- to be reminded that the premature develo)iv c  existent.
Precocity.   men.t of any one part (say of the intellectual)
is sure to involve the injury of the whole. Nature offers
no prize for the best answer to the question-How may
the mind of the child be most early and rapidly developed?
On the contrary, it reserves pains and penalties for the out



FA MILY CONSTITUTION.              277
rage. Intellectual precocity is commonly only "'another
name for cerebral disease." In some instances it leads, by
a physiological necessity, to precocity in vice.  Rousseau
affirmed it to be one of the arts of education to know
" how to lose time."* And in proportion as the stimulating influences supplied by material civilization multiply, the
art of " postponed excitement" f becomes at once more
difficult and more important. Let the heart be occupied
and the emotions trained; but care should be exercised,
lest by taxing and expending the mental forces too early
in life, the whole remainder should be a history of sterility
and exhaustion.
Memremory, too, taken in its wide, popular
Memory.
acceptation, as not merely a faculty of reception, but of reproduction, demands more thoughtful
cultivation than it ordinarily receives. Were it merely, as
it is generally thought to be, "the storehouse of the
brain," it should surely command the most anxious parental attention; but by being so much, it becomes more,
namely, a basis of character. A verbal memory may be of
little account, but a memory for things, for sequences,
analogies, and impressions, is vital. What the child spontaneously remembers with the greatest fiequency and
facility, furnishes the parent with a clew to its natural charactel, and may aid him in the formation of its voluntary
nmemory. The very order in which things are deposited in
the mind reacts beneficially on the moral character. The
laws of the ancient lawgivers were promulgated in verse;
both because order and harmony are the best mnemonics,
and because, by being easily and pleasantly recalled, they
were the more likely to be observed. Pythagoras wisely
* Emile, 1. 2.     t I. Taylor's Home Education, pp. 14-17.




273 iOBLIGATIONS OF THE
advised his pupils to recall at night the events of the day,
aimiing alike at the exercise of their recollection and the
improvement of their character. In addition to this, the
child may be advantageously requested, as a voluntary exercise to relate what it remembers of a favorite book, the
parent always taking care that the book be of a useful
kind. Meanwhile, it would be a valuable moral discipline
for the parent to bear in mind that impressions left by his
own example are likely to be remembered, even when his
precepts are forgotten.
That which renders the age of childhood so
Habits.
responsible to the parents is, that it is the
period during which habits are formed.' The clay is moist and soft, now, now make haste
And form the pitcher, for the wheel turns fast."*
And the pitcher, once formed, may be more easily broken
than altered. Habits of intellectual accuracy can be formed
only by the frequent repetition and revision of subjects.
IInce, one of the chief rules of Jacotot, Repetez sans
cesse; and the still older proverb, bepetitio est mater stztcdioriem. Thus, in childhood, each word has to be learned,
each syllable to be acquired, and correct articulation is the
result of hourly repetition; but once the habit has been
formed-and it is formed without the least consciousness of
labor-the syllables ever after arrange themselves without
any attention from the speaker. Something more, however, than mere oral repetition is necessary to form the
character to virtue. Admirably has Butler said, " Going
over the theory of virtue in one's thoughts; talking well,
* "Udum, ct mollo lutum est, nunc, nune properandus, et acri
Fingendus sine fine rota."-Pers. Sat. 3.




FAMILY CONSTITUTION                279
and drawing fine pictures of it, this is so far from necessarilv or certainly conducing to form a habit of it in him
who thus employs himself, that it may harden the mind in
a contrary course, and render it gradually more insensible;
that is, form a habit of insensibility to all moral considerations."7* Here practice alone makes perfect.  Lycurgus
would not allow his laws to be written, lest the youth
should be reading them when they ought to be practicing
them; knowing, says Plutarch, that principles interwoven
with the manners and breeding of the people, become
habits; and that "habits would answer in each the purpose of a lawgiver."f  And hence, that alone is deserving the name of education in which, however small the
amount of knowledge imparted, that knowledge is sought
to be applied; in which the great aim is to reach the heart
of the child, and to impress it with a sacred regard for
truth and duty, and a deep reverence for the will of God;
in wlich the character is sought to be built up into habits
of order, attention, and filial obedience, based on that piety
which is the beginning of wisdom.
Harmony of con-  From first to last the education of the
stitution.  child is to be conducted with a view to the
harnmony and unity of its constitution. In a former chapter
we saw that the world into which the little human sojourner
comes is in every respect preconfigured to its constitution;
that the adaptation is so complete that there is not a susceptibility or power slumbering within it which has not its
(orlresponding object in the universe without; nor an object or event, physical, intellectual, or moral, in the external universe which has not a responsive counterpart
within the outline of that infant being; and further, that
-x- Analogy, part i. c. 5..   Life of Lycurgus.




280             OBLIGATIONS O' TIIE
his well-being depends on the gradual awakening of those
latent adaptations by the measured adjustment and orderly
application of the different parts of the great surrounding
system into which it has come. What can result, then,
fiom the plan which confines its operation to the development of any one part of the human constitution-say of the
intellectual, or of some one faculty of the intellect-while it
abandons the physical to weakness and early disease, and
leaves the social and moral to the dwarfed and shriveled
condition of a paralyzed limb; what but a community of
human monsters, who live to proclaim that every tling intellectually absurd is both physically and morally wrong?
Or what can we say of a process which, instead of training
the human being for the duties and enjoyments of the
physical, intellectual, and moral life, bends all its energies
to train him for " a fashionable life"-an artificial state of
existence; which, by rendering him as independent, and
as incapable as possible, of all the means of God's providing, and which awaited his coming into being, contravenes,
at every step, some natural laws-what, but that when the
evil has filled society with its proper fiuits-pride, impatience, discontent, insubordination-and when society is at
its wit's end for remedies, it should yet prove blind to the
natural connection of those fruits with such a process, and
should persevere in it to its ruin?
Parental author-  If there be a time when the authority of
ity transitional. the parent over the child be absolute-in infancy-and if there be a period when the child is to enter
on the duties of self-government, it follows that fiom the
first of these periods to the last the authority of the parent should be ever in a transition state. From  simply
commanding, he should proceed to explain the reasons of




FAMILY CONSTITUTION.                 281
his commands; from these again, to the expression of desires and the manifestation of a generous confidence; and
from these to the frequent option and discretion of the
child, preparatory to the moment of giving him  entirely
into his own hands.
d increases  ith the increase of the family, the paAnd increases
with the increase rental duty is further increased. Wisely,
of the family.  indeed, is it ordered that the experience acquired in the training of the first, should tend to give the
parents a proficiency for the training of the second, and so
onward. And still more that both the example of one
child should assist the parent in his training of another, and
that his own treatment of one should be felt beneficially by
another, as if it had been directed to himself  But in
order to this, the conduct of the parent must be characterized by strict impartiality; every apparent deviation from
it should be accompanied by the reasons for such deviation; and no opportunity should be lost of inculcating
their duties to each other, of endearing them to each other,
and of praying for each other, giving them the enjoyment of
ministering to each other's happiness. Not only should
great respect to the welfare of the children be had in the
choice of servants, but in every part of their conduct toward their servants also, parents should remember that
they are indirectly giving an influential lesson to their children, likely to bias their conduct toward the same parties.
Every obligation is correlative; so that if
Filial obligation.
it be the right and duty of the parent to
seek the welfare of the child, it is the duty of the child to
respond in every respect essential to the attainment of that
object, or resulting from it. Thus if it be the duty of the
parents to maintain the child, it is his duty gratefully to




282            OBLIGATIONS OF TIHE
recognize his dependence on them. If it devolves on them
to teach and to educate him, on him it devolves to believe,
and to submit to the necessary discipline, whether administered by them directly, or by an agent of their appointment. If they are under obligation to love him, and to let
their every outward act be an expression of well-regulated
love, he is under obligation to live in the constant exercise
of filial affection toward them. If it is their duty to command, it his duty to obey because they have commanded.
And if it is their duty to cultivate his moral nature, by
teaching him the will of God, and by becoming his intercessors at the throne of mercy, it is his duty to regard
them with reference as " the ministers of God to him for
good."  In a word, if it be their duty to instruct, to pray.
fbr, and to govern him, it is his duty to believe, to reverence, and to obey them.
If the obligation of the parent changes, however, fiom
that of exercising absolute authority to that of friendly advice or parental regard, the duty of the child passes
through all the intermediate stages, from  implicit obedience to self-government.
And if the time arrives when the parent requires the
maintenance and tender care of the child, it is the sacred
and delightful duty of the child to provide for and consult
his comfort. And, be it remarked, that just in proportion
as it ceases to be the duty of the child implicitly to obey
his parents, his obligation to respect and love them increases. For the longer he enjoys their parental care, the
greater his debt of gratitude becomes; and the longer he
lives, the greater is his opportunity of estimating the fill
value of parental care, and the more capable he becomes
of repaying it in acts of disinterested affection.




FAMILY CONSTITUTION.                 283
Obligation of  If the relations existing between the chilchild to child. dren of the same family be such as we have
stated in a preceding chapter, it follows that every child,
on reaching a state of responsibility, is under Various obligations toward every other child of the family. The striking manner in which one child is the object of imitation to
another, especially the elder to the younger-even to a
greater degree, for obvious reasons, than the parents themselves-renders the position of the elder children highl
responsible.  Still further is this responsibility increased
where a portion of the parental authority is delegated to
them from time to time, and for specific purposes. The
character of one child is often impressed, for evil or for
good, on all his brothers and sisters.
Passing from the internal obligations of,External obligations; local and the family, the first object, external to it,
material.
materia   claiming attention, is its place. It must be
somewhere. If our first parents must quit the garden of
Eden, Adam must begin to "till the ground from whence
he was taken," in some locality without. If Cain is exiled
from that locality, he is soon found dwelling "in the land
of Nod, on the east of Eden."  From that moment a series
of duties commenced in relation to his knowledge of the
dangers, products, capabilities, and laws of health peculiar
to the region. This is only saying that he was to put himself in harmony with nature, obeying its laws, and availing
himself to the utmost of its properties and powers; and
that he was to do this as the only means of his attaining
the great end of his existence in that or in any other part
of the world. And all his knowledge of nature was, of
course, to enter into his training of his children.
The duties of every family, say cotemporaneous with




284            OBLIGATIONS OF THE
Noah, were relative, not only to the nature of the district
it inhabited, but also to the manner in which its predecessors had fulfilled their obligations in this respect. Had the
principal natural phenomena been noted, and the right
practical application of them been made? Each family
had inherited much useful knowledge of this description
fiom those who had gone before, was bound to add to it
something of its own, and to transmit the whole to its successors. So also in relation to the laws and government
of the family; many of them were doubtless the result of
experience and observation, arising out of the nature and
circumstances of the country inhabited. But the point to
be noted is, that at any given era from the creation to the
flood, in any given family, there was a certain amount of
the knowledge of nature and of practical conformity to
physical laws, which could not be wanting without implicating some party or parties in the guilt of such deficiency.
If, for instance, the tendency of the climate was to enervate, to induce indolence, or excessively to develop the
passions, domestic laws and discipline should be framed to
remedy such tendencies. Food, amusements, the kind and
amount of labor-nothing was entirely indifferent-and if
not, it was the duty of the members of the first family to
make every thing in this department a matter of conscience; and if it was the duty of the first family, it was
the duty of the second, and so on of each in succession.
Nor could any one family fail to take its bearings, in relation to the local and physical duties of its own day, without sharing in the guilt of all the families which had preceded it.
But all this is only saying that the history and characteristics of a region should form part of the education of those




FAMILY CONSTITUTION.                285
inhabiting it. The proposition seems so obvious as to render a formal statement almost ridiculous; yet the practical
adoption of it exposes to still greater ridicule. Even the
laws of health are only beginning to be considered. Sanitary laws require to be enforced by severe penalties.
When Zeno consulted the oracle as'to the manner in which
he should live, the answer was, that he should "inquire of
the dead." In the midst of a pestilence we sleepily propose the same question, and receive the same answer, remanding us to " the thousand fallen at our side, and to the
ten thousand at our right hand."  But the evil no sooner
slightly abates than we resume our slumber at the edge of
the cess-pool, or amid the fevers of an undrained Campania.
Next to nature stands Nian. If the first
Moral obligation.
human family had a right to exist, and therefore to the means of life, and was held responsible to God
for preserving the one and for employing the other, the
coming of another family could not dispossess it of its
rights, nor release it from its obligation; nor could it dispossess nor release that other, except on grounds which
would repeal and destroy its own claims and duties. The
relations existing between the two, and which arose from
the identity of their constitution and design, gave rise to a
system of equal and reciprocal obligations. Nor could the
inequalities of their condition, which, to them, were mere
accidents of existence, affect the equality of their rights
and obligations, unless they could be shown to affect the
identity of their nature.
JtJustice requires, therefore that it should
Justice.
form a part of the education of every man
to leave every other man in the unmolested enjoyment of
liberty, of physical liberty-to go, stay where, and do with




286            OBLIGATIONS OF THE
]himself what he pleases, provided the exercise of that liberty interfere with the liberty of no other party: of inteliectual liberty-to investigate what subject he pleases, and
to arrive at whatever conclusions they seem to him to warrant; provicding, again, that his doing so do not interfere
with the happiness of any other man: of liberty of speech
-to communicate whatever he may deem to be truth; but
always on the condition before stated: of emotional liberty
-to love or hate, desire or loathe, whatever object he
pleases; still, however, on the same condition: of voluntary
liberty-to follow the bias of his will, and to seek the accomplishment of his purposes, in any way not inimical to
the happiness of others; and, above all, of liberty of conscience-to worship God or not, and to worship Him in any
manner that he deems best; always providing that his
liberty infringes on the liberty of no other person.
If to the enjoyment of this liberty it be objected that a
man may so employ it as to ruin himself, the answer is ob.
vious-that to abridge his liberty would not remedy the
evil; that, as to moral liberty, such abridgment would be
rendering him incapable of virtue; but that the means to
be employed are moral, suited to his nature as a moral
agent.
Justice requires that he should recognize
Property.
the right of property; the right, that is,
which a man possesses to use something as he chooses, provided he does not, by so doing, interfere with the right of
any other man. This is the only right by which he himself
can employ the personal pronouns concerning any thing
which he possesses, and call it " his own," or say " it is
mine."  This property may be originally acquired by the
gift of God, or by personal labor; or by exchange, gift, or




FAMILY CONSTITUTION.                287
inheritance; but however acquired, if it be the rightful
property of another, he can not molest him in the possession
of it, whether it be a toy in the hand of a play-fellow, or
the muscular labor of a fellow-man, without infringing the
law which alone protects himself from becoming the prey
of the strongest, and without which society could never
have begun to exist.
Reputation is a kind of property also; for,
Reputation. 
as he who owns a piece of land and cultivates
it is entitled to the fruits which it produces, so, if the manner in which he cultivates it gives him a reputation for
skill in that department, he is entitled to the advantages
of that reputation; and those advantages may be of greater
value to him than the fruits which his skill has producedhe, at least, may value them more. By the cultivation of
his land he became entitled to those fruits resulting from
the operation of the laws of cause and effect which govern
the materials on which he operated; and by his manner of
doing it he becomes entitled to that esteem resulting from
the laws of cause and effect which govern the opinions of
men toward each other.   Now, justice requires that he
should be left in the enjoyment of his reputation, if, by so
doing, no other and higher law be infringed. The same
principle forbids us to publish the bad actions of a man
without an adequate reason; to draw general conclusions
respecting his character fiom a single action; to suspect
and causelessly assign bad motives to the actions of men;
and to lower them in the estimation of others by means
tending to bring them into contempt.
Conzfidence, also, is another species of propConfidence.
erty.  It is that precious property with
whicl man barters with his fellow for the equally precious




288            OBLIGATIONS OF THE
element of truth. Truth and trust form the staple commodity by which the commerce of mind is maintained.
By laws of cause and effect, as certain in their operations
as those which govern labor and its fruits, and skill and its
reputation, truth and confidence are linked together. Annihilate truth, and there could be no confidence; annihilate
all confidence, and the voice of truth would gradually become silent. Now, every man who nakes a communication
or a promise, calculates on this confidence in his fellowman; hence he is said to " draw on his faith," and he " expects credit" for truth. The moral constitution which predisposes the one to tell the truth, is met by a corresponding
constitution which predisposes the other to believe what
he is told.  Justice requires, therefore, that confidence
should receive its equivalent, truth. To give it falsehood
instead, is to give it base coin in exchange for its gold; is
to defraud it of more than what would have been the value
of the particular truth, in the stead of which it has received
a falsehood; it is to lessen its confidence in that principle
of veracity on which alone it has to depend in all its intercourse with man, and thus to threaten the very existence
of society. The law of veracity, then, forbids the titterance, as truth, of what we know to be false; of what we
do not know to be true; of what may be true in fact, yet
so as to convey a false impression to the hearer, whether
by exaggeration, by extenuation, or by the misleading accompaniment of tones, look, or gestures. These remarks
relate to veracity as to the past. The same law, in the
case of promises, binds the promiser to the sense in which
he meant and supposed the promisee to receive them.
Only thus can we project our plans, so as to embrace the
distant and connect the past with the future; for only thus




FAMILY CONSTITUTION.               289
can we make our knowledge of what has been available for
all subsequent time.
Character.  Character is property also, and property
of the highest value. It is the only enduring
possession properly his own, derived from all the past, and
the only imperishable capital with which he can hope to
purchase the " goodly pearl" of happiness for eternity.
Justice forbids, therefore, that we willingly vitiate the
character of another in any manner or on any ground
whatever. We are prohibited from weakening the moral
restraints of men alike by our conversation and by our example; and from exciting to action their evil dispositions,
by viciously stimulating their imaginations; by pandering
to the appetites of others; by using others to minister to
our vicious desires; or by cherishing in any way the evil
passions of men.
All this would have been due from man to
Sympathy.
man, and from family to family, even if man
had retained his first and normal condition. But he became a sufferer, and as such he is entitled to sympathy.
His suffering, whatever it may be, incapacitates him, to a
certain extent, for that happiness which is the proximate
end of his being, as well as for actively answering the ultimate end of existence. We owe him sympathy, therefore,
both as he is our fellow-man, and we may be his fellowsufferers; and as he is the creature of God, and under His
Divine protection.
But man is a sufferer by becoming a sinner.
Forbearance.
As a man, justice is his due; as a suffering
man, sympathy; as a sinful man, forbearance andforgiveness. In rendering him all three, we are but doing to
him as we would that he should do unto us. In the first,
13




(290           OBLIGATIONS OF THE
the man is supposed to be just-in harmony with all the
laws which respect his relative conduct; and we are
bound, in the sight of God ancd man, to be just toward
him in return. But, in the second, this same man is supposed to be a sufferer-out of harmony with the laws of
his own being, and, as such, fallen on the great highway to
ha:lppiness and unable to reach its end; and we are bound,
in, the sight of God, to help him, but to do it in a way
compatible with his well-being on the whole. In the third,
we contemplate the same man as a sinner, a transgressor, it
may be, against God, society, and himself. But in exercising mercy toward the offender-provided it can be done
without defeating the ends of justice-we should remember that we are manifesting a disposition on the Divine exercise of which our own happiness and the continuance of
the world are suspended, and by which a fellow-man is
aided to answer the end of his being, after his hope of so
doing had perhaps been justly forfeited.
Education should  The duty of the individual, in these reembraceallthis. spects, is the duty of the family; and that
education is chargeable with radical deficiency which omits
its inculcation.  Each family, while it forms an organic
whole, complete in itself for its own temporary and internal
purposes, is not only a living branch of the great genealogical tree of the race, but is dependent on other living
branches for its own continuance and well-being, and for
answering the great end of the domestic constitution. If,
then, it be an essential part of education to take the child
from his appetites, in the gratification of which he may be
content to circumscribe himself and settle down, and to
show him that there are other parts of his nature to which
his appetites are to be held subsidiary-parts of a wider




FAMILY CONSTITUTION.                291
range and a nobler destiny, and which ally him to the
past, the future, and the invisible; and if it be important
to take him fiom this center of himself, commanding as the
view may be which he there attains of his own interests,
and to show him that he is only a single member of the
family into which he has been born, and to point out his
dependence, relations, and obligations to every member
included in his family circle, and during every moment he
remains in that circle; equally important is it that he should
be duly taken to the verge of that circle to be shown the
family circles beyond; to have it impressed on him that
they all touch or intersect each other; that there is a line
which circumscribes the whole; and that the well-being
of each is made dependent on the well-being of all the rest.
"The laws of education are the first impressions we receive (says Montesquieu*), and as they prepare us for civil
life, every private family ought to be governed by the plan
of that great household which comprehends them all."
Each genertion  Obligations devolve on the individual and
Each generation  1-7)
has its duties. the family as successively existent. Every
man ought to compare what has come to be the laws, the
maxims, and even the language of his fellow-men with the
obvious will of the Creator. He is to protest against every
other standard than the will of God. Every deviation fiom
it he is to resist. Whoever may call sweet bitter, and bitter sweet, he is to call things by their proper names. However long the boundary line between good and evil may
have been removed from the place in which God fixed it,
he is to spend life in an endeavor to replace it; or he must
expect to be dealt with as a partaker of other men's sins.
In the entire series of families, from the creation to the
* Esprit des Lois, tome iv. c. 2.




292            OBLIGATIONS OF THE
flood, each stood in the relation of a middle term between
the past and the future. But as the social character of no
two generations was precisely alike, it followed that the
duties of every family were of a kind peculiar to the age,
and formed the work of its generation; a work which could
not have been forstalled without neglecting the duties of
the day, nor delayed without allowing evils to accumulate
to a disheartening amount for all that came after. It was
the duty of each family, then, to inform itself of its real
position in relation to the past and the future; to estimate
the social derelictions of all the past, observing what led to
them, and what they had led to; to compare the state of
the family ce facto with the family dejure, or with its normal character in the Divine mind, in order that the duties
of its generation might become apparent. In the whole
range of the Patriarchal dispensation there never was a
period when the great Pater-Familias was not entitled to
look for a certain amount of social excellence and perfection
in the families of men —namely, the precise amount which
would have resulted fiom the perfect discharge of every
family obligation during all the past-and an amount, therefore, increasing with every succeeding generation. If, then,
no one generation exhibited the amount of excellence, no
one family belonging to it could accept that state of family
apostacy from God, contenting itself to neglect the reforming work of its day, and thus perpetuating and aggravating
the apostacy, without sharing in and consenting to all the
guilt of the past. This is obviously the meaning of such
startling declarations as, " that the blood of all the prophets,
shed from the foundation of the world, shall be required
of this generation." The apostacy which, having begun
with the first man, so speedily " brought forthl fruit unto




FAMILY CONSTITUTION.                293
death" in the first family, in the murder of Abel, was per:
petuated in every succeeding generation. Just in proportion as each generation allowed the tide of evil to roll on,
did nothing to arrest its progress or diminish its force, but
contributed to swell the evil by its own additions, it stood
chargeable with the guilt of all the past. The last generation, therefore, of any given period, standing, as it would,
amid the comparative wreck of all that depended on the
human will in the family constitution; surrounded by the
most monstrous forms of evil, the growth of centuries;
ever and anon startled by Divine indications of a coming
judgment; and yet evincing no disposition to retrace its
steps, but rather to advance in evil, deterred by nothing
but the dread of consequences; that generation justly inherits the guilt of all the past.
To God; or re-  If it be important to show the child that
To God; or religiousobligations. his appetites are not the central and supreme
part of himself, that he is not the center of his family, nor
his family the center around which other families are to revolve, how important that his views should be directed to
that glorious Being who has organized the domestic constitution, and who is at once its center and circumference.
Every new view which he receives in childhood of the Divine character brings with it a corresponding duty. The
motive which would lead him to trace with interest his
derivation from some distinguished human ancestor, should
receive an indefinite accession of strength, as often as he
refers his origin to the Father of Spirits. And the gratitude with which he refers his daily comforts to his earthly
parents, should be heightened immeasurably as he comes to
understand the great system of Providence which originates
and includes all his daily mercies, and all the channels




294            OBLIGATIONS OF THE
through which they come to him. As life advances and
opportunities offer, he is bound to examine and to verify
for himself all the religious truths which he had previously
received on parental testimony, and to see that no portion
of Divine revelation had been omitted. As other intimations of the Divine will presented themselves during the
antediluvian period, whether directly by the inspiration of
holy men of God, or inductively by the advancing course
of nature, he was bound to add them to his previous store
of sacred knowledge, as full of practical applications. As
he rose from the dominion of sensible objects, it was his
duty to look at the character and will of God through the
more ethereal medium of faith; and, from being satisfied
with the intercession of others, and with stated times and
places of devotion, to advance to hold personal intercourse
with God; and, like Enoch, habitually to " walk with God."
Thus fiom the first moment in which he lisped the awful
name of God, till the hour when he was waiting to ascend
into His immediate presence, he was to grow in grace and
in the knowledge of God.
achgeneration  Similarly, it devolved on each generation
Each generation
had its own relig- to transmit from the past to the future every
ious duties.
particle of Divine revelation; all its religious advantages of Divine appointment; the evidences of
that revelation and those appointments; the supposed
meaning of that revelation, and all the providential illustrations of the spirit and value of those advantages. The
generation cotemporary with Noah, for example, were
bound to perpetuate the memory of the first promise, and
the celebration of the great institute of sacrifice, and the
evidence on which they both rested. They were bound to
show that the revelations afterward made from time to




FAMILY CONSTITUTION.                295
time were in perfect agreement with each other, with the
character and wants of the times when each was given,
with the spirit and design of the first promise and of
sacrifice, with the law of Paradise, and with the prior
truths involved in external nature; and they were bound
to accompany all this with the abundant evidence which
they had at command. And, further, it was their duty to
notice and point out all the admirable illustrations of the
dispensation to the family constitution. Every fimily was
bound to exhibit the enlightened, useful, and united character of a church or society protesting against prevailing
error; worshiping God collectively in spirit and in truth;
interceding for the religious well-being of every family;
ready in every way consistent with the time to promote
that well-being; and thus aiming to arrest the flow of evil
from the past to the future, and to acquire such fitness for
usefulness, that, through it, all the families of the earth
should be blessed.
Obligations of  Every parent, therefore, was to be the prethe parent to prepare for his rel- pared religious instructor of his family. In
ious duties.  order to this, it devolved on him to acquaint
himself with the origin, history, and evils of prevailing
errors; with the evidence and claims of every antagonist
truth; and with the peculiar moral wants and " signs of
the times."  Whatever time was necessary for the efficient
discharge of this obligation, it was his duty to secure. The
occupation of the parents was not to be such as to leave
the child an orphan. Neither was their object to be their
own quiet rather than his well-being. And whatever
means it may have been necessary to employ in order to
secure that well-being, they were bound to employ them.
This is the great lesson deducible from the whole: that if




296  OBLIGATIONS OF THE FAMILY CONSTITUTION.
the branches are to bear, we must begin with watering the
roots; that education alone produces education; the teachers themselves must be taught. No amount of genius exempts an artist from the necessity of study and practice;
and shall education, the noblest of all the arts, be the only
one not studied? At present, the family, in which every
thing should be sacred to law and duty, is pre-eminently
the sphere abandoned, as by common consent, to chance.
Let the period of parental education arrive-especially of
female education to qualify for maternal duty-and a family millennium would begin.




CHAPTER X.
THE WELL-BEING OF THE DOMESTIC CONSTITUTION MEASURED
BY THE DISCHARGE OF ITS OBLIGATIONS.
Law of well-be-  IT is a law of the family, as well as of the
ing.   individual, that each shall "enjoy an amount
of good or of well-being proportioned to the discharge
of its obligations.")  For to fulfill the law of its being, or to
find its own highest end, is to answer the great end. Nor
could it be supposed to be in any way deprived of its right,
while thus fullilling the law of its being, without the great
end itself being, in so far, defeated.
Every ting in  The more important of the conditions of
the familyis under the well-being of the family are considered
in the chapters on its relations, its laws, and
its consequent obligations. From these, it appears that
every thing relating to it is, and must be, in contravention
of, or.in obedience to, a law. And to suppose that the
same effects would follow fiom the contravention as from
the obedience, is to confound together things inherently
different; and to imply that there is no end to be answelred
by the domestic economy, no well-being to be aimed at,
or no appropriate means for its attainment. Yet, judging
firom its history, such would appear to have been the prevailing practical creed on the subject in all ages. That, in
13*




298             WELL-BEING OF THE
order to promote its well-being, it should be necessary to
know any thing of its being or constitution; that this constitution should literally consist of things so stable and unbending as real laws; that not attending to these laws
should be followed by effects essentially different from
those which ensue from attending to them —real disadvantages-penalties; these are facts which few have even
thought of; and, of those who have been reminded of
them, the great majority turn from them as mere airy speculations, too remote and refined'for daily life; while they
find it most congenial to their self-love to treat their domestic troubles, not as retributive, but as the mysterious
and arbitrary appointments of God. A glance at the nature of the domestic constitution, and at its historical working during the antediluvian period, is all that is necessary
in order to rebuke such willing error, and to illustrate the
validity of the present law.
its well-being reg-  The estimation in which women are held
cial condition of   a cotr   supplies a just citerion of the
woman.       degree of its civilization. The degraded condition in which Solon found and left them-viewing the
wife as a mere household drudge, with whom rational intercourse and friendship were impossible-gradually led to
a depravation of manners, not in Athens merely, but in the
states of Greece generally, which could not but sow the
seeds of social dissolution.'" The family can not exist without marriage, nor can it develop its highest importance
without monogamy. Civilization, in its highest state, requires it, as well as the natural organization and wants of
man."7*  And from the moment in which man concedes to
woman the rights which he claims himself, and honors the
* Lieber's Polit. Ethics, part. i. b. ii. ~ 24.




FAMILY CONSTITUTION.                 299
powers of the mind and heart more than mere physical
prowess, the sex begins to assume its proper position in
society, and civilization advances.
By the degree  In proportion as the laws of marriage are
in which the laws       *
of marriag are ob- complied with-in the union of parties corserved.      responding to each other in age, healthiness,
affection, character, and aim-healthy and affectionate offspring, conjugal happiness, and a consequent power of
general usefulness is likely to be the result. This fact was
recognized and involuntarily honored by imperial Rome
during the period of its greatest degeneracy. For even
then, at the height of its licentiousness, its laws implied
that marriage is. of the greatest importance, viewed as a
mere political advantage. But the fact admits of the most
minute verification. Modern statistics illustrate the graduated manner in which the laws in question stand related
to the number, the mortality, the physical and mental
enervation of offspring.* Every instance of departure from
these laws is found to be attended by a corresponding deduction from the well-being of the family.
Inferior  ends  But that on which it may be more importattained best by ant to insist here is, that the subordinate
aiming at the highest.         ends of the domestic constitution are likely to
be attained only in proportion as the great end is aimed at
intelligently and supremely. True, laws, as far as they are
separable, operate independently of each other. So that if
a man obey the laws of health, he will enjoy health, even
to the moment of his being executed for violating the
laws of society. If he observe the latter he will be honored
even though, and perhaps partly because, he was oblivious
of the former. If he observe both sets of laws, physical and
* Quetelet sur les Hommes, etc. b. i. c. 1, 2, 3.




300            WELL-BEING OF THE
social, he will enjoy the advantages, even though at heart
an infidel toward God. So, also, compliance with the
physical condition of marriage is likely to secure the greatest number of healthy offspring, whatever may be the intellectual and moral character of the parents. But who
does not see that, apart from moral, apart even from intellectual restraints, such compliance would form the exception, and unbridled sensuality the rule? in which case,
even the physical advantages of the institution, together
with the institution itself, would soon come to be lost. We
freely admit, on the other hand, that the higher end is occasionally aimed at to the neglect of the lower, and to the
consequent detriment of both. But the proposition now
before us is, that a regard for the great end of the family
economy is the only security that its subordinate laws will
be obeyed, and its inferior ends be attained; and that in
proportion as that end is answered these are answered
also.
Evils of lax dis-  Thus, a regard for the Divine Will, by
cipline.  supplying motives for parental chastity and
temperance, tends to secure the physical welfare of the
children. Supreme regard for the Divine approbation, by
tending to exempt the parents from self-reproach, and inducing self-respect, tends also to inspire the children with
filial reverence, and to render the government of the family
comparatively easy. "The notion, indeed, that a family is
a society, and that a society must be governed, and that
the right and the duty of governing this society rest with
the parent, seems to be rapidly vanishing from the minds of
men. In the place of it, it seems to be the prevalent opinion that children may grow up as they please; and that the
exertion of parental restraint is an infringement upon the




FAMILY CONSTITUTION.                 301
personal liberty of the child. But all this will not abrogate
the law of God, nor will it avert the punishment which He
has connected, indissolubly, with disobedience. The parent
who neglects his duty to his children, is sowing thickly, for
himself and for them, the seeds of his future misery. He
who is suffering the evil dispositions of his children to grow
up uncorrected, will find that he his cherishing a viper by
which he himself will first be stung. The parent who is
accustoming his children to habits of thoughtless caprice
and reckless expenditure, and who stupidly smiles at the
ebullitions of youthful passion and the indulgence in fashionable vice, as indications of a manly spirit, needs no
prophet to foretell that, unless the dissoluteness of his
family leave him entirely childless, his gray hairs will be
brought down with sorrow to the grave."*
nes of    The parent can not place himself in. the
Benefits of rehg-,ious training. soul of the child in order to educate him,
without recovering much of the simplicity of his own childhood, nor labor to form his character without, at the same
time, building himself up to a higher point of excellence.
By training his children to love God supremely, he is securing their love for himself more effectually than as if he
sought it directly. The earlier he begins this moral inculcation the more successful he is likely to be; and the sooner
they become consciously amenable to the laws of the Divine government the sooner they are capable of that selfgovernment which leaves little. more to the parent than
occasion for gratitude and joy. While, by leading them to
God in worship, he is deepening his own interest in their
welfare, consecrating their attachment to himself, and binding them closer to each other. The parent who complains
* Dr. Wayland's Moral Sience, p. 333.




302            WELL-BEING OF THE
of " want of time" for thus training his children, needs to
be reminded that the laws of the family, like those of
health, "punish so severely, when neglected, that they
cause the offender to lose tenfold more time" in suffering
the consequences, than would be requisite to obey them;
to say nothing of the heritage of evil entailed on his children. On the other hand, every moment consecrated to
the formation of their characters is sure to be paid in hours
and days of spontaneous obedience, and in the sunshine of
a happy home, the mellow light of which will be thrown
forward on all their subsequent course. And this affection
of the children, secured chiefly on moral grounds, is the
strongest guarantee the parent can have (though it has,
probably, never occurred to his mind as a motive) that
they will tenderly provide hereafter, if necessary, for his
temporal comfort.  " On the blue mountains of our dim
childhood, toward which we ever turn and look, stand the
parents who marked out to us from thence our life; the
most blessed age must be forgotten ere we can forget the
warmest hearts."*  And the child, in obeying the voice
which saith, " Honor thy father and thy mother," though
forgetting that it "is the first commandment with promise," is, in various ways, laying a foundation for his own
temporal prosperity.
The law which we are now illustrating cornThe Divine promise to such train- prises the Divine affirmation, that " a child
ing.        trained in the way he should go shall not depart from it when he is old." This is not to be viewed as the
language of a promise so much as the statement of a grand
principle of the domestic constitution. Some, indeed, may
be ready to object, that they know many a painful excep* Richter's Levana.




FAMILY CONSTITUTION.              303
tion to its truth in the circle of their own acquaintance.
Now, when failure ensues in any other department of duty,
we do not rashly conclude that the connection between
means and ends has at length come to an end; we infer
rather that there has been something faulty in the employment of the means. The failure of parental training, indeed, in certain instances, may not furnish a looker-on with
any ground for concluding that but little has been done for
the child's welfare. Comparatively much may have been
done; more than many an instance attended with success.
No human eye might be keen enough to detect a fault in
it; no human being be justified in pronouncing censure.
Still, we must believe that the training was not commenced
early enough; or that it was not continued long enough;
or that it suffered interruptions; that there was too much
reliance on other means, to the neglect of prayer; or that
prayer was not combined with the adequate employment
of other means; that certain parts of the training were not
pursued in the right spirit-appeal being made to fear,
vanity, or the appetites, or that parental example did not
in some particular enforce parental precept; that the influence of one parent neutralized that of the other, or that
the example of some other party did; that some specious
or prolific evil was winked at or undetected; that indulgence and severity so alternated as to destroy parental authority; or that there was a want of adaptation in the
training to the peculiar character of the child; or else a
want of holy earnestness pervading the whole: something
must be wanting, or we must impeach the faithfulness and
grace of God. Where nothing is wanting in the means
employed, nothing is ever wanting, on the part of God, in
the end obtained.




304            WELL-BEING OF THE
We do not forget the native tendency of the heart to
evil; and have no sympathy, therefore, with the theory
which represents the human mind as being at first pure and
spotless as a sheet of unwritten paper, and as being stained
only by subsequent impressions. Rather it resembles the
paper which is covered with the secret writing of an invisible ink, and which has only to be placed near the fire in
order to bring out and make visible all the characters. But
then it comes to the parents before whom it has been so
placed, and in order that they may keep it from the exciting element. It comes to them free fiom the blots and
stains of actual transgression, to be preoccupied as quickly
and fully as possible with the writing and signature of
Heaven. And so absolute is the law which impels the child
to believe their every word; to imitate their every tone,
gesture, and action; to receive the ineffaceable impressions
of their character, that their every movement drops a seed
into the virgin soil of its heart, to germinate there for
eternity.
Neither do we forget that the child himself is a free
agent; and that much depends on his own dispositions. It
is this which renders the training of a child an art, a
science the most sacred; and, next to that of his own salvation, the most momentous occupation in which a parent
can be engaged. On the other hand, however-unless we
are prepared to accept the alternative that here there is no
connection between means and ends; that causes may be
put into operation without any corresponding effects being
produced; that though, in every other department of human agency, God has graciously arranged that if certain
things be done certain results shall follow, yet that in this
particular sphere the rule is departed from-we must be.




FAMILY CONSTITUTION.                305
lieve that in the day of final account it will appear, that the
right means rightly employed in the training of childhood
uniformly produced corresponding fruits. However diversified these results may be, and though falling short in numerous instances of the desired end, they never fall below
the just and full operation of the law in question. The
sovereignty of God may rise above the law, and exceed the
just expectation of the parent; His faithfulness guarantees
that the end shall never fall short of the measure and quality of the means employed. This is the parent's encouragement to aim at the highest results, and to expect the most
blessed consequences.
Tends to the  The constitution of the family was dewell-being of the signed, not for the well-being of the children
community.
merely, but of each member of the household, of the entire family, of the whole community of families. By creating at first one common father of the species,
the Creator designed that each individual should stand related to all the rest, and feel himself pledged to promote
their happiness. By rendering us necessary to each other's
welfare, He sought to train us up to a humble imitation of
His own goodness; to make every hand and heart a consecrated channel for His love to flow in; and thus to find a
large proportion of our happiness in the happiness of others.
Every good action tended, by a law, to benefit even the
doer; and to do this, not merely by purifying and refreshing his spirit, and by strengthening the principle which
produced it, but, such is tle harmonious constitution both
of the physical and social systems, by more or less -favoring
his health, security, confidence, and honor. While, besides
the direct advantage of every good action to the immediate
object of it, the fountains of gratitude and joy would be




306            WELL-BEING OF THE
unsealed, a motive would be supplied to repeat a similar action in his own conduct, and a useful influence be thus projected into the future. In such a state, he who approached
nearest to the pattern of the Divine excellence would be
the object of the greatest admiration; and as admiration
leads, by a law of our nature, to imitation, men would be
perpetually advancing toward higher and higher degrees of
perfection. Inferior excellence being drawn upward by the
strong moral attraction of that which was above it, a process of assimilation to the blessed God would have been
constantly going on, from family to family, and from age to
age, which would have rendered earth a copy of heaven.
Well might the mind be haunted, age after
Ideal family. 
age, with a social ideal never yet realized!
Life a sacred thing. Every child a Divine promise. Every
family beginning the race anew from a higher point. Brothers and sisters ministering angels to each other's purity and
beneficence. Every addition a new element of happiness.
Education the rearing of a living temple. Conjugal love a
central fountain in warm, fiagrant, perpetual play. The
father the representative of God; feeding them, as a
prophet, with more than angels' food; as a priest, standing
at the portico of the temple, to guard it from pollution, or
ministering at its holy altar, and finding his spirit purified
and refreshed by the service; swaying, like a king, a divine
scepter, and tasting the Godlike blessedness of seeing his
subjects find happiness and freedom in obedience. The
mother, the earliest to enter the infant heart, and to take
possession in the name of God; radiating on her children
the light and life of her own intense affection, and invested
in addition with the delegated and solemn reverence of paternal authority. Home, the home of the affections; where




FAMILY CONSTITUTION.                307
law is superseded by love; where the lowliest act is consecrated and ennobled by the highest motive; and where
separate individual interests are forgotten in the aim of each
for the good of all. The family, sending forth its youthful
members-each with a heritage of happy recollections and
holy habits, impressed with the sanctity and high responsibilities of the domestic constitution, studiously trained and
qualified to enter on them, and determined to raise still
higher, if possible, in his own new circle, the standard of
his own early home. The aged patriarch, happy in the consciousness of having linked his mind for good with all his
own immediate offspring, and cheered by the prospect of
transmitting, through them, the happiest influence to others
through an ever-enlarging circle. The generation, conscious of rising, and aspiring to rise still higher; recognizing in its present blessedness the proof that God is its
Pater-familias; and valuing the future chiefly as the
means of perpetual approximation to the only perfect home
in the bosom of God. Such are the capabilities of the
family, and the sunny visions at which it hints.
Its possible good,  But the domestic constitution, by thus premade equal evil paring a sanctuary for goodness, inviting its
possible.
practice in the purest form, and providing for
its diffusion and perpetuation, unavoidably opened a door
for the possible entrance and diffusion of evil. The wellbeing of the economy depended entirely on man's voluntary conformity to the laws of its constitution. Involuntary
defects might arise, and partial derangements of the system might consequently ensue; but these would only afford
the family occasions for new displays of concern for each
other, and new incentives to holy obedience. But every
voluntary transgression, besides involving its own imme



308            WELL-BEING OF THE
diate punishment in the bosom of the transgressor, by exhibiting and diffusing a spirit of insubordination to the
great Lawgiver, struck at the happiness of the race. This
had been one of the effects of the first sin; and every subsequent transgression had but repeated and aggravated, in
this respect, the effect of that sin. Indeed, the family constitution was a moral government. ft presupposed, and
was pervaded by, general laws. These laws were based on,
and sanctioned by, equity. So that the reward of obedience, and the punishment of disobedience, were alike secured; and the well-being of the family depended entirely
on its conformity to the laws of the domestic constitution.
Antediluvian history, brief and fragmentary as it is, supplies a practical illustration and confirmation of the law now
under consideration.  The first sin, as we have just observed, however numerous the respects in which it was
unique and stood alone, had this, in common with every
other subsequent transgression-that, by resisting the supremacy of law, it set an example of insubordination, and
invited or dared the infliction of the threatened penalty.
To have withheld that infliction, therefore, would have been
to trifle with the sanction of the law, as the sinner had
trifled with the law itself.
hIllustrated fen, after the lapse of years, that seed
Illustrated from
antediluvian his- of sin had brought forth fruit unto death in
tory.       the first family, the Lord said to the murderer, "Why art thou wroth, and why is thou countenance
tfllen? If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and
if thou doest not well, sin lieth at thy door." * This, evidently was not addressed to Him as a new revelation. The
interrogatory form in which it was put to him, intimates
* Gen. iv. 6, 7.




FAMILY CONSTITUTION.               309
that the principles involved in it were familiarly known and
admitted. From which we are to infer that man had never
found himself otherwise than under law; that obedience
had been uniformly followed by happiness, disobedience by
punishment. So that Cain, if he complained at all, could
only complain that he was not allowed to form an exception,
that the moral government of the individual and the family
was not repealed, and repealed for no other reason than
because he had chosen to rebel against it. On the other
hand, his victim had "obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts." * Obedience to parental
direction,. and "faith" in Divine appointments, had led
Abel to the altar of sacrifice in the exercise of penitence
and holy trust. The spirit of the family constitution in its
highest aim, had been honored, and the worshiper accepted;
and now, though he had died a violent death, he had ascended to another domain of the Divine government,
where obedience and happiness are one; while the fratricide was left to groan under the consciousness of his
guilt, and, by presenting to the eyes of his own descendants a living monument of the Divine displeasure,
to remind them that they were the subjects, too, of moral
government. The inspired narrative now becomes deeply
interesting. An account is given of the posterity of Cain,
ending with Lamech. Of him it is stated that he was a
polygamist; and it is implied that his polygamy was, in
some way, associated with violence and bloodshed. From
these hints it may be inferred that the family economy was
no longer answering its moral design in the line of Cain,
but was subverted and disorganized in some of its most
important laws. The narrative then introduces an account
* Heb. xi. 5.




310               WELL-BEING OF THE
of the posterity of Seth, whose name is supposed to denote
that he was regarded as the substitute for the martyred
Abel, and who probably copied his pious example. Up to
a certain point in this line, the domestic institution appears
to have answered, in some degree, its important end.      But
"it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face
of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, that the
sons of God* saw the daughters of men that they were fair,
and they took them wives of all which they chose." t       At
this period, and in this manner, the family disorganization
and open apostacy from God, which had hitherto been confined to the descendants of Cain, began to gain ground
among the posterity of Seth.       Family after family was
founded in filial insubordination and disregard of the law
of God.   What could be expected to result from       connections which were thus based in self-will and revolt, but a
* The phrase " sons of God" has received three very different interpretations: a mythologic, denoting super-terrestial beings; a metaphoric,
denoting men of distinguished power; and a moral, denoting religious
character and affinity. The first comes from the Alexandrian Gnostics
and Cabbalistic Rabbins, and is acceptable to those only who are eager
to throw suspicion on Scripture, or who find a pleasure in writing or
reading of " the loves of the angels." Our text contains no trace of such
an idea. The second interpretation would not be incompatible with the
context, but the article before the name of God denotes that the Being
intended is Icar iEoXj, GOD, the one true God, leaving it to be inferred
that those also who are here called his sons are truly, that is morally,
such. So that we are shut up to the third or moral interpretation of the
phrase. And this, in addition to the reason last assigned, is in accordance
with the usus loquendi of Scripture, and best suits the strain of the context. The progeny of Seth, the great religious party, by intermarrying
with the irreligious, brought on a moral crisis of the most depraving nature, by confirming and extending the general apostacy.
t Gen. vi. 1, 2.




FAMILY CONSTITUTION.               311
progeny of evil? The offspring of such marriages, might,
indeed, be physically vigorous and strong. For, true to
the constitution of nature, the physical laws would hold on
their way, irrespective of character and motives, till the
absence of moral restraint proclaimed itself in the degenerating effects of a self-destroying profligacy. Accordingly,
"when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of
men, and they bare children to them, the same became
mighty men who were of old, men of renown"*-notorious for deeds of prowess, oppression, and blood.  The
constitution which had been calculated to produce " a godly
seed," became the occasion of generating "a seed of evildoers." For when once the highest authority is cast off,
there is no resting-place short of the lowest resource-the
iron hand of physical force.
Even to the last, however, one family remained in which
there prevailed a regard for the laws and objects of the
domestic constitution. " Noah was a just man, and perfect
in his generations, and Noah walked with God." t  That
all his sons were not strictly virtuous, the conduct of one
of them subsequent to the deluge, sufficiently proved.
Still, the Patriarch had set them an example of reverence
for God and obedience to His will, which brought with it a
rich reward. For example: when it is said of the selfwilled and irreligious, that " they took them wives of all
which they chose," we are, probably, to infer, not only
that they made their choice in obedience to their sensual
desires, but also that they disdained the limitation of one
woman to one man. Noah had been governed by this
divine limitation; and he enjoyed the gratification of seeing each of his three sons act in obedience to the same law.
* Gen. vi. 4.                  t Gen. vi. 9.




312 WELL-BEING OF THE FAMILY CONSTITUTION.
" Moved with fear," he had obeyed the Divine command to
build an ark; and though his obedience exposed him
probably to the taunts of the ungodly, the event proved
that his family had sympathized with his reverence for the
word of God. And " Noah found grace in the eyes of
the Lord." And the effect of the grace which he found
was shared by his children. And often, may we suppose,
when the dreadful catastrophe had taken place, and the
spared family was floating solitarily and securely in the ark,
would they gratefully recall their family obligations, and
trace their well-being to the grace which had led them to
regard it as a Divine institution.




CHAPTER XI.
THE ORDER OF THE LAWS OF THE FAMILY CONSTITUTION
IMPLIED IN ITS WELL-BEING.
The law of or-  WE have seen that man, as a member of
der;   that peculiar constitution, a family, is an allrelated being in an all-related system. According to
another principle, we expect to find that every law and
obligation of the domestic constitution comes into operation on the individual subjected to it, according to its priority of date in the great scheme of creation and providence.
In the conjugal  The order prescribed by nature in the
union;  formation of a family is that of puberty or
sexual maturity, love, marriage; an order never reversed
with impunity.
In the forma-  The welfare of the wedded pair requires
tion of the family; that provision be made first for their physical well-being. Although the ultimate end of the institution is of a moral nature, yet a tent must be provided before an altar, and in order to it. In other words, physical
laws must be first satisfied, with a view to the observance
of other and higher laws.
And initsphys-  The husband and wife may be eminently
ical well-being.  virtuous, and desirous of rearing a virtuous
14




314        ORDER OF THE LAWS OF THE
offspring; but their character and desires do not exempt
them from the orderly operation of law. A succession of
physical laws must first be satisfied, in order that children
may be born to them; and other laws, in order that the
children born may live; and others, that if they live they
may be fiee fiom deformity and disease, so as to be capaIle of parental training; and others still, that they may
not be deficient in those intellectual and moral qualities the
absence of which would tend to frustrate the best parental
endeavors.
However earnest the parents may be to honor the Divine
appointments in every event dependent on their will, the
involuntary laws of nature proclaim their distinctness from
the voluntary laws, and their independence of them, by
the constancy of their operation. They know no Sabbath.
Even the day after the Adamic creation was completed,
the first Sabbath exhibited no pause nor abatement of their
universal activity. And, doubtless, on the last Sabbath
prior to the deluge, the laws of birth made many a parent
" rejoice for joy -that a man-child was born into the world."
Parental love  The virtuous parent loves and provides for
begins in instinct. his children from high moral considerations;
he is bound to do so. But parental love is, in its origin,
only an instinct belonging to the animal as well as to the
man, and is quite irrespective of moral considerations. As
distinguished from this mere impulse, parental affection begins where that of the animal terminates. It is a graft on
it; a growth of slow and steady progress, the result of
numerous influences and motives of a subsequent date.
And as the instinctive impulse is the first to appear, so it is
the last to expire. For even when every moral consideration has ceased to operate, this natural instinct will still




FAMILY CONSTITUTION.                315
inhere and evince its inextinguishable strength. But how
it can be regarded in such a case, as it often is, as a redeeming quality of human nature, it is difficult to see. Its
presence merely indicates that the man has not sunk below
the brute.
Conjugal pre-  According to the arrangement of the Dicedence. vine Creator, the man was not made for the
woman, but the woman for the man. As persons, their
rights are equal; but in the constitution of the family " the
head of the woman is the man." * He is the fountain of
domestic authority. Whatever the governing influence
exercised by the mother may be, it presupposes the prior
authority of the husband, is derived from it, and should be
supported by it.
The parts of the  Anxious as the parents may be to comhuman constitu- plete the education of the child at an early
tion  appear successively.  period, the Creator has prescribed the order
of development of the several parts of its constitution;
nor can this order be ever violated without incurring corresponding penalties. Physical nourishment and vigor lie
at the basis of the whole. However early the pruning and
training of the young tree may begin, it is supposed to be
already well set in the soil. If the " seeds have not much
earth, they may forthwith spring up, because they have no
deepness of earth; but when the sun is up, having no root,
they will wither away."
It appears to be a misconstruction of this order which
leads some to contend that, in seeking to reclaim the savage,
he must invariably be civilized before he is Christianized;
reclaimed physically before, and in order to, his being reclaimed morally. The mistake arises from confounding to* 1 Cor. xi. 3.




316        ORDER OF THE LAWS OF THE
gether the different parts of the human constitution considered as co-existent and as successively existent. In the
child they can be cultivated only as they begin physically
and successively to exist. In the adult savage, they are all
potentially present. If, indeed, he were hungry, food must
be given him before he could be expected to profit by any
moral appeals. But difficulty of obtaining food is no more
a question of barbarism than it is of civilization. He is
supposed to be simply insensible to his degraded condition,
bodily, social and moral. And experience has shown that,
as his moral condition is the worst, so in the ordinary degrees of barbarism, it is that part in which he is most accessible to appeals;* and that when once his attention is
aroused to that, he awakens to the perception of his bodily
and social degradation.
Which part to be  But nourishment is not training; and
firsttrained. though the bodily wants of the infant are the
first to be supplied, the affections are the first to be cultivated. But this primary training of the heart may, and
should be, commenced, by the very manner in which its
physical wants are attended to. "In the very exercise of
the superior faculties, the inferior are indirectly acquiring a
habit of restraint and regulation." This moral culture is
the loosening and fertilizing of the soil in prospect of the
intellectual sowing. Good habits prepare the way for good
reasoning. Such habits, all rooted in love, are the child's
ethics; and "I could almost say that ethics is the best
logic."  Now, for such moral training there is but one
period; and that begins with the earliest infancy. Then,
the child's love of its mother is religion; and its reverence
for the looks and tones of its father, morality.
* Simpson's Philosophy of Education, pp. 3, 97.




FAMILY CONSTITUTION.                 317
Order in which  Education, then, does not begin with inthe mind unfolds. struction. And with what should instruction
itself begin? This question can be answered only by determining another-what are the susceptibilities or powers
of the child which present themselves first for guidance?
Nature herself has an order, and her order must be adhered
to. The child at first simply perceives; the faculty is passive. But though it is little more than a ready recipient
of impressions from without, each impression evolves much
more from within than it communicates. And all that can
be done, at first, is to protect this process of happy and
spontaneous evolution fiom disturbance, and to regulate it
by the presence of objects few, sinple, and of a nature to
delight. Perception is followed by observation, which includes a degree of attention. The young mind directs itself to one object in preference to another. It derives more
than mere impressions from external objects; spontaneously it compares and combines them. Then follows the power
of reflection, by which the mind, revisited by thoughts of
absent objects, recognizes and revolves them. A sense of
analogy now begins to evolve; things are classed and
placed according to certain relations; and 2memory comes
into play, whose first and last want is order. The reasoning faculty, involving the power of abstraction, follows;
and imagination, employing, consecrating, and towering
above them all.-'
It is not to be supposed that these faculties make their
appearance in regular succession, as children may be required to enter a parlor according to their ages. In this
respect, nature is no martinet. Powers and susceptibilities,
* Hints on the cultivation of these powers are given in the Chapter on
Obligation.




318        ORDER OF THE LAWS OF THE
in early life, are of very unequal growth in different minds.
Education, according to the faculties, once almost entirely
neglected, has, in some modern systems, been pushed to
excess. That things should, to a certain extent, precede
words; and the pronunciation precede the spelling; that
learning by heart before the child understands is not so
sensible a plan as helping it to understand first; that the
knowing faculties precede the reflective; and that sentiment anticipates reason;-these are rough facts to be generally acted on. But the Pestalozzian system, with many
advantages, appears to me to call for an order too rigorous
and refined for general use. The great thing for the parent
or teacher to do is, to know distinctly the end he aims at in
education; to lay down a plan for its attainment; and to
be careful that his plan observes the order of nature;
neither inverting nor forestalling her laws.
Filial affection The order in which the love of the child
Filial affection
rises to the love of graduates is from the stage of instinctive love
God.
to moral affection, and from this to the love
of its heavenly Parent. Desirous as the parents may be to
lead its affections up at once to the Creator, the previous
stages of the path must first be passed through. For
awhile, the maternal care is the only Providence it knows;
and the father's experience a world of grand enterprise,
and of power unlimited. In vain it strives to climb the
height of his knowledge-his virtual omniscience; nor can
it conceive of a Diviner guarantee than his promise. To
see its parents bend in worship, and to hear them  speak
with holy awe of their Father in heaven, is itself solemn
and suggestive as a ladder set up from earth to heaven.
The wise discipline too which leads the parent kindly to repress its selfish desires, and constantly to aim at its moral




FAMILY CONSTITUTION.                319
welfare, invariably begets in return the highest order of
filial love and confidence; evincing the power of the child
to discriminate between instinctive and moral affection, and
preparing it to embrace that Heavenly Parent of whom the
earthly is but an imperfect representative. And let the
parents remark that, from the moment they begin to point
their child to God as an object of reverence and love, they
are pursuing the certain course for augmenting its moral
affection for themselves; while its intelligent love for then
is a valuable means and a pledge for its ascending to the
love of God.
The means of education are threefold;
Means of education and their or- example, authority, and reason.  The first
der         begins to produce its appropriate effect before the second is understood, and the exercise of the second prepares the way for the third. Not that there is a
definite point of time at which the first terminates, and at
which the second makes way for the third; but there is an
order observed for the commencement of each, though the
first co-exists with the second.and the second with the third.
And this order of the means by which the parent influences
the child only corresponds with the threefold capability of
the child to be influenced. Thus, answering to the involuntary effect of parental example, is the instinctive power of
infantine imitation. The authority of the parent is met on
the part of the child by a disposition to believe and obey
because it is the parent who testifies and commands. And
the reasoning of the parent is responded to by the intelligence of the child, enabling it to appreciate the grounds
which recommend and enforce the claims of truth and of
virtue, independently of parental example and authority.
Similarly, in the means of teaching, pictures precede les



320        ORDER OF THE LAWS OF THE
sons, and lesson's, logic. And, on the part of the taught,
the involuntary admiration of the first, is followed by voluntary attention to the second; and this again, by the comprehension and approval of the third.  The process becomes, at each step, increasingly subjective.
Order of social  Regarding man as a social being, it will be
development, found that his desires precede his dispositions; his inclination to appropriate, that is, exists before
his readiness to distribute. Even when he comes to distribute that which he had previously appropriated, increasing
his enjoyment by participation, present gratification precedes all regard for the future. Improvidence is one of the
last evils which disappears as social man ascends the scale
of improvement. The disposition to appropriate for the
family precedes the readiness to distribute more generally;
in other words, the proprietary or possessory feelings precede that sense of justice which prompts a man to treat
others as he expects to be treated by them. Indeed, in
every respect, the laws of relation between different families suppose the prior relations of each distinct family, just
as those again presuppose the laws of relation in the individual constitution. From which it is to be inferred that
any scheme. designed to affect and improve the character
of families must depend for success on its affecting each
member of which the little community is composed;
the change and improvement must begin with the individual.
Order, then, is itself a law. So that if the
Importan'ce of
observing that or- well-being of an individual, or of a family,
der itself is alaw. depends on obedience to laws, this law of
order must be obeyed also. Indeed, it will be found that
when men have at length come to attempt something for




FAMILY CONSTITUTION.               321
the improvement of themselves or others, the failure which
often ensues commonly arises from their disregard of the
order in which it should be done. They seem to imagine,
first, that provided something be done having a tendency
to improve, it matters little what it is; or, secondly, that
if it be important to select the right thing, the order and
the manner of doing it are quite immaterial. A discussion
on this point is, in their view, mere trifling, and argues a
want of heartiness and earnestness in the object. When
the derangement in a piece of machinery is to be remedied,
they would deem the mechanist mad who did not feel that
every thing depended on the proportion, the disposition of
parts, the relative arrangement of the whole; but when
man's disorders are to be remedied-man's, whose constitution includes all laws, physical, intellectual, social, and
moral, they are ready to deem him mad who thinks any
thing respecting the orderly application of the remedy.
They wonder, indeed, afterward at the failure. In the case
of the machinery they would deem failure, from a corresponding cause, inevitable; would patiently show that a
single error in an early part of the process becomes ten by
the close. And they forget that man is meant to be no
exception to the law of order, but its grand exemplification.
14*




CHAPTER XII.
THE SUBORDINATION IMPLIED IN THE ORDER AND WELLBEING OF THE DOM3ESTIC CONSTITUTION.
EVERY law subordinate in rank, though
The law stated.
it may have been prior in its origin, is subject
to each higher object or law of creation."  This is only
saying, in effect, that in no case are the means put in the
place of the end.
Of this law we found numerous illustrations in our consideration of individual man. We saw it, for example, in
the subordination of the kingdoms of nature to man's authority; in the subjection of his appetites to self-love; of
self-love to his affections; and of these three to his sense
of duty: while each of these were found to have its own
class of objects ranking according to its importance.
The filial yelds In the formation of the family, the relation
to the conjugal. of parent and child yields to the subsequent
relation of husband and wife. Tender and absorbing as
the connection of mother and daughter may have been, a
period arrives in which it must hold a secondary place.
Not that filial ties and duties cease in consequence of the
new relation. They remain in some respects unchanged;
nor should the marriage contract ever be so interpreted as
to violate them.* But the new relation becomes para* Wayland's Moral Science, p. 308.




FAMILY CONSTITUTION.                    323
mount, and the prior relation subordinate.* "Therefore
shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave
unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh."t  The two relations, the filial and the conjugal, are intended to exist in
the harmony of subordination.
The instinctive All the prior instincts and affections which
The instinctive
subordinated to man shares with the animal world are brought
the moral.
into the family circle to be subordinated to a
high moral end.   The laws of the domestic constitution do
not exist as a mob, but as a well-ordered hierarchy.   And
as in the individual man conscience is sovereign de jure, so
in the family a religious power is to sway the whole.   It is
an institution for the service of God. Every thing in it
exists as a means to this end. In fact and practice, indeed,
it may exist for a time, at least, for almost any end but this
-for mere sensuous and temporal purposes.      But in proof
of its supreme religious design, it is only necessary to remember that even all the subordinate ends attainable by
the family are best secured by placing the whole in homage
to the throne of religion.
Family based on  The constitution of the family is based on
subordination.  the principle of subordination.  The little
When first she wears her orange-flower....
And doubtful joys the father move,
And tears are on the mother's face,
As parting with a long embrace
She enters other realms of love;
Her office there to rear, to teach,
Becoming as is meet and fit
A link among the days, to knit
The generations each with each.
Tennyson's In Memoriam, xxxix.
t Genesis, ii. 24.




324           SUBORDINATION OF THE
society could not exist without it. The man, as husband
and father, holds all under God, and represents Him. The
woman, as wife and mother, holds all under her husband,
and represents him. By standing in a line with his authority, she presents to the eyes of the children the image
of his power invested with the light of her own love. The
children, again, hold all from their parents, to whom, for a
time, they look up to as the only objects of reverent affection they know. Obedience-the affectionate subordination of the filial will to the parental-is as essential to
the harmony and development of the child's own internal
being as to the harmony and well-being of the family; and,
for a time, it is the only image which can be given of
obedience to God. The children themselves stand in a
line of subordination. It is this which makes the family a
school of self-discipline. Here the first sacrifice of self is
made to others on the altar of love. Here restraint is first
imposed, and accepted as guidance. Here the will finds its
highest freedom in obedience, because it chooses to obey.
A family thus regulated is simply attaining its own immediate ends by subordination to the great end.
The ancient material economy has been
Nature subordinated to the super- shown to be subservient to the Divine end
natura   of the dispensation. This law received illustration in every supernatural event of that period, but preeminently in the deluge. Having already shown, in the
chapter on Continuity, that such an event was not antecedently incredible, I shall here limit myself to two remarks. First, that the subordination in question is only
in harmony with a general law. Inorganic nature had been
taken up into organic life, and mere organic life had been
given up to the uses of animal life. Man himself, made of




FAMILY CONSTITUTION.                325
the dust of the earth, is the standing miracle of nature.
Invested with universal dominion, he is constantly occupied
in subjecting every thing around him to his free-will. The
subjection, indeed, can take place only in harmony with
the nature of the things acted upon; but the ends proposed, and the directness of his action for their attainment,
are preternatural. And every instance in which man controlled and employed the elements and forces of nature to
his own free ends, was a foreshadowing of the occurrence
of a deluge, or of any other subordination of nature which
the Creator might deem conducive to the attainment of
His ends.
Secondly, the belief in the uniformity of the course of
nature yields to the appropriate evidence of Divine intervention. That nature has a course or constitution is presupposed; for, apart from  sich uniformity, no evidence
could prove such a departure from regularity as comes
under the denomination of a miracle. When, therefore,
the Divine intimation was made, by Noah, that the destruction of the world impended, the truth of the prophecy
was simply and properly a question of evidence. The objection that "all things continue as they were from the
beginning of the creation"-the objection which will be
alleged, according to St. Peter, against the prediction of
another destruction, "in the last days" —was perfectly irrelevant. It was, indeed, perfectly illogical, also untrue.
It was- illogical; for what, if the laws of the system had
never been interrupted during the whole range of human
experience, was that a demonstration that they never
would be?* But the objection is untrue; for while, on
the small scale of two or three thousand years, no grand
* Seepage 172.




326           SUBORDINATION OF THE
interference with the course of nature had taken place;
subsequent discoveries demonstrate that on the vaster
scale of thousands of cycles, many such an interference had
been repeated-that periodic change is a law of nature circumscribing the other law of intervals of regularity and
apparent repose. But the point to be here considered is,
we repeat, that the objection is irrelevant-the truth of the
prophecy requiring to be tried, not by analogical presumptions, but by the laws of evidence. Was it adequately
supported by proof?  That it could be so substantiated is
only saying that the law of testimony is itself one of the
laws of nature; and that, like any other law, it is capable
of verification; and that, if it be so verified, man is made
to believe it, whatever the subject of the evidence may be,
is only saying that the law of testimony and the law of
belief correspond with each other, both being parts of the
great system. Indeed, it is only saying that man is related
to the universe; that he has the power of believing beyond
his experience, for the same reason that he has the power
of believing at all; and, therefore, that the evidence of the
ordinary course of nature yields to the superior evidence
of the intervention of a new cause. "By faith, Noah,
being'warned of God, of things not seen as yet, moved
with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house; by
the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the
righteousness which is by faith."  His prior experience of
the regularity of nature yielded to a higher law of his own
mind, and of the Divine procedure.
The past sub- Every past period of the family economy
serves the present was meant to be subservient to every successive generation. Then, as now, every present age was
of greater importance than any past, not only numerically,




FAMILY CONSTITUTION.              327
but also as inheriting its knowledge, as occupying an
advanced post in the march of humanity, and as enjoying enlarged relations and means of influence on all the
future. Accordingly, the Law of Paradise yielded in importance to the Promise and Sacrifice of the new economy.
The first dispensation stood as a frontispiece to the second.
Each age as it arrived and passed away became the end of
the one preceding, and a means in relation to the next. In
this sense it is that the antiquity of the world is its childhood. The relations and obligations of each succeeding
family and generation surpassed in number and importance
those of every previous period. So that the age cotemporary with Noah ought to have inherited more of every
element of progress from the age immediately prior than
from any other, as well as to have communicated more to
posterity.




CHAPTER XIII.
THE LAW OF INFLUENCE IMPLIED IN THE ORDER, -WrELL-BEING,
AND DESIGN OF THE FAMILY CONSTITUTION.
Law o.   THE law of influence may be thus expressed:
Law of influence.
every thing in the family sustains a relation,
and possesses a right, il the great system of means, according to its power of subserving the end; or every thing
brings in and with it, in its own capability of subserving
the end, a reason why all other things should be influenced
by it, the degree in which they should be influenced, and
the degree in which it, in its turn, should be influenced by
every thing else. For if every created thing necessarily
expresses some property of the Divine nature; if it possesses that resemblance on the condition of manifesting it
in subserviency to the great end, and is placed in a system
of relations in order that it might be able to make the
manifestation, then every thing in the family will sustain
an active and a passive relation, or will have a right to influence every thing of inferior, and a susceptibility of being
influenced by every thing of superior, subserviency to the
great end.
In the conjugal  In the pre-existing kingdoms of nature,
union.  and in the human constitution, this law universally prevails.*  The family may be expected, on the
* Man Primeval, c. ix. pp. 242, 243.




FAMILY CONSTITUTION.                329
ground stated, to illustrate it still further. Accordinglybeginning with its internal relations-" marriage is a contract between a man and a woman by which each receives
a right in the person of the other, which right is conferred
for their mutual happiness, and for the production and education of children," * in subserviency to the ultimate end
of creation. Every violation of the law of chastity, on
the part of the husband, is an infringement of the right of
the wife, and vice vers&.
Supremacy of  On the ground of this law it is that the
the husband.  husband is made the head of the wife, and
of the domestic society. It is a Divine arrangement which
recognizes, not, indeed, any abstract superiority of nature,
but the fact that he possesses certain qualities and facilities
for his office which the wife does not possess. He has a
right, therefore, to expect her affectionate submission and
obedience as a wife. On the other hand, she has a right to
expect that he will not use his authority unjustly or unkindly, but purely for the good of the family constitution;
that her yielding shall be rewarded with love, and with the
recognition of that element of superior virtue which it
includes, and which the exercise of authority does not include; and that it be not expected to extend to the sacrifice of any of those moral relations and obligations which
render her a person, and which give her the rights of a
person. In a word, she has a right to all the influence
necessary to the well-being of the domestic constitution;
and this is second only to that of the husband. How wise
and benevolent is that arrangement by which his exercise
of authority, and her subordination, become an occasion
for the love, the improvement, and the happiness of each;
* Lectures on Paley, for the Use of Students in the University, ~ 4.




330        LAW   OF INFLUENCE IN THIE
and by which her weakness and exposure find protection
and respect in the very law which might have been made
the means of her oppression and degradation. Her affectionate subordination alone can secure her rights; and
these alone can secure her from degradation and wrong.
The rights of  The rights of the parent;-these, of course,
parents.  are commensurate with his obligations. If
he be under obligation to train up his children in such a
manner as to secure their own happiness, the good of
society, and the end of existence, he has a right to employ
all the means requisite for the attainment of this end.
Nor is any individual or society entitled to interfere with
his rights, provided he restrict himself to these limits.
When speaking of the parent's obligations, we saw that
he is bound to discharge his duties in a manner suited to
the advancing character of his child. He has a right,
therefore, to vary his method of training the child, for the
same reason that he is invested with any parental rights at
all. During its infancy, his authority over it is absolute.
As it advances in knowledge, and reason, and in moral
qualities, he has a right to relax the reins of authority, and
to commit it more and more to its own self-government.
And in proportion as he discharges his duty from a regard
to the will of God, he has a right to expect the love, obedience, and reverence of his child. Indeed, if the parent
were to train up his child, in every respect, in the way that
he should go, he would have a right to expect that when
he became old he would not depart from it. Accordingly,
the declaration of Scripture to this effect is not a temporary promise, but a statement of one of the great laws of
the family constitution. And thus it admirably comes to
pass, that the very point of time at which the ever-dimin



FAMILY CONSTITUTION.                331
ishing rights of the parent to control his child has reached
its minimum is the moment when the child passes over into
the hands of God, and becomes, by the habits of virtue in
which he has been trained, a free and an obedient subject
of the Divine Government.
In the power of  Further, it may be expected that if the
the various kindsvarous means which the parents employ are
of parental infl- various  eans which the paents employ are
ence.        not of precisely equal value, each will bring
in it, and with it, in its own capability of subserving th\
end, a reason why and in what degree it shall influence,
and be influenced in return. Accordingly, if the means by
which youthful character is influenced and formed be authority, reason, example, and prayer, it will be found that
mere authority exercises the lowest degree of influence in
this respect-that reason, as it comes from a deeper source
in human nature, being the addition of the intellect to the
will, so it goes deeper into the nature of the child, carrying along with it his judgment or rational powers-that
example penetrates deeper still,* for besides the will and
the intellect, it includes the practice, implying that the
authority of conscience is superadded, and thus enlisting
on his side the moral affection, admiration, and sympathy,
of the child; while prayer-besides presupposing that the
will, the intellect, and the conscience are already engaged,
and are manifesting themselves in authority, reason, and
example-evinces his high and holy determination to call
in a power beyond his own, to enlist on his side an agency
which has access to all the springs and principles of human
nature, and thus to engage the youthful character to seek
its formation in the hand of God. Now, all this the parent has a right to expect;-for it is only saying, that if he' Hence the Latin proverb, Precepta ducunt, at exempla trahunt.




332         LAW   OF INFLUENCE IN THE
is held responsible for the attainment of a certain end, he
is entitled to expect that the means with which he is intrusted
will prove successful in proportion as he employs them.
The inferio in-  As every thing brings in it, and with it, in
fluences the supe- its own capability of subserving the end, a
Tior.
reason why all other things should be influenced by it, and the degree in which they should be influenced, so it may be expected that the right reception of
parental influence on the part of the children would react
beneficially on the character of the parent. For as " there
is nothing so little which in its kind is not endowed with
some reality which the beings of a more exalted constitution do not possess so precisely, or in the same manner,
and upon the same account, therefore, the least things
strive to imprint upon the greatest their realities-and signature; because, little as they are, they still represent God
as good and communicative." * And nowhere is the law
more strongly illustrated than in the reaction of children
on the character of their parents. The cedar-wood sheds
its fiagrance on the hand which carves it. True, the child
may act involuntarily on the parent, while the influence of
the parent is, to a considerable extent, exercised intelligently and with design. But not the less true is it that
the parent is benefited; the helplessness of the child appealing to his tenderness, its obedience tending to prevent
an abuse of the authority obeyed, its implied faith operating as a salutary check on his testimony, its efforts to understand improving his own powers of reasoning, its imitation of his example rendering him at once more affectionate and more circumspect, and its opening piety proving
both the reward and incentive of his piety.
* Pierre Poiret's Economie Divine, ou Systeme Universel, vol. i. c. 7.




FAMILY CONSTITUTION.                 333
The famil a So that, by the operation of this law, the
school of excel- family is constituted a school of excellence in
lence.
lence.    which, by the constant action and reaction of
each upon all, every member is constantly making progress.
The child, indeed, is the party chiefly benefited. "The
process is in itself most useful; it is a good thing to doubt
our own wisdom, it is a good thing to believe, it is a good
thing to admire.   By continually looking upward, our
minds themselves grow upward; and as a man by indulging
in habits of scorn and contempt for others, is sure to descend to the level of what he despises, so the opposite
habits of admiration and enthusiastic reverence for excellence impart to ourselves a portion of the qualities which
we admire."*   And in this way the child is constantly
drawn upward by the strong attraction of superior excellence. But by the operation of the same law, the parent
is benefited, and thus reaps the fruit of which he himself
had sown the seed; and by the attainment of greater excellence, becomes fitted for still greater usefulness.
hat the child  The rights of children are commensurate
hasa rightto, edu- with the nature and obligation of children.
cationally. 
To say that they relate to maintenance and
to the just exercise of parental authority, seems inadequate
to the subject. For if every person brings with him a
right according to his power of subserving the great end
of existence, it follows that the child has a right to all the
means possessed by the parent for the full development of
every part of his nature, physical, social, intellectual, and
moral; inasmuch as he possesses naturally the same power
for subserving the great end which his parent, or any other
human being, does, and is under obligation to that effect.
* From a Preface by Dr. Arnold, to the " Poetry of Common Life."




334         LAW   OF INFLUENCE IN THE
If he has a right to the means, it follows of course that he
lias a right to the time necessary for their due employment;
and a right to expect, therefore, that his parents will not
give that time to other objects, innocent in themselves,
which is necessary for his education and well-being. On
the same ground, the child has a right to follow the dictates of conscience as soon as it becomes capable of delibelate decision. To develop this capability is the very end
of parental training, for it is only in proportion as he attains
it that he can answer the end of his own existence, or that
of the family constitution; to interfere with it, therefore,
in any other way than by aiming to supply him with further
instruction, is to defeat the very end of education and of
existence. Now, all these rights are essential to the wellbeing of the family, and to the end of its existence.
hts eternl  If every one sustains a relation, and posto the family. sesses a right, in the great system of means,
according to his power of subserving the end, it follows
that the rights of every man are equal, for every man possesses the same constitution for the very purpose of answering that end. Inequality of condition is not the point at
issue. The question is, whether one man has not the same
right to use his inferior strength, if he can use it justly,
which another man has to employ his superior strength.
If he have not, it can be owing only to its inferiority, and
then the question of universal right becomes one of physical
might, and earth a scene of muscular conflict. From the
mere absurdity of the converse, then, it follows that the
relation of every man to every other is that of an equality
of right, and this alone can place him on a common basis
of responsibility in reference to the great end.
According to the operation of this law, therefore, every




FAMILY CONSTITUTION.                 335
man has a right to enter into the marriage relation, provided he contracts it in a manner which does not interfere
with the right of any other man. For as the great process
of individual happiness, social well-being, and Divine manifestation, is made dependent on the family constitution, he,
as a member of the human family, has an equal right with
every other member on the condition supposed, to enter
into the relations of the family, in order to the attainment
of these ends.
If every man has a right, in relation to his
Family rights. 
fellows, to live for the same end as every
other man, he has an equal right with them  to the means.
And for the same reason that every individual man possesses
this right, every family possesses it also. Whatever means
its members can acquire by labor, or purchase by wealth,
or attain by superior knowledge or virtue, without any infringement of the rights of others, belong to them for the
same reason that existence belongs to them; for it is only
by the recognition of this right that the end of existence
can be answered. For the same reason, they have a right
to do all the good they can to the members of other families, provided they seek their advantage without any violation of their rights, or of the rights of any other parties;
for it is only in this way that, besides answering the end of
their own existence, they can enable others to do the same,
and thus carry on the great process.
The best family It is easy to see how, by the operation of
the most influen- this law, the best family would come to exertial.
tial.     cise the greatest amount of moral influence
over other well-ordered families. By strictly observing the
law of reciprocity-or respecting the rights of others-it
would come to be honored by others for its high sense of




336         LAW  OF INFLUENCE IN THE
justice. And if to these duties of perfect obligation, it
added those of imperfect obligation, or lived in the exercise of true benevolence-regarding itself only as a channel
of good to others-it would be honored still more. Even
the irreligious, while hating it with one part of their nature,
would tacitly approve and applaud it with another. The
approach which it would make to the character and conduct of the Divine Being would invest it with a measure of
Divine influence. By the very superiority of its excellence,
it would contain within itself a reason why all other families
should be influenced by it, and assimilated to it. And then
it would evince its high subserviency to answer the great
end of the domestic constitution, by drawing other families
within the attraction of its influence, and rendering them
capable of subserving it also. The unobstructed operation
of this law is essential, then, in order that God may not be
defrauded of His right, or may behold the manifestation of
his all-sufficiency to the utmost degree to which the domestic economy is capable of exhibiting it.
The great dis  Accordingly, itwas in harmony with this
tinction of antedi- law that the Divine distinctions of the anteluvian times.
viantimes.  diluvian Patriarchy were awarded. The rejection of Cain and the acceptance of Abel was a rehearsal,
in the morning of time, of the final judgment.  " This
(says F. von Schlegel) is the leading subject of primitive
history-the struggle between two races-the first great
event in universal history. This original contest and opposition among men, according to the twofold direction of the
will-a will conformable to that of God, and a will carnal,
ambitious, and enslaved to nature-often recurs, though on
a lesser scale, in later history; or at least we can perceive
something like a feeble reflection, or a distant echo of this




FAMILY CONSTITUTION.                 337
primal discord." *  It commenced the grand classification
of mankind; and implied that all other distinctions are to
be merged in the two great classes of the obedient and the
disobedient. In passing by all inferior piety, and assigning
to Enoch the new honor of translation, it was implied that
piety itself admits of distribution, or forms a hierarchy;
and that its highest awards are reserved for the highest order. While, in the person of Noah, distinguished excellence was crowned by the Divine hand for all after time.
Character calculated to exercise the greatest influence on
earth, was proved to exercise it in heaven, by the signal
manner in which it was reinforced from thence. To him
that hath shall be given. The owner of the ten talents is
he who is made the ruler of ten cities.
* The Philosophy of History, vol. i. ~ 2.
15




CHAPTER XIV.
DEPENDENCE OF THE FAMILY CONSTITUTION, AND OF THE
REMEDIAL SYSTEM WVIIICH UNDERLIES IT, ON THE GOOD
PLEASURE OF GOD.
Law of depend-  IN a preceding chapter we have glanced at
ence.   certain respects in which family well-being
was dependent on man himself-on his obedience to law;
in this, we shall specify certain facts in which the constitution of the family was entirely dependent on the will of
God. Corresponding facts, already considered in the Treatises on nature and on individual man, are of course brought
on into the family economy. Here, others are added to
them; thus enlarging the domain of contingent truthtruth ascertainable only by observation and experience, and
multiplying our illustrations of the Divine sovereignty.
By this sovereignty we understand choice in opposition to
caprice. For, doubtless, the Divine decision is regulated
by reasons worthy of his infinite wisdom; and, as such, it
is equally removed from caprice on the one hand, and from
a blind necessity on the other.
In the relation  One of the first facts to strike us, as eviof the sexes.  dence of design, in looking at the family constitution, is those relative characteristics of the sexes, by
which two beings-each a distinct, complete, and independ



FAMILY CONSTITUTION.               339
ent person-become the complement of each other, and
mutually necessary to social progress. The diversity of relations observable between the sexes of the other species,
shows that the Divine Creator has resorted to no one plan
from necessity; that he has chosen a special plan for each
of his special purposes; and when but a few only of the
social and moral advantages arising from His human arrangements are thought of, we can not but feel that "He is
wonderful in counsel, and excellent in working." *
In the mode of  How shall the human race be perpetucontinuingthespe- ated? The first three human beings were
cies.
each produced in a different manner. In the
fable of Deucalion and Pyrrha,t it is suggested that each
sex might have evolved a descendant like itself, and by
means little dependent on its own resources. In the vegetable and animal world, the modes of reproduction are di.
versified without end. The human method (though common
to all the species of its own class) is obviously of Divine
selection and appointment. Antecedently, no method could
have been imagined, which was not attended with disadvantages apparently insurmountable. In the existing arrangement, no human science can explain how it is that
both sexes can proceed from  the same maternal parent.
One thing is certain, that the arrangement chosen secures
effects the most precious to human welfare; many of which
must have been lost by the adoption of any other method.
In the numerical  Equally remarkable is the numerical proproportion of the portion of the sexes. The highest interests
sexes.
are dependent on the preservation of this
proportion; myriads of incidents are necessary to this
preservation; these incidents have gone on multiplying
* Isaiah, xxviii. 29.        t Apoll. 1. i. p. 23.




340            DEPENDENCE OF THE
with every age; but still the proportion remains. As if to
make its preservation still more difficult, the structure and
offices of the sexes differ, and death removes each, at every
various period of their earthly course; and yet the proportion continues. It is found, even, that the mortality of
males exceeds that of females; but the average equality is
maintained unaltered, for the difference of births is in favor
of the male sex. In this constant maintenance of a particular proportion, amid fluctuations untraceable by human science, we hear Providence reporting its appointments
and presence.
e p   p-  The present arrangement provides for the
The possible pro-             _ 
gress of the race progress of the race from age to age. The
provided for.
instincts, and habits, and capabilities of all
the inferior animals are stationary within certain limits.
The readiness of men to complain of the law by which children inherit parental deficiencies and their consequences,
denotes the antecedent likelihood that they would have
preferred a constitution analogous, in this respect, to that
of higher animals. But, supposing the law of hereditary
transmission abrogated, the improvement of the race, by
human means, would be arrested. The improvement of any
given generation would be limited to itself, and must die
with it. But by arranging that the parent who has obeyed
physical, intellectual, and moral laws, shall transmit certain
qualities to his child, favorable to its development in the
same respects, provision is made for the progress of the
human family, not merely by the transmission of everaccumulating stores of knowledge, but by the constitutional improvement of the individual.
Striking and unique is that arrangement by which the
human offspring are retained for so long a period in a




FAMILY CONSTITUTION.                341
state of susceptibility and of dependence on
The long reten-                               sa ep * -
tion of the child parental care. The poet of ancient skeptiin the parental cisim sang of this long period of infantine dehand. 
pendence as a state of supposed inferiority
to the young of the brute creation. The Theban fable pictured men as starting full-formed from the dragon's teeth
which Cadmus had sown. Our first parents actually commenced life with this fullness of power. The animal speedily attains maturity, and becomes independent of parental
care.  There was, then, no inherent necessity why the
young of the human parent should remain so many years a
babe, a child, and immature. Had the period of its dependence, however, been only as long as the brood remains
with the parent bird, the endearing names of father and
mother would have been empty sounds; little opportunity
would have been afforded to them for the formation of its
character; and one of the most pleasing illustrations of
providential appointments would have been lost.
Choice ofthere-  Equally dependent on the sovereign will
gion for antedilu- of God were the external relations of the
vian man.
family. In the preceding treatise, we saw
that the earth was a specific place for a specific race; so
that a very slight change in our constitution would render
us unfit for it, and a slender change in its laws would make
it unsuitable for us. But, besides this general adaptation, the
Divine will must have selected the particular region of the
earth to be occupied by antediluvian man.. Indeed, the
choice of the locality of Eden determined, in a general
manner, the district which would come to be gradually occupied; for Eden would be, most likely, its center. And the
character of this entire region, as to the distribution of its
land and water, its hills, valleys, and plains, and every thing




342            DEPENDENCE OF THE
included in its physical geography would he selected with a
direct reference to the right development of the fahnily
constitution; just as the books, and exercise, and toys of
the child are selected by a wise father with a studied reference to its education. At the moment when our first parents came forth to take possession of that first theater of
human development, all its physical susceptibilities and influences, when brought into contact with the human mind,
were divinely foreseen and determined; as well as all the
changes of which they would admit from age to age. For
example; if, as is probable, the vine was one of its fruittrees, it was there by the Divine planting, as truly as the
tree of the knowledge of good and evil was in Eden, or as
the timber-trees of which the ark was built. And equally
was it the will of God that, if the vine was cultivated, its
fruit should be pleasant to the taste; and that, if taken to
excess, it should intoxicate. While, the very fact that intemperance was attended with inebriety, was the mode by
which the Creator indicated His will that it should not be
so employed; leaving it contingent on the will of man,
however, whether it should be thus abused or not. Equally
dependent on the will of God was it to determine both the
susceptibilities of man to external influences, and the character of the scenery, climate, and fertility of the regions
destined to act on man's susceptibilities; but, at the same
time, it was equally dependent on the will of man, as long
as there was -room for him to change his locality, in what
particular district he should reside. So also the kind and
the limit of the knowledge which it was possible for the
antediluvians to acquire, as far as it depended on external
nature, was regulated by the Divine predetermination.
True it is that, even within those limits, the means of hu



FAMILY CONSTITUTION.                 343
man knowledge was inexhaustible.     But, still, the restriction was special; and, evidently, an object of Divine
choice.
Still more dependent on the will of God
Instinctive cooperation of fam- would antediluvian man perceive his condiilies.    tion to be, if it should appear at any given
period that, without any foresight of his, all the cotemporaneous families were in a state of mutual dependence and
co-operation. He could hardly practice on himself the selfdeception of man in later times, and suppose that society,
such as he found it, was the result of human sagacity and
design. He lived too near the origin of society to indulge
in such dreams. Besides which, the earth was gradually
"filling with violence;" threatening to burst the natural
bonds of society; so that the strength of the family instincts was the last hope of the community. It was impossible, therefore, to remark, not only that those natural ties
held out against all the disorganizing forces which essayed
to burst them asunder, but that, even in the worst times,
they continued to produce much social enjoyment, and
that they only needed to be revered in order to convert
the entire population into a happy family, without feeling
that it was a provision resolvable into the Divine choice.
milies united  Nor was the chain of dependence which
Families united
in generations. linked the families of one generation to the
generations following less obviously in the hand of God.
There was a sense in which the number of families forming
each generation, and the number of members in each family, as well as the amount of responsibility and influence
transmitted from age to age, were subject to the Divine appointment; for they could be neither more nor less than
were consistent with the attainment of the end for which the




344             DEPENDENCE OF THE
dispensation was continued. But while the maximum and
minimum of these conditions were thus subject to the will
of God, within these limits there was ample scope for the
fieee agency of man to move at large and unrestrained; so
that the last generation would feel as conscious of freedom
as the first.
an's recovery  If man, having virtually denied his dependMan's recovery      v
directfromGod. ence on God, and having incurred the penalty of this breach of the primary law of his nature, should
yet receive the offer of deliverance from that penalty, this,
one might suppose, would render the sense of his dependence perpetual.  Now   such was actually his position.
When, as a transgressor, he had nothing to look for from
the equity of the moral governor, the rich mercy of the
sovereign interposed, in a manner consistent with that
equity, the means of his recovery. As his sin had consisted
in the self-willed assertion of his own sufficiency, the new
duties prescribed to him were specially adapted to impress
him with a sense of his dependence. At the altar of sacrifice, every thing he had alienated from God was symbolically brought back. He was there reminded that he was
indebted to God not only for the animal he sacrificed, but
also for the continuance of his own life, which he then virtually surrendered. The promise of a Deliverer, by appealing to his voluntary belief, respected his freedom as a
moral being; while, by referring its fulfillment to a future
period, it kept him in a state of disciplinary dependence.
Both the promise and the sacrifice proclaimed that henceforth he would be as dependent on God for well-being as
he was at first for the gift of being itself. Drawing near
to God, as the priest of his family, the very act memorialized him that he was indebted to benevolence both for the




FAMILY CONSTITUTION.              345
existence of his family relations and for the possibility of
their happy existence. The worshiping family of a late
period could not look back along the line of its pious ancestry without marking its dependence on the Sovereign
Author of the family constitution, through which had been
transmitted, from generation to generation, that sacred
knowledge and influence of which it was then reaping the
advantage. How marked, too, was the dependence of the
faithful on the will of God, for the unexpected additions
which were made from time to time to their inspired
knowledge, by direct Divine communications; as well as by
his seasonable interpositions for their security and wellbeing! And how emphatically was the dependence of the
ungodly world on the long-suffering of God proclaimed, by
that closing intimation that it was reprieved for a hundred
and twenty years! During the hours and moments of that
period, it depended, not merely from the throne of God,
but over the gulf of perdition
In these several respects, the Patriarchal
And of a nature
to teach depend- constitution, viewed in its multiplied relaence.    tions, internal and external, presented at any
given period an aspect of dependence on God.  Every
thing around it bore marks of " the good pleasure of His
will." Nothing was left indifferent and at large. Within
the domestic circle, the wife and husband were dependent,
in unnumbered respects, on each other; and the children
were dependent on both, in a manner meant to serve as a
perpetual memorial of the dependence of the whole upon
God. They could not go forth without encountering memorials that God had written command or prohibition on
every object of nature.  Sights and sounds, tastes and
places, were but so many tests of obedience. The rights
15*




346        THE FAMILY CONSTITUTION.
of every other family taught them that their own rights
had limits; that an adjustment even of human wills was
essential to the general well-being; much more the harmony of the whole with the Supreme will. But at the altar of sacrifice the supremacy of the Divine will was recognized in the most intimate and affecting manner. Move
wherever else they might, every thing was constructed to
remind them that they were in the midst of a God-willed
system; but, there, they came not merely to acknowledge
this sovereignty, but to entreat that by the exercise of it
He would, in a manner consistent with equity, forgive them
for having violated His will; and would restore them to
harmony with Himself again.
Now, first, the law of primogeniture-so
Primogeniture.
often afterward set aside by the Divine
choice of a younger son-was disparaged in the rejection
of the first-born, Cain. The adoption of Abel and of Seth
in his stead was the Divine inauguration of character to the
highest distinctions in the kingdom of God.
The change in the duration of human life
Longevity.
which took place after the flood, shows that
antediluvian longevity was, directly or indirectly, determined by Divine appointment.
Period of the  The same " good pleasure," too, which
deluge.  selected the period for the commencement
of the economy, was heard announcing the moment of its
close. And as often as the patriarch appointed to build the
ark looked around on his ungodly cotemporaries, how
deeply would he feel their obligation to the Divine forbearance, as well as that his own sublime vocation was
simply because he had "found grace in the eyes of the
Lord." *
* Gen vi. 8,




CHAPTER XV.
ULTIMATE FACTS AND NECESSARY TRUTH INVOLVED IN
DEPENDENCE OF THE DOMIESTIC CONSTITUTION.
Evil of disregard-  THE contingent points to the ultimate and
ing the ultimate the necessary. If the family be so directly
character of facts.
dependent on the will of God, as we have
shown it to be, we may expect to find that its constitution
discloses certain points at which it merges in that will.
Partial explanations of some of its phenomena may be possible; but, having ascended two or three steps in our
geennralization, we come to a fact which contains no explanation of itself, and of which we can conceive nothing
anterior, except a Divine appointment to that effect. A
torpid disregard to the ultimate character of such facts, and
of the originating and upholding Hand which lay behind,
will account for much of the ungodliness of antediluvian
times. A disposition to look only at the facts themselves,
and to ascribe them to inherent forces, or to view them as
self-contained and self-sufficient, characterizes much of the
so-called philosophy of the present day.*
Love, the ulti The great ultimate fact of the family conLove, the ultimate fact of the stitution is love. This is at once the centrifamily.      petal and the centrifugal force by which all the
* Man Primeval, c. xv. pp. 312-315.




348          ULTIMATE FACTS OF THE
bodies of the domestic heaven are both held together in a
system, and yet kept in activity and diffusion. But what
is love? It beat in the first bosom, and was the earliest
inspiration of poetry; the subtlest philosophy has analyzed
it; age after age has celebrated it with ardor ever fresh;
all apprehend it; but none can explain it. We may be
told that love is an affection of the mind, excited by the
perception of qualities, real or imaginary, calculated to delight. But this only and vaguely describes the nature of
the occasion which awakens it. Advancing a step further,
love may be represented as a compound emotion, including
a vivid delight in its objeet, and a desire of good to that
object. But the latter of these two elements is the result
of the former; and the former is, not love itself, but only its
concomitant. It is happiness to love; but in the order of
nature, the act of loving must precede the pleasure we experience as flowing from it. We may be told, moreover,
that love is modified according to the objects which it embraces. But who would think of describing the difference
between the scent of the rose and the violet to one who
had no sense of smell? and the fact that the modifications
of love are distinguishable, not by any description of the
variety of the feelings themselves, but by such distinctive
phrases as conjugal love, parental love, and filial love,
shows that the emotion of love is an original property of
the mind, and as such, admits of no formal definition. The
meaning of love must spontaneously arise in the mind, and
the emotion itself be consciously felt, or no definition can
ever originate it. Hence, he is the most popular and instructive writer on the subject, who, instead of attempting
to define the indefinable, assumes the presence of the susceptibility in the general human heart, and proceeds to




FAMILY CONSTITUTION.                 349
paint its manifestations. These are always and every where.
The great genealogical tree of humanity, blossoming and
bearing fruit in every age, has its root in love; but that
love itself has its root in Heaven.
The idea of the family itself embodies
The famlnily a collection of ultimate and expounds itself in a number of ultifacts.
mate facts. The relation of the sexes in
the human kind has much in it that is special and unique.
The conditions by which its social and moral improvement
is secured are selected and distinctive.*  The relations,
conjugal, parental, and filial, which bind the family together, are of Divine institution. The advantages flowing
from these relations-division of labor, reciprocal aid, and
mutual sympathy-were all chosen and foreseen by a higher
providence than man's. It is a common error, indeed, to
ascribe to human forecast that which can have arisen only
from Divine appointment. When certain social phenomena
are developed, men are apt to conclude that, because they
can trace them to certain principles, they have fully accounted for them. But whence the principles? -3arriage,
the root-principle of the family life, is implanted in humanity. Its advantages, intellectual, social, and religious, must
have been seen before they could be calculated on. Man
was moving toward the final ends of marriage, long before
he could have been fully aware of them. When he found
himself surrounded by them, reflection began to enumerate, classify, admire, and calculate on them. But as far as
he has experimented on the family life, he has impaired its
value, and even vainly threatened it with dissolution.
Ultimate factsof  In the corresponding chapter of the prethemind.  ceding treatise, we replied to the question,
* See the preceding chapter.




350          ULTIMATE FACTS OF THE
What is mind? And we saw that matter is only the condition and means of its manifestation. With the family
these mental manifestations began to exhibit an everenlarging variety and diversity. And the same train of
remark which led us to the conclusion that mind is a distinct entity, warrants the conviction that peculiar mental
differences are original; distinct from all properties of a
physiological character. Every separate mind is an ultimate fact, distinct from all similar tfcts, however much it
may be dependent on them and influenced by them. This
inWuence also of mind on mind, is itself a profound miystery. How shall a mind inclosed in matter gain access to
another mind similarly inclosed, so as to mold and form it?
Antecedently to experience, this might have been propounded as an insoluble problem. But even experience
supplies only a practical solution. We know, as a fact,
that mind affects mind, and can specify many of the means
and results; but the modus of such spiritual action, as well
as of the coalescence of one will with another without any
loss of fieedom, is known to the Father of Spirits alone.
Mans know-  The kind and degree of man's knowlMan's knowledge of God spec- edge of the Divine character and will could
ial and dependent.
be resolved only into " the good pleasure of
God."  Man's knowledge of every kind, indeed, was thus
special and dependent.* The number and function of the
senses and organs by which he should reach the external
world; what they should find there when they had reached
it; together with the laws of thought and feeling by which
he, the subject, should interpret such external objects; all
that should enter into his constitution, and all that should
be present in nature to meet it, were things which fell
* Man Primeval, c. iv. p. 300, etc.




FAMILY CONSTITUTION.                351
within the Creative choice. But when man, endowed with
a corresponding power of choice, in order that, in this
highest respect, he might resemble and move in a line with
his Maker, chose to exercise that power for the very opposite end, his continuance and recovery were facts resolvable only into the sovereign will of God. Why was he
spared? Why did he call upon God in prayer? Why
was he found at the altar of sacrifice? Why did he cherish the hope of a Deliverer?  He could only reply that
God had so willed. From the moment of man's transgression, the Divine Being might, hypothetically speaking,
have so withdrawn as to leave man's heart empty of hope,
and the universe empty of every spiritual object calculated
to enkindle hope. But his hope, his prayer, and his sacrifice, were only the human exponents and reflections of certain Divine facts-that he had heard God's voice in tones
of compassion, had caught a glimpse of His throne as a
throne of mercy, and had seen His face looking for reconciliation. These, for him, were ultimate facts. At the
altar the human will coalesced with the Divine will. In
prayer he left all media behind, allowed nothing to come
between him and God, placed himself in intimate contact
and communication with Him. While, by reposing on the
great promise, he passed over, with all his most precious
interests, into the Divine purpose, identifying himself with
it for all the future.
Faith; the fa-  Reminding us of that principle of faith
Faith; the fame
il~ favorable to its which is an ultimate fact of the human condevclopment.  stitution, and for the development of which
the family is peculiarly favorable. When the human infant
comes into the world, it resembles a temple on the day of
its opening. Ten thousand objects are waiting and eager to




352          ULTIMATE FACTS OF THE
enter, but the doors must first be thrown open. One after
another they unfold, and in crowd the throngs. Day after
day they repeat their visit, with multitudes of new faces
added to them. At first, all are admitted without question,
pass-word, or hinderance. In full faith, the soul is laid open,
and the streams flow through it. After awhile, a higher
order of applicants press for admission; and the young human being begins to look around for authority. Proof is,
as yet, out of the question; the highest proof is authority,
and the highest authority the parental. The example of
his parents guarantees alike his belief and his conduct.
His trust in them becomes obedience to their injunctions;
and a sense of duty takes root. And as he perceives the
same sense influencing their own conduct, and that of all
around; and as he feels it blend mysteriously with certain
vague and solemn intimations within him, he is gradually
prepared to hear of a higher and a holier authority than
that of his parents-One in whom they themselves are
already confiding. With increase of age, comes the exercise of his own judgment and the demand for evidence to
warrant his faith. He does not so much doubt as discriminate. He withholds his confidence from the wrong object,
only that he may give it without reserve td the right.
Every thing coming from God-when once ascertained to
have come from Him-is welcomed as an angel, and trusted
as an oracle.?" Faith, then, overcometh the world." By
faith Abel sacrifices as if no Cain stood by to disparage his
offering. By faith Enoch walks with God, and is translated,
as if all the world kept him company. By faith Noah,
being warned of God, prepares an ark, as confidently as if
all heaven had been present to aid him.
But what is faith? An analysis of its nature belongs to




FAMILY CONSTITUTION.                353
a subsequent place in this series. At present, we have only
to do with the fact that, whether its nature be regarded as
intellectual, as emotional, or as both combined, it is a constituent and ultimate function of the human mind. Authority, evidence, trustworthiness, excellence of the highest
order-these only appeal to our confidence. Instead of
creating faith, they presuppose and seek to awaken and
engage it. In the family it is elicited, cherished, and
trained by a thousand selected objects; clasping each like
the infant arms thrown around the maternal neck. Society is based on it, and cemented by it; so that the same
antediluvian population which discredited the coming deluge on the alleged ground of insufficient evidence, were
yet lavishing their confidence, in secular matters, on the
slenderest testimony. The human character can not rise to
its true altitude, nor bear its noblest fruits, except as its
faith embraces God. This consecrates the entire temple,
and fills it with worship. Faith, in its highest form, is the
repose alike of the intellect and of the affections.
From these ultimate facts we ascend to the
Necessary truths.
necessary truths on which they repose, and
in which they have their ground; from the contingent expressions of the Divine will to the Infinite nature of which
that will itself is the expression. Considered as mere phenomena, the existence of all the objects and events in the
created universe is entirely contingent on the sovereign
will of God. Those of them which must be regarded as
ultimate facts are contingently necessary; necessary on the
supposition of the phenomena being called into existence,
but only on that supposition-while these ultimate facts
themselves presuppose truths, or principles, which are
purely and absolutely necessary.*
* Man Primeval, c. xvi




354        NECESSARY FRUITS OF THE
Essentialdistinc-  e have spoken of love as the ultimate
Essential distinction between love fact of the family constitution; a fact which
and hatred.
presupposes not merely the inherent excellence of love, but the necessary and eternal distinction between it and hatred. The two can not be commuted.
But the existence of the distinction depends not on the
ability of any created being to conceive of it. From eternity it had existed, in the only mode in which a truth can
be said to be eternal, in the Eternal Mind; and, like the
Supreme Intelligence, it is indestructible and unchangeable.
Accordingly, it may be remarked, in passing, that in the
economy of the family was seen the first beaming of a
truth which went on receiving illustration, and filling our
horizon with light, till it was announced in the sublime
aphorism, " God is Love."
Obligtions aris- The obligations of the family economy rest
ing from relations on the same background of necessary truth.
necessary.  The relations which bind the family together
-conjugal, parental, and filial-are contingent on the good
pleasure of him who made us. But having constituted the
relations, he could not but require the conduct appropriate
to them. He was under no obligation to set up the family
constitution; but, having done so, it was no longer optional
whether or not he should enjoin the resulting duties. "He
can not deny himself." * " Children obey your parents in
the Lord, for this is right;" f right, whether verbally enjoined or not, inherently and essentially right. There is a
harmony between the relations and the duties, not depending on our perception of it-that would make our perceptions the rule if not the ground of obligation-but perceived by the perfect intellect of God himself, a harmony
* 2 Tim. ii. 13.             f Eph. vi. 1.




FAMILY CONSTITUTION.                355
not depending on any outward realization, but having an a
priori existence of its own. Having been pleased, however, to constitute the relations, He can not but call for the
dispositions and conduct which harmonize with them.
There is no branch of human knowledge or
Man acts on beliefs before he ac- activity, which, if generalized to the utmost,
counts for them.
does not bring us into the presence of some
fundamental and necessary truth. The laws of forces, as
exhibited in the material universe, rest on the conception
of causation or power. The subject of government leads
directly to the primary idea of right or justice. All aesthetic creations presuppose an archetype of order, harmony, fitness, and beauty; point to the idea of perfection.
As we know not, however, how far such ideas had worked
themselves clear in the human mind prior to the flood;
and as we know little even of man's conduct in relation to
them at that time, compared with what history records of
after-times, we, for the present, reserve the subject. Doubtless, they were all vaguely present to him, as occasion
arose, from  the first. Even the family obligations, just
referred to, involved conceptions of duty and destiny, in
which he confided, quite irrespective of any reasoning on
the subject. Man acts on certain shadowy beliefs and
ideas, long before he can verify them by any philosophical
deduction. They lie like the unfolded flower beneath the
lake; or like the man's thoughts, dimly and darkly, in the
infant's brain. It was not till the dialogue of the mind
with itself had commenced, that man began consciously to
recognize their presence. "The Greek tongue was for a
long period destitute of any word to denote consciousness;
and it was only after both the philosophy and language of
Greece had passed their prime, that the terms a(vvaitcaOcroya




356        THE FAMILY CONSTITUTION.
and avvaiolajatg were applied not merely to denote the apperception of sense, but the primary condition of knowledge in general."* These are subjects which constitute
the mountain-tops of truth-the last to be fiee fiom mist.
IMan's redemp-  Similarly, the grand aspect of the Divine
tion the expression
of an eternal attri- character which throws forward its first outbute.       line in the promise of deliverance and the
institution of sacrifice, long remained in comparative
shadow. It was not till " the fullness of the times was come,"
that even the pen of inspiration announced clearly that the
real victim had been " verily foreordained before the foundation of the world." t  Not that the recovery of man
was an absolute necessity for God any more than his creation; but the attribute of holy love in the Divine character
which led to his recovery (but which might have adopted
other forms of manifestation), was necessary. And now
first the Perfection which chose to illustrate itself in our
recovery, and which, having so chose, could not but adopt
the method most worthy of itself, began to loom from the
eternal past, and to make itself dimly present. And, doubtless, the faith of many a holy Patriarch " saw it afar off,
and was persuaded of it, and embraced it."
* Sir W. Hamilton's Reid, p. 757.  f 1 Peter, i. 20.




CHAPTER XVI.
THE CONSTITUTION OF THE FAMILY AND OF THE MEANS OF
MERCY IN ANALOGY WITH EVERY PRECEDING PART OF
THE DIVINE CONDUCT.
IN the evolution of a system of Divine manifestation it
may be expected that every part will be in harmony with
every other part. For if the whole is to be, in some respect, an analogue of the Divine Being, every separate
portion of it must be similarly related to every other part,
otherwise the whole will not resemble Him.
The family econ-  Now that the family economy is arranged
omy arranged on on a plan is apparent from such considerations
a plan.
as the following, some of which have been
discussed already: From the numerical proportion of the
sexes. From the fact that the characteristic difference of
the sexes are relative to each other. From that principle
of love by which the characters of the husband and the
wife become assimilated, and their happiness doubled by
participation; while the authority of the one becomes an
occasion for the increased affection of both. From the
relative character of their respective spheres; each supposing and completing the other. From the fact that the children are, in a substantial sense, multiplications of the parents; begotten in their own image. From the fact that
the new cares and duties attendant on the infant family bring




358              ANALOGY OF THE
to light a succession of new resources and virtues in the
parents; so that the very event which seemed to threaten the
happiness and strength of their union, proves to be the only
thing which was wanting to complete the development of their
character, and to render their love indissoluble and entire.
Brought adapt-  Through each successive stage of the family
tions to liht. growth, every part of the organization proves
to be foreseen and provided for; and is constantly bringing
to light new adaptations as integral parts of the whole.
Prior to the birth of the first infant, the question might
have been asked, How will its wants and feebleness be
suitably met?  The reply was instinctively given by the
arms which opened to receive it; by the maternal nourishment which literally rushed to meet its opening lips; by
the voice instinctively modulated to tones of tenderness,
unknown before, which saluted its ear; by the looks of love
which spoke to its eye; and by the thousand caresses which
showed that its coming had been looked for, and its wants
calculated on by One who had formed the entire process as
part of a plan. Then, again, as it emerges from infancy,
its propensity to imitate pre-supposes an example worthy
of imitation; its instinctive readiness to believe, implies
and looks for parental testimony and instruction; and its
disposition to yield and obey, seems listening for the parental authority which shall guide and command. Either of
these series of qualities, without the other, would exist in
vain. Their correspondence forms the means of mutual
endearment and improvement. Meanwhile, circumstances
only are wanting to bring other adaptations to light. The
addition of each brother and sister is, to the child, like
the fulfillment of a prior expectation. Its social nature
has tendrils ready to embrace it. And as the family multi



FAMILY CONSTITUTION.                359
plies and advances in years; and its various members,
of both sexes and of different ages, are seen living under
one roof; moving harmoniously under the direction of one
will; combining their separate lives of industry for the
good of all; and showing that if one member suffer or rejoice, the same feeling pervades the community; who can
hesitate to recognize the development of a plan?
Community of  But the fact that any given family forms a
families,  constitution in itself, prepares us to look for
the larger constitution which encircles it. As it was not
good for individual man to be isolated, so it is not good for
a family to be alone. The rearing of each family is prospective; and supposes the co-existence of other families, by
union with which other families still will come into existence.
The affinities of kindred thus spread and multiply; and the
holy charities nurtured in the family circle prepare its members, when they go forth, to diffuse their benevolence to
the circumference of society. But there are acts and aspects of the family which look even beyond this. There is
One who is the Father of all its members; of whom the
earthly parent, when acting in his highest and most sacred
capacity, is only a representative; and by whose conduct
of domestic worship they are reminded, not only of the sacredness of their relationship to each other, but of that
better world where all the scattered members of His family
shall be forever united in one.
uccessive co-  And not only does the domestic constituSuccessive communiLies.  tion embrace a number of co-existent families, it includes them also considered as successively existent. Whatever there was of knowledge, and excellence,
and happiness, among the members of the human families
living at the time of the flood was found among them as




360              ANALOGY OF THE
the survivors of all the families which had sprung from
Adam. If every thing could have been taken from them
which they inherited fiom the past-all the instruments of
art and means of social enjoyment, owing to the division of
labor which had been gradually obtaining, and to the subsequent combination of those labors; all the classifications
of things; and all the secular knowledge which had resulted from the inductive experience of generations, and which
had gradually taken the form of proverbs and familiar sayings; all the transmitted knowledge of God, and the silent
but ever-active influence of the great departed; how slender would have been the stock which remained to them,
and how sensible would they have been made that they
were only portions of a connected whole.
The family a  That the entire constitution is a Divine
vine conception. conception appears from the fact that while
each succeeding part supposes the part preceding, the entire series exists quite independently of human forethought
or design. Thus, the existence and training of the child
presuppose the parental instincts; these again presuppose
the sexual; and these again the special moral affection of
shame. Without the last, by which the decencies of life
are preserved, the world would be destitute of homes and
of family ties-one wide scene of bestiality; without the
second, the race would not be continued, for no children
would be born; and without the first, no children would be
reared, for they would be abandoned as soon as born. The
absence of either of these principles, or even their existence
in different proportions from that assigned to them, would
derange and destroy the framework of society.
Independently of NOW, it by no means follows, as some have
all human design. foolishly imagined, that because on retrospec



FAMILY CONSTITUTION                361
tion we see the well-working of this social arrangement,
therefore it was prospectively sketched out by man, and deliberately prosecuted, antecedent to all experience. We
do not act with a view to produce it; our conduct assumes
its existence. "The state existed before the individual,"
says Aristotle. And, in the same sense, the family may be
said to have existed before the individual. That is to say, the
family is not a constitution set up by man as the result of mature reflection. The perception of its advantages did not
lead to its existence; its existence was at first necessary, in
order to exhibit its advantages. The only mind in which,
with all its complicated arrangements and far-reaching advantages, it was preconceived, was the mind of Him who seeth
the end fiom the beginning; and who, in order to the family,
created the individual. Like the coral-animals, laboring for
ages at the bottom of the Pacific, each one in his own cell,
and each family in its own branch, but ignorant of the same
wide-spread activity which is constantly going on all around,
and which is destined to emerge in an island group, or in a
continent, the model of which is in the hand of the Creator, each family of man, from the fall to the flood, was, unconsciously, living and laboring for all, as far as its involuntary movements were concerned; while, as free agents, the
well-being of each was perfectly coincident with the good
of all, and essential to it. The constitution of the family,
as we have now described it, so obviously implies its
analogy with the other portions of the great plan to
which it belongs, that we shall simply indicate a few illustrations.
No fact or principle of importance can be
The family in
analogy with the pointed to in the constitution and history of
great plan.  the first man, which was not analogically re16




362              ANALOGY OF TIHE
peated in the constitution and history of the first, and of
every subsequent family.
The analoy of  In the paradisiacal economy, for example,
the human parent. we saw the Divine Creator, after providing.a
place suitable for the reception of his offspring, "make man
in his own image: in the image of God created He him,
mlale and female created He them."  He was their Father,
their only parent-a name by which, subsequently, He was
often pleased to designate Himself-and, as such, He provided for, instructed, and governed them, or they would
have perished; and all this He made subservient to training them for self-government, as the subjects of his moral
government.   Now, although there were numerous conceivable methods by which a succession of men might have
come into being, the method which God was pleased to appoint is one by which man, having prepared a home for
their reception, is made the subordinate producer of offspring "in his own image."  He is their father, and they
are dependent on him for protection, provision, and instruction, as the first man himself was on God.
In that primary economy there was but
Of his authority.
one authority which the new-made creature
was to obey, and that was the authority of the Being to
whom he owed his existence. Similarly, the family is a
monarchy; the supreme authority and only head is the
father. " The husband is the head of the wife." His will
is the law of the children, and during their infancy, it is, as
far as it is exercised for their good, absolute. This is essential to the well-being of the domestic government.
In imparting the rudiments of knowledge
And teaching.
to his new-made children, the Great Father
taught them speech, and selected and employed external




FAMILY CONSTITUTION.               363
objects about which to exercise it. All the natural objects
around them had been made and placed there, as the signs
of ideas and truths in the Divine mind, and as intimations
of the Divine character; their value, therefore, depended
entirely on their awakening the same ideas in the human
mind, and enabling it rightly to interpret His character.
The human parent pursues a parallel course. He places
objects before his children-many of them made by himself on purpose-as the signs of thoughts in his own mind,
and as indications of his character and his relationship to
them. And the value of the signs depends entirely on their
awakening thoughts and feelings in the filial bosom responsive to those in his own. The application which the Divine
Parent made of the rudimentary knowledge imparted to
his new offspring was a moral one. The easy command
which he laid on them was, to them, a revelation of their
own character as well as of His; for in teaching them their
amenableness to His authority, He was at once laying open
to their consciousness the great distinctive principle of their
new nature-the power of voluntary obedience; and giving them to feel in that very perception, that they were
the subjects of moral government. And' their conscious
guilt and happiness, immediately on their fall, showed that,
though the Governor himself was invisible, His laws were
taking effect and executing themselves.
The moral use  As soon as the opening intellect of his
tmade of knowl- children renders them capable of moral disedge.
edge.   tinctions, the first authoritative command or
prohibition of the parent awakens within them the consciousness of responsibility.  That simple consciousness
takes them at once from under the involuntary government
appropriate to the mere animal creation, and places them




364              ANALOGY OF THE
under moral government; indeed, their own animal appetites are among the first subjects of that government.
And as certainly as they indulge those appetites in known
violation of parental authority, they become sensible of
guilt and self-dissatisfaction. Even if they only intend or
attempt such violation, and though the parent himself be
absent, their inward struggles, and their consciousness that
the constitution of the family is against them-that the
moral sense of each of its members condemns them by anticipation, combine to show that, even in their own views,
they are under moral government.
The form of government under which our
Thle family a
sphere of proba- first parents were placed was that of probation.       tionl; a state in which their subsequent wellbeing was made dependent on their present conduct, and
in which they were open to inducements to obedience and
disobedience. The family constitutes a similar state of probation. Even the form of its opening stage is remarkably
analogous to that of the paradisiacal state. For, by taking
one object out of the hand of a child, by removing another
beyond its reach, or by addressing it in the tones of prohibition, the language of the parent is, " thou shalt not."  Not
unfiequently has he to complete the sentence, and to say, in
the language of the Divine Parent, " thou shalt not eat of it."
Nor is the immediate object of the prohibition less similar
in the two instances; namely, to teach the parties that, for
the present, at least, they must be guided by the will of
another, with a view to their personal improvement; in
other words, to teach them the self-government, which in
its laws, is identical with the laws of the Divine Government. So that, in the family, the child is literally on probation for mature age. Nothing which he does terminates




FAMILY CONSTITUTION.                  365
in itself. According to what we have seen to be a law of
human nature, active habits are strengthened, and passive
impressions weakened, by repetition.   The objects and
events of the family keep this law in perpetual operation.
Every day is a state of trial. Every hour bears a probationary aspect for all the future; and "the former part of
life is an opportunity put into our hands, which if lost can
not be recovered."*
Obedience de-  The obedience of the first human beings,
pendent on faith. and their probationary success, depended ultimately on their faith in the declaration of their Divine
Parent. And this dependence, be it remarked, was owing
to no arbitrary appointment limited to the occasion; but
rested on a fundamental law of the human constitution, and
a law, therefore, of universal application. Hence, in the
family the same dependence obtains. If the parent says to
his child, concerning any thing likely to injure him, " Thou
shalt not do it," or " Thou shalt not have it on pain of such
or such results," -it is obvious that if the child believes the
patent he will refrain; if he does not believe him, he will
do or take the thing forbidden. Whether it be inherently
pernicious or not, is not here the question; for even if it
were a deadly poison, the child would still have to rely on
the word of his parent that it was fatal; and he would but
have to do the same if there were nothing inherently injurious in it.
Consequences o  The analogy holds also between the condisobedience. sequences of the first act of disobedience and
those flowing from  signal filial transgression. Whether
any thing more than the external consequences of the first
sin passed over to the descendants of the sinner is not here
* Butler's Analogy, part i. chap. 5




366             ANALOGY OF TIHE
the question. That these did, and that they were effects
of terrible import is evident. But fearful as they were, and
unique as the entire transaction must, from the very nature
of the case, ever continue to be, it is not so entirely separated from all subsequent events as to be without analogy.
By a single act of transgression the child may incur the
forfeiture of the parental roof, and entail worse than disgrace on those who descend from him. The poverty of
the prodigal is the poverty of his children. The intemperate and licentious, sometimes by a single act, entails
disease on his offspring, and renders his descendants loathsome for some generations to come. An evil once incurred,
on travel its effects in unbroken series to a distant fiturity.
The family constitution is so compacted, and society so organized, that actions never terminate in themselves, and
their influence propagates itself for evil or for good forever. That the influence and effects of the good should be
thus perpetuated, is seldom, perhaps never, objected to;
and yet, as it takes place in virtue of the same general laws
which account for the similar diffusion of evil, the one can
not be consistently objected to without objecting to the
other also.
The principle of  And this brings us to another most immediation.  portant point of analogy between one of the
aspects of the moral government of God in its opening
stage, and the family government-we refer to the principle of mediation. In the first promise, and in the institution of sacrifice, the Divine Being was saying, in effect,
that the consequences of man's transgression should, in
some way, be remedied by means of the conflict and sufferings of another. Now, all pre-existing nature was already
in analogy with such an arrangement. All its processes




FAMILY CONSTITUTION.                367
and operations in the family, as far as they came under
man's observation, were to be conducted by means. The
child comes to the enjoyment of life through the pain and
travail of another. From  early perils and death lie is
saved by the self-sacrificing watchfulness of the mother.
The patient toil of the father is the price paid to save hiln
from ignorance and want; but the evil from which man was
to be saved was the consequence of transgression. From
similar evil the child is saved, in the family, by means of
others. He may, indeed, do much himself toward remedying certain kinds of evil. But the evil may be of a nature
to incapacitate him for helping himself; and, to be parallel
with the evil in question, it is of such an evil only that we
are supposed to speak. Now, the occurrence of such an
event brings to light an antecedent remedial provision.
The tears of the mother, or the efforts of the father, save
him from the effects of his voluntary misconduct. Or, it
may be, that the tender and earnest intercessions of the
mother save him fiom the just infliction of the paternal displeasure; and, still further, it may be that the maternal
intercession is both the means of bringing the son to repentance, and is the ground on which the father sees reason
to extend that forgiveness which he would not otherwise
have conceded even to that repentance itself. Be that as it
may, the child is pardoned and improved, and that by
means of the self-denial and suffering of others; for even
the compassion which prompted the remedial effort, includes in itself an element of suffering. We do not say
that this is all that mediation includes.
Self-willremedied Further, the very act which rendered the
by self-sacrifice. promised mediation necessary is itself in
analogy with the doctrine. For, as by the self-will and




368              ANALOGY OF THE
selfiindulgence of one man evil was entailed on others, by
the self-denial and self-sacrifice of another, the evil was to
be remedied. Here is seen the operation of a general law,
in virtue of which every thing we do, whether good or
evil, entails consequences, or sheds an influence upon
others. We do not say, indeed, that the mediation contemplated in the first promise intended no more than that
we have described. We only affirm, that as far as the doctrine of mediation was taught in the first promise, and
under the Patriarchal economy, it was based on a general
law, and found its analogies in the family constitution. As
if to call attention to the coincidence between the two, the
Deliverer was to be born of "the seed of the woman;" a
law of the family was to be made subservient to the law of
moral mediation in its highest form. And as faith in parental
character and testimony is essential to filial obedience and
well-being, so the belief of this promise was indispensable
to a participation of the blessings flowing from its fulfillment. The degree in which the child confides in his parent
is the degree or measure in which he is likely to be benefited by him; just as the degree in which our first parents
confided in the Divine promise was the index and measure
of the advantage they would derive from it.
ivin rvel-  This brings us to another important point
Divine  revelation and parental of analogy-the fact that the first promise, on
instruction.
the belief of which man's well-being was sustlended, was a direct revelation from God. Now, not only
was tlere nothing, at that time, in the family organization
to contradict the probability of such a method of communication, but much that was analogous to support it. God
had taught his new-made creatures many other things
which were essential to their welfare directly and person



FAMILY CONSTITUTION.               369
ally, and had, so far, made this the natural method of disclosing certain facts; and their direct disclosure of facts to
their children was but in harmony with this method of Divine teaching. The one was not, at that time, more remarkable than the other; for, as far as man was concerned,
they both were new; nor had he an established course of
nature by which to judge of the probability of the continuance or discontinuance of the one any more than of
the other. Not only do many of the parental disclosures
come to the children with all the directness of a revelation,
but, at the time they are made, and for years afterward,
the children do not know whether such disclosures are
made in harmony with a course of nature or not. All that
they feel is, that the being making them is their father;
and, in their fullness of their confidence, they are prepared
to believe alike a human discovery and a Divine revelation.
As the Creator had directly imparted to our first parents
knowledge relating-both to their temporal and eternal welfare, their parental relation devolved on them the duty of
teaching their children the same truths in the same manner.
But how did such direct divine communiThe relation of
will to will. cations consist with the free agency of the
creature receiving them? In the preceding volume, we
saw that the introduction and co-existence of a second will
was at once the problem and glory of the universe. Here,
we see that will beginning to find itself surrounded by the
indications of a plan. These indications, indeed, have since
been constantly multiplying; indications that man is in the
midst of a progressive and all-related scheme. Even the
first promise, containing, as it did, the germ or primary
outline of Divine revelation, bears, in this respect, a strik16*




370              ANALOGY OF THE
ing analogy to the first outlines of either of the kingdoms
of nature as geologically brought to light. But even at
the beginning, man found himself within the limits of an
all-encompassing plan. The same Being who had chosen the
dilnlensions of the world he should inhabit, and the number
and variety of the objects it should contain, and who had
thus set a limit to the materials of his knowledge, now intimnated that, as a moral being, he was the subject of government; and a government supposes order, subordination,
and the operation of laws. The promise of a Deliverer,
too, implied foresight, providence, and the existence of a
forelaid scheme of mercy, of which his fuiture acts will be
the filling up.  Now, if man is thus placed within the
sphere of the activity of another will, how, it might be
asked, can he assert the liberty of his own will? With the
discussion of this question we have not now to do, but only
with its analogy. The family constitution is strikingly parallel. The mystery is repeated in the coincidence of the
wills of the husband and wife. For while their individuality forbids and prevents the loss of the personality of
either-and that personality lies in the voluntary part of
their nature-their happiness depends on the harmony, of
tleir separate wills, and is in proportion to it. The mystery
is repeated in the freedoml yet coincidence of the parent
and child. The parental plan or purpose related to the
clild before it came into the world; and, as such, continues
to influene its movements, directly or indirectly, fiom infltcy to old age. But who thinks of questioning its accountability on that groundc?  Conscious of moral fieedom,
the child never ceases to assume that he enjoys it, and to
act accordingly; while, at the same time, he finds that fieedom in the very act of conforming himself to wise parental




FAMILY CONSTITUTION.                371
law. Thus, the very mysteries of the Divine government
are analogically repeated in the mysteries of the family
government.
Reminding us, in conclusion, that the farmThe family a
part of God's mor- ily constitution is in analogy with the moral
al government. government of God, as being a part of it and
in subserviency to it. " Framed for this brief and transitory, yet all-important, state of existence, and to expire
with the last generation of human beings, still it points to
what is permanent and unchangeable. In its constitution,
as far as we can penetrate, it displays the nearest approach
to the Divine government, and, unquestionably, it bears
this resemblance, with an immediate view to the best interests of that government. As man himself was originally
created in the image of God, so it would seem, in the depth
of his condescension, He intended to place him at the head
of a government, the shade or similitude of His own."*
And as, in the Divine government, the glory of God is coincident with the well-being of the creature, so in the family, the honor of the parent and the welfare of the child
are coincident. So that the highest interest of the child,
the highest honor of the parent, and the highest glory of
God are coincident.
Anderson on the Genius and Design of the Domestic Constitution,
etc.; Part i. ~ 8.




SECOND PART,
CHAPTER XVII.
THE LAW OF CHANGE; OR, HISTORY OF THE PROBATION
OF THE FAMILY.
NUMEROUS grounds existed for expecting
Grounds for expecting the end of that, sooner or later, the family dispensation
the fanmily proba- would be succeeded by another.  If, for
tion.
example, the attainment of the great end of
the Divine manifestation be in its very natuie progressive,
this is only saying that the process must ever be kept open
to receive the addition of new effects or of extended revelations. Accordingly, this patriarchal stage itself is a superinduction on preceding stages. And as we could not have
contemplated the display of the Divine power without being prepared by it for the coming illustrations of wisdom;
nor of wisdom without feeling that we were as yet standing only on the threshold of the great process; so now, in
the moral department, we could not have comprehended
the constitution and condition of man in Paradise, as illustrative of the holy character and government of God; nor
the new dispensation of mercy which succeeded his fall,
and which continued to be administered age after age, notwithstanding his perseverance in transgression, without




FAMILY CONSTITUTION.               373
being prepared to witness some new exercise of judgment or mercy suited to the depraved condition of mankind.
And besides these two grounds of expectation-the first
derived fiom the purpose of God, and the second from the
analogy of his procedure in accomplishing that purposeseveral special grounds for such an expectation had occurred since the introduction, and during the continuance, of
the family economy. Every prophetic warning, the translation of Enoch, and every Divine reference to the future,
were so many solemn intimations that displays of the character of God were yet in reserve, such as eye had not seen.
Among these intimations, the affecting command received
by Noah to prepare the ark was prominent and decisive;
for, while it foreboded judgment, it was a special provision
for the continuance of the race, and therefore for the continuance of the Divine manifestation.
Besides which, and chiefly, the primary promise of the
dispensation was yet unfulfilled. " The seed of the woman"
had not yet bruised the serpent's head-the moral deliverance of sinful man had yet to be effected. Every thing
was still looking forward. Here there was an additional
reason for the expectation of further displays of the Divine
character, based on the most valid of all grounds-the
faithfulness of God. And then there was the special one
arising fiom the alarming pitch to which the depravity of
man had attained. Even had the family constitution answered its design in rearing " a godly seed," and in securing the general prevalence of virtue, new displays of the
Divine perfections were to be looked for in fulfillment of
the designs of mercy. But a state of things had obtained
in the domestic constitution analogous to that which ob



274             PROBATION OF THE
tained in relation to individual man in Paradise. The family had been on probation; not, indeed, in a sense identical
with the probation of Adam; but on probation in a sense
in which it has never been since. That was the only dispensation during which nothing existed ab extra to interfere
with it, and consequently the experiment respecting it was
comparatively complete.  Here, then, in the family had
been a new theater for the development of all the capabilities of man. The head of the family was officially the image of God; his children were the subjects of his moral
government; his will was, until they became capable of
self-government, and in order to it-their reason.  The
welfare of this new Paradise depended on the character of
the governor, and on the obedience of the filial to the paternal will, just as the welfare of man in Paradise depended
on the obedience of his will to the will of God. But the
family had fallen. Its subservience to the ultimate end of
its existence had long been the rare exception. For ages it
had been prolific only of an ungodly race. The domestic
hearth had become the center of an evil power which penetrated and polluted the remotest parts of the patriarchal
constitution. Laws and influences which were meant to be
" unto life," were perverted and productive only of moral
death. And the evil, so far from abating, increased in virulence and enormity with each successive generation. All
the partial checks which had been administered by Divine
warnings and rebukes, had failed to arrest the onward tide
of personal and social depravity. A twofold reason tllen
existed why God should " arise out of Iis place;"-some
solemn judicial infliction was necessary to vindicate the
rectitude of Ilis government, as well as to prepare the way
for those ulterior revelations of mercy which the existing




FAMILY CONSTITUTION.                 375
generations had, by their enormous depravity, incapacitated
themselves for receiving.
The law or con-  Granted, then, that a change was to be exditions of change. pected, let us look for the law of the change,
or for the fact that the time and manner of each successive
change is itself regulated by a law. The time (as we have
said) for the change in any given department of the Divine
manifestation, will of course be determined in a manner,
and for a reason, differing with the particular nature and
design of the department: either by each existing stage
passing through all the combinations and changes of which
it admits before another begins; or, by its existing long
enough to show that it involves all the possibilities necessary for answering such and such ends, were its continuance
permitted; or else until it has sufficiently taught the specific truth, or answered the particular end, for which it was
olririnated. But whatever the particular reason for determining the period of change may be, it is evident that
the law of time for every change, and of the manner of
the change, must harmonize with the great end of the
whole-the manifestation of the Divine all-sufficiency.
For, were a stage of the manifestation to be recalled or
replaced a moment before it had, in an adequate manner,
demonstrated the Divine all-sufficiency for that particular
stage, the great purpose would not be answered. From
-llich it follows that no such change or interposition takes
place arbitrarily or capriciously, but as the law of progression, and of the end, require it.
Now, that the period of the deluge was not capriciously
selected is evident, from the language of God respecting
the maturity of human guilt, and from Iis " waiting" one
hundred and twenty years during the preparation of the




376             PROBATION OF THE
ark. For, while the latter implies that the infliction of the
deserved punishment at an earlier period would not have
been. agreeable to the forbearance of God, the former intimates that it would not have accorded with His justice to
delay the infliction to a later period.
The specific de-  But what had been the specific design of
sign of the econ- the antediluvian dispensation which was now
omy.
about to be closed?  What made the time
selected the appropriate time for its termination? And
how did the time of its continuance, and the manner of its
termination, subserve and illustrate the great and ultimate
end'?
In answer to the first inquiry, we think it
Its great lesson
of dependence ig- is clear from a survey of the ground we have
nored.
gone over, that the design of the patriarchal
economy before the flood was, proximately, to illustrate
the great truth that the well-being of the family, or of
social man, no less than of individual man, depends on the
coincidence of his will with the will of God; or, on the
recognition of a fact, namely, his social dependence on God,
involving, of course, the consequent insufficiency of nature,
at its best, to render him independent of God; while, ultimately its end was to illustrate the all-sufficiency of that
long-suffering which waited while this great truth was fully
wrought out and established.
In the paradisiacal economy man had been taught the
same truth in his individual capacity. Endowed with a
will, he was in danger of exercising it in opposition to his
Maker; of saying, in effect: "If I may but exercise my
own will irrespectively of the Divine will-if I may but
have this Paradise entirely, and use it for my own ends-I
shall be happy." The object of the primal prohibition was




FAMILY CONSTITUTION.                 377
to forbid and prevent this fatal experiment; but, failing in
this, man learned by painful experience, the truth which he
had refused to learn by teaching. And now the great lesson was to be inculcated again in another form; for still
every thing depends on his loving conformity to this necessary law of his being. A dispensation of mercy has received
him; providing a twofold remedy for the twofold effect
of his sin-restoration for both his character and his condition. Possessed of these remedial means, he also finds
himself, as the founder of a family, in a situation presenting
the most powerful motives, both to return to obedience
himself, and to train his children to obedience also. Here
again, then, is danger; only now that danger is twofold:first, lest man should not avail himself of the proffered
remedy, and be restored to obedience; and, secondly, lest
lie should take occasion, from his new domestic relations,
as he did before fiom his paradisiacal resources, to spend
life ii a vain endeavor to render himself practically independent of his Father in heaven. He is now in danger of
saying, in effect:' If I may but employ this new social
power as I will-multiplying its relations, cultivating its
capabilities, directing its activities, and molding the whole
to my own purposes without restraint-I heed not the
promise of a Deliverer, but shall be sufficient for my own
happiness."
Now, that the special design of the family economy, and
that the consequent danger of man, were such as we have
described, is determined by the language of inspiration on
the subject. The evident object of the sacred writer, in
Gen. vi. 1, 2, is to lay his finger on the origin of that apostasy which opened the last flood-gate of evil on antediluvian
man; implying that for the religious to unite themselves




378             PROBATION OF TIE
with the irreligious, was to detach themselves fiom God;
and that this perversion of the family constitution frustrated
the design of its antediluvian existence, and rendered its
dispensational or probationary continuance morally abortive.
And therefore, "God said, my Spirit shall not always strive
with man."  And equally evident is it that man's consequent social danger was such as we have stated; for he
practically employed the very language which we have put
into his lips. "The sons of God saw the daughters of men
that they were fair;" just as Eve saw the tree that it was
pleasant to the eye. Here was the closing stage-the last
turning-point of importance of the family probation.  Social man was about to repeat the act of individual man, and
to take the forbidden fruit. "And they took them wives
of all which they chose." The sensual triumphed over the
rational and the moral. The sons of God, in their social capacity, apostatized from God. Their self-will came
into direct collision with His authority. The family had
fallen from its high object of constituting the Church of
God.
We are now prepared to answer the second
What made the.
proper time for inquiry-What made the time selected the
endinthe econo- appropriate time for the termination of the
my.
antediluvian economy?  We reply, that we
conceive it had then existed long enough, and had passed
through all the combinations and changes requisite, to teach
the specific truth, and to answer the special end of the
economy; or, that it had then completed the cycle during
which it had passed through all the conditions necessary
for answering that special end; and that, as to the ultimate
end, it had thus demonstrated the all-sufficiency of the Divine
forbearance for that particular stage of the great process.




FAMILY CONSTITUTION.               379
The apostasy of  Now, if the special design of the economy
the Sethites. was, as we have represented it to be-to establish the great principle, that the well-being of the family, or of social no less than of individual man, depends
on the practical coincidence of his will with the will of
God; and if man chooses to incur the danger to which we
have adverted, of practically contesting this fundamental
principle, what are the conditions necessary to demonstrate
his utter inability to succeed, and thus to establish the fact
jof his dependence? The whole of these conditions, we
most reverently admit, can be known only to "Him who
seeth the end from the beginning," and who will ultimately
show, to the conviction of the universe, that not one condition essential to the demonstration was wanting. And
we freely concede, also, that many of those conditions
which we may conceive to have been necessary, and which
we may warrantably presume to have been actually present, we can not prove to have been so, owing to our extremely limited knowledge of antediluvian history. But,
remembering the multiplied relations and obligations of
the domestic constitution, we may state generally, that if
the time should arrive in its history, when, after a long and
diversified exemplification of the happiness flowing from
individual and social obedience, and of the growing evils
resulting froim self-willed disobedience, the great majority
of the families still in professed allegiance to God, should
yield to the growing power of evil, and go over to increase
that power still further-this would be ominous of the experiment hastening to a close. For, in taking that step, it
would be evident that experience had been reading her
lessons to them in vain; and having taken it they would
have made themselves incapable of afterward profiting by




380             PROBATION OF THE
her lessons. Now, on inspired testimony, such appears to
have been actually the case. For "it came to pass, when
men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and
daughters were born to them, that the sons of God saw
the daughters of men, that they were fair; and they took
them wives of all which they chose. And God said, My
Spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is
flesh."  At what particular period of antediluvian history
this social apostasy fiom God began is uncertain; but as it
was not till the human race had greatly multiplied, and as
it is closely associated with the ominous declaration,'  My
Spirit shall not always strive with man," the probability is
that it was at a somewhat advanced stage of that history.
Up to that period, however, whether early or late in- the
economy, the practical issue of the family constitution had,
humanly speaking, been uncertain. If there had been a
party against God, there had also been a party for Himthose who were called after Hin and who called upon Him.
The gradual diminution of the numbers of "the sons of
God," indeed, and the proportionate increase of irreligious
families, boded ill for the result of the contest. Still, as
long as the families who worshiped God formed a party, a
community, a Church, the contest was, to all human appe rance, between the principles of the religious party and
tlose of the irreligious party, rather than between the latter and God. And who could say whether the superior
moral condition, and order, and well-being of God's party,
mighiot not, sooner or later begin to win over some of the
irreligious, and so induce the prospect of a hopeful change?
Tilne must be given to determine the result. If, when this
great social experiment is over, " every mouth is to be
stopped," as to the way in which it has been conducted,




FAMILY CONSTITUTION.                381
opportunity must now be afforded for ascertaining which
party will vanquish, and which will yield. Evidently much,
if not every thing, depends on the families of God not
receiving into their bosoms members of the alienated party.
Every thing depends on their converting their families into
fortresses for God, in order to secure themselves from the
invasion of the enemy. Distinctness, separation, is their
only safeguard. If this ceases, the last barrier to the incursion of evil is gone. And if the religious capitulate, the
triumph of evil will be complete. The contest will be no
longer between community and community, nor between
man and man, but between man and God. And such was
the actual result of the trial. Promiscuous alliances between the families of the righteous and the wicked took
place in considerable numbers; and fiom that time the contest was as good as ended. The very salt of the earth had
lost its savor; L"thenceforth it was good for nothing, but
to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men."
The process of social corruption hastened on, with everaccelerating rapidity. Wickedness was propagated fhster
than human beings. The last rational hope for the family
dispensation, was, under such circumstances, extinct.
All conjugal ob-  In our chapters on the relations and obliligationsviolated. gations of the family economy, we saw that
the parties united in marriage were brought under as many
conditions as there are parts in the human constitution. If
the time should arrive, then, when those relations generally
come to be disregarded, and the consequent obligations
violated, man could not complain that he has not had the
opportunity as a social being of placing his own will in the
stead of God's, and of reaping the fruits. Now there is
ground to believe that this actually took place. The sexes




382             PROBATION OF THE
were numerically related; but, from the time of Lamech
onward, polygamy had been practiced. The union was designed to be restricted to individuals who should be exclusively united to each other for life. But, from the intense
sensuality of the period, there is ground to conclude that
this Divine appointment was not unfrequently subjected to
every kind of violation of which it was susceptible; not to
that of polygamy merely, but also of divorce, incest, fornication, and adultery. For the same reasons that the marriage union should exist at all, it should be formed between
parties suited to each other. But as on the only admissible principle of classification, the greatest difference existed
between those who professed to obey the will of God and
those who disregarded His will, for the former to choose
the latter in marriage, was to confound all distinctions, and
to oppose the design of the economy. This was exchanging law for lust; and proclaiming that, henceforth, marriage should be made the occasion of placing the creature
in the stead of the Creator, and of rendering it independent of Him for enjoyment.
As to the mutual relations and obligations
All parental and
filial relations dis- of parents and children, if the time should
regarded.    come when the family, in this respect, after
passing through successive stages of degeneration, should
sink and settle into a state of conflict and corruption, its
self-destructive condition would surely show that nothing
but evil could henceforth be expected from it. Now, that
such became its actual condition is evident from the giants
in evil which it propagated. Doubtless there were, even
to the eve of the deluge, many expressions of the family
affections extant. These affections were the last to quit
the depraved heart; and, accordingly, many a parent




FAMILY CONSTITUTION.                383
looked proudly on his first-born, and fondly on his youngest
child; and many a child prized above all things the parental
embrace.  But these affections, though capable of. the
highest and holiest application, are, in themselves, only instincts. MAan shares the love of offspring with the animals.
And the complaint is that, in the course of the antediluvian
economy, they came to be applied generally to worse than
animal purposes. The self-willed parent found himself surrounded by self-willed offspring. Having himself ceased
to be the representative of God, he could not be surprised
to find that his children were "in his own image." Their
education consisted in the development only of their inferior powers. Parental authority, example, and teaching,
became so many ordinances of impiety. Servitude alternated between slavery and resistance. The family, in relation to God, was no longer an orderly government conducted in subordination to His supreme government, but a
confederacy against Him; while, in relation to its own
members, it became perverted into a mass of social selfcorruption.
Natural objects If the time should arrive when the vast
perverted,  variety of natural objects belonging to the
reogions inhabited by the antediluvian families, and their
artistic capabilities, have come to be perverted to evil purposes; so as to be turned, in effect, into weapons against
the Being who had appointed them, as well as to be destructive of man himself, it is evident that no useful purpose could be answered by permitting man any longer to
abuse them. Accordingly, the probability is, that during
the lapse of that long period, the robust health, the
strength, and the extreme longevity of the antediluvians
came to beget a proud self-reliance, which set death and




384              PROBATION      OF THE
the invisible world at defiance. The mineral kingdom,
probably, instead of supplying him with the means of erecting an altar to God, only afforded him the materials for
erecting strongholds, or with   the  symbols of idolized
wealth; thus serving to shut out from his view his dependence on God. The virgin fertility and tropical luxuriance
of the vegetable kingdom, instead of supplying any thing
that should ascend in incense to its Maker, was made to
minister to his self-indulgence and intemperance.*   And
the animals in whose domestication and use he might have
learned valuable lessons of self-government, and have shown
himself the humble representative of Him     who had, at
first, invested him  with dominion over them, became the
victims of his passions, or were pressed into the service of
harassing and destroying his fellows. Every thing was
misapplied and out of place. Instead of serving as emblems of spiritual truths, symbols of invisible objects, and
occasions for grateful reference to the Giver, they were
made to divert the eye from God, were taxed in every way
to serve in His stead, became the exponents and instruments of man's depravity, and the means by which he conducted a perpetual service in which he himself was at once
priest and idol. Having revolted from God himself, man
had carried away with him all that God had given into his
hands. But, as might have been expected, just in propor* The popular notion that Noah planted the first vineyard has no
countenance whatever in the Biblical statement on the subject. " And
Noah began to be a husbandman, and he planted a vineyard." Tlhi.
does not imply that others had not planted vineyards before the flood;
nor even that he himself had not. He may even have been a husbandman before. The original for begin is often redundant (as in Gen. vi. 1),
and the probability is that he was only resuming his antediluvian occupation.




FAMILY CONSTITUTION.               385
tion as he perverted them, they reacted and perverted
him; tending at once to conceal his dependence and to
multiply his wants.
Families unite  If the time should come when the relations
for evil.  of family to family, and of one community of
families to another, shall be employed only to answer sensual, unjust, and impious purposes, every principle of moral
government will warrant and call for Divine interference.
Now, as we have already seen, from the moment when
" the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were
fair, and took them wives of all which they chose," the
higher design of the conjugal state was defeated; it was
prostituted to sensual purposes; and the doom of the family
constitution itself, as a distinct economy, was sealed. Hence,
the reason assigned by God for terminating the probationary contest with man is, "for that he also is flesh." In
other words, His own professed worshipers, by joining the
sensual for sensual ends had merged the last hope of recovery in profligacy. And being thus perverted into an
evil to the individual, the family became also an organization of social oppression and wrong. " There were giants
in the earth in those days;" and even after it was so that
" the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and
they bare children to them, the same became mighty men
which were of old, men of renown." * Brute force bore down
law and right. Families banded together for the perpetration of more extensive wrong. AIen became renowned in
proportion to their deeds of rapine and bloodshed. And
"the earth was filled with violence through them."f
Te a y  -  But all the relations of the individual and
The apostasy universal.  the family center ultimately in God. If the
* Gem vi. 4.              f Gen. vi. 13.
17




386)            PROBATION OF THE
time should come, then, when, instead of leading to Him,
they became perverted into occasions of impiety and of
deeper apostasy from him, the continuance of the family
constitution, in such a state, can answer no useful purpose.
" The earth also was corrupt before God; and the earth was
filled with violence.* Here the close connection is marked
bletween impiety and social depravity. Having cast off the
authority of God, men were embroiled in a contest as to
whose human will should prevail. There was only one
point in which they were all agreed-that the will of God
should not obtain. The fires of one true worshiper after
another had been extinguished, till now, perhaps, only one
solitary altar remained. The name of God was uttered
only in the imprecations of blasphemy. And, although no
idols of wood and stone might have been actually set up, it
was only because living hero-worship supplied their place,
and a disbelief of a superintending Providence made a gross
polytheism less acceptable than practical atheism or material pantheism.
The stages passed  et it be supposed, then, that the antediThe stages passed
through.  luvian population had reached the revolting
state of depravity we have described. Still the question
would arise-through what process have they reached it?
Is it the result of all but a sudden plunge into evil, the
smart of which might react and induce them to return to
obedience-or is it the last stage of a long transitionary descent fiomn bad to worse, in the course of which they have
passed through the intermediate states of sin and error?
For, unless it be the latter, who shall say but that if the
trial were prolonged and diversified still further, they might
not yet be recovered to God? Now, although owing to
* Gen. vi. 11.




FAMILY CONSTITUTION':87
the absence of historical data, we can not enumerate the
various stages and forms of evil they had actually run
through (as we shall be able to do when treating of the
post-diluvian population), we are able to show that they had
passed through all the conditions necessary for demlonstratilig the dependence of the family on God; as well as their
own fixed determination not to yield to Him; to convert
every social relation into the means of doing without Him;
and to be miserable rather than obey Him.
The ultinate de  We have seen that, by the institution of
sign of the family marriage, God proclaimed His will that a
lost sight of.
lostsihtof  high and holy purpose should be aimed at;
tlhat all other ends, however proper and important in themselves, should be subordinated to that purpose; and that
the attainment of it presupposed the religious character of
the parties united. Now, we can easily suppose, from what
we know of society generally, not only that the ultimate
object of the conjugal state came gradually to be wholly
lost sight of, and that the institution whlich was meant to
elevate the sensuous into the sacred actually drew down
the so-called sons of God themselves into the depths of
sensuality, but that, in the course of that period, unions
took place between parties in every stage of unfitness, for
every improper end, and with every suitable inducement to
refrain of which the circumstances of the times admitted.
We can conceive, for example, that at any one period, a
certain number of marriages were possible, each differing
in some respects fiom all the rest, but all unsuitable in the
highest respect, and likely to be productive of sin and
misery. In the age following, we can conceive the number
of such possible combinations to be greater; and in the age
following, greater still. Suppose, then, that after this state




388             PROBATION OF TIIE
of tidings had lasted a certain time, attention had been
called to it; and that, as the evil increased, a feeling had
come over the patriarchal communities, that if the evils
arising fiom such immoral combinations went on increasing
for a certain time longer, it would then be evident that the
experiment of substituting man's will for the will of God on
the subject had failed; and even that the inferior ends of
marriage could best be secured by aiming supremely at the
higher end. Now the probability is, that " the preachers
of righteousness" often enlarged on this subject, showed
that as nothing but evil had ever resulted from man's selfwill in this respect, so to persist in it longer would only aggravate the evil. Ieedless of the warning, however, the
experiment went on; every new combination promising a
new result; every succeeding age swelling the evil, and
renderiln  a return to first principles more difficult, until
those principles themselves were forgotten, derided, or impeached; and it had actually become necessary to arrest
the entire process of corruption, if only in order to save
the inferior ends of marriage, and to prevent the loss of
civilization.
aily sis be  The laws of the marriage relation made a
Family sins be-                    ~
came customs. certain number of sins possible, as well as a
certain number of immoral theories on each relation. Was
each of those sins committed and persisted in-polygamy,
divorce, incest, fornication, adultery? and were such theories broached and practically maintained? Did we know
the history of the period, we have no question whatever
that we should find that most of the modern theories on the
subject existed, in the germ, among the antediluvians.
Though such views might not have been formally propounded, no doubt many a St. Simonian and Communist con



FAMILY CONSTITUTION.                  3.89
tended, in his own little circle, that social ties were not
binding; and that nothing more was wanting to render
men happy than to root up the domestic affections, and to
augmnent the amount of sensual enjoyment. And no doubt
many a willing disciple made the experiment on a small
scale, and diversified it to the utmost. At all events, polygamy became prevalent; the necessary results of which
would be the animalizing of the man, the social degradation of the woman, the consequent cheapening of her as
mere food for ordinary licentiousness; and, when the ordinary forms of sensual indulgence palled, the origination of
unnatural forms of pollution.*  So that however many
theories the marriage relation may since have given rise to,
we have no doubt that all those of which the patriarchal
state admitted were practically resorted to, not merely in
solitary instances, but each of them by different parties, in
successive ages, aud under ever-changing circumstances;
until the original type of marriage had been virtually lost,
anid man had incapacitated himself for returning to it.
Education mis-  In preceding chapters we have seen that
understood, and the nature of the human constitution predeparental restraint
lost.        termines the nature of the education necessary to develop and train it; and that the mutual relations
of parent and child give rise to mutuul obligations. Now,
the very nature of the cause which, on scriptural authority,
added the last great impulse to the growing depravity of
tlhe race —namely, promiscuous unions between the religious
and the irreligious-demonstrates that parental restraint
was gone, and therefore that education had been disre* The early reappearance of some of these enormities in the post-diluvian world is to be inferred from certain Mosaic prohibitions, and from
the Hebrew of Job, xxsvi. 14.




390             PROBATION OF THE
gardel; and hence the retributive reaction of filial lawlessness. Doubtless then, as now, every thing that tended to
develop any one or two parts or faculties of the human
being was misnamed ezucation. Every indulgence was allowed calculated to strengthen the passions and encourage
self-will; and yet parents wondered how soon they lost all
command over their children. Every part of the human
being was more or less developed except his moral nature;
and yet parents lamented that their children evinced so little power of self-government. Wealth, power, idleness,
every thing hazardous to the moral health and enjoyment
of man was entailed on children; and yet parents complained that their children were not so useful and happy as
industry and selftcontrol would have made them. Having
surrendered their children to the influence of circumstances,
by neglecting to cultivate the resisting and controlling
power within, parents, no doubt, readily adopted the
modern theories, that character is determined entirely by
organization, or by external influences; and regarded it as
a discharge from  all obligation.  Yet each generation,
though pursuing the same course as its predecessors, hoped
that its own history would prove an exception to all that
had gone before; till it would come to be satisfied at its
not being much worse than those of preceding times; and
finally settle down in the conviction that to attempt improvement would be to struggle with an ordination of
nature.
terial cvi-  But did the antediluvian enjoy the soMaterial  civilization aggravates called " ameliorating influences of material
moral evil.  civilization?"  The excitement of hope with
which every physical discovery is still hailed, as if the
panacea for man's multiplied ills were just coming to light,




FAMILY CONSTITUTION.'     }91
notwithstanding the uniform failure of all such hopes, migiht
well excuse the antediluvians for indulging similar visions.
The discovery of new fruits and articles of food would
promise abundance and enjoyment; imprnovemelnts in the
arts, by facilitating labor, would afford leisure for intellectual cultivation; and the discovery and occupation of
new and fertile regions would give scope for enterprise,
industry, and the accumulation of wealth. Poets would
sing and philosophers would prophesy of the good time
coming. The age would be congratulated on the advent
of a poet in the person'of Lamech; aud the fact of his being
a polygamist and a homicide would be charitably overlooked, if it did not even add to his popularity. And when
his son Jubal came with "the harp and organ," the idolaters of aesthetics would rhapsodize on genius and social
regeneration, and the near approach-if the saints would
but let the world alone-of a millennium of earth-made
pleasure. But how disappointed would they be-unless,
indeed, they were as insensible to the lessons of experience
as mankind has ever been since-at finding that every step
in material civilization was a step onward in evil. Not,
indeed, that this was a necessary result; but just because
that material progress, instead of being put under moral
control, was placed in atagonism to it. The "ffruit of the
vine" became the means of intemperance. The fine arts,
as far as they were practiced, pandered to the passions;
and even if they refined them, procured for their indulgence softer names than before, under which they
might be followed with greater impunity. The products
of a new territory ministered to luxury, and led to wars for
its possession. Wealth became equivalent to vice; and
power to oppression. And thus, after ages of growing




392              PROBATION    OF THE
degeneracy, the antediluvians illustrated the truth, so often
exemplified since, that, in the absence of moral principle,
it is not only possible, but certain, that people will reach the
highest point of material civilization, and the lowest point
of social demoralization at the same time.
The number of  In a preceding chapter we saw that the reman's soial uties lations between family and family gave rise
the number of his
sills.       to numerous corresponding obligations and
correlative rights. The number of these obligations and
rights were the number of man's social vices and crimes.
Not that it was ever possible for these obligations to be all
disregarded at the same time; probably there was no
period when many of the social virtues were not practiced
within certain limits. But the evil was that they came to
be practiced for the basest purposes. Hospitality came to
be little more than the mutual pledge of confederation in the
commission of acts of violence. Patriotism, or clanship,
meant, not so much attachment to a particular tribe, as
hatred to the families of another community. The rights
of property could be maintained only by physical force;
personal liberty would next be violated as a matter of
course; and this would be followed by a reduced estimate
of human life. But this would be to sacrifice three of the
primary elements of civilization; and, consequently, to commence a retrogression to a state of barbarism. Accordingly, there is ground to conclude that some of the antediluvian families had actually retrograded from the pastoral
and agricultural life with which the first families coinmenced their course, and had betaken themselves to the
more wild and wandering habits of the hunter. And such
a change would naturally tend to the dissolution of the
patriarchal form of government; for not only would the




FAM1ILY CONSTITUTION.               393:,irge family or tribe break up into small companies, in order the better to range the wilderness, but the lead would
be given to tile most daring, which would often be the most
youthful. Parental restraint would become increasingly
distasteful: and paternal decrepitude a growing burden.
So that, in such cases, both the family form of government
and civilization were alike endangered.
But especially did the conduct of the anteAll the means
of recovery per- diluvians present the aspect of a persevering
vertd.   endeavor to defeat, step after step, all the
means provided to impress them with a sense of their dependence, and to secure their obedience; and a determination to leave no means untried in order to exist and be
happy apart from God. The religious basis of the dispensation was laid in the promise of a Deliverer, and in the
appointment of the symbolical right of sacrifice; and we
have had occasion to admire the Divine adaptation of each
to the purpose of man's recovery to obedience. But the
sacrificial institute had come to be disregarded; and the
promise was probably perverted, as it came to be under a
subsequent dispensation, into a ground of hope for the appearance of a hero of gigantic or martial attributes. And
such a character, no doubt, became the standard of ideal
excellence, to which their "men of renown" aspired and
conformed. We have seen also that this religious basis of
the dispensation, and the nature of the family constitution,
were admirably adjusted and fitted in to each other; so
that the family government was, in all its leading features,
remarkably analogous to the moral government of God.
But its laws and sanction had now lost their force for all
moral purposes, and had come to be replacecl by the dictates of a sensual self-will.
17*




394             PROBATION    OF THE
Now, there is ground to conclude that in
Every stage of
error passed the progress of this monstrous perversion,
through.
the antediluvians passed through all the cescelding, stages of error, speculative and practical, to which
their simple creed could innocently give rise. Three of
these stages are distinctly marked in their history, and in
the older in which we might have expected to find them.
To deny the doctrine of future retribution appears less revolting than to question the present providential government of God; while this, again, is less revolting than to
question the Divine existence. Accordingly, the first of
tlhese doctrines appears to have been the first impugned.
Hence the burden of Enoch's prophecies was the coming
of the Lord as the Judge of the ungodly. Still the judgment was delayed; and "because judgment was not speedily executed, the hearts of the sons of men were set in them
to do evil."  Next, therefore, they advanced to the practic-al denial even of His superintending providence, and to
persecute and " utter hard speeches" against all who believed it. Death itself, probably, was affirmed to include
nothing judicial, but to be purely natural. The translation
of Enoch was the Divine rebuke of that skepticism; and,
probably, it was only one of several important events directed.to the same object. Then came the third stage of
the world's infidelity-the practical denial of the Divine
Existence. As if there were no future judgment, no present providence, no living God, " they ate, they drank, they
married, and were given in marriage, till the day that Noah
entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed
them all."
In extenuation of this ever-advancing guilt, it could not
be pleaded that the means of prevention were too abstract




FAMILY CONSTITUTION.                395
and intangible for the sensuous state of the comparatively
uneducated mind of primitive man.   The Sabbath, the
Shekinah, and Sacrifice, appealed to the senses. Great
truths were embodied in acts, and illustrated by examples.
Every thing spiritual had a symbolical and objective form.
Nor could it be pleaded that life was not prolonged enough
to enable the antediluvian, who had much of his knowledge
of the evils of disobedience to acquire, to profit by his experience and retrace his steps.  Iis longevity of many
centuries gave him ample opportunity for proving that no
law of God can be violated with impunity, and for forming
his own character and that of his children accordingly.
But so far from profiting by experience, he first became insensible to its lessons, and then spent the large remainder
of life in accumulating the moral difficulties, and the means
of depravity, for all who should come after him. Mercy
sp:.'ed him; but he relented not. Justice threatened him;
but he quailed not. A solitary witness for God, such as
Noah, convicted him of unbelief, and called him to repentance; but the faith in God which such a change required,
and the sense of humble dependence which it expressed,
revolted his pride and self-confidence; and the only effect
was that he gave more faith than ever to objects which deceived him, and took more closely to his heart the things
which were piercing and polluting it.
And all this took place, be it remarked, in
The whole an
attempt at inde- a practical attemnpt to achieve independence
pendence of God. of God; to wrest God's world from Him as
a means of doineg without Him. -Not, indeed, that the antediluvian is to be supposed to have always consciously and
formally placed this object before his mind. I-e came to
think of it only at intervals; and these intervals would go




396             PROBATION OF TIIE
on enlarging, until it would come to be a feeling rather
than a thought. The habit of impiety gathered strength,
and acquired an impetus of its own, after the originating
impulse had ceased. " And God saw that the wickedness
of man was great on the earth."  Had his sin only paused
in its progress; had his guilt stood at a certain height,
however mountainous; had it left certain possibilities of
evil unrealized, he might yet have been spared, reclaimed,
and forgiven. But God saw that " every imagination of
the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually:"  Social virtue had slowly retired from one family relation to
another; and piety from one faculty of the man to another,
like a protesting and retreating friend, till now the last
point was vacated to evil. The sophistic defense of evil
was the chief occupation of the intellect. The emotions
sought their objects amid the excitements of lust, and
rapine, and gigantic schemes of self-aggrandisement. Memory rioted in the recollection of past atrocities. And imagination feasted on visions of evil, possible and impossible.
H —ad the evil been local only, the bad might have been
spared for the sake of the good; but " all flesh had corrpllted his way."  Every addition to man's numbers had
been an additional elemlent of hostility to God. Generation
had followed generation, only to take up the original quarrel and to widen the breach, until now it had reached
its limits. " The earth was filled with violence."  The
great caldron was full to overflowing. Still, upward of a
century was added to the term of antediluvian probation.
"The long-suffering of God waited;" but it waited only to
be despised, and to behold the last shades added to tlhe
dark picture of human depravity.




FA3MILY CONSTITUTIONT.              397
"And God said unto Noah, The end of all
Time of punishimet determined flesh is come before me:" tlat is, both the
by guilt.   consummation of antediluvian guilt and the
termination of the reprieve. The time sustained a relation
to the guilt, and was measured by it. And, now, both hlad
reached a crisis. During the lapse of that eventful period,
then, as many families, and as many members of families,
had existed, as were necessary to give the family constitution
an ilmpartial trial. That number of families and individuals
had included every variety of character, placed in every
variety of local situation, under every description of influence, and amid every kind of circumstance, necessary for
demonstrating that the well-being of social, no less than of
individual, man depends on the practical coincidence of his
will with the will of God. Of that immense multitude, no
two had been precisely, and in every respect, alike; and
yet they had " turned every one unto his own way." While
each circumstantially differed fiom all tlhe rest, the whole
had united in the guilty experiment of finding happiness
apart from God. In the prosecution of that unnatural' endeavor, they had exalted every thing, in turn, into the
place of God; and the result had uniformly left them more
deeply inmmersed in depravity and guilt. How could it
possibly be otherwise? For what, in the wide range of
universal nature, could supply the place of infinite excellence? Man's all-related nature-the noblest part of it —
had been constituted expressly to harmonize and unite with
it. In his willful self-divorce from God, therefore, lie was
arresting the development of his whole nature, and adding
wretchedness to his guilt. And in the vain attempt to replace his loss, or in oblivion of it, lie had wrought up every
form of Divine goodness into evil, and had run through




39S            PROBATION OF THE
every stage of guiltj necessary to show that his condition
was as hopeless as his character was godless. Nothing remained "but a certain looking for of judgment."
How it sub-  HIow, then, did the time of its continuance,
served the Divine and the manner of its termination, subserve
manifestation.
manifestation the great and ultimate end-the Divine ranifestation? Its continuance illustrated the all-sufficiency of
the long-suffering of God, inasmuch as he did not terminate
it until man had completed his guilty experiment. From
the moment he attempted to be happy without availing
himself of the Divine method of restoration, his doom was
virtually sealed; for the longer he persisted in his course,
the more effectually was he denaturalizing himself The
violence which came to fill the earth, was but an outward
pictule of the violated state of his own constitution. Still,
though " He who seeth the end from the beginning" foresaw this, unless man himself had been allowed to make
experimental proof of his own insufficiency; unless he had
been suffered to exhaust his last device; he would never
have knzozon, in the only sense in wh-ich knowledge avails
him, that he was " without strength."  True, the minute
particulars of that prolonged effort are unknown to the
post-diluvian world; for, owing to the material difference
of our situation-if only in relation to longevity-the
knowledge could have been only of very slender advantage
to us. Accordingly, we know only that which immediately
concerns us-that the family dispensation enjoyed, during
the antediluvian period, peculiar advantages for answering
the great end of its existence; but that, in oblivion of that
end, and in the assertion of its own self-sufficiency, it never
ceased to wrestle with the laws of its constitution, though
every struggle diminished its strength, until it had reached




FAMILY CONSTITUTION.                399
the last stage of moral debility, and even of social disorganization.
Now, if man could have foreseen that so long a period
would have elapsed before that stage would be reached, his
natural inquiry would have been-Can it be possible that
God will wait for its arrival?  The event proved that it
was possible. Divine long-suffering was sufficient for it.
Under each subsequent economy, God himself has referred
to his patience with the antediluvians as an illustration of
his forbearance. And, in eternity, when the history of the
Divine procedure will be seen and studied in all its minuteness and fullness, it will doubtless appear that long-suffering
waited till the last unit was added to the sum of human
guilt; that it went even beyond, and illustrated the sovereignty of the Divine patience.
But if this extension of the period of antediluvian probation illustrated the sovereignty of God, it may be added
that its termination at a certain point exemplified the Divine
equity. Strict equity would have admitted of an earlier
termination of that economy; but, in consequence of that
compensative and remedial arrangement contemplated in
the first promise and in the institute of sacrifice, it did not
require that ternination till the family constitution had
passed through all the conditions necessary to convict it
of its inveterate self-will, and of its hopeless insufficiency
for itself. Till then, the sovereignty of God had reigned,
aiind had availed itself even of the last moment. But when
thart moment had come, sovereignty itself, being based on
equity, gave place to the requirements of justice.  The
"fiullness of time" had come for man's deserved punishment. "And the Lord said unto Noah, come thou and all
thy house into the ark." And Noah went into the ark.




400        TIE FA3MILY CONSTITUTION.
" And the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and
the flood-gates of heaven were opened."  That signal illustration of the moral government of God left no part of the
universe with which man had to do in the same state in
which it was before. It changed the moral relations of the
whole. All the multitudes who had lived and died in selfwilled disobedience it convicted of the deepest guilt, and
ratified their condemnation.* All who, like Abel, Eiloch,
and Noah, exercising faith in the promise of God, had
obeyed His will, and suffered persecution for obeying it,
were now justified in what they had done; for here God
himself was " making bare his arm" and responding to their
confidence. That holy will itself, so long resisted and despised, was now taken out of the dust in which it had been
trampled, and vindicated in a manner which brought the
world to the bar of judgment. While the Divine manifestation, so long obstructed in intention, by that self-willed
race, beheld, in their removal, an open path for another
stage in its onward course.
* Heb. xi. 7.




THIRD PART.
TiHE REASON OF THE METHOD AND OF THE HISTORY.
CHAPTER XVIII.
SECTION I. —THE REASON WHICH BELONGS TO MAN'S CONSTITUTION AND INVOLVES IIIS WELL-BEING.
ALL the preceding laws respect the methocl
The law stated.
of the Divine procedure, in connection with
the new remedial and family constitution. The reason for
this method is now to be considered; or the law which
leads us to expect that the beings to whom, and by whom,
the Divine manifestation is to be made, must be constituted
in harmony with the laws of the objective universe, or that
these laws will be found to have been established in prospective harmony with the designed constitution and the
destiny of the being who is to expound and reflect them,
to profit by and advance them. According to our theory
of the Divine manifestation, then, the reason is twofold;
the first part being founded in the constitution of the creature by whom the method is to be embodied and illustrated, and involves his well-being; and the second part
relating to his destiny, as the means of Divine manifestation by and to himself, and so involving, in addition, the
glory of the Creator.*
* Chapter i




402          REASON OF TIlE METHOD
Art and science  In my illustrations of this part, in the Premade possible.  adamite Earth, it was shown that while laws
of some kind, and therefore method, are indispensable to a
creation, quite irrespective of man's relation to it, yet that,
in prospect of man's coming, the Creator, in appointilng
the actual laws of uniformities of the inorganic world, was
only saying, in effect: Let the objective conditions of astronomy, physics, and chemistry exist. In appointing the
plan of organized bodies, He was providing the objective
conditions of botany and of the cultivation of the earth, in
its various branches. And in designing the laws and
method of sentient being, the external conditions of animal physiology, domestication, classification, and the different branches of scientific zoology, were provided. In other
words, the Divine Creator was practically saying: Let all
the objective conditions of' the various arts and sciences be
ready, that when man, the destined minister and interpreter
of nature, shall come, the arts and sciences themselves
may be possible. All beyond these objective conditions,
man was to bring in his own constitution. So that, in giving to the human mind its actual constitution (as we saw,
next, in the Treatise on MIan Primeval), the Creator was
but saying, in effect: Let the subjective conditions of art
and science be added to the already existing objective conditions. We saw also that, in adding these subjective conditions, he was adding the materials of a science fundamental to all the rest-the science of anthropology-of
man in the union of his animal and spiritual
Anthropology.
nature or pneumatology and physiology. To
the question, therefore, Why man is constituted as he is;
Why lie reaches the external world through a body, and
reacts upon it and upon himself by a mind; and Why he




AND OF THE IIISTORY.               403
is conscious of both? the first reply is-That art, and science, and self-development, might be possible to him and
for him. Further, we saw that other laws of the method
Philosophy.  made philosophy possible; the philosophy
which ascends from an account of things to
account for them; from signs to the things signified; fiom
laws to the knowledge of the Lawgiver. So that if asked,
VWhy man is made to recognize the dependent, the ultinmate, and the necessary? the only reply is-In order tha;
Natural theol- he might have a natural theology; that lie
~gYg   might find himself in a temple in which every
object is symbolic of the Divine presence, and is ever inviting him to acts of grateful self-improving worship. And
Moral gocvrn- then we found that other parts of the method
meat.   made moral goveernment possible; that man,
as a moral being, found every property and power of his
nature on probation, and every part of the system into
which he had come arranged in relation to it. And thus it
appeared that there was not one of the laws of the method
which was not indispensable as a condition either of his
individual well-being, or to the attainment of his destiny
as a means of the Divine manifestation. Even the special
character given to the probation of the first man, we found
to be only a true and direct illustration of these laws.*
The momentous event of that probation
Why?  has now landed us in a new stage of inquiry.
\We have found the family constitution in process of development, and a basis of mercy underlying the whole.
Why this constitution and this basis? This question, like
all the preceding, admits of a twofold reply. In its relation to God, the answer belongs to the section following.
* Chapter ii.




404          REASON OF THE METHOD
In respect to man, our reply is, that they make the highest
well-being of the race possible.*
That the family  Now, that this is true of the family constimight be possible. tion is evident fiom the facts that the fimily
is only the unfolding of the individual-the natural and
harmonious development of social man; and that to tamper with its laws, is to derange the individual and to tend
to arrest the progress of the race. The basis of the familylife is marriage; and the essence of marriage consists in
the permanency and exclusiveness of union between individuals of different sexes. So that in making the desire
for such a union a part of human nature, the Creator was
but issuing the fiat: Let the FAMILY be possible.t By
arranging that the authority, instruction, and example of
the parent should be responded to by the obedience, belief, and imitation of the child; and by prolonging the
plastic period of childhood and youth through many years,
the Creator was saving: Let EDUCATION be
Education.                    g  L 
possible. Division of labor, in loving co-operation, began between man and wife, and appeared in the
play of their infant children; and the parental affection
which prompted them to provide, if only a day onward,
for the wants of their children, involved the idea'of PnorERTY, and led to its acquisition. The same
Property.
affection, by investing the life of its objects
with sacredness; by imparting to them all the stores of
parental information; and by aiming to benefit them by
e.ch:ange, barter, and intercourse with other families, made
CIVILIZATION  possible, and  contained its
Civilization.
germinating seeds. The government of such
a community of young responsible natures as the family
* Chapter iii.           t Chapters iv. and v.




AND OF THE HISTORY.                 405
includes, in which questions of mezm and tuum  had to be
daily decided, right to be protected against might, the welfare of each to be treated as the interest of all, and in
which the whole was administered by impartial affection —
Socil thics.  contained the conditions of social ETHI(S,
Social ethics.
and was a sphere eminently favorable to their
development. While the Divine arrangement by which
effects become causes and propagate themselves in linked
and endless succession; by which the knowledge which is
thus made attainable is also transmissible fiom generation
to generation; and by which the race is not only united in
generations, but is renovated and started anew with each
generation, was always inviting the present to improve on
the past and to inspire and enrich the fuiture: in other
Historyand pro- words, it was the Divine mode of saying:
gr'ss.  Let ITISTORY and PrlOGlEss 1be possible.*
Al the laws of  Now, there is not one of the laws of the
the methodl pros- method which is not present in each of these
ent in the family....
possibilities. They are older than the family,
and form the very conditions of its existence. The repeal
of any one of them would have converted each of the possibilities we have named into an impossibility. The law of
continuity, for example-itself linked on to other laws-is
essential to the history and progress of the race. The laws
of order and subordination, of influence and obligation, lie
at the foundation of social ethics. The same laws, combined with those of activity and development, are essential
to property and civilization. Laws of relation, uniformity,
and oblifgation, are amongc the conditions of education.
Marriage itself is only the law of relation taking a unique
form. The entire family constitution is but a Divine con* Chapters v. to xiii.




406          REASON OF THE MIETIOD
ception employed to embody these laws in a new form, in
order to carry forward the process of the Divine manifestation by man and to him. They form the subjective conditions of the family, and make it possible; just as the
fimily itself conditionates the well-being of the race, and
makes it possible.
Why the well-  But why should the family and the laws
big of tho fa- which it embodies make the well-being of
ily is only  possi- 
ble.        humanity only possible  and practicable?
Because its Divine Originator is a Moral Governor and not
a Fate, and because man is a free responsible agent and not
a machine. This is the very soul of the Divine method.
Constituted as man is, he would be justified in complaining
were it otherwise; for how could he know either his powers or their limits in a sphere which left him no option and
encouraged no effort. Or how could he answer his high
end, either of exemplifying the Divine excellence, or of
voluntarily subserving the Divine design, in a circle in
which fieedom was only a name and necessity the only
reality? Accordingly, it is a vital characteristic of the
Divine method that in each of its laws, and in all its procedure, it should be in strict harmony with man's free
nature; contemplating him as a being meant to understand, appreciate, voluntarily subserve, and enjoy the Divine manifestation. And this peculiarity and prerogative
of man's position account for much which is commonly
deemed mysterious in the Divine arrangements, both of
the human constitution and of the universe at large..
d   The single distinction of sex, for example,
Virtues and vices   ~'        L
mafle possible by coming up, as it does, from the depths of
marriage.                                         o
m.    the pre-existing organic and animal worlds,
and forming the earth-root of humanity, makes possible, in




AND OF TIE IIISTORY.                407
the case of a fiee being such as man, a greater number of
virtues and vices than all his other bodily endowments together; for it underlies his entire nature. Marriage is at
once the complement and reduplication of his social nature.
But the very fact that the points of union may be as numerous as are the distinctive parts of human nature, leaves
it possible that they may be all points of repulsion and collision. The love which should form the basis of the union
may be simulated by lust, vanity, or interest. The subordination which it involves may be perverted into oppression. Its life-long exclusiveness may be violated by polygamy, divorce, and the various forms of licentiousness.
And the purity of which it might have been the discipline
and the sacrament, lifting sense into the region of the
supersensual, leaves open a door through which sensuality
may drag down and animalize man's whole nature to a
depth to which the mere animal can not descend. Yet no
voice fiom Heaven can be expected to "forbid the banns,"
in order to avoid this liability. Such an intervention would
shut out all the virtuous and hallowing possibilities of the
union. All that man, as a free being, could either ask for,
or admit of is, that the obligations which belong to the
union do not exceed his means of compliance.
By offsprin             g and  prin nd their education man is
their education. invested with the power of not merely completing and enlarging his social nature, but of multiplying
himself-raising up other human beings in his own image.
He llas it in his power, however, to poison their existence
before they see the light; to destroy them by anticipation.*
* La passion la plus effrenee et la plus chere A la nature humaino...... verse seule plus de maux sur la terre que tous les autres vices
ensemble. Nous avons horreur meurtre; mais que sont tous les meurtres




408           REASON    OF THE METHOD
tIe is not merely the means of giving them physical life;
like the prophet extending himself on the dead body of the
child; he underlies and overlies the entire nature of his
children, touching and quickening them at all points of
their inmost being. He literally occupies a throne of moral
administration.  Shall his subjects be angels or fiends?
The danger of his making them the latter must not deprive
him of whatever power he possesses of making them the
former. And that he does possess such a power is evident
fiom the hallowed history of many a family; a history
which is happily perpetuating itself among their descendants, and which is still unfinished on earth and in heaven.
By the separa-  Each family is a world apart. It gravition into families. tates to other families, indeed; has interests
in common with them; can not exist without them. "Why,
then, should they not all live in unrestricted intercourse,
and in sight of each other?"  Because each needs a free
space for the free development of its own powers: whereas,
the communism implied in the question would be only a
new form of intolerable oppression, in which one kind of
knowledge would outrun reflection, and another kind forestall experience, and many things would be disclosed and
felt which would prove fatal to moral liberty and progress.
Hence, each family instinctively draws apart from the rest.
And, as darkness curtains off each man from his fellows, and
puts him on a probation distinct from that of the day, so the
local separation of the family, and the seclusion of the tent
or the house, place each family on a probation of its own.*
reunis, et la guerre meme, compares au vice, qui est comme le mauvais
principe, homicide dis le commencement, qui agit sur le possible, tue ce qui
n'existe point encore, et ne cesse de veiller sur les sources de la vie pour
les appauvrir ou les souiller," etc.-De Maistre, Soirees de Saint-Petersbour/. i. 61. 65.                * Man Primeval. p. 400




AND OF TILE IIISTORY.               409
By proper      P  rpety and the progress of civilization
civilization.  broulght indefinite enlargemelnts of man's
moral domain. They brought Nature to his side, and gave
himl the key to all its resources; multiplying his own
powers by linking them on to those of his fellows; opening
to him the unlimited advantage of being one of a race.
But along with property came the opportunity of theft and
injustice. Every new art and branch of industry, each
opening field of activity, and every fiesh subject of intercourse which the progress of civilization created, brought
new occasions of fiaud and oppression. Why, then, was
not each tongue struck dumb in the first utterance of falsehood; each hand withered in the act of robbery; and each
oppressor paralyzed in the midst of his spoliation? Because
man is a voluntary being; and such coercion, by alighting
only on his physical nature, might even exasperate his moral
disease. Because he has the power of voluntarily withholding his hand from the evil deed; and, by every exertion of that power, augments it. Because man has the
godlike prerogative of uttering His will, as law, on the subject; and all such laws possess, as expositions of human
diuty, a highly educating. power for the whole community.
Because physical coercion, by usurpingt the place of man's
nature, would allow him to form no common stock of moral
experience, no public opinion, no self-expanding sense of
justice, and would allow no social progress from generation
to generation.
Each advance  It is to be remarked, that at each stage of
enlared tahe the development of the flaily, a new domain
sphere of man's
probation.   was added to the empire of the will, and,
consequently, a new sphere in which man was placed on
probation. His special probation in Paradise made it pos.
18




410          REASON OF THE METIOD
sible for him to bring his will into direct collision with the
Divine will. In the expansion of the family a succession of
similar collisions were made possible; but with this difference, that now the possibility related proximately and
directly to a collision with other human wills, and with the
Divine will only through them. Thus, marriage was meant
to solve the problem, antecedently inexplicable, of two
distinct human wills harmonizing so as to attain even their
personal ends best in one and the same sphere, and to become practically one. Love, itself a profounder mystery,
was to furnish the solution. But though this love admitted
of perpetual increase, it always left the will at large. Man
could not complain, on the one hand, that he had no adequate motives to observe the sanctity of the marriagebond; a thousand considerations pressed on him to that
effect: nor could he urge, on the other, that he was compelled to observe it; for if he pleased he could burst
through them all. Education placed him in a relation to
the wills of his children most formative and unique. Will
he train them to the right use of their wills-to true fieedom? This he can do only by training them to obedience;
for law and liberty are truly correlative. Interest, affection,
and duty, all combine to urge such training. But all history, postdiluvian as well as antediluvian, unites to show
how free man is to neglect it, even thonugh the effect be to
arm the filial will against the parental. Property and civiliz:ltion placed him face to face with the wills of other heads
of faimilies. Will he respect or violate their rights?  Ile
has only to be just. And, in order to this, he has only to
will. For justice, as the Roman law truly defines it, is but
a " constans et perpetua voluntas jus suum cuique tribuendi.")* How easy, yet how difficult the task! Let man
* Corp. Jur. Civ. Instit. I. i.




AND OF THE HISTORY.                411
only do unto others as he would they should do unto him,
and the earth will be a social paradise. Let the obligation be
disrecgarded, and a fierce anarchy of selfish wills must ensue.
And "the earth was filled with violence through them."
The unfolding ot  If the well-being of the race presupposes
the individual an the fanmily constitution, the very existence of
the family supposes 
a scheme of mercy. the family presupposes a dispensation of
mercy. The moment that guilt became a fact of man's
consciousness and history, his relation to the government
of God was clianged. Equity could award him only the
punishment due to his guilt. The remission of that punishment, and his restoration to God, could come only fiom a
Divine arrangeinent of mercy. The first promise and the
institution of sacrifice announced that arrangement, and
symbolized its method. Only thus could rELIGION be made
possible-the religion of penitence, faith, and loving obedience. The szibjective conditions of religion, indeed, belonged to mal's constitution; and sin, though it might
pervert, could not destroy them. And here, now, in the
means of mercy, were its objective conditions. By the Divine arrangement that the promise should be fulfilled
through the medium  of the woman, and that sacrifice
should be offered by the man, while each was alike interested in both, a new and sacred character was given to the
bond which made them one; and the religion of the family
became possible. While the unique arrangement by which
every tlhing calculated to impress in the parents found a
counterpart susceptibility of impression in the children; by
which they were retained, year after year, in the parental
hand; the head of the family leading them all the time to
the altar as their representative with God made possible the
transmission of religion fiom generation to generation.




412          REASON OF THE MEITHOD
^hy as relig-  And here, again, if the question recurs,
ion made possible Why was not all this made more than possionly?
ble? the reply recurs also, Because man was
endowed with the power of making it actual, and of benefiting himself by the effort; and because any necessitating
force acting on that power would have altered its character,
and have made religion impossible. True, if he chose, he
could desert the altar and disregard the Promise, violate
the sanctity of home, arm his children in the general revolt against God, and reduce the family organization to a
wreck. The event proved the fatal- easiness of the process.
But what an unknown weight of motive lay in the opposite
direction! The beseeching sacredness of conjugal love; the
strength of parental affection yearning for the highest happiness of its objects; the fact that to train their wills to a
harmony with God's will was the only guarantee for keeping them in accordance with the parental will. Regard for
the law and character of God, whose representative the
parent was. These were considerations by which many a
Patriarch was actually induced for centuries to "walk with
God," and " to command his household after him."
What motives more cogent could have been brought to
bear, consistently with fieedom, on man's moral nature?
Antecedently, and to other orders of being, these motives
might have appeared even too forceful. "What (it might
have been asked) can counterbalance them?  The family
constitution is all but necessitated to work well. It is wanting in liberty of action."  On the supposition that some
other mode of developing and training humanity had been
tried and failed, and that the family constitution was now
Divinely propounded for the first time, who could survey
its exquisite framework and strong tendencies for good,




AND OF THE HIISTORY.                 413
without concluding that had it been resorted to at the first,
no failure could have ensued, and that it would only be
necessary to resort to it now, in order to render the wellbeing of the race secure?
Why was the  lBt why was the economy continued even
Why was the
economy contin- after it threatened to fail as a Divine maniued after its failure became appa- festation by man? The preceding law-the
rent?    law of change-is supposed to contain the
reason. Man, if treated as a free being, must be allowed a
sufficient period for repairing the past by turning to account his dear-bought experience.  Had the era of the
family economy, in its probationary and dispensational
form, been closed while appearances were yet promising, or
when as yet they were only doubtful, man " would have
had whereof to glory," and history would have pronounced
the experiment unfinished and unsatisfactory. I-ad it been
brought to an end, even speedily after the instances of failure formed a decided majority, it would still have been
fancied that, had space been given to man, those failures
mighlt have been converted by him into the very means of
his recovery. The force of motives fluctuates with circumstances. The experiment must be varied. Accordingly,
no two clays of patriarchal longevity were precisely alike.
The situation of each patriarch differed from that of every
other. Every family had its own distinctive history. Generation differed fiom generation. The experiment never
paused, and was ever varying.*
In connection with its prolonged duration,
Motives to  recovery always on too, two facts are to be remembered: that
the increase.  the accumulating evils attending the family
apostasy were always accumulating motives for reformation
* Chapter xvii




414          REASON OF THE METHOD
and return to God; and that motives to the saine effect
were added, age after age, by positive Divine calls and interventions suited to the times. So that, at the eve of tlie
deluge, the "preacher of righteousness" had grounds of
appeal, exceeding in number and weight those of any previous age. Nor was it until it appeared as if motives became subjectively weak in proportion as they were objecjectively multiplied and strong, that the great experiment
was quenched in the deluge. Morally, as an experiment
of and for man, it had ceased long before; for other and
higher considerations it was high time that it should now
cease historically also.
SECTION II.-TIE REASON WHICH RELATES TO THE MANIFESTATION OF TIE DIVINE ALL-SUFFICIENCY, AND SO INCLUDES MAN'S DESTINY.
>eason of,ln's  In the preceding section we saw so much
well-being.  of the reason of the Divine method as relates
to man's well-being; here, we advance further, and seek for
the reason of that well-being itself. There, he might be
viewed as an end to himself; here, we regard him as a
means to an end beyond. His well-being is necessary, even
if he is to be only the means of Divine manifestation to
other orders of being-just as the mere animal creation is
to us; but if, beyond this, he is to be a manifestation of the
Divine all-sufficiency to himself, he must be able to trace
his well-being to its source, and to live in the consciousness
of his high destiny. And if man's well-being accounts for
the existence of the remedial and family economy, his destiny equally accounts for much in the form and method
of that economy which would otherwise appear inexplicable.




AND OF TIE HISTORY.                 415
If the constitution of the family is to be
Reason of method.
construed by man so as to point him to its
ultimate design, all the "laws of the mnethod" mighlt be
shown to be indispensable. In the entire absence of 1aw it
would be impossible for the mind to infer a Lawgiver. In
the absence of all signs of a plan, the family would not be
known to have a constitution; and, evincing no desig,ii
could whisper no hint of the iiind which fiamed it. But
the laws of relation and order, of uniformity and analogy,
are lodes by which the great Pater-familias'reflects His
mind, and says, in effect: Let such a plan be apparent.*
Why itsevidence  VWhy, then, it may be inconsiderately
is limited.  asked, were not these laws made to force
themselves, Sinai-like, on man's involuntary notice?  Because they were desi(gned to report themselves as the
chosen arrangements of a Being infinitely fiee; and tllis
they could do only as they developed and respected the
idea of fieedom in man's own nature. Proof of a Divine
agency so cogent as to leave man no option whatever as to
his conclusions respecting it, would be as unsuited to his
moral freedom as the absence of all, or of adequate, proof
would be to his rational conviction.
If the family did not exhibit malrks of arrahe o ileach rangenient, dependent on the w-ill of God, it
dependence  on would be regarded as proclaiming its indeGod.
pendence. Instead of being the means of the
Divine manifestation, it would only manifest itself and absorb attention in its own nature. So fiar from referring tlhe
human mind to God, it would literally stand between man
and his Creator, and would tend to inclose him in its own
mechanism. Here, then, is the profoundest reason which
* Chapters vii. viii. xi. xvi.




416          REASON OF TIE METHOD
can be conceived of for the law of dependence. Even if
man had not sinned, this principle would have been of the
highest importance. But the fact that he has not only
sinned, but that it was at this very point of dependence
that lie fell, invests this law with transcendent interest.
The question now involved is no less than this, whetherman having violated the law of dependence in his own individual person —tlere are adequate safeguards against his
repeating, diffusing, and perpetuating the same evil in the
fanmily? That such safeguards do exist we have shown.
Li the complementary characteristics of the sexes and in
their numerical proportion; in the selected mode for continuing the race, for long retaining the chilcdin the parental
hand, and for securing the possible progress of the species
fiomn age to age; in the adaptedness of the region assigned
to antediluvian man; in the mutual dependence and instinctive co-operation of distinct families, as well as in the plan
for his recovery, direct fiom HIeaven;-in these and other
respects, choice and adjustment are every where visible.
Every helpless little one that lives on his smile was meant
to memorialize him, in the manner most likely to affect
hlin, on the fact of his own dependence. From tlhe first a
Voice and a Hand, not to be mistaken, had "called a little
child, and set him in the midst of" every family, as a symbol of humility and dependence to all its members. The
entire constitution was inter-dependent, and an embodiment
of dependence on God. It was a God-like method of saying: Let man have ever before his eyes a welcome symbol
and a memorial of my Fatherhood and of his loving dependence on me.* Still, if the right interpretation of the
symbol is to be either useful to man or acceptable to God,
* Chapter xiv.




AND OF THE HISTORY.                417
it must be voluntary. His recognition of his dependence
is simply the recognition of a fact, and, as such, adds to Iis
knowledge; but it is the knowledge of his highest moral
relation, and as such it involves both his well-beingr and his
destiny more vitally than all his other relations put together. Let the evidence of his dependence sink below a
given point, and his ignorance of it would be pardonable;
let it rise to the point of compelling belief, and all tlle
moral part of his nature-the very part to which it relates
-would be ignored, and its highest end unattained.
The ultimate  Il the absence, again, of all ultimate facts
facts of the fam- and necessary truths from the splere of the
ily teach depend- 
once.       family —supposing their absence possibleman might have moved forever in the mill-horse circle of
secondary causes, and have blindly regarded it as of unaccountable self-origination. But the several arrangements
just enumerated were all ultimate facts. By these contingencies the family is characterized and made unique. Man
himself did not originate them. They could not explain
themselves. Nothing in nature accounted for them. To
the listening ear, they distinctly reported themselves as
Divine appointments. If man looked behind and beneath
them, he could find nothing supporting them but the will
of God.   Where was the Fountain of the love which
flowed through the fai-mily, and which it always seems laborillg-to express? Whose mind conceived the idea which
the family embodies? What Will assigned and maintained
the laws which made it what it was? In every concelptioi:
of what man ougllt to do, an eternal distinction underlies
his sense of duty-the immutable difference between right
and wrong. Even on the eve of the flood, man had to take
but a few backward steps, in order to reach historically the
18*




418          REASON OF THE METHOD
first family, and to find himself standing face to face with
its Divinle Creator. Reflection, consciousness, history, alike
pointed himl to the Ha-nd fiom which it was suspended.*
Still, if man is to recognize that hand as
MIain is to recognize hli depenl- the free and fatherly Hand of God, he must
ence voluntarily. be able to do it freely. The ultimate facts
and necessary truths involved in the constitution of the
family must not declare themselves so as to prejudice his
responsible fieedom. Accordingly, though they can not
but act as laws of thought, they neither select the objects
of his attention nor determine the extent of his mental
operations. Even the evidence that there was a first family, and that Adam was the father of the whole antediluvian conmmunity, must not be such as to make every opposite theory impossible. Nor was it. From the very make
of the mind, the strength of the evidence, so far fiom being
felt necessarily, could be appreciated only according to the
degree of attention given to it; and attention is a voluntary
act of the mind. Thus, every law of the family constitution was a test and discipline of man's sense of dependence; while the whole w'as the Divine mode of saying:
Let the manifestation of my Fatherhood be made to the
family through the family itself.
But man has sinned; that is, has brought
echo ron' dil  his will into collision with the will of God.
economv atins at
the same effect. If, then, there was reason for testing and developiing the sense of dependence in unfallen man, as the
only condition of his being a medium of Divine manifestation to himiself, surely every act of disobedience strengthens
the reason for continuing to aim at the same end through
every successive stage of the Divine dispensations. Ac* Chapter xv.




AND OF THE IIISTORY.               419
cordingly, the remedial economy was the Divine contrivance to deepen the sense of dependence in sinful man, and to
increase his motives to obedience. It gave him a promise
of deliverance, which required his belief; and appointed
the institute of sacrifice, which required his obedience.
He could not believe the promise without consciously admitting that the pure mercy of God had saved him from
destruction. While at the altar of sacrifice, where he surrendered as a penitent to the justice of God, he was sinply replacing himself in the position which he ought never
to have left, and throwing himself unconditionally on the
grace of God. Here was the Divine method of saying:
Let man, in his own person and experience, be a conscious
manifestation that God is merciful.
"Why, then, was not a power brought to bear upon
man which should make the recognition of this display
inevitable?"  Because coercion is the opposite of fieedom,
not its manifestation. Had the scheme of mercy been
forced on the Divine Being, man's compelled reception of
it would have been the appropriate sequel. No grace, no
gratitude. But man is the fiee subject of a fiee Sovereign.
And the first promise and the institution of sacrifice are
the instruments of his government, as much as the tree of
life and the tree of knowledge were in the probation of the
first nman. The Promise was a newly-planted tree of life;
the Altar was another tree of the knowledge of good and
evil-a discriminating test of man's sense of dependence
and obligation. Believing obedience in relation to the
altar* of sacrifice entitled man to all the blessings included
in the promise; disobedience involved the confirmation
and prolongation of the original curse.*
* Chapter iii.




420          REASON OF THE IMETIIhOD
Blut what (it might be said) if the same
As  -well   as   all        I
subsequent Divine Mercy which introduced the dispensation
interve ntions.
nhad continued to supplement it fiomr time to
time, as depravity advanced, with Divine disclosures and
strikilng interpositions, who can say but that the tide of
evil might have ebbed? Not only did such interventions
take place, they were even in selected accordance with the
character of the times when they were made. From the nature of the one we may safely infer that of the other. When
the antediluvian population were threatened with a deluge,
they had, most probably, reached the point of a pantheistic
polytheism or of confirmed practical atheism. Now, history warrants the conclusion that this condition would be
attained gradually. What are the stages by which it
wiould be reached?  Beginnin g with the denial of futtre
retribution as the least revolting form of disbelief; it would
extend next to the denial of God's present providential
government, and end in questioning the fact of the Divine
existence itself. This is the order which error observes
froml bad to worse. To meet the first error, we find Enoch
commissioned to prophesy, " Behold, the Lord cometh with
ten thousand of his saints, to execute judgment."  After a
season of continued but neglected warning, the startling
event of his translation was admirably fitted to meet the
infidelity of the second stage. And when, "because judgment against an evil work was not speedily executed, tlle
hearts of the sons of men were set in them to do evil,"
then, and not till then, did outraged Goodness accept the
challenge of man's impiety and significantly command the
construction of the prophetic arkl.' And thus God said:
Let the history of man become a manifestation of mercy
drawn out into long-suffering.f
* Hob. xi. 7.                    t Chapter iv.




AND OF THE HISTORY.                 421
Man's moral free-  lBt even these signs of the preternatural,
dom respected. meant to preserve the balance between man's
trial 1and Ilis strength, and to keep him in mind of his high
and ultimaite end, must be kept within certain limits; or he
himself will complain that his freedom is overborne. Accordingly, they were only in analogy with the I)ivine
method fiom the beginning. Whether the Almighty clhose
to address us by things or by words, each method alike
had to be originated by Himself: Each geological stage
through which the earth had passed beheld Him "coming
out of his place," to add a new section to the great system
of signs by which He prepared eventually to reveal Himself to man. The creation of man was a recent miracle.
Some of the elementary truths of civilization had doubtless been Divinely and directly imparted to him. The
cherubic symbol of the Divine presence, probably, had not
yet faded from his horizon, but still visibly lingered at the
gates of Eden; its very familiarity depriving it of its supernatural significance. So impervious had man's moral nature become, that little danger would there have been of
his being too rougllly roused from his fatal slumber, "even
though one rose from the dead."
Ev.ry increase  Thus every fact and law of the economy,
of power an in- wl ile it enlarged man's power of attaining
crease of responsi- 
biliti.     his higrhest end, in being a distinct manifestation of God as the Father of Mercies, proportionally enlarged lIis responsible liberty and danger of becoming his
own end, and so involving the race in ruin. An Abel and
a Scth, an Enoch and a Noah-every antediluvian whlo
recognized his new remedial relations to God, who became
conscious of his consequent obligations, and yielded obedience to his new motives-became once more capable of




422          REASON OF THE 31ETHOD
answering the ultimate end of his existence. Were all the
laws of nature, physical and social, the contingent but
chosen appointment of the Divine will?  The same state
of mind which made him sensible of his entire dependence
for mercy on the sovereign will of God, would tend also to
keep him in harmony with these laws. For instead of presuming to dictate to them, he would recognize in them the
unvarying expressions of their Maker's will, and find that
he could employ them only as he moved in harmony with
them. Had he, by placingl iimself in hostility to God, virtually enlisted in the quarrel all the kingdoms of nature
which had been given into his hands? In every sacrifice
he offers, he brings them all back again; for in the altar,
the fruit, and the victim, they are all present-present as
the witnesses of his guilt in having abused them to sinful
purposes; and present as expressions of his penitence and
dependence, in restoring them again to their greeat Proprietor, and in thus giving the glory of the whole to God.
Domestic gov-  But that which armed man with greater
leminet brins'ove  than even his dominion over the
the highest power
and responsibility. kilngdomls of nature was his domestic and
social relations. Through these, he could alienate the entire race fiom God; and, by his voluntary transgression,
he had prospectively done so. But the same motives wliich
bring him back to God, induce him to consecrate his influence to the recovery of his children and dependents also.
Having discovered the grand secret that happiness and
honor can be found only in accordance with the laws and
purposes of God, all the sympathies of his social nature
are enlisted in persevering endeavor to harmonize the character and conduct of his household with the will of God.
The prolonged period of filial impressibleness and docility




AND OF THE HISTORY.                 423
affords him the most precious facilities for the attainment
of this end. It seems impossible to conceive of a situation
more favorable to the right development of that distinctive
prerogative of humanity, the will, than that which the family affords. On the one hand, what temptation could there
be to crush or oppress the individuality and fiee agency of
the young human being, where affection itself administers
mlw, and finds much of its happiness in the fieedom of its
subjects. On the other hand, if the preservation of parental authority is essential to the well-being of the family,
the parent discovers that in training his children to piety,
he is both best securing their love for himself, and is advancing his own conformity to the Divine will. I-ow eminently calculated is the position of the parent to occasion
gratitude for his domestic enjoyment and deep anxiety for
the future and lasting welfare of the objects so dear to
him; and how natural for him to appeal to the Being who
alone can befriend him on the only scale commensurate
vwith his wishes-to the Father "of all the families that
call upon His name!"  And in conducting the worship of
the assembled family, he appears in the Divine presence
with all his individual powers and social relations restored;
and thus prepared to answer the ultimate end of his existence by appreciating and voluntarily subserving the advancement of the Divine manifestation. While each patriarch, by being placed at the head of a new generation, was
afforded the opportunity of carrying the manifestation beyond all who had gone before, and of thus approaching( a
stage nearer to perfection.
Thie explosive  The exlosie power of sin, as selfishness,
powerof sn. inideed, prevailed. The first man was not
content to derive from a source that lay out of himself, the




424           REASON OF THE METHOD
ultimate ground and reason, and thle definite criterion of
llis acts. And the same repellent power appeared in every
member of his antediluvian family. " It constituted as many
new centers, as many rebellious and divided systems of
action as there were human beings; atomic centers of
limited and petty influence, but without subordination to
Him from whom they had derived the power to rise in revolt against Him. Nay, even m-ore. So long as man'l was
obedient to God, the whole being of man was obedient to his
controlling faculties; but when he ceased to be the servant
of the Lord, he ceased also to be the master of himself.
Thus, therefore, in the midst of God's fair creation was
there planted, wherever there stood a man, a perpetually
prolific principle of derangement, of separate, self-centered
action, spent ineffectually upon objects that did not enter
into the design of the universe, nor contribute, unless by
opposition and revulsion, to the filfillment of its appointed
work. God, howecver, ordained certain conditions of hulman
existence which, as intermlediate expedients, and instruments of a secondary discipline, should both check tlle
progress of selfishness by establishing a counteracting
principle, and should likewise prepare men to recognize
the higher truths taught in Divine revelation, and supply
them with real, though partial, approximations to the tlrue
law of their being. These were various in shape; but
their pervading character was the same; it was that of a
xolu),,i(x, a common life. A common life in the family, in the
tribe, in thle nation was, apart from direct manifestations
of the Divine will, the grand counteractor of the disorganizing agency of the law of self-worship." *
* Gladstone, The State in relation to the Church, vol. i. pp. 46-50.




AND OF THE HISTORY.                 425
The family,  During the whole antediluvian period, the
God's natural ordinance against family was God's great natural protest and
selfishness.
selfishness.  ordinance against the dissevering power of
sin. "One blood" circulated through the veins of humanity. Each individual will stood in the midst of a number
of related wills, whose separate ends could be best gained
by the union of each with all. The only atmosphere proper
to the community was love. The family should have been
the "schoolmaster to lead" them to the altar; where one
sacrifice would have availed them all, and one promise have
addressed them all. But, in ceasing to love the blessed
God, man lost the great unitive principle of the race. In
arming himself against God, he becomes, more or less, a
center of repulsion to the universe.*
The event, however, proved that at every step of the process the balance was maintained between man's fieedom
and his duty, between his condition and his destiny. That
the means of answering the high end of the economy were
adequately supplied, appears from this, that many adoringly
recognized and employed them. They were "preachers of
righ'teousness;" enforcing the laws and claims of the dispensa.tion. They pointed to the preternatural events that
occurred as warning angels sent fiom God. They received
or assumed significant names, like medallions struck to
save fiom oblivion the Divine element and object of the
dispensation. The altars which "by faith" they reared,
were so many points of friendly contact with Heaven, and
protests against the world's apostasy. While the great
mass was moving in a contrary direction, they " walked
with God," so as to reflect and radiate his presence. They
pointed to His awful " coming" to vindicate the economy,
* Chapter xvii.




426     REASON OF METHOD AND HISTORY.
and to punish all who had resisted the faithful in their endeavors to answer its end. In a word, they were living
moral manifestations of God. Even at last, the faith and
practical obedience of Noah " condemned the world;" convicting it of self-destruction under an economy which might
have saved the race as well as an individual. On the other
hand, that the means employed for attaining this end left
man's moral fieedom unimpaired is mournfully clear. The
family, like the individual, fell through the abuse of that
fieedom, and continued falling. The altar was not a fort
to compel submission; and Cain forsook the altar. The
affections were not constrained; and "the sons of God
took them wives of all which they chose;" and the great
moral distinction of the economy between the obedient and
the disobedient was confounded-the church was merged
in the world. Right was not armed with the bolts of
heaven, and might overcame it, "filling the earth with
violence."  The church was destroyed by the world. The
high end of the family constitution could be attained only
by moral means; and man, instead of being a manifestation
of God, became a manifestation of selfishness. From first
to last, the contest which he maintained was this-whether
God's will should prevail for good, or his own will for evil;
whether God should be the chief good and ultimate end of
his own creation, or whether man should wrest it fiom
Him, use it for his own selfish purposes, and so become his
own end. This is the key to the entire economy. Was it
strange that all human distinctions should be merged in
that one which marked off the few who in any degree
answered the end of the dispensation from the masses who
spent life in the violation of its laws?




FOURTH PART.
THE ULTIMATE END OF THE FAMILY PROBATION AND
ECONOMY AS A MEANS OF DIVINE MANIFESTATION.
CHAPTER XIX.
SECTION I.-POWER.
TIOThUGH the patriarchal dispensation had
The econonmy a
display of Divine failed, as a voluntary manifestation of God
Power.
by man, not the less did the wonderful constitution of the famnily contain, quite irrespectively of the
human will, a manifestation of God to him; while his perversion of it was made the occasion of bringing to light
new aspects of the Divine character, especially patience
and long-suffeiring.
All the preceding manifestations of the
All the illustra-.
tions of Power in Divine Power in the material world were
nature continued.
brought forward into the period of the family economy. Life, in its unnumbered forms, was continled.  The seasons revolved.  The earth silently and
smoothly rolled on in space. All the laws of nature, animate and inanimate, were maintained in ceaseless activity,
combined with undeviating uniformity. For about two
thousand years, notwithstanding the elemental conflicts




428           DIVINE POWVER IN THE
which then, doubtless, as now, seemed to threaten at times
the stability of the system, " all things continued as they
were at the beginning."  Now, if the first hour of creation
continued a display of boundless power, every moment
which prolonged that display was calculated to render
man's conceptions of it more enlarged and impressive; just
as our sense of the force of the arm which projected a
heavy body ten yards, would go on increasing as we saw
the distance prolonged and the velocity undiminished.
In a similar manner, if the production
Andl enlarged in
the multiplication of a single human being, capable of volunof the human race. 
tary effort, furnished a surpassing illustration of the Divine Power, the continuance and multiplication of the human race, during so long a period, proportionally increased the force, of the illustration. And this
would be true, even if each of the race had lived and
moved in isolation fiom all the rest. But all the power
which they gained by combination was so much gained to
the arcgument for the power of God. Every latent force
elicited fiom matter by antediluvian progress in the arts;
every natural instinct which kept its ground in defiance of
a perverted intellect; and, still more, every social law voluntarily agreed to and obeyed, despite the importunities
of depraved propensities-all combined to proclaim: "Thou
last a mighty arm: strong is Thy hand, and high is Thy
right hand."1*
The power residing in the domestic constiLaws and forces
of the domlestic tution loudly proclaimed the same truth.
constitution.  The power of authority, of opinion, of example, of union-indeed, all the various modifications of influence which are elsewhere found in separation, and which
* Psalm lxxxix. 13.




FAMILY CONSTITUTION.                 429
yet separately move the societies they affect-are all united
in the family as in their fountain-head. In truth, so powerfil are they in the family for evil or for good, that all other
forms of social power can do little more than take advantage of them or direct them. So invincible is the moral
energy which inheres in this constitution, that, where it
operates, every force of evil fiom without is repelled like
waves fiom a rock. During the antediluvian period, indeed, that moral power declined firom causes within the
family; but the very " violence wlich filled the earth" in
consequence, was only the measure of the power which had
been let loose and lawless from the salutary restraints and
guidance of family government. Even then, however, the
physical framework of the family continued to stand, though
it hadl ceased to answer its higher social and moral ends,
and though an ocean of licentiousness surged around it;
and, by standing, it presented a lofty monument of the
poIer whlichl had reared it.
Every instance of virtue and piety which
Every holy charactel an instance adorned that early period, was a striking
of power.    illustration of the Divine Power. The production of a holy character under the most favorable circumstances evinces the operation of the Divine energy;
for its existence is a triumph over antagonistic powers in
the man himself. But where, in addition to this, the foes
of his piety are those of his own household; and where
every thing beyond his family circle, turn which way he
will, presents a threatening aspect also-the origination and
maintenance of a holy character in such circumstances exhibits the energy of a perpetual triumph. Such a character
is' an organized victory."  Lamentable it is that the decision of character and indomitable purpose which men so




430          DIVINE POWER IN THE
profoundly admire, should so seldom be seen on the side of
piety. The antediluvian world resounded, probably, with
the fame of many distinguished for those qualities, as human engines of destruction. But so much the more loftily
did the character of a Seth, of an Enoch, and a Noah tower
above them all in monumental strength; inasmuch as each
of them stood like an Abdiel among an apostate host. The
silent admiration they excited in some, the uncontrolable
fears with which they inspired others, and the hatred and
active hostility which beset their onward course-all attested an energy of character which, if put forth in some popular cause, would have awed the wild into homage at its
daring and power. While the faith by which Enoch
walked with God, and the prayer which distinguished a
Noah, evinced their own conviction, that the power which
enabled them "to stand"* was ultimately traceable to God.
" Ie giveth power to the faint, and to them that have no
nighlt lIe increaseth strength."
The prediction which threatened the deThe deluge was
to be a new dis- struction of the world, too, was, in effect, a
pla of power.  prediction of a new display of power. On
this account, probably, it was partly that the world withheld their belief frol it.  Tfieir immoral condition prepared them to believe that they did not deserve such a
punishment; and this again prepared them to believe any
one who chose to assert that it could not be inflicted.
When, therefore, it actually occurred, " the voice of many
walters" proclaimed,' He ruleth by His power forever;
His eyes behold the nations; let not the rebellious exalt
themselves." t
* Romans, xiv. 5.                f Psalm lxvL 7.




FAMILY CONSTITUTION.                431
SECTION II.-WVISDOM.
The whole of the period during which the development
of the Family Constitution took place, was stored with illustrations of the Divine Wisdom. Proofs of this fact are
so numerous that we must limit ourselves to a selection;
and most of these even we can do little nore than name.
Tlo falmily an  During the entire period, the progress of
unfolding of Di- civilization in any one department was, in efvine design.
feet, a cumulative argument for that provident wisdom  which had made such progress possible.
Every application of physical means to human ends, every
addition made to human knowledge and comfort, was only a
new discovery of relations instituted. by Him who had forelaid the entire plan, and who designed to benefit man by
the same means by which HIe educated him.
But entering the domestic circle itself,
Maternal affection. 
what marks of benevolent design appear in
the arrangement by which the tender remembrances and
yearning associations which " accumulate in the maternal
mind during the period of gestation, should all be summed
up amid the throes of parturition," and go to augment the
affection which she is henceforth to feel for her offspring;
by which the necessary aliment is secreted in the maternal
bosom, and the mouth of the suckling is provided with the
nmelns of abstracting and imbibing it; and in that by
-which the strength of the maternal regard is proportioned
to the helplessness and wants of her child, not waiting for its
power of appreciating and returning her affection, but
meeting it with caresses in the hour of its weakness and
unconsciousness.




432            DIVINE POWER IN THE
Simhpicity of pa-  As to the parents themselves-the simecital office.  plicity of the office assigned thern in the goverinmlent of the family, compared with the magnitude of its
results, is a marked display of the I)ivine Wisdom. The
task to be accomplished is. difficult and momentous; so
arduous that human legislation has never touched it without more or less marring it. But the whole is devolved, by
Providence, on two persons. These, fiom their mutual relations, are in various respects better qualified for the office,
and have a deeper interest in its right discharge, than any
other parties in the world. Their task is made easy by
having to begin, not with many, but with one; and still
easier by having to attend at first only to its physical wants.
The experience thus acquired is carried forward with advantage to the treatment of the younger children, and
facilitates their trainincg. As their activity for their children's welfare is purely voluntary, and as that voluntariness
is derived from gratitude and love, it leads to affectionate
emulation; so that the increase of parental duties, instead
of diminishing their nmutual regard, serves to multiply and
draw closer their bonds of reliance, helpfulness, and love.
And yet from this diminutive constitution, so simple in its
plan and quiet in its operations, proceed effects on which
all society is dependent, and which no expedient of society
could ever produce.
Elsewhere I have remarked on the strikino
Special   corres-                                    <1
poild(ences between coincidence between the ability of the parents
parent and child.
to teach, and the disposition of the child
implicitly to receive and believe their instructions; between
their authority and power, and the readiness of the child to
obey; and between the influence of their example, and the
susceptibility of the child to receive the corresponding ila



FAM3ILY CONSTITUTION.              433
pression and to follow it out in imitation. How useless
would the parental properties be if they were not met by
the corresponding filial dispositions.  How invaluable the
advantages resulting from the co-existence of the two; for
thus the child is enabled to avail itself of all the wisdom
and experience of itsparents, and of all which their affection can prompt them to do for its well-being.
flu   of co  But here let me call attention to the wisInflnence of conjugal love.  dom apparent in the benevolent arrangement
by which the example of the parents' regard for each other
is made to distill a happy influence on their children.
" Should their mutual love be grounded on esteem, there
is a secret and instituted virtue in their example, which will
descend on a constitution of things Divinely adapted to
receive it." Equally striking is that appointment by which
example is made more influential than teaching. Oral instruction can only be imparted at distant intervals; but
example is a perpetual ordinance, imparting power to verbal
lessons, and filling up all the intervals of formal instruction
besides.
ariety of char-  Wisdom appears also in the variety of
acter with mutual character observable in a family, when viewed
dependence.
ependnce.  in connection with the mutual dependence and
union resulting from it. We can conceive of a normal
human mind, in which all the faculties are perfectly proportioned and balanced. Now, as far as variety of character
is independent of outward condition, all the shades of difference observable in adult society are owing to slight departures fiom that normal mind; and this variety it is,
chiefly, which occasions that mutual dependence and tendency to combination, so productive of advantage to society
at large. That dependence and reciprocity of services,
19




434           DIVINE POWER IN THE
however, receive their earliest development in the domestic circle. Here inferiors and superiors' of every kind and
degree mingle and co-operate-youth and age, weakness
and strength, ignorance and knowledge, male and female,
affection and authority, are blended together into one compact society. None is entirely independent of the others;
each has his place and value in the little community, and
the loss of one would be felt to be a loss to the whole.
Now, the community of feeling and close relationship produced by this variety of character, would form an attractive illustration of Divine design even if they terminated
within the inclosure of each separate family.
The family a re-  But the same arrangement prepares for the
hearsal for society. still wider community of collective families,
and thus increases the force of the illustration. Here I
may remark on the advantage's of that Divine appointment
which defers the season of marriage till the parties have
reached maturity. By this means they are enabled to avail
themselves of all their parents' experience before they sustain the parental relation themselves-to begin with a
stock of household knowledge. But the advantages which
the family constitution confers on society, are co-extensive
with the relations and duties of society. Here, in the feeling of property which begins with their toys, children take
their first lessons on that great and original doctrine of
meum and tuum which is essential to the wealth of society
and conducive to its comfort and progress. Here, in the
familiar intercourse of brothers and sisters, that affection,
with sexual separation, is developed which is the best safeguard for the laws of chastity and honor in social life.
Here the laws of reciprocity are educed under circumstances most favorable to their full development; laws by




FAMILY CONSTITUTION.                 435
which each is led to recognize in every other man, the same
rights which he claims for himself, and even to respect, and
sympathize with, the claim. Here, every coming relation
of life, every future form of duty, and every subsequent
social affection, are seen virtually put in rehearsal for the
more public scenes of after life. As if with a direct view
to all the affairs of active life, the children are placed in the
family in the most advantageous situation for preparing to
assume their important duties in civil society.
nion  s   The advantages arising from the arrangeUnion of seniors          =       t
and juniors in a ment by which the seniors and juniors of
generation.
generation families intermingle, and by which one generation is appointed to give place to another gradually and
imperceptibly, are numerous and important.    Had the
senior members of each family been removed by death at
the same age; or had the elders of each generation died at
about the same time; or, if during the latter part of their
course they had lived entirely apart, and been lost to society, the result could only have been a one-sided development of society. "Two principles govern the moral and
intellectual world. One is perpetual progress, the other
the necessary limitations of that progress." *  Now, it will
be admitted that, generally speaking, the principle of progress is that to which men most naturally commit themselves in early life; while the principle of permanence is
that-still speaking generally-which is most in favor toward the close of life. The arrangement, therefore, which
provides that a proportion of each class shall occupy the
stage of life together, provides that the principles they
respectively represent shall be held in salutary counterpoise; that "one party shall see the importance of holding
* Genz (Briefe an Johannes v. Miiller).




436           DIVINE POWER IN THE
the rein while urging forward; and the other shall not forget to urge onward while keeping a steady rein."
Easy would it be to multiply illustrations of the wisdom of God in the arrangements of the Family constitution.*
EWere this the place, we might especially
Sclf-accommo- 
dating power of call attention to the self-accommodating power
the family,
of the family constitution to the different
forms of human society. And, from the facts of history,
it could be shown that every change or attempted refinement on that constitution has ended in failure, and the deterioration of that which it was meant to amend- leaving
us to infer that the family, as divinely constituted, is incapable of improvement.
Special illustra- Three facts, however, may here be approtions of wisdom. priately noticed. First, the Divine arrangement that conjugal love should not diminish, but increase
in proportion to the demands made on it. "One of the
consequences of having children (it might have been reasoned antecedently) will be the multiplication of the cares
and duties of the parents, and the consequent multiplication of the points on which they will be liable to differ.
Besides, what other effect can the introduction of new objects of affection, in the persons of their children, produce,
than to diminish the regard of the husband and wife for
each other?" On the contrary, however, they become increasingly endeared to each other. Now, if any thing
analogous to this occurred in the working of a complicated
piece of human mechanism; if the union of its parts, and
its strength as a whole, became the more apparent in proportion as its springs were pressed on and all its machinery
* See Chapters v. vii. xi. xii. xiii.




FAMILY CONSTITUTION.               437
put in stress, not only would the result be ascribed to design on the part of him who planned it, but it would be
regarded as reflecting great honor on the penetration of his
views and on the power of combining them into one. How
much more, then, does a similar result demonstrate the existence of a plan when it is found obtaining, not in a piece
of machinery, but in the history of living, intellectual, moral
beings!
Secondly; that all the diversified effects which the family
exhibits, flow fiom the application of a single principlethat of parental love. In the material world, where an abstraction called Nature is deified, we are often invited to
mark how sparing she is in causes and how prolific in effects, and to admire the wisdom which is thus displayed.
Here, however, in the family circle, the same principle obtains. A single affection receives such various application,
that, notwithstanding the diversity of age and character
which the family exhibits, it presents the spectacle of liberty
united with subordination, love with authority, permanence
with progress, and in which, while each keeps his appropriate sphere, every one is active for all, and the whole is
preparing for and advancing toward the larger sphere of
families yet to come.
And thirdly; that the effects thus produced, and the
compound good resulting from it, as they were not foreseen by the first human pair, and as they do not form the
primary inducements of their descendants to assume the
conjugal relation, refer us for their origination to a higher
will and a higher wisdom than man's. It has been well observed, that "when by natural principles we are led to advance those ends which a refined and enlightened reason
would recommend to us, we are very apt to impute to that




438          DIVINE GOODNESS IN THE
reason, as to their efficient cause, the sentiments and actions
by which we advance those ends; and to imagine that to
be the wisdom of man, which is in reality the wisdom of
God."* All the complex and beneficial effects flowing from
the family constitution presupposes a plan, and illustrate the
wisdom of its Divine designer.
SECTION III.-GOODNESS.
Here, wisdom is Goodness. All the instances adduced
in illustration of the wisdom of God, are adducible also in
exemplification of his goodness; their tendency being the
production of human happiness. But the proofs of benevolence are so numerous that we need not have recourse to
such a repetition.
During the antediluvian period, every onsteer onward ward step in material civilization was Divinely
step meant to minister to man's hap- meant to minister to human enjoyment. This
piness.
is true of the domestication of every animal,
and of the new application of every material substance and
law. But independently of the direct utility of such events,
the pleasure arising from the consciousness of power, from
the discovery of facts, and from the attainment of success,
with which it was accompanied-all is to be taken into account. Nor was this pleasure confined to the first ages of
time when man was comparatively new to the world; for
the earth is as fresh to the childhood of to-day as it was to
the childhood of six thousand years ago. Every sound and
perfume, every color and movement in creation, is a source
of wonder and delight.
* Dr. A. Smith's Theory of the Moral Sentiments.




FAMILY CONSTITUTION.                 439
Love, the basis  As to the family economy; its very foundof the famiy, ation is laid in that love which is but another
another name for
enjoyment.   name for the purest enjoyment. Who can
imagine the amount of happiness which has resulted to
man from this source alone! The exquisite delight of Eve,
when she exclaimed, "I have gotten a man-child from the
Lord!" was only a specimen of the emotion which has
filled the maternal bosom on every similar occasion, " with
joy that a man-child was born into the world."  Add to
this, the stream of enjoyment constantly flowing through
the parental heart generation after generation, at witnessing the health, the growth, the union, the intellectual and
moral progress, and the happiness of his children, especially
the happiness resulting from  parental effort; all this is
traceable to the Divine benevolence as to its fountainhead.
Parental in-  Remarkable is the manner in which the
othecshilbseviegh  parental instincts are made to subserve the
est welfare.  highest well-being of the children. Thus, if
it be necessary to the welfare of children that provision
should be made for their preservation, support, and education, the Divine arrangement which devolves this provision,
partly on the instinct of parental affection, is not less benevolent than that which refers it partly to reason and conscience. Were it devolved entirely on our sense of duty,
the probability is that, in a great majority of cases, the
necessary provision would be quite neglected. On the
other hand, were it referred exclusively to parental affection, the sphere of parental virtue would be contracted to
a point. But by arranging that a strong natural instinct
should come to the aid of conscience, the latter is relieved
considerably in its responsibilities, in a way which exempts




440          DIVINE GOODNESS IN THE
the children from innumerable evils; while that natural
instinct, in ministering to their welfare is a source of enjoyment to the parental heart. Besides which, if this arrangement illustrates the Divine benevolence, the illustration increases in value in proportion as the period of this natural
affection is prolonged. In the case supposed, it is prolonged indefinitely. And still further is it increased, if we
remember the longevity of antediluvian life.
Happy eeffets  Akin to this is that principle of sympathy
Happy effects
of family sympa- by which the members of a family not only
thies.      -fly instinctively to each others' aid, but by
which their various dispositions and emotions are regulated
and equalized. "By the mere principle of sympathy,"
remarks Dr. T. Brown, " all the discord in the social feelings become accordant. The sad, unconsciously become
gay; the gay are softened into a joy, that has less perhaps
of mirth, but not less of delight; and though there is still
a diversity of cheerfulness, all is cheerfulness."  " How
much more admirable, however, is the providence of the
Creator's bounty in that instant diffusion to others of the
grief which is felt only by one, that makes the relief of
this suffering not a duty merely, which we coldly perform,
but a want, which is almost like the necessity of some
moral appetite."  Now, in the family, the occasions for
this aid, and the pleasure arising from its exercise, are of
daily occurrence. Memory recalls and repeats those pleasures in after life. And thus the family provides for the
perpetuation and diffusion of our sympathy, and for all the
delights attending it. Not only do the family affections
survive every benevolent act to which they give expression; they gather strength from  such activity, and would
fain immortalize the objects of their regard.




FAMILY CONSTITUTION.               441
And of family  Most wise and benevolent, too, is that
opinion.  arrangement by which every member of the
family is constantly living and moving under the influence
of opinion-the opinion of those to whom he is the most
nearly related and tenderly attached. By this means, an
ever-present motive to merit approbation is kept in constant activity, as well as a silent and salutary counteractive
of evil, more efficacious than a perpetual lecture on morality, and quietly doing the work of chastisement without its
pain. But besides the goodness which appears in the great
outlines of the family constitution, we recognize the same
profuse benevolence in all the innocent interchanges of humor, and the little pleasantries of the domestic circle. By
these it is, partly, that, in the absence of those occasions
for excitement which can but rarely occur, the large interspaces of time are pervaded with tranquil enjoyment.
How much more readily, too, children love than hate!
How quickly they forget and forgive! How much less
retentive their memory is of sorrows than of joys! And
how hallowed and beneficent the arrangement that the
critical period when youth begins to become conscious of
sex is the age at which it first dreams of the greatest and
the best, and sees visions of ideal excellence.
Eachfamilyand  But not only does every separate aspect
generation uncon- of the domestic economy display the goodsciously preparing
happiness for oth- ness of the Creator: viewed as a whole, it
ers.        assumes the character of an institution designed to convey an ever-increasing stream of enjoyment
from generation to generation. The gradual development
of the first family brought to light, at every step, some
new provision which the benevolent Creator had made and
reserved for its arrival at each successive step. Similar
19*




442         DIVINE HOLINESS IN THE
illustrations of the Divine goodness were repeated and
multiplied in the progress of each of the families which
branched off fiom the first. How incalculably was the
display of that goodness increased, then, when it was seen
that in addition to the happiness secured to the family
while each member of it had, to a certain extent, been
thinking mainly of his own interest, provision had also
been made that each family, while thinking mainly of its
own interest, should be unconsciously multiplying the enjoyments of all the other families. For, by this peculiar
constitution, the knowledge and experience of the earlier
families were accumulated, and devolved on the generation
succeedilng, to receive additions from them, and to be devolved on the next. A virtuous and distinguished name,
by being regarded as the heraldry of the family, would
awaken emulation and multiply itself in those who came
after. The increase of comforts attending the ever-advancing civilization which would result from the swelling stream
of wisdom and virtue would, sooner or later, become common property. So that each family, while chiefly occupied
with its own aggrandizement, was, in reality, creating new
reciprocities in the great community of families, and ministering unconsciously to the good of the whole; and thus
bringing to light the comprehensive benevolence of Him
who had designed and sustained the whole.
SECTION IV.-HOLINESS.
Much as God willed the happiness of His
HIome a new
paradiseand pro- human family, He willed its holiness still
bation.
more.  Accordingly, as Paradise was the
home of man in innocence, so home was meant to be the




FAMILY CONSTITUTION.                443
paradise of childhood, where the family should pass through
a moral probation. Here man was to have a moral government of his own; the very image of the Divine government,
and aiming at the same high end.
Hence, as we have seen, the basis of the family life is
laid, not in sexual desire, but in love. Sense-desire-is
consecrated in marriage, and is raised to a moral office.
Ideas which are but corporeally expressed in the lower
orders of life, are here seen to be symbols of spiritual facts,
and the facts themselves are realized. "Singly and solely
on the supposition that the spiritual life of the parents is
transplanted into the children, does the communication of
corporeal life become a blessing."  The family was God's
first Church.*
All the relations between parent and child
Familyrelations, facilities for are so many natural facilities for training the
training to virtue.
young  to vir tue.  They are committed to
him while yet free fiom the blots and stains of actual transgression, to be preoccupied as quickly and fully as possible
with the writing and signature of Heaven. Would a state
of great susceptibility to impression facilitate their training? The age of childhood is the age of impressibleness;
and God commits them to the parent in that state, to
receive, through his instrumentality, the imprint of the
Divine image. Would it conduce to their training if the
parent found them not inclined to dispute his testimony,
not requiring him logically to believe every thing, but disposed readily to believe his word?  He enjoys this advantage. Belief is natural to the child. When first it has to
suspect or disbelieve it suffers violence. But prior to this,
it asks not for evidence; waits not for proof; but believes
* Tholuck's Exposition of the Sermon on the Mount. Bib. Cab. p. 316.




444          DIVINE HOLINESS IN THE
on the simple testimony of those it loves. Would it add
to the probability of parental success if children were permitted to remain for a considerable time in this impressible
and improvable state? It is wisely ordered that the young
of the human kind should remain in a state of comparative
helplessness longer than the young of any other kind. The
poet of ancient skepticism sang of this long period of infantine dependence as a state of supposed inferiority to the
young of the brute creation; and, therefore, as a proof that
there is no Providence; whereas, it supplies one of the
strongest proofs of the contrary. Had the child remained
dependent on its parents only as long as the brood remains
with the parent bird, the endearing names of father and
mother would have been empty sounds; and justly might the
parents have pleaded that the brevity of the term afforded
them no opportunity of training their offspring to walk with
God. But wisely ordered as it is, they have not only an
opportunity of inscribing on their children's heart the first
impressions which it receives, and of molding their character while it is in its most impressible state, but of continuing to retouch and deepen their best impressions for a
succession of years. And, in the instance of the first families, this opportunity, of course, was extended in proportion to the period of antediluvian longevity.
Means possess-  The moral facilities which the parent posed by the antedi- sesses for training his offspring to spiritual
luviau parent.
excellence correspond with the natural; and,
with it, tend to illustrate the Divine holiness.  These
facilities, indeed, have gone on increasing with the increase
of Divine revelation. But even the antediluvian parent
enjoyed them, in such a manner, and to such an amount, as
to render his neglect of them inexcusable. They consisted




FAMILY CONSTITUTION.                445
(in the instance of Noah, for example, and of each cotemporary parent), in the institution of the Sabbath; in the
hallowed and interesting nature of the knowledge he had
to impart-relating, as it did, to the recent creation-the
glories of Paradise-the first command-its violation, and
the fearful consequences-the mercy which spared the
offenders and which animated their hope with the first
promise-the institution of sacrifice-the symbolic cherubim-the mortality of man-the translation of Enochand the threatening of a deluge in punishment of man's
disobedience, together with the preparation of the ark; in
the attractive and impressive manner in which He had
conveyed this knowledge; in the affecting rite of public
sacrifice; and in the power of prayer. Here every thing
proclaimed the hostility of God to sin, and His design to
facilitate and reward obedience. What could the purpose
of God be, in all these successive revelations and appointments, but to induce men to "keep His commandments,
and that they might not be as their fathers, a stubborn and
rebellious generation, a generation that set not their hearts
aright, and whose spirit was not steadfast with God?"
And what could the character of such a Being be but holy?
The remarkable manner in which the natNatural instincts
made subservient ural instincts and affections are modified
to morality.  and pressed into the service of morality,
attest the same truth. Fear, and anger, and maternal affection, are evinced by the animal tribes, which are utterly incapable of morality. With them they answer the beneficent purpose of self-preservation and the continuance of
their kind. But with man, besides subserving his safety
and comfort, they subserve his character and become elements of his moral excellence. If the sexual desires are an




446          DIVINE HOLINESS IN THE
instance of physical adaptation, illustrative of the Divine
wisdom and goodness, not less is that sense of shame which
checks and regulates the passions, and that trembling delicacy which, even in early childhood, becomes the guardian
of chastity, an evidence of the holiness of the government
of which they are laws. And if the desire of the good
opinion of others, by restraining our selfishness, evinces
the presence of a Divine design, not less does the same desire-operating as it does most powerfully where we love
most, or entertain the highest veneration-illustrate the
Divine regard for virtue, by begetting in the children the
very excellence they suppose their parents admire.
The child has  Not only has the parent the best opporthebestopportun- tunity of training man for God, but the
ity for knowing 
man at his best. child has also the best opportunity of studying God in man. "It is a wise ordination of Providence,
that, at our outset in life, we should come in contact with
human nature under its best aspect; that, under the relation of parent and child, we should form our first acquaintance with humanity."*  By this arrangement it is that the
child-finding itself an object of tender regard to a being
in whom interest and self-love combine with the parental
instinct to render the watchful guardian of its highest welfare-learns to recognize, in his affectionate solicitude, a
copy of the love of its Father who is in heaven, and becomes conscious of those corresponding emotions of benevolence which in after-life prove the strongest auxiliaries of
conscience and duty.
In training the  Equally emphatic for the holy designs of
child to love God, the great Parent is that arrangement by
the parent is best
trairing it to love which the parent, in teaching the child to
hlmself.     love virtue, is found to be best securing its
* Parkinson's Hulsoan Lectures, 1838, p. 62.




FAMILY CONSTITUTION.                 447
moral affection for himself. Earlier in life than is commonly supposed, the child begins to distinguish between that
instinctive affection which would deny it nothing, and that
higher moral regard which studies its welfare. And from
the moment it makes the important distinction, it begins to
respect and love the latter most, though necessarily less
indulgent than the former. A higher part of his nature is
appealed to, and responds to the appeal.  And thus, in
teaching it to respect virtue, the parent is securing its affection more effectually than if he sought the object directly
and exclusively; and is at the same time obtaining an additional proof that the author of the parental relation and the
patron of holiness is one and the same.
The occasion on  How beautifully illustrative of the same
which all the fam- truth is the fact that the particular occasions
ily is harmonized
into one.    on which all the members of the family
are assembled in one spot, harmonized in one act, and represented by one mind, should be at the altar of God. It
matters not whether the duty there consisted of sacrifice or
of prayer-for prayer is the sacrifice and offering of the
heart, and sacrifice is an acted prayer. Whichever it might
be-there, where sin is confessed and forgiven; where the
conscience is quickened and strengthened for duty; where
holy resolutions are formed, and aid obtained to fulfill them
— there He makes it their duty and privilege to come,
"that with one mind and one mouth they might glorify
God."   A numerous patriarchal family thus collected at
"the place of the altar," while its aged priest and head
performed the solemn rites, presented one of the most attractive illustrations which the mind can conceive of the
hallowed design of the domestic constitution.  For there
where all were one with each other, and only in proportion




448          DIVINE HOLINESS IN THE
as they were one with each other, were they one with God.
The same act which brought them nearest to the source of
excellence, drew closer their family ties, and made them
love as brethren.
The virtue of a family is essential to its
The virtue of a
family essential to well-being  The first sin of our first parents
its well-bin.  led to mutual accusations. The first sin recorded of their offspring led to the death of one child, the
exile of another, and the wretchedness of the parents.
Every act of immorality in the member of a family is a
seed which only requires time in order to become " a root
of bitterness."  And while the same spirit of impiety
which revolts from God introduces an insubordinate and
disorganizing spirit into the family, the recovery of its
members to their allegiance to God is the only restorative
process for the family. Ie has thus " revealed fiom heaven
His hostility against all impiety and unrighteousness of
men"-revealed it by an "'ordinance" * " shown to them
ever since the creation of the world;" and most emphatically shown in the laws of the family constitution. For we
know not how a more conclusive demonstration could be
given of the holiness of God, than that the domestic economy should have been so framed by His hands that its welfare is made to depend on its virtue; so that for its members to be right socially, or as a family, it is indispensable
that they should be right virtuously, or in their relations to
morality.
Depraved pa-  Even  depraved  parents are, generally
rents in favor of speaking, in favor of the moral training of
t h e i r  children's 
moral training.  their children.  Though hourly polluting
their family by their own evil example, their sympathies
* dcKalca),a, Romans, i 32.




FAMILY CONSTITUTION.                449
are on the side of any effort made by benevolence to counteract the influence of such example; thus silently intimating the original design of the parental relation. So indestructibly did God interweave into the texture of the family constitution the law of " Holiness to the Lord.,"
The holy de- During the theocratic period, this high
sign of the family aim of the family was very variously and
avowed.
distinctly affirmed. When vindicating the
inviolable sanctity of the conjugal tie, the prophet * asks.
"Did He not make one? though He had the residue of
the Spirit. And why the one?    That He might seek a
godly seed." The original formation of one man and one
woman into " one flesh" or conjugal body, contemplated
the rearing of a pious offspring. Other and inferior ends
were to be secured by it, but this was its ultimate design.
" He did not design it (remarks Howe t) merely that there
might be a continual descent of human nature, but that
religion might still be transmitted from age to age; and
this design IHe never quits."  Marriage was a Divinely-conceived idea for the manifestation of God in man.
And the arrangement by which children
Every new family, a new call to come, successively, to form new families, and
aim at this end.  families to form new generations, was an everrecurring call to man to resume the original design of the
family. Every child in its innocence was a new vindication
of the family constitution, and a " living witness against all
who had been babes."  The great possibilities which came
with the first-born of the race, reappeared with every subsequent birth. Each family brought with it the means of
retrieving the past. Each generation might have begun
the history of the world anew. By this constant incoming
* Mal.ii. 15.. Vol. v. p. 396.




450           DIVINE JUSTICE IN THE
of new life and power, man was ever summoned to recommence the great experiment, to reconstruct society on the
basis of love, and to consecrate the family to God. The
very last birth that preceded the flood was a virtual renewal of the first Promise. And does not the significant
manner in which the fulfillment of that promise was inwoven with the family constitution imply that the recovery
of the family is essential to the recovery of the race; that
the restoration of the family to its original functions is
necessary in order to the full effect of the remedial economy?
Justice, the en-  Justice is but a mode or phase of holiness.
forcement and vindication of holi- If the latter utters itself in laws expressive
lless.       of Divine Perfection, the former administers
their righteous sanctions. If holiness flows forth in a family constitution, justice, animadverts on all the infractions
of that constitution. From the day of man's first transgression " till the day that the flood came," the justice of
God had shown itself in active hostility against sin. The
first offenders had been expelled from Paradise. Even the
promise of a Deliverer contained an intimation that the
deliverance would be obtained by suffering; while the institution of sacrifice proclaimed that "without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins."  Mercy itself
must be based on equity. "Death had passed upon all
men, for that all had sinned." The solitary exception-the
translation of Enoch-had, combined with his prophecy of
the Lord's coming to judge the ungodly, to corroborate
their forebodings of a state after death; a state in which
character and the consequences of character would be both
resumed. In the family constitution, especially, the Divine
justice had declared war against sin, by "visiting the sins




FAMILY CONSTITUTION.              451
of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth
generation."* When, amid the thunders of Sinai, He described himself as doing this, the language denoted that it
was no new law, but that it had characterized His government from the beginning. During the entire antediluvian
period it had been in force, infants had died. Diseases, the
fruit of sin, had been propagated. Poverty had been entailed. Indulged and neglected children had been judgments to their parents. Bad families had been curses to
society. Sin was literally made a family quarrel. And in
thus punishing the parent in the person of the child, the
Divine Governor was simply allowing the known and settled laws of the family constitution to take their course.
Laws-which, if complied with, would have rewarded the
parent in the person of the child-were not to be repealed
by the Divine Legislator when, and simply because, they
were disobeyed. To the parent himself; therefore, this was
only an arrangement of strict equity. He could not justly
complain; for both the law and its self-executing sanction
were foreknown to him. Besides which, its original tendency was one of unmixed good; nor could it be withdrawn
without withdrawing also all the good of which it was still,
and ever would be, the channel,
But when the family constitution had existed about two
thousand years, the persistency of mankind in a course of
sin, drew forth a new and appalling intimation of God's
just displeasure against it. "He said that he would destroy them." When the guilty race had either forgotten
or denied His government: or was flattering itself that he
was " altogether such an one as itself," the tremendous
proclamation went forth, "the end of all flesh is come be* Exodus, xx. 5.




452       DIVINE FAITHFULNESS IN THE
fore me; for the earth is filled with violence through them;
and, behold, I will destroy them from the earth." So far
from reducing the just and natural sanctions of virtue belonging to the domestic economy, here was a special infliction impending, on the largest scale, with a view to reinforce those sanctions as of Divine appointment.
Divine faithful-  Faithfulness is an element of holiness. If
ness illustrated. truth is the expression of the holy mind and
will of God, faithfulness is adherence to that expression.
As an attribute requiring for its development the lapse of
time and a succession of events, every successive part of
the antediluvian period enlarged the field of its manifestation. The first transgression was the first occasion for its
display. The Satanic suggestion that the threatened penalty would not be inflicted, was a guilty experiment on the
Divine veracity. But even before "the voice of the Lord
God was heard in the garden in the cool of the day," the
shame, the conscious guilt, and the attendant pain, of which
man forthwith became the subject, showed that "God is
not a man that He should lie."  But will God rigidly adhere to the sentence, " dust thou art, and unto dust shalt
thou return?" VWith what deep intetest must the first
practical reply to this momentous question have been
waited for by the first men! The death of Abel, indeed,
came early in the history of the race, as if in solemn anticipation of the truth. But while human foreboding would
one while view the event in this impressive light, hope
would, doubtless, at other times, awaken the idea that, as
far as that event was concerned, it only showed that death
might occur by violence. And then, as the life of the
great progenitor of the race was drawn out century after
century, while his " eye was not dim, nor his natural force




FAMILY CONSTITUTIONS               453
abated," the hope that the sentence of mortality was remitted, would often rise toward certainty. But, at length,
the long-suspended stroke fell; and the father of the race
was buried by his children. Every subsequent instance of
dissolution confirmed the Divine veracity, and showed that
sinful man had nothing to expect fiom that quarter " but a
certain fearful looking for" of the threatened judgment;
while all the sufferings, physical and mental, which went
on increasing with the increasing guilt of the species, demonstrated that sin and misery are linked together with the
invariableness of cause and effect.
But the same faithfulness which bound together guilt
and punishment by a law, was manifested also in the fulfillment of promise and the reward of obedience. The faithfulness of God was reflected in the faith of his worshipers.
" By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice
than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous; God testifying of his gifts." Believing the testimony
he had received respecting sin and sacrifice, he confessed at
the altar his personal unworthiness, and looked to God for
the pardon he sought. And the Divine acceptance of his
offering showed that "He is faithful who hath promised.
Enoch " walked with God;" and the consequence was that
even "before his translation he had this testimony, that he
pleased God."  His translation itself was the surpassing
proof of the Divine complacency in his faith. " Noal being
warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear,
prepared an ark to the saving of his house."  Every part
of the patriarch's conduct evinced his reliance on the Divine veracity. The subject of the Divine communication
related to "things not seen as yet"-unprecedented both
as to the judgment which should destroy the world, and as




454          DIVINE MERCY IN THE
to the mercy which should select and save a single family;
as well as to the peculiar manner in which both the judgment and the mercy should attain their ends. Yet, by a
faith which " moved him with fear"-penetrated him with
a conviction of the Divine veracity, he "prepared an ark
to the saving of his house." And by this confidence of his
in the faithfulness of God, "he condemned the world"convicted it of guilty unbelief in not believing God on the
evidence on which he believed; "and became an heir of
the righteousness which is by faith."
SECTION V.-MERCY.
Mercy madethe  Much and variously as the preceding asdispensation pos- pects of the Divine nature were illustrated
sible.
during the patriarchal economy, they were
not first made known by it. Man, either as unfallen or fallen, had exemplified them all. Whereas Mercy alone could
make the dispensation possible. Mercy both introduced it,
and was introduced by it. Then first mercy became known
to man; perhaps to the universe.
From the moment man sinned and incurred condemnation, it is difficult to conceive on what ground the human
race could have been perpetuated, apart from a remedial
scheme. For justice to have taken its direct course would
have involved the destruction of the transgressors. The
dispensation of mercy literally caught man in the very act
of falling, arrested his descent to perdition, and placed him
on an entirely new footing. Hence, the entire constitution
of things by which humanity subsists is represented in
Scripture as resting on a basis of mediation. And although




FAMILY CONSTITUTION.                  455
this great fact may have only dimly dawned on the antediluvian believer, he must have been. often amazed at that
outburst of grace which was ever flowing onward in a dispensation of good, encircling him and all his race.
This mercy was evidently the utterance of
Merlcy, the utterance of a pur- a Divine purpose. The believer of that day
pose         could not have looked back on the mode of
its original announcement without recognizing this exhilarating fact. The close connection in time between man's
guilty fall and God's hand outstretched to save, showed
that sin is not to be viewed as an unforeseen frustration of
Divine plans, nor mercy as a Divine afterthought.   The
fact that man's hope was suspended on a promise, whose
fullfilment was placed in the future, showed that it was no
mere device or sudden expedient for supplying a defect in
the scheme of Divine procedure, but that it belonged to a
far-reaching plan; while the institution of sacrifice not only
pointed to the same plan, but dimly foreshadowed the
mode of its accomplishment.
ot less effica-  And as the means of mercy were thus
cious because not based on a Divine purpose, it needed not
then  fulfilled.
to wait for the actual appearance of those
means-the personal advent of the Deliverer. Moral causes,
unlike physical, operate prospectively; and therefore mercy
proceeded to act from the first on the forelaid ground of
His coming. He is the " lamb without blemish and without
spot, who verily was foreordained before the foundations
of the world." * And as there never was a point in past
* "St. Peter, in the words above (says Warburton), distinguishes between the advent of our Redeemer, and the efficacy of His death, in teaching us, that though His manifestation was late, yet the virtue of His foreordained redemption operated from the most early times. For it would




456            DIVINE MERCY IN THE
duration in which the atonement was not present to the
Divine mind as a fact unchangeable in its value and relations, so there never has been a moment, since man fell, in
which mercy, on the ground of that fact, was not awaiting
his acceptance.
Its aspect uni-  And for the same reason that mercy was
versal   free for any, it was free for all. The promise
challenged universal belief. It was " the Gospel preached
before" to the antediluvian world. The Protevangelium
was "to every creature."   The altar was unfenced. The
Divine remonstrance with Cain showed that God was'"waiting to be gracious."  The various interpositions of
Heaven to reinforce its means of winning attention were so
many devices of mercy. The "preachers of righteousness"
were its agents. The period of respite, during the building
of the ark, was one long wail of mercy.
The saved them-  But besides this outward apparatus of
selves manifesta- mercy, there were men who so opened their
tions of mercy.
hearts to its saving influence that they themselves became living manifestations of Divine compassion.
That apparatus was an earlier ark for saving men from the
surges of a spiritual flood; and, as it floated down the
stream  of time, they who availed themselves of its everopen door became at once monuments of the grace which
had saved them  and living arks for the rescue of others.
They "' could not but speak the things which they had seen
be trifling to speak of a pre-ordination which was not to be understood
of a pre-operation; since those to whom the Apostle wrote well understood, from the attributes of the Godhead, that all things that were, had
been pre-ordained, in the mere simple sense of the word. The other sense,
of a pre-operation, St. John more forcibly expresses by'the Lamb slain
from the foundation of the world.' "-Divine Legation, Book ix. c. 2.




FAMILY CONSTITUTION.                457
and heard."  They were saved, partly, that " in them God
might show forth all long-suffering," as an encouragement
to others. As men, "who had found mercy of the Lord,"
their character was a reflection of the Divine character;
and their condition was a proclamation of mercy to all who
would accept it.
Theak as  Even the deluge was an event in which
The ark a symbol of mercy.  "mercy rejoiced against judgment."  For
though "few, that is, eight souls, were saved by water,"
their temporal rescue was but a symbol of the higher deliverance which had been offered to the race, and was effected in order to resume, under new auspices and in a
wider theater, the great experiment of mercy which the
family had failed to improve. As the ark rose and floated
solitarily over the world's grave, it might have spoken to
other worlds, both of the past and of the future; but in
each respect it testified to the mercy of God. In its relation to the past, it was the memorial of a world that would
not be saved; while in relation to the future, it was freighted with the means of mercy to a new world.
SECTION TI.-LONG-SUFFERING.
The economy  The family constitution introduced the
pre-eminently a dispensation of mercy for all time.  But
display  of  longsuffering.   that aspect of the Divine character, which
was especially illustrated during the antediluvian period,
was the long-suffering of God. Long-suffering, indeed, is
historically and in fact only a mode of mercy. But this is
by no means a necessary fact. The long-suffering is as
truly contingent on the will of God as the mercy. On the
20




458      DIVINE LONG-SUFFERING IN THE
one hand, there might have been mercy without long-suffering; for salvation might have been made dependent on
the instant acceptance of its conditions. Its language might
have been: "In the day that thou declinest to accept
them thou shalt surely die."  On the other hand, there
might have been long-suffering, hypothetically, without any
dispensation of mercy. The race, that is, by a suspension
of strict justice, might have been left to die out, without
any hope of mercy.    Or there might have been both
mercy and long-suffering during the term  of the family
probation, and no longer. Both forms of Divine manifestation might have ended with the flood. As it was, mercy
-was offered to all, long-suffering was experienced by all.
Thatlong-suffer-  In order to estimate the patience of
ing estimated by which that economy was the special manithe capabilities of
the family.  festation, we must try to compute the vast
capabilities of the family as a means of reflecting the
paternal character of God. Man, for example, is an assertion of Divine Power. In the family, his individual energies for good were to be indefinitely increased by combination; and the whole to be put forth as a moral leverage for
lifting earth nearer to heaven. Man is an illustration of the
Divine Wisdom. Besides being an epitome of all the complicated relations with which nature abounds, he includes a
multitude of others which transcend nature, and which ally
him to the supernatural. In the family, entirely new relations are added, of a nature so tender and sacred, so profound and indissoluble, that they are employed as the fittest
symlbols of the life-and-spirit relations between the soul and
God. and of the union between the Church and Himn " of
whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named."
Here was the promise of a union so helpful, hallowed, and




FAM3ILY CONSTITUTION.               459
close as to represent and rival the union of the blessed
above. The Divine Goodness finds its highest reflection in
man's capacity for enjoyment; but in the family that
capacity was to be more than doubled. Commlencing in
marriage-in " the idea of an entire disposal of self by the
one party to the other in love"-no member of the society
was to live to himself. It needed the parental relation to
help man to a vivid sense of the goodness of God. A
fathler's heart alone, with its yearning, expanding, self-giving affection can truly apprehend it. So ocean-like is it,
that it required the channels of unnumbered hearts-generations of them-in order to represent it. Its depth and
strength could not be made apparent except as it was divided among myriads of fathers' hearts, all overflowing
like itself; and all pouring that overflow into the open
channels of the family, waiting like a vast capacity to receive and reflect it.
But all the happiness which thus came down fiom the
great Fountain-head, the family was meant to send back to
it again in loving obedience and moral excellence. The
government, set up for God in the individual breast, was
externalized in the family; made collective and social; and
he who had instrumentally given life to its subjects ruled
in the name of God.    Its only bonds were "cords of
love."  Its infant members came into it as the symbols of
celestial purity. It had no adequate explanation except as
it prepared them for that state which they symbolized. If
the earth was a temple, the family was its " holiest of all;"
and all its divinely selected arrangements and influences
were meant to be ever crying to each other, " holy, holy,
holy is the Lord God Almighty," as the continuous service
of love and worship trained up its members for heaven.




460      DIVINE LONG-SUFFERING IN THE
Rich in possibil-  How rich was the family in Divine possiilies.  bilities! How large its capacity for reflecting the holy Fatherhood of God! Each father surrounded
by his offspring-an exponent of the life-giving Creator.
Each child, losing its first vernal freshness, only to replace
it by beauty of a higher order-the very image of God;
and each gradually enfolding a different aspect of that image! Every family an epitome of the government of God;
headed by its own father in the threefold relation of
prophet, priest, and king; complete in itself; but seeking
and reciprocating the love of every other. A community
interlaced and bound together by ties too sacred and strong
for selfishness to rupture or impair. Every generation inheiitilg the excellence of the past, only to enlarge and
carry them forward for all the future. The whole community, when at its highest and its best, feeling that the Divine
qualities which it embodied and reflected, even if the reflection were spread over ten thousand such communities,
would but faintly represent the Fatherhood of God. Had
this sublime possibility been realized, and could the first
man-the patriarch of the race-have come back to survey
the blessed scene when at its best, what a heaven would he
have found upon earth! But could his large heart have
taken into itself all the paternal emotions of love, and
hope, and joy to which the family constitution had ever
given rise, how feebly, after all, would it have represented the Divine complacency of that Mind which had
given birth to the whole, and which alone could see all
the rich possibilities and endless consequences which it
inclosed!
Nearly the   Now, though there was no controlling
whole wasted and
perverted.   necessity to prevent the realization of this




FAMILY CONSTITUTION.                 461
scene to the utmost, the conduct of the antediluvian world
involved the perversion and waste of well-nigh the whole.
All the powers inclosed in the family economy for good
broke lose for evil.
If th family  Had that economy itself been known only
had yet to be set as a thing possible, what lofty ideas of man's
up, how much
would be expected perfectibility would have swelled the human
from it?     breast on the supposition that the possible
could be made actual. Now here it was actually set up;
and as it had unfolded, one generous provision after another
came to light; and one wise and holy law after another
disclosed its existence. But each provision by its perversion, and each law by its transgression, seemed only to
furnish man with an occasion for developing his disregard
for the will of its Divine originator. Had children come at
length to be only bright possibilities; had they ceased to
be born when the family had reached a certain pitch of
disorganization and depravity, what visions of improvement
man would have indulged in, if he might but have a new
generation once more to begin with! But the stream of
humanity never ceased to flow, and never ceased to deepen
its pollution. Generation followed generation; and every
new-born infant came like a fresh witness for God and a
protest against man. But the multiplication of the species
was the measure of their progress in evil.
Were other orders of beings looking on?
IHope often kindled, but uniform- Supposing such to have been the fact, occaly quenched.  sions were not wanting, at times, to kindle
and rekindle their hopes for the issue. When they saw
that human life was to be drawn out, century after century,
they might surely have expected that " years would teach
wisdom;" for this doubtless was the moral reason of man's




462      DIVINE LONG-SUFFERING IN THE
longevity. When they saw one generation of infant human
beings succeed another, each affording a new opportunity
for retrieving the past, they could hardly fail to look with
a feeling of certainty for new results. When certain crises
arrived, and the heart of society was smitten with a sense
of misgiving and gloom, they might surely have looked for
a gathering of venerable men on the great subjects which
concerned them in common. When every law involving
the well-being of the family had been fairly worked out,
what more natural than that these laws should have been
affirmed by a consensus familiarumn, and have henceforth
secured the general obedience? Alas for such expectations!
The sun was gone from the center of the system, and each
little planet and satellite was jostling every other in a
struggle to take the vacant place. The great principle
which alone can give repose to the individual heart which
unites man to man, and family to family, was lost. Man
knew no higher end than himself. And they saw his long
life spent in a laborious multiplication of means to serve
this end. They saw generation after generation of newborn souls devoted and destroyed for this end; while every
great gathering of human families took place, not from any
principle of love to each other, but for the subjugation or
destruction of other families standing in the way of their
selfish ends.
Judgments often  Doubtless, too, there were epochs, when,
anticipated.  if such beinogs were looking on, they might
justly have lost all hope for man, and have assumed that
he had at length exhausted long-suffering. When, for example, the number of the families that stood for God came
to be in the minority, and still continued to dwindle.
When it was seen that each generation accepted the




FAMILY CONSTITUTION.                463
disorganized state of things inherited from all the past,
concerned only to carry the guilty experiment still further.
Especially when the two classes of character which had
stood confronting each other, the righteous and the wicked, came to mingle and unite, showing that they had not
only lost all sense of' this moral distinction, but had replaced it by the passing differences which end with life.
This, in truth, was the only distinction which the economy
recognized. It drew but one line; that which divided
those who lived to promote the ultimate purpose of the
Divine manifestation, from those who lived to frustrate it.
It knew but of two families; those who remained on the
side of' the great Pater-familias and who aimed to carry up
the economy to t he height of His design, and those who
combined to reduce it to their own selfish ends. Among
the latter, there might have been numerous grades, and
distinctions, and occupations; some high in intellect, others
devoted to the esthetic service of the emotions, and others
known for their conquests of nature or of their fellow-men;
but all ultimately failing of the great end of existence.
And, among the former, there may have been those who
at times were tempted to regard some of those artificial
distinctions, for a moment, as if they were all-important.
But they had only to reflect, in order to feel that to be "the
sons of God" was the only substantial and enduring distinction.  And as the process of human deterioration
advanced from  stage to stage, the imaginary spectators
may have often looked for the sudden descent of judgment,
and have been ready to say: "Here, surely, the process
will end. We must now have seen the utmost of Divine
long-suffering.". But again their apprehensions were met
by some new interposition which spoke of the unex



464      DIVINE LONG-SUFFERING IN THE
hausted "riches of His goodness and forbearance" yet in
store.
God repented  At length, however, the state of the world
mau's creation.
ans creationhad reached a pitch of guilt so enormous that
it is actually said, "It repented the Lord that He had
made man upon the earth.". The language, of course, is
figurative; exhibiting what ancient philosophy called
auy(uxrx,(ut^, a condescension to the views and capacities
of men. Nor is there any book that can so well afford to
indulge in such language as the Bible; not only on account
of its cclnpassionate aim in employing it, but because
of the precautions it employs to guard against the only
danger to which it exposes. For it both solemnly forbids
any artistic image of God, and it distinctly teaches that,
strictly speaking, " God is not a man that He should
repent." *  To say, then, that it repented God that lfe
hcad madTe man, is to tax and exhaust language in an effort
to express the depth of human degradation and the utterness of the manner in which the family constitution had
failed to answer its primary and proper end. Even "He
that made them will not have mercy on them; and He
that formed them will show them no favor." t From the
depths of the preceding eternity, when contemplating the
bright possibilities of such a world, He had "rejoiced in
the habitable parts of the earth, and his delights were with
the sons of men." J That was the Divine idea: here was
the human reality; so foul that it must be swept from the
face of the earth!
But what a manifestation of the Divine
Every man,
family, and age r eaae rbrn  had it led to; for by what long
tried  the Divine
patience differ- travail in sin had man reached his fearful
ently.      climax!   Every sinful man that had lived
* 1 Sam. xv. 29.  f Isaiah, xxvii. 11.  t Proverbs, viii. 31.




FAMILY CONSTITUTION.               465
had tried the patience of God "in his own way," in a
manner different firom all the rest. Every godless family
had varied the great experiment on his long-suffering.
What lessons, wlarnings, and significant intimations each
man of many centuries had unconsciously sown broad-cast
as he walked through life; and what vital seeds, numerous
as the spores shed in autumn, had others unconsciously
scattered in his path-to be all trodden into the gencral
mire! What myriads of children had come age after age,
bringing with them traces of their Divine origin and mission-to be all wrought up into the great organization of
evil!  What an amount of resistance man must have
offered to Divine remonstrances and restraints, in order to
break throughl them all! What miseries he had been content to endure in his prolonged hostility against God!
What misrepresentations-caricatures-of the Divine Being had come to pass for portraits! What perversions of
humanity, for normal man-the image of God! What
object in nature had he not wrested from its rightful purpose, and selfishly appropriated? What law of the family
constitution had he not violated, and what violation had
he not misnamed liberty-an improvement on the Divine
plan?  What sins did that constitution make possible,
which he had not perpetrated? What promise or possibility of amendment was there at any point of the process
which had not been waited for, and which he had not disappointed? What interposition of mercy which he had not
turned into an occasion for new acts of presumption?
VWhat delay of judgment, from which he had not taken
heart to believe that no excess of depravity will ever
arouse the Divine displeasure?  Of all the evil which
his state admitted, what stage of evil had he not passed
20*




460      DIVINE LONG-SUFFERING IN THE
through, and what depths had he not reached?     Yet
of what regret was lie conscious, except that he could
not descend deeper; that the laws of his nature, and the
limitation of even his many-centuried life, placed bounds to
his pow'ers fbr evil which he could not exceed? But that
which lie could not perpetrate he could imagine; and,
having exhlausted the present and the actual, what worlds
ot possible evil and Titanic daring did not his imagination
create andl revel in? For, " God saw that the wickedness
of n1an was gr'eat in the earth, and that every inmigination
of the tlou-ghlts of his heart was only evil continually." In
add(ition to thle wrecks of a Divine economy which he had
strewn around him, there were undeveloped powers of evil
withiln himn; s)prings which only wanted room to uncoil, in
order to desolate other worlds.  And all this was ever
present to the Divine eye, standing side by side with the
possible heaven which might have occupied its place.
Yet, for all this, the Divine forbearance proves itself
sufficient.
"And God 3aid unto Noah, The end of
Punishment deferrei for a hun- all flesh is come before me."  But still the
ired and twenty Divine patience " endured with much longyears.
su-ftlrinlg the vessels of wrath fit for destruction." For a hundred and twenty years longer the seasons
revolved. No storm gathered in the heavens. All things
appeared to " continue as they were fiom the lbeginning of'
the creation."  Only the prophetic ark arose; proclaiming
that every added day was a winged messenger from the
mercy-seat inviting men to repent. As if lingering to see
whether some ground might not yet appear for withdrawing the doom; whether the world's last consummating sin
might not be indefinitely delayed; whether their manifest



FAMILY CONSTITUTION.               467
ation to themselves as incarnations of evil might not bring
them to a pause, " the long-suffering of God waited in the
days of Noah while the ark was a preparing."*  "The
Lord is not slack concerning His promise; but He is longsuffering, not willing that any should perish, but that all
should come to repentance." t It was Iis mode of expressilg, for more than a century, His reluctance to close the
door of. hope.
The entire  -  But mIan's intense depravity was more than
The entire pcriod a display of a match for even such patience. "They did
long-suffering.  eat, they drank, they married wives, they
were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered
into the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all." $
The ark uprose; the monument and memorial of a departed race. At the beginning of the dispensation God
had said, in effect: "Let the family be a voluntary manifestation by man, and to him of my Fatherhood;" nor had
the natural unfolding of its Divine constitution failed to
place in a stronger light than ever the various attributes of
the Divine character. But this, as far as man was concerned, was an involuntary process. He had selfishly perverted the family constitution itself in which God was
meant to be seen. Even the intellectual and social development which it had occasioned, only increased his moral
disqualification for appreciating the character of God.
And, therefore, from the moment man had shown himself
regardless of the Divine design of the constitution, and
had set himself to pervert the working and application of
it to his own selfish ends, God had said, in effect: "Let his
conduct be the occasion of making a manifestation to him
of My Long-suffering-an aspect of My character as yet
* 1 Peter, iii. 20.  f 2 Peter, iii. 9.  t Luke, xvii. 27.




468        THE FAMILY CONSTITUTION.
unknown. As he becomes to himself a manifestation of
evil, I will make to him a new manifestation of good."
And now the time had come when the evil must be swept
friom the earth to make way for yet greater good. The
planet over which "the morning stars had sang together,"
and which might still have been floating through the
heavens to the same strains-the ark of space-now showed
only a solitary vessel in the midst of a shoreless waste of
waters, fieighted with the hardly-saved wreck of a world
departed. But that vessel was conveying into the future
the precious germs of a new era of the Divine manifestation. For the human incarnation of the Divine-the great
manifestation of God by man, as well as to him-is yet to
come.




INDEX.
Activity, law of, 139.                Conjugal love, 182, 433; obligation, 245.
Affection, marriage based on, 243; filial, Consciousness of evil, early, 55.
rises to the love of God, 318; maternal,
431.                                Death, 126.
Allegorical, is the account of the Fall? Degeneracy, man'sltransmitted, 35,40,143.
69.                                 Deluge, miracle of, 171, 324, 316.
Alyphabetic writing, origin of, 99.   Depenelncle of the family on God, 338,
Alternatives to man's redemption, 24.   415; to be recognized voluntarily, 418.
Analogies in the family, 361.         Depravity, 43, 46.
Antediluvian chronology, 32; civiliza- Development, law of, 92; theater of, 92;
tion, progress of, 160; history, is family  of the arts, 97; of natural theology,
history, 308; means of religious train-  100; man's own, 105, 111.
ing, 443; population, number of, 163; Discipline, evils of lax, 300.
state of the family sufficiently known, Division, the great moral, 132, 336, 379;
21; theater of civilization, 92; chosen  of labor, 144.
by God, 341.                        Duties, each generation has its, 291.
Apostasy of the Sethites, 379; universal, Duty of parents to prepare for their
385.                                  office, 295.
Ark, a symbol of mercy, 457.
Art and science made possible, 402; arts  Edenic region, 65, 93.
successively developed, 97.         Education, home, 223; laws of, 227; obAttention, education of, 268.          ject of, in relation to society, 231; to
Authority, parental, transitional, 280.  God, 232; to be harmonized with the
Divine plan, 234; when does it begin?
Basis of the family, marriage, 86.      250; of the various powers, 254; religBenefits of religious training, 301.   ious, 273; should embrace social morality, 290; means of, and order, 319;
"Call on the name of the Lord," 160.   misunderstood, 389.
Celibacy, 216.                        Educational punishmcits and rewards,
Change, law of, 375.                   270; rights of children, 333.
Character, independence of, 267; social, Emotions, education of, 260.
289.                                Emulation in the family, 143.
Cherubim, 118.                        Ends, inferior, how best attained, 299.
Children, duties owing to, 247; educa- Enoch, in moral advance of Adam, 116;
tional rights of, 333; long retention of  the book of, 130.
under parental care, 341.           Error, every stage of passed through, 394.
Chronology, 67; antediluvian, 32.     Evil, early consciousness of, 55; of
Church, the family a, 113.             lax discipline, 300; stages of passed
Civilization, the family promotive of re-  through, 386.
ligious, 159; continuity of antediluvian, Example will not account for sin, 38.
159, 163, 166; material perverted; 390.  Examples of faith and piety, 127.
Classes, the two   antediluvian, 132, Experience, ma must have, of liis insuf336.                                 ficiency, 413.
Community, well-being of, 305.
Confidence, social, 287.              Faith, the family favorable to its de



470                            INDEX.
velopment, 351; obedience dependent Filial temperament derived, 185; obligaon, 365                              tion, 281.
Faithfulness of Gorl illustrated, 452.  Forbearance, social, 289.
Fall, is the a count of it allegorical? 69.  Freedom, man's moral, respected, 421.
Family, on probation, 19, 364; a new  Future judgment, 130.
stage of Divine   nanifettation, 23;
based on imercy, 27, 411, 454; denotes  Generation,, each has its duties, 291.
a propertv in God, 30; illustrates long- Generations, progress of antediluvian,
suffering, 32; does not mierge individ-  1O.
uality, 60; mnarriet the social basis of, Giants " in those days," 206.
86; Divine idea of, 87; meditation  God, man's relation to, 201; object of
ctrame Aith, 90; its antedilluvian thea -  education in relation to, 232; mani's reter, 92; a church, 113; activity of, vol-  covery direct from, 344; family deuntary, 141; fivorable to religious civ-  pendent on, 338, 415; man's knowledge
ilization, 153; internal relations, 185,  of, special and dependent, 350; power
189; relations to nature, 204; to other  of, 427; wisdom of, 431; goodness of,
amirlies, 207; to God, 211; presupposes  438; holiness, 442; justice, 450; faithlaws, 215; well-being depenident on   fulness, 452; mercy, 454; long-suffermorality, 297; an ideal, 306; its good  ing, 457; repelted man's creation, 464.
made evil possible, 307; law of order
in the, 313; based on subordination,
323; a school of excellence, 333, 335; Iabits formation o 278.
rights of, 335; the best, the most influ- Happiness unconsciously prepared, 441.
ential, 335; dependence of, on God, Happy effects of family sympathlies, 440.
338; its ultimate facts, 347; arranged  IIoliness, Divine, illustrated, 442; each
on a plan, 357; a Divine conception,  new family a call to, 448.
360; independently of human design,  oly  esign ofthe faInly, 449.
360; in analogy with the Divine gov-  ome eduation, 223.
erniment, 361; and a part of it, 371; Ioe, a new paradise and probation,
probation of, why to end, 372; specific  442.
design of, 376, 414; design lost sight of, Husband and wife, relation.s of, 179, 229;
387; sins became customs, 388; at-   respective spheres of, 221, 229; mutual
tempts independence of God, 395; pos-  adaptation of, 240; based in affection,
sibilities involved in, 402; well-being  243.
of, why only possible, 406; brings the
highest responsibility, 422; God's natu- Ideal family, 306.
ral protest against selfishness, 425; a  Im e of God, man's social nature, 31.
Divine manifestation, 427; a rehearsal Imagination, education of, 258.
for society, 434; self-accommodating  Impressions, early, 251.
power of, 436; sympathies, happy ef- Independence, of character, 267; of God,
fects of, 440; opinion, 441; each, un-  attempted, 395.
consciously preparing happ-ness for  Individuality, not merged in the family,
others, 441; relations, facilities for vir-  60.
tue, 443; where harmonized in one, Inferior ends, how best attained, 299.
447; virtue essential to its well-being, Influence, parental, 187, 251, 331; law of,
448; holy design of, avowed, 449; each  328.
new one, a inew call to holiness, 449; Instincts, parental, subservient to the
rich in possibilities, 460; if yet to be set  child's welfare, 323, 439; natural, subul), 461.                             servient to morality, 445.
Families, migrations of, 146; instinctive  Invisible world, 129.
co-operation of, 343; united in generations, 343 unite for evil, 385.     Judgment, a future. 130.




INDEX.                                 471
Justice, social, 285; the vindication of Miraculous interpositions, I70, 324.
holiness, 450.                      Moral Government, 125; obligation, 285.
Morality strengthened patriarchal rule,
Labor, division of, 144.               153.
Language, development of, 101, 109.
Laws, the family presupposes, 215, 297; Names, teaching by, 133.
of education, 227.                  Nature, means of Divine manifestation,
Licentiousness, 217.                   33, 65; meant for man's improvement,
Longevity, 107, 149, 346.              97; man's relation to, 192, 283; family
Long-suffering of God, illustrated by the  relation to, 204; subordinated to the
family, 32, 398; estimated by the capa-  supernatural, 324.
bilities of the family, 458; tried by  Necessary truths, 353.
every rman differently, 464, 466.   Noah, in moral advance of Enoch, 116.
Love, activity of, 142; conjugal, 433;
marriage based in, 243; the ultimate  Obedience, filial, dependent on faith,
fact of the family, 347; and hatred, es-  365.
sentially different, 354; is enjoyment, Object of education in relation to society,
380; to God, is love to parents, 446.  231; to God, 232.
Obligation, law of, 239; conjugal, 245;
Man, llis first sin, 17; his self-manifesta-  parental, 247, 254 ~ maternal, 250; filial,
tion, 18, 156; the head of a family, 18;  281; of child to child, 283; in relation to
alternatives to his salvation, 24; his  nature, 283; of the family, 285; relighistory recapitulates the Divine per-  ious, 293; to prepare for parental
fections, 28; his family nature analo-  office, 295.
gous to the Divine, 30; loss experi- Obligatory, marriage union, 239.
enced by the first, 40; early conscious- Obligations, necessary, 354.
ness of evil, 55; his self-development, Order, law of, 313; in the family, 313;
105; social, in advance of individual  of individual development, 315; of the
man, 115; his relations to man, 198;  means of education, 319; of social deto God, 201; acts on beliefs before he  velopment, 320; importance of observaccounts for them, 355; must experi-  ing, 320.
ence his insufficiency, 413; his creation
repented of, 464.                   Parental influence, 187; obligation, 248;
Manifestation, Divine, a new stage of,  authority transitional, 280; rights, 330;
23; means of, -33, 35, 59, 61, 65, 427.  office, simplicity of, 432.
Marriage, foundation of the family, 86; Parents, 185; duty of preparing for their
the institution unique, 87; its high pur-  office, 295.
pose, 88; the germ of society, 89; pro- Passions, early development of, 39.
motive of moral civilization, 147, 299; Past subserves the present, 326, 409.
violations of, 217; physical conditions Patriarchy adapted for an early stage of
of, 220; union, obligatory, 239; based  civilization, 22; introduced a new stage
in iove, 243; virtues and vices made  of Divine manifestation, 23; strengthpossible by, 406.                     ened by morality, 153.
IMalernal duty, prospective, 250; affec- Plan, the family arranged on a, 297.
lion, 431.                          Plurality of the Divine name, 135.
Mediation came with the family, 90; the  Polygamy, 219.
principle of, 366.                  Population, numbers of antediluvian,
Memory, education of, 277.             163.
Mercy, a new manifestation of, 27; made  Possibilities involved in the family, 402,
the family possible, 454; its aspect  460.
universal, 456.                     Power, Divine, in the family, 427.
Mirgation of families, 146.           Precocity, 276.




472                            INDEX.
Presence, Divine, local manifestation of, Self-will remedied by self-sacrifice, 367.
124.                                Sentiments developed by sacrifice, 82.
Primogeniture, 346.                   Serpent and his seed, 68.
Probation of the family, 19, period of, Servants, influence of, 192.
20: the family a sphere of, 364; of Pa- Sethites, apostasy of, 379.
triarchy, why to end, 372; specific de- Sexes, numerical proportion of, 183, 339;
sign of, 376; its end appointed, 378; its  relation of, 178, 338.
sphere, how enlarged, 409, 428.     Sin, the first, a foreshadowing, 17; all reProgress of successive generations, 117,  solvable into selfishness, 52; two half
152, 340.                            views of, 54; remedied, the occasion of
Iromise, the first, 68; import of, 75; and  man's religious development, 111; its
sacrifice, a whole, 83; to religious  explosive power, 423.
training, 302.                      Sins of the family became customs, 388;
Property, law of, 152, 286.            numerous as duties, 392.
Prophetic teaching, 135.              Sons of God, 161, 310.
Punis1hment, educational, 270; time of, Species, mode of continuing, 339.
how determined, 397; deferred, 466.  Spheres of husband and wife, 221.
Purpose, mercy the utterance of, 455.  Subordination, law of, 322; family based
on, 323.
Reason of the method, 401, 414.       Symbols, 102; became types, 104.
Reciprocity, laws of, 149.            Sympathy, 289.
Recovery, man's direct from God, 344;
all the means of, perverted, 393.   Theology, development of natural, 100
Redemption, expressive of a Divine at- Types, 104.
tribute, 356,
Relation of husband to wife, 179, 183; in- Ultimate facts of the family, 90; teach
ternal, of the family, 185, 189; of the  dependence on God, 417.
individual to nature, 192; of man to  Ungodliness, what? 37.
man, 198; to God, 201; of the family to  Union of the sexes in marriage, a law,
nature, 204; to other families, 207; to  216; of one to one for life, 244.
God, 211; of will to will, 369.    Universal apostasy, 385.
Religion, why made possible only, 412.
Religious education, 273; benefits of, Violations of the law of marriage, 217.
301; to the community, 305; Divine  Virtue essential to family well-being,
promise to, 302.                      448; illustrated from antediluvian hisRemedial arrangement twofold, 26.      tory, 308.
Reputation, social, 287.              Virtues and vices made possible, by marRevelation, two classes of, 67.        riage, 406.
Rewards, improper mode of, 272.
Rights, parental, 330; educational, of Well-being, law of, 291; of the commuchildren, 333; of the family, 335.    nity, 305, 308; why only possible, 403.
Rules, importance of observing, 269.  Wife, subordination of, 221, 243, 329.
Will, education of, 265; relation of will
Sacrifice and promise, a whole, 83; in-  to will, 369.
stitution of, 76; significance of, 78.  Wisdom of God, 431.
School of excellence, the family, 333.  Woman, constitution of, relative, 181;
Seed of the woman, 73." Seed of," 73; social well-being deSelfishness, forIms of, 52.            pendent on, 298.
Self-manifestation, man's, 18         World, an invisible, 129.




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down, and my mind is lost in thought; and yet so profitably and pleasantly lost, that one almost
wishes to continue so. I have TIIOUGIIT it neasrly throtlJh! The book is made up of thought, and
nadejbor thought, and consequent action. - REV. A. WILLIAMS.
THE     GREAT       TEACHER; Or, Characteristics of our Lord's Ministry.
Wlith an Introductory Essay, b)y IlEMAN IIUMPIIREY, D. D., late President of Ainherst
College. Twelfth thousand. 12lno, cloth, 85 cts.
Its style is, like the country which gave it birth, beautiful, varied, finished, and everywhere delightful. But the style of this work is its smallest excellence. Itwill be read; it ought to be read. It will
find its waly to many parlors, and add to the comforts of many a happy fireside. The writer pours
forth a clear and beautiful light, like that of the evening light-house, when it sheds its rays upon the
sleeping waters, and covers them with a surface of gold. We can have no sympathy with a heart
which yields not to impressions delicate and holy, which the perusal of this work will naturally
nmake. - D. TODD, IlIampshisre Gazette.
IIe writes like one who has long been accustomed to " sit at the feet of Jesus," and has eminently
profited under his teaching. I do not wonder at the avidity which is hastening its wide circulation in
England; nor at the high terms in which it is recommended by so many of the best judges. I ain sure
that it deserves an equally rapid and wide circulation here. —- DI. l-HuMlrn EY's   Introductiosn.
To praise the work itself would be a work of supererogation. Ali Christians know it; all read and
admire it. Iarris is, to our view, incomparably the greatest religions writer now living - more particularly of practical works. His pages are a storehouse of' weighty and well-digested thoughts, imbued with deep Christian feeling, and clothed in perspicuous and polished language." -l Weekly Rev.
MISCELLANIES; Consisting Principally of Sermons and Essays.                      With
an Introductory Essay and Notes, by JOSEPII BELCIER, D. D. 12mo, cloth, 75 cts.
These essays are among the finest in the language; and.-e warmth and energy of religious feeling manifested will render them the treasure of the closet and.he Christian fircside. -- ]ictiijo'r Mere.
Dn. ItHAisSi is one of the best writers of the age, and this volume will not in the least detract from
his well-mcerited reputation. -.lAerican Pullit.
The contents of this volume will afford the reader an intellectual and spiritual banquet of the lighest order. - Pliladell)hia Ch. Observer.
ZEBULON; Or the Moral Claims of Seamen stated andl enforced. Edited
by REV. Wr. 31. ROGERS and DANIEL 5. LORD.          ni,11(  cloth, 25 cts.
cr' A wefl-written and spirit-stirring appeal to Christians in behalf of that numerous, useful, generous-hearted, though long-neglected class, seamenL.                           Dd




T1i EOLOGICAL                                   SCIENCE.
BY    THE     REV. JOHN         HARRIS,        D. D,
THE    PRE-ADAMITE EARTH:                  Contributions to Theological Science.
New and revised edition. 12mrlo, cloth, 85 cts.
It opens new trains of thought; puts one in a new position to survey the wonders of God's w-orks,
and compels Natural Science to bear her testimony in support of Divine Truth. - Phil. Ch. Ovserc7er.
If we do not greatly mistake, this long looked for volume will create and sustain a deep impresvion
in tlhe more intellectual circles of the religious world. - London Evaa. 3Icg.
The mean who finds his element among great thoughts, and is not afraid to push into the r moter
regions of abstract truth, be he philosopher or theologian, or both, will read it over and over, and will
find his intellect strengtheeled, as if from being in contact with a new creatioln.- Arlbrry Aiglrs.
DR. IIARmIS states in a lucid, succinct, and often highly eloquent manner, all the leading facts of geology, allnd their beautiful hlarmiony with the teachings of Scripture. As a work ofpaleontololoy in its
relation to Scripture, it will be one of the most complete and popular extant. --. t. Ectu:yelist.
lie is a sound logician and lucid reasoner, getting nearer to the groundwork of a subject generally
supposed to have uncertain data, than any other writer within our knowledge. - N. Y Co;,t. Adv.
We have never seen the natural sciences, particularly geology, made to give so decided and unimpeachable testimony to revealed truth. The wonders of God's works, which he has here grouped together, convey a most magnificent, and even overpowering idea of the Great Creator. We wish that
we could devote a week, uninterruptedly, to its perusal and re-perusal. - Ch. Mirfror.
Written in the glowing and eloquent style which has won for him a universal fame, and will secure
a wide circle of readers. - N. Y Recorder.
The elements of things, the laws of organic nature, and those especially that lie at the foundation
of the divine relations to man, are dwelt upon in a mlasterly manner. - IVltch:mean clld Reflector.
A work of theological science, not to be passed over with a glance. It applies principles or laws to the
successive stages of the Pre-Adamite Earth; to the historical development of man; the family; nation;Son of God; church; the Bible revelation, and the future prospects of humanity. - Transcript.
MAN     PRIMEVAL; Or, the Constitution and Primitive Condition of the
IHuman Ieing. A Contribution to Theological Science. With a fine Portrait of the
Author. 12mo, cloth, 1,25.
*,* This is the second volume of a series of works on Theological Science. The first has been received with much favor; the present is a continuation of the principles which were seen holding
their way through the successie kingdoms of primeval nature, and are here resumed and exhibited in
their next higher application to individual man.
Ilis copious and beautiful illustrations of the successive laws of the Divine lManifestation, have
yielded us inexpressible delight.- London Eclectic Review.
Tlie distribution and arrangement of thought in this volume are such as to afford ample scope for
the author's remnarkable powers of analysis and illustration. In a very masterly way does our author
grapple with almost every difficult and perplexing subject which comes witlhin tle range of hIis proposed inquiry into tie constitution and condition of Man Primeval. - Londlon Evangelical Macg.
Iteverently recognizing the Bible as the fountain and exponent of trluth, lhe is as independent and
fearless as he is original and forcible; and hel adds to these qualities consulnmate skill in argument
and elegance of diction. - V. Y Commsercial.
Dn. IItxns, though a young man, has placed himself in the very front rank of scientific writers,
and his essays attract the attention of the most erudite scholars of the agc. -  i. Y. Ch. Observer.
It surpasses its predecessors in interest. To students of mental and moral science, it will be a valuable contribution, and will assuredly secure their attention. -- P'hi. Ch. C/tro)i,
It is eminently philosophical, and at the same time glowing and eloquent. It cannot fail to have a
wide circle of readers, or repay richly the hours whlicl are given to its pages. -.'. Y Rccordcer
Tlhe work before us manifests much learning and metaphysical acumen. - Puritan Recorder.
P ATLtIAP.ClIY; or, The Family, its Constitution and Probation.                    Being third volume of The Series. Just published. 12mo, cloth, 1,25.             Cc




Tit1 _ PREACHER AND THE KING;
OR, BOURDALOUE IN THE COURT OF LOUIS XIV.
Being an Account of that distinguished Era.            Translated from the Frencl
of L. BUNGENER,      P'aris, fourteenth edition. With an Introduction, bly the REV.
GEORGE POTTS, D. D., New York. 12mo, cloth, 1,25.
It combines substantial history with the highest charm of romance; the most rigid philosophical critIcism with a thorough analysis of human character and faithful representation of the spirit and manners of the age to which it relates. We regard the book as a valuable contribution to the cause not
merely of general literature, but especially of pulpit eloquence. Its attractions are so various that
it can hardly fail to find readers of almost every description. - Puritan Recorder.
A very delighltfult book. It is full of interest, and equally replete with sound thought and profitable
sentiment. - V. Y. Cornmmercial.
It is a volume at once curious, instructive, and fascinating. The interviews of Bourdaloue, and
Claude, and those of Bossuet, Fenelon, and others, are remarkably attractive, and of finished taste.
Oilter high personages of France are brought in to figure in the narrative, while rhetorical rules are
exelmplified in a manner altogetlier new. Its extensive sale in France is evidence enough of its extraordinary Inerit and its peculiarly attractive qualities. - Ch. Adcocate.
It is full of life and animation, and conveys a graphic idea of the state of morals and religion in the
Augustan age of French literature. -.\;.. Recorder.
This book will attract by its novelty, and prove particularly engaging to those interested in the pulpit eloquence of' an age characterized by the flagrant wickedness of Louis XIV. The author has exhibited singular skill inl weaving into his narrative sketches of the remarkable men who flourished at
that period, with original and striking remarks on the subject of preaching. - Iresbyterian.
Its historical and biographical portions are valuable; its comments excellent, and its effect pure and
benignant. A work which we recommend to all, as possessing rare interest. - Buffralo M3orn. Exp.
A book of rare interest, not only for the singular ability with which it is written, but for the graphic
account which it gives of the state of pulpit eloquence during the celebrated era of which it treats.
It is perhaps the best biography extant of the distinguished and eloquent preacher, who above all others most pleased the king; while it also furnishes many interesting particulars in the lives of his professional contemporaries. We content ourself with warmly commending it. - Savannah Journal.
The author is a minister of the Reformed Church. In the forms of narrative and conversations, he
portrays the features and character of that remarkable age, and illustrates the claims and duties of the
sacred office, and the important ends to be secured by the eloquence of the pulpit. - Phil. Ch. Obs.
A book which unfolds to us the private conversation, the interior life and habits of study of such
men as Claude, Bossuet, Bourdaloue, Massillon, and Bridaine, cannot but be a precious gift to the
American church and ministers. It is a book full of historical facts of great value, sparkling with gems
of' thought, polished scholarship, and genuine piety. - Cin. Ch. Advocate.
This volume presents a phase of French life with which we have never met in any other work. The
author is a minister of the Reformed Church in Paris, where his work has been received with unexampled popularity, having already gone through fourteen editions. The writer has studied not only
the divinity and general literature of the age of Louis XIV., but also the memories of that period, until
he is able to reproduce a life-like picture of society at the Court of the Grand Monarch. - Alb. Trans.
A work which we recommend to all, as possessing rare interest. - Blffalo Ev. Express.
In form it is descriptive and dramatic, presenting the reader with animated conversations between
some of the most famous preachers and philosophers of the Augustan age of France. The work will
be read with interest by all intelligent men; but it will be of especial service to the ministry, who cannot affird to be ignorant of the facts and suggestions of this instructive volume.- is..- Ch. Intel.
The work is very fascinating, and the lesson under its spangled robe is of the gravest moment to
every pulpit and every age. - Ch. Intelligencer.
TIHE PRIEST AND THE HUGUENOT; or Persecution in the ATe
of Louii XV. Part I., A Sermon at Colrt; Part II., A Sermon in the City; Part III.,
A Sermcron in the Desert   Translated from   the French of L. BUNGENER, author of
" The Preacher and the King."    2 vols. 12mo, cloth..-.1 nvew Work.
s~ This is truly a masterly production, full of interest, and may be set down as one of the greatest
Protestant works of the age.                                                    Ff




IMPORTANT NEW WORKS.
THE CHRISTIAN LIFE: Social and Individual. By PETER BAYNE, A. M
12mo. Cloth. $1.25.
Contents.-I'ART I. STATEMENT. I. The Individual Life. II. The Social Life.
PART II. EXPOSITION AND ILLUSTRATION. Booke I. Christianity the Basis of
Social Life. I. First Principles. II. Howard; and the rise of Philanthropy. III.
Wilberforce; and the development of Philanthropy. IV. Budgett; the Christian
Freeman. V. The social problem of the age, and one or two hints towards its solution.
Book II. Christianity the Basis of Individual Character. I. Introductory: a few
Words on Modern Doubt. II. John Foster. III. Thomas Arnold. IV. Thomas
Chalmers. PART III. OUTLOOK. I. The Positive Philosophy. II. Pantheistic
Spiritualism. III. General Conclusion.
PArTICULAR attention is invited to this work. In Scotland, its publication, during
the last winter, produced a great sensation. Hugh Miller made it the subject of an
elaborate review in his paper, the Edinburgh litness, and gave his readers to understand that it was an extraordinary work. The " News of the Churches," the monthly
organ of the Scottish Free Church, was equally emphatic in its praise, pronouncing
it "the religious book of the season." Strikingly original in plan and brilliant in
execution, it far surpasses the expectations raised by the somewhat familiar title. It
is, in truth, a bold onslaught (and the first of the kind) upon the Pantheism of Carlyle,
Fichte, etc., by an ardent admirer of Carlyle; and at the same time an exhibition of
the Christian Life, in its inner principle, and as illustrated in the lives of Howard,
Wilberforce, B udgett, Foster, Chalmers, etc. The brilliancy and vigor of the author's
style are remarkable.
PATRIARCHY; or, the Family, its Constitution and Probation.     By JOHN
HARRSs, D. D., President of " New College," London, and author of " The
Great Teacher," "  ammon," "Pre-Adamite Earth," "     an Primeval," etc.
12mo. Cloth. $1.25.
TieIs is the third and last of a series, by the same author, entitled " Contributions
to Theological Science." The plan of this series is highly original, and thus far has
been most successfully executed. Of the first two in the series, " Pre-Adamite Earth,"
and " Man Primeval," we have already issued four and five editions, and the demand
still continues. The immense sale of all Dr. Harris's works attest their intrinsic
popularity. The present work has long been expected, but was delayed owing to the
author's illness, and the pressure of his duties as President of New College, St. John's
Wood. We shall issue it from advanced sheets (a large portion of which have already
been received) simultaneously W ith its publication in England.
GOD REVEALED IN NATURE AND IN CHRIST: Including a Refutation
of the Development Theory contained in the " Vestiges of the Natural History
of Creation."  By the Author of " THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE PLAN OF SALVATION." 12mo. Cloth. $1.25.
THE author of that remarkable book, " The Philosophy of the Plan of Salvation,"
has devoted several years of incessant labor to the preparation of this work. Without
being specifically cdntroversial, its aim is to overthrow several of the popular errors
of the day, by establishing the antagonist truth upon an impregnable basis of reason
and logic. In opposition to the doctrine of a mere subjective revelation, now so
plausibly inculcated by certain eminent writers, it demonstrates the necessity of an
external, objective revelation. Especially, it furnishes a new, and as it is conceived.
a conclusive argument against the " development theory " so ingeniously maintained
in the " Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation." As this author does not publish except when be has something to say, there is good reason to anticipate that the
work:\ ill be one of unusual interest and value. His former book has met with the
most signal success in hoth hemispheres, having passed through numerous editions
inl Engiiacd and Scotland, and been translated into four of the European languages
hbside-:. It is al. o tilout to be trnslacted into the lHinldoostacee toi(aie.  ln(i




WORKS JUST ISSUED.
VISITS TO,EUROPEAN CELEBRITIES. By WILLIAM B. SPRAGUE, D D,
12ino. Cloth. $1,00. Second Edition.'1lE first edition of this work was exhausted within a short time after its publicationi. It consists of a series of Personal Sketches, drawn fromn life, of many of the
most distinguished men and women of Europe, with whom the author became
acquainted in the course of several European tours: Edward Irving, Rowland 1till,
Wilberforce, Jay, Robert Hall, John Foster, Hanlnah More, Guizot, Louis Philippe,
Sismondi, Tholuck, Geseenius,Neander, Humboldt, Encke, Rogers, Campbell, Joanna
Baillie, John Pye Smith, Amelia Opie, Dr. Pusey, Mrs. Sherwood, Maria Edgeworth,
John Galt, Dr Wardlaw, Dr. Chalmers, Sir David Brewster, Lord Jeffrey, Professor
Wilson, (Kit N orth,) Southey, and others, are here portrayed as the author saw them
in their own homes, and under the most advantageous circumstances. Accompanying the Sketches are the AUTOGRAPHS of each of the personages described. This
unique feature of the work adds in no small degree to its attractions. For the social
circle, for the traveller by railroad and steamboat, for all who desire to be refreshed
and not weared by reading, the book will prove to be a most agreeable companion.
The public press of all shades of opinion, North and South, have given it a most flattering reception.
THE STORY OF THE CAMPAIGN. A Complete Narrative of the War in
Southern Russia. Written in a Tent in the Crimea. By Major E. BKucE
HAMLEY, Author of "Lady Lee's Widowhood."        12mo. Thick. Printed
Paper Covers. 37- Cents.
Contensts. -The Rendezvous -The Movement to the Crimea-First Operations in
the Crimea- Battle of the Alma-The Battle-field-The Katcha and the BalbekThe Flank March - Occupation of Balaklava-The losition before Sebastopol —
Commencement of the Siege - Attack on Balaklava- First Action of Inkermann -
Battle of Inkermann- Winter on the Plains - Circumspective - The Hospitals on
the Bosiphorus -Exculpatory-Progress of the Siege- The Burial Truce -View of
the Works.
TlsI was first published in Blackwood's Magazine, in which form it has attracted
general attention. It is the only connected and continuous narrative of the War in
Europe that has yet appeared. The author is an officer of rank in the British army,
and has borne an active part in the campaign; he has also won a brilliant reputation
as the author of the fascinating story of " Lady Lee's Widowhood." By his profession of arms, by his actual participation in the conflict, and by his literary abilities,
he is qualified in a rare degree, for the task he has undertaken. The expectations
thus raised will not be disappointed. To those who have been dependent on the
Drief, fragmentary, interrupted, and irresponsible newspaper notices of the war, this
book will furnish a full, complete, graphic, and perfectly reliable account from the
beginning. Should the author's life be spared, his history of future operations will
follow, and will be issued by the publishers uniform with the present volume.
ROGET'S THESAURUS         OF ENGLISH     WORDS. A New and Improved
Edition. 12mo. Cloth. $1.50.
THIS edition is based on the last London edition (just issued.) The first
American edition having been prepared by Dr. Sears, for strictly educational pur
poses, those words and phrases, properly termed " vulgar," incorporated into thei
originall work, were omitted. Regret having been expressed by critics and scholars,
whlose opinions are entitled to respect, at this omission, in the present new
edition tile expurgated portions have been restored, but by such an arrangement of
matter as not to interfere with the educational purpose of the American editor.
Besides this, there will be important additions of words and phrases n: i in th!e Enr
lish edition, making this, therefore, in all respects, more full and perfect than the
author's edition.                                                   (l)




IRECENT PUBLIC(ATIONS.
THE    EVIDENCES       OF   C-IRISTIANITY, as exhibited in the writings of
its rpologists, down to Augustine, by     V. J. IBOLTON, of Gonville and Caius
College, Cambridge.    12mno, cloth.   80 cents.
The essay contained in this volume received the TIulsean prize (about?500) in England.
The author is a professor in Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, and evidently a very
learned stu(lent of the patristic writings and the whole circle of ecclesiastical history. lTe has
presented to the world in this essay an admirable compendium of the argunments for the truth
of Christianity advanced in the woiks of the Apologetic Fathers during the third, fourth, and
fifth centuries of the Christian era. These arguments are classified as beling deduced from
antece(lent probability, from antiquity, from prophecy, from miracles, froirn the reasonablletess
of doltrine, from superior morality, and from the success of the Gospel. - N. Y. Commercial.
This is a work of dleep research, and of great value to the theological student. - Transcript.
We had occasion, some time since, to notice this work, when we expressed a high estimate
otiits lilerits. We can only say that, in looking through it a second time, our appreciation of
both the learning aind the ingenuity which it discovers is heightened rather than diminished
We thanklfully accept such an effort as this of a profound and highly-cultivated mind. - Puri
tan Recorder.
The work bears the marks of great research, and must command the attention and confidence
of the Christian world. - 1crczantile Jourznal.
THE BETTER LAND; or, Thoughts on Heaven. By A. C. TIOMPrsoN,
Pastor of the Eliot Church, Roxbury.      12mo, cloth.   $1.00.   Just published.
THE   MISSION     OF THE      COMFORTER; with copious Notes.            By Jr,rus
CHARCES HIARE. Notes translated for the American edition. 12mo, cl. $1.25.
We hardly remember any treatise which is so well calculated to be useful in general circulation anmonr ministers, and the more educated laity, than this, which is rich in spirituality,
strong and sornd in theology, comprehensive in thought, vigorous and beautiful in ilnagination,
and affluent in learning. - Congregationalist.
We have seldom read a book with greater interest. - N. Y. Evangelist.
The volume is one of rare value, and will be welcomed as an eloquent and Scriptural exposition of some of the fundamental doctrines of our faith. - Nezo York Recorder.
TEIl   VICTORY      OF   FAITH.    By JULIUS CHAR.LES HARE, author of" The
Mission of the Comforter," etc.    12mo, cloth.    In press.
v'IRST  LINES    OF   CHRISTIAN      THEOLOGY.        In the form of a Syllabus,
prepared for the use of Students, with subsequent Additions and Elucidations.
By Rev. JOHN PYE SMITH.         Edited from    the author's manuscripts, with
Additional Notes and References, etc.     1 vol.  Royal octavo.    $5.00.
A most important work for ministers and theological students.
"HE   RELIGIONS      OF   THE    WORLD, and their relations to Christianity.
By FREDEnRICK DENISON MAURICE, A. M., Professor of Divinity in King's
College, London. 16mo, cloth. 60 cents.
The effort we deem masterly, and, in any event, must prove highly interesting by the corn
parisons which it institutes with the false and the true. Ilis investigations into the Hindoo
and 1Bu3hist mythologies will itself repay the reader's trouble. - lcethodist Quarterly.
GUIDO     AND    JULIUS.     THE DOCTRINE OF SIN AND THE PROPITIATOR; or,
the Trie Consecration of the Doubter.      Exhibited in the Correspondence of
two Friends.    By FREDnETs AUGUSTUT 0. TIIOLUCH, D. D.         Translated from
the German, by JONATh     AN EDWARDS RYLAND.         With an Introduction by
JOHN PYE SsmIT, D. D.       1ino, cloth.   60 cents.
s: It might naturally be expected that a work by aluthors so distinguished in the literary and
religious world would prove one of great interest and value. This expectation will not be disap
poiltel. It is pro-cemicrntlly a lt:cok f(,r tlp e tses - full of initerest. and of great power.
(i)




INEW W  ORKS
THE TEACHER'S LAST LESSON. A MEMOIR OF MARTHA WHITIxNG lat
of the Charlestown Female Seminary, consisting chiefly of Extract. fr om lhe
Journal, interspersed with Reminisences and Suggestive Reflectiois.  By
CATHARINE N. BADGER, an Associate Teacher. With a Portra;', an(! ail
Engraving of the Seminary. 12mo. Cloth. $1.00. Second Edit!i,,1.
TIE subject of this Memoir was, for a quarter of a century, at the hea! of one ol
the most celebrated Female Seminaries in the country. During that,'riod she
educated more than three thousand young ladies. She was a kindred spi:t to iMurv
Lyon, the celebrated founder of Mount Holyoke Seminary, with whom, i I r strelgn'l iI
of character, eminent piety, devotion to her calling, and extraordin:rye stc(cc:si
therein, she well deserves to be ranked.
MY MOTIER: or Recollections of Maternal Influence. By a NEW E'NGLAND
CLERGYMAN. 12mo. Cloth. 75 Cents.
TiIS is a new and enlarged edition of a work that was-first published iX IS49. It
passed rapidly through three editions, when the sale was arrested by the inib;urrassmerit of the publisher. The author has now revised it, and added anotl;ter clhapter,
so that it comes before the public with the essential claims of a new worl.
It is the picture of a quiet New England family, so drawn and colored as to sIs.-erve
the ends of domestic education. The central figure is the author's mother, u.rouid
whom are grouped the various members of the framily. Biographical sketches ald
lessons of practical wisdom are so intermingled, that while the former relicve the
latter, these in turn give force and significance to the sketches.......  Tlie
author has already distinguished himself in various walks of literature, Aut'[ro i
motives of delicacy towards the still surviving characters of the book, he chooses for
the present to conceal his name...... A writer of wide celebrity says of the
book, in a note to the publisher - " It is one of those rare pictures, painted froml life,
with the exquisite skill of one of the old masters, which so seldom present thenscl ves
to the amateur."
WORKS IN PREPARATION.
MEMOIR    OF OLD     HUMPHREY. With Gleanings from his Portfolio, and
a Pcrtrait.
KNOWLEDGE      IS  POWER.    A View of the Productive Forces of Modern
So'ety, and the Results of Labor, Capital and Skill. By CHARLE  KNTrIIT.
WVth numerous Illustrations. American Edition. Revised, with ad-'itionR. by
I AVID A. WELLS, Editor of the " Annual of Scientific Discovery."
SACRED    LATIN    POETRY. CHIEFLY      LYRICAL. Selected aind -lraln)ed
for use. With Notes and an Introduction by RICHARD CHENEVIX I i:Nr'('i.
Revised, with important Additions by J. L. LINCOLN, Professor of the Latin Latrguage in Brown University.
EXPOSITION     OF THE    SERMON     ON  THE   MOUNT. Dran fro;Ir: il
Writings of St. Augustine, with Observations. By RICHARD CHE;NEVIX TIRE: (.
[   G. & L. would call attention to their extensive list of pul:l''ic: ir!ts;
embracing valuable works in THELLOGY, SCIENCE, LITERATURE AN) Ar1:T;
TEXT BOOKS FOR SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES, and IISCELLANEOUS, e'tc., il ]hirge
variety, the productions of some of the ablest writers and most scientific nerli of the
age, among which will be found those of Chambers, Hugh Miller, Agasriz, (;ould,
Guyot, Marcou, Dr. Harris, Dr. Wayland, Dr. Williams, Dr. Ripley, Dr. Iitto,
Dr. T''eedie, Dr. Choules, Dr. Sprague, Newcomb, Banvard, " Walter A i-nmel,i
lBurlgenerl, Miall, Archdeacon Hare, and others of like standing and popularity, and
to t!lis list they are constantly adding.                           (o).