Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

reftored again to Noah and his pofterity after the flood? Whether this be the cafe or no, will foon appear upon a comparison of the bleffings given to one and the other. To Adam and Eve God faid, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, Gen. i. 28. To Noah and his fons he says, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, Gen. ix. 1. To our first parents it is faid, Have dominion over the fifh of the fea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth on the earth, Gen. i. 28. To Noah and his fons it is faid, The fear of you, and the dread of you, shall be upon every beaft of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, and upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all fishes of the fea: into your hand are they delivered. Gen. ix. 2.

To Adam and Eve are granted for food, every herb bearing feed-and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding feed, Gen. i. 29. Noah and his fons have a larger charter; Every moving thing that liveth fhall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things, Gen. ix. 3. The bleffing upon the earth at the creation was, Let the earth bring forth grafs, and herb yielding feed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whofe feed is in itself upon the earth, Gen. i. 11. The bleffing after the flood is, While the earth remaineth, feed-time and harvest shall not cease, Gen. viii. 22. In the beginning, The lights in the firmament were appointed to divide the day from the night, and to be—for feasons, and for days, and years, Gen. i. 14. After the flood, the new bleffing is, That cold and heat, and fummer and winter, and day and night, fhall not ceafe, Gen. viii. 22. Tell me now what is there bestowed in the

first bleffings, that is wanting in the fecond? What more did Adam enjoy in his happiest days, what more did he forfeit in his worst, with respect to this life, than what is contained in these bleffings? If he neither had more, nor loft more, all these bleffings you fee exprefsly reftored to Noah and his pofterity; and can you still believe that the curfe upon the earth remains ?

All this laid together amounts, I think, to this; that the old curfe upon the ground was finished and completed at the deluge. And when the whole race of men, eight only excepted, were deftroyed, the ferpent had fufficiently bruifed the heel of the woman's feed; and the time was come to relieve the world with respect to this part of the curse, so fully executed accordingly a bleffing is once more pronounced on the earth; and a covenant of temporal profperity confirmed to Noah, and by him to all mankind, making good the prophecy of his father at the time of his birth, This fame shall comfort us, &c.

You may think perhaps that we fee but little effect of this new bleffing; that the life of man is ftill labour and toil; that he ftill eats the bread of forrow and carefulness in the sweat of his brow; and that the earth ftill abounds in thorns and thiftles. Such complaints as these are but the effect of prejudice : men fpeak in this cafe as if they thought there were no thorns and thiftles till after the fall, but that they were created on purpose to be a curfe; for if there were fuch things (as undoubtedly there were) before the fall, why should you expect to have them removed by the restoration of the earth?

For what employment do you imagine man was

made? for a little fleep, a little fumber, and a little folding of the hands to fleep? Surely this was not the cafe: even in paradife it was Adam's business to dress and to keep the garden. How much labour this required, we cannot tell; fome it required without doubt. After the fall, labour increased and multiplied, and continued to be very burdenfome unto the time of the flood: and God's promise of regular seasons after the flood feems to intimate that they were very irregular and confufed before: which one circumftance will account for all the change we fuppose. What the cafe was in the old world during the curse, may probably be collected from the curfe denounced against Ifrael when difobedient: I will break the pride of their power; and I will make your heaven as iron, and your earth as brafs: and your Strength fhall be spent in vain: for your land fhall not yield her increase, neither shall the trees of the land yield their fruits. Levit. xxvi. 19, 20.

[ocr errors]

There are serious writers who think that the earth was very much damaged and rendered lefs fertile by the flood but is it not obvious to observe, that this judgment ought to be grounded on the knowledge, not only of the present state of the earth, but also of the state before the flood? for whoever compares two things together, and judges upon that comparison, must be supposed to know them both; and yet it is certain that we know nothing of the antediluvian ftate, but this only, that it was a very bad one; which is not enough to support us in judging that the present state is a much worse.

We meet with frequent allufions to this covenant with Noal in later times, and later books of Scrip

ture: the Son of Sirach tells us, That an everlasting covenant was made with him, xliv. 18. dañaι aiŵros, (Gr.) teftamenta feculi, (Vulg.) The covenant of the age was given him: for Noah was the father of the age, and had the covenant of the age after the flood, in like manner as Chrift was the father, and brought in the new covenant of the fucceeding age.

The prophet Jeremiah introduces God appealing to his own fidelity in the execution of this first covenant, as a reason why he ought to be trufted and relied on for the performance of the fecond. If you can break my covenant of the day, and my covenant of the night, then may also my covenant be broken with David my fervant, that he should not have a fon to reign upon his throne, xxxiii. 20, 21. and ver. 25. In like manner the prophet Ifaiah, This is as the waters of Noah unto me: for as I have fworn that the waters of Noah fhould no more go over the earth; fo have I fworn that I would not be wrath with thee, nor rebuke thee, liv. 9. The fixty-fifth Pfalm feems to be a comment upon God's covenant with Noah: Thou makeft the outgoings of the morning and evening to rejoice. Thou vifiteft the earth, and watereft it: -thou crowneft the year with thy goodness, and thy paths drop fatnefs.-The paftures are clothed with flocks; the vallies also are covered over with corn; they fhout for joy, they alfo fing. It seems alfo to be with reference to this covenant that the Pfalmift appeals to God's faithfulness in the clouds, to his mercy eftablished in the heavens, and to the moon, the faithful witness in heaven. Wisdom and power and goodness are shewn forth in the creation, but mercy and faithfulness relate to God's dealings with men and when

we hear of his faithfulness in the clouds, it naturally leads us to think of his promife for feed-time and harveft, for the former and the latter rain; things evidently depending upon the government of the clouds.

During the age of this covenant, the character by which God was known, and applied to, was relative to this covenant, and the bleffings of it; Unto God would I commit my caufe, which doth great things and unfearchable; marvellous things without number: who giveth rain upon the earth, and fendeth waters upon the fields, Job v. 8, 9, 10. Sing praise upon the harp unto our God, who covereth the heaven with clouds, who prepareth rain for the earth, who maketh grafs to grow upon the mountains. He giveth to the beaft his food, and to the young ravens which cry, Pfalm cxlvii. 7, 8, 9. Let us now fear the Lord our God, that giveth rain, both the former and the latter, in his feafon he referveth unto us the appointed weeks of the harveft, Jer. v. 24. To the fame purpose, and with respect to the fame times, the apostles Paul and Barnabas tell the people at Lyftra, That God in times paft fuffered all nations to walk in their own ways: nevertheless, he left not himself without witness, in that he did good, and gave us rain and fruitful feafons, filling our hearts with food and gladness, Acts xiv. 17. Our bleffed Saviour does likewife commend and extol the mercy of God in the works of this first covenant: He maketh his fun to rife on the evil and on the good, and fendeth rain on the juft and on the unjuft. Which words are directly a comment upon the terms of Noah's covenant for fruitful feasons, which were to continue without being inter

« AnteriorContinuar »