the term Paradise, the name by which it was generally known, is employed by our blessed Lord to set forth heaven as, when he says to the dying malefactor, "To-day thou shalt be with me in Paradise."

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But it is most of all celebrated for the historical facts connected with it. "There the Lord put the man whom he had formed;" there man fell by his transgression, and involved his posterity in his ruin; and there the system of mercy, by which the ruin of the fall might be repaired, was first proclaimed: for it was in the garden of Eden that God said to the tempter, "I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." Thus we are reminded by it of another garden, the garden in which the conflict which is here predicted was actually accomplished. By Eden, Gethsemane is pictured to our imagination, in which the blessed Redeemer, in an agony, under the ponderous weight of divine indignation, imposed on him by our sin, sweated as it were great drops of blood!

THE LAND OF NOD.

The only other part of the antediluvian world of which there is any mention, is the Land of Nod, whither Cain retired after he had killed his brother Abel, and where he built a city, and called it Enoch, after the name of his son. The situation of this country is involved in mystery, although the description of it declares it to have been somewhere in the neighbourhood of Eden. Some geographers place it in Susiana, east of Eden; but others place it in Arabia Deserta, west of Eden. The former say, that in Susiana, there is a city called Anuchtha, from which name, if we cut of the Chaldaic termination, tha, we shall have Anuch, the same word radically as the

Hebrew Enoch, or, as it is more properly, Anoch; and, as this place is situated on the east of Eden, the situa tion which the city of Cain is said to have possessed, it is, in all probability, the same city. The latter say, that as there is another Enoch mentioned in Scripture, and a man greatly celebrated for his piety, this city is as likely to have been built in commemoration of him, as of the son of Cain; or, that it may have been built in commemoration of an Enoch even who lived after the flood. Again, the word rendered in the English version of the text "on the east," sometimes signifies before, or against; and so the region, in reference to which it is used, is not necessarily eastward of the point from which it is described, but it may exist in either of the cardinal points. Moses then, in Arabia Petræa, writing," And Cain went out from the presence of the Lord, and dwelt in the Land of Nod, which is before, or against Eden," would describe a country which is really west of Eden. The known character, too, of Susiana, and of Arabia Deserta, they say, renders it still more probable that the latter, rather than the former, was the place of Cain's banishment. Susiana is remarkably fertile, and hence, an unlikely place for him to be banished to: for that he went thither by a sentence passed on him by God, and not merely to escape the pangs of conscience,—which residence on the spot where he imbrued his hands with his brother's blood would occasion,-is evident from the record of his sentence; but Arabia Deserta is remarkably barren, and, hence, it would be a punishment to be obliged to dwell in it. But its barrenness may even be the effect of the curse pronounced by God on Cain: "When thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength."

In connexion with the antediluvian world, there are two facts which particularly demand our notice: one, and it was peculiar to it, is the great age to which its

inhabitants attained ; the other, the eminent piety which certain individuals practised, under circumstances most unfavourable to the practice of piety.

Of all the patriarchs whose deaths are recorded, none died at an age much below a thousand years! Whether this fact is to be attributed to the mode of subsistence or any other physical cause, or directly to the will of God, it is impossible to say; but it is most likely the latter.

While the wickedness of the antediluvians was so great, that God is said to have repented that he had made man, there were individuals who had attained a degree of piety which, in any age of the church, would be deemed eminent. God himself testified of Noah, that he had seen him righteous before him in his generation. But, jealous for the honour of God, and commiserating the moral wretchedness of his fellow men, Noah became a preacher of righteousness. Thus, when mankind were about to be destroyed for their incorrigible wickedness, he found grace in the eyes of the Lord, and was saved. Enoch walked with God three hundred years; which devoted consecration to him God was pleased to honour by translating him, that he should not see death. And Abel counted not his life dear unto him, so that he might obtain the witness that he was righteous; whereby he being dead, yet speaketh.

LECTURE III.

COUNTRIES POSSESSED BY NOAH AND HIS
IMMEDIATE DESCENDANTS.

THE DELUGE.

In our last lecture, our attention was directed to the antediluvian countries, which comprehended the country of Eden and the Land of Nod. The former coun

try, it appeared probable, was situated in the province of Babylonia, on the channel formed by the junction of the rivers Euphrates and Tigris, not a great distance from the Persian Gulf, that country appearing to answer to the description given by Moses of Eden, in the several marks by which he distinguishes it. The latter, it appeared, was, by different geographers, placed both east and west of Eden; but as the country west of it is much more barren than that on the east, and, for this reason, more likely to be made a place of banishment; and the phrase which is rendered in our version, -"On the east of Eden," would be as appropriately rendered" before," or "against Eden;" and as Moses was west of it when he so described the land of Nod, the greater probability is, that this country also was situated westward.

According to our plan, we should now proceed to describe the countries possessed by Noah and his immediate descendants; but as a description of these

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countries must assume the facts of the deluge, and the origin of nations in the family of Noah, we shall, previously to our entering on it, consider these facts.

THE DELUGE.

The wickedness of man having become great, God resolved to destroy him, and for this purpose he determined to bring a flood of waters upon the earth. But to preserve his race from extinction, together with some races of animals that could not live in water, he instructed Noah, a righteous man, to build a vessel of sufficient capacity to contain them. The vessel being completed, and furnished with all requisite stores, God enclosed Noah and his family, and the animals that were to be preserved with them, in it, and then caused rain to descend incessantly for forty whole days, and the sea to overflow, till the earth was completely flooded, and the world of ungodly men destroyed. The same almighty power that brought the waters of the deluge on the earth, caused them to retire from it; and the hand that shut up Noah and his family in the ark, brought them again out of it. And when God brought Noah out of the ark, he blessed him; and that he might not hereafter, whenever he should see it rain, be under any apprehension of another deluge, the same gracious Being appointed his bow in the clouds to be an assurance that he would no more destroy the earth as he had done, but that he would cause the seasons regularly to revolve to the end of time.-Gen. vi. vii. viii. and ix.

According to the chronology of Blair," observes Professor Hitchcock, "the Noachic deluge occurred 1656 years from the creation of man, or 2348 years before Christ. On Sunday, Nov. 30th, Noah was commanded to enter the ark, taking with him his wife, and three sons, with their wives. One week afterwards,