imposed by the divine power, that whoever of the subsequent descendants of his father beheld him, might instantly flee from his society-or what is more probable, and more consistent with the application of the word in other places in the Sacred Volume, he was peculiarly protected from danger, and his life was preserved and prolonged by the special providence of God, that he might continually feel the full misery of his just and dreadful doom, and of the righteous curse pronounced upon him from heaven. (Compare Gen. iv. 15. with Ezek. ix. 4-6.) It is stated by the Jewish historian, that after Cain had settled in Nod, and seen his children rise around him, instead of being brought to repentance and remorse by his punishment and exile, he habituated himself to fraud and deceit, to violence and to blood; and that he accelerated the corruption of the human race by his iniquitous proceedings and wicked example. What very remarkable circumstance is recorded relative to the population of the Antediluvian world? After the death of Abel had been repaired in the family of Adam by the birth of Seth, an event of momentous importance to the destinies of the human race, the population of the Antediluvian world must have very rapidly and most prodigiously increased. One great cause of this vast accumulation of people, beyond any thing which can be imagined in the present situation of the world, was the immense term to which the life of man was protracted in this primitive period, frequently extending to considerably upwards of nine hundred years. There is no doubt that this longevity was intended to accomplish a most important design in the moral government of God. Since there was no written record of divine truth in these early ages, all religious knowledge must have been corrupted and impaired, if not entirely lost, had the generations of men risen and disappeared with the ra pidity of subsequent times. But since the lives of the Antediluvians were drawn out through the vast space of eight or nine centuries, they were enabled to in struct their posterity, to the eighth or ninth generations, in the facts and doctrines which they had received from the original source of truth and knowledge. And not only was the truth originally communicated to Adam thus preserved, but it must have been preserved in its purity and simplicity, because of the very few intermediate individuals through whom it was transmitted. Of these intermediate individuals, there required but one, between Noah and Adam, viz. Methusaleh, who was upwards of two hundred years old when Adam died, and who himself was not removed from the world until the five hundred and ninetyninth, or six hundredth year of the life of Noah, that is in the year before, or the very year of the flood. When then the infinite importance of the truth which Adam had to convey is attentively estimated; when it is recollected, that he had to communicate the sublime history of the Creation, that he had to describe the horrors of the fall, that he had to magnify the mercy of God in the promise of a glorious victory over the malignant enemy of man, by the interposition of a great Deliverer, who was to appear among his descendants, and the nature of whose work was continually exhibited in the sacrifices which were offered in the presence of God-when these momentous objects are adequately considered, surely it will appear, that there was a sufficient design to account for the superior longevity of the ancient inhabitants of the world, and that in this very circumstance, there is to be discovered reason for the most exalted admiration of the wisdom and mercy of Him, who through every event of every age, has prepared for the illustrious display of his own glory, in the final accomplishment of the Redemption of man. What was the moral character of the Antediluvians? The awful and enormous corruption of the world, coincided with the immense increase of its population. The descendants of the pious Seth, called in the sacred narrative, the "Sons of God," formed unhallowed matrimonial connexions with the female descendants of Cain, designated "the daughters of men." It is a remarkable fact, that to the posterity of the first murderer, is to be ascribed, the invention of music and musical instruments, of the power of working in iron and brass, and of matters involving the promotion and success of pastoral employments. The consequence of these unfortunate marriages, was the universal diffusion of profligacy and crime. Persons called giants were born, perhaps men of unrivalled stature and prowess, and evidently distinguished by the rashness, the pride, the presumption, the cruelty, and the reckless impiety, of their unhappy maternal ancestor. Licentiousness, profanity, and blood filled the world; all the gifts of God were desperately abused to the most abominable purposes; creation itself was accursed by the detestable crimes of its polluted inhabitants; and when "God looked upon the earth, behold it was corrupt, the earth was filled with violence, all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth;" the patient forbearance of an insulted Creator was at length exhausted, and wrath to the uttermost came. Name an honourable exception to this general corrup tion. A. M. 622. Amidst all this deplorable degeneracy, one character arose, upon which, like a verdant oasis in the burning desert, the mind reposes with delight. Enoch, the son of Jared, is emphatically said to have "walked with God." That he was not only eminent for holiness and communion with heaven, but that he was possessed of prophetic inspiration, is evident from the Epistle of Jude, in which he is said to have stated, both with distinctness and sublimity, the certainty of a future judgment, and of the eternal condemnation of the enemies of God. (Jude 14, 15.) And that he was one of the most eminent of believers, one of the holiest of saints, one of the most favoured of heaven, is also demonstrated by the very extraordinary fact, that he was taken from the world without engaging in the last struggle of mortality, and immediately removed to the blessedness of the celestial world. An inspired writer in the New Testament, has at once stated the principle by which he was animated, and the glory with which he was crowned.-" By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him: for before his translation, he had this testimony, that he pleased God." Heb. xi. 5. Neither upon the dreams of visionaries, nor the fables of impostors, nor the scoffs of infidels, upon the place to which Enoch was taken, and the manner in which he was disposed of after his assumption, is it necessary, in this work, to make a single observation. The fact of his translation by his Father and his God is recorded, and as such it is now stated; no doubt he was taken to dwell with the spirits of just men made perfect, in those eternal realms, where bliss is complete, where holiness is unclouded, and God is all in all. Did the wickedness of the Antediluvians increase? Since individual and general wickedness is always progressive, it may be concluded, that the universal corruption of the world was continually accumulating, and perpetually receiving darker and more dreadful aggravations, after the translation of Enoch. At length every motive, principle, and passion, as well as every action and association, became completely depraved. "God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." So universal was the contamination, so total was the apostacy, that Noah, the son of Lamech, alone stemmed the torrent of depravity, alone braved the opposition of the universe, and alone remained faithful, amidst the general rebellion, to the cause of truth, of holiness, and of God. -Faithful found Among the faithless; faithful only he : Did Noah publicly maintain the cause of God? The consistent fidelity of Noah was not limited to a vigilant guard over his own conduct, and the maintenance of his devotional integrity before God. From the appellation given to him by the apostle Peter, "a preacher of righteousness,"* he appears to have borne a bold, open, public, and uncompromising testimony against the enormities of his age, and to have warned the insensible and obdurate multitudes around him, of the necessity of their repentance, or the certainty 2 Pet. ii. 5. of their doom. But he protested, he threatened, he implored, in vain! What was the declared determination of God relative to the corruption of the Antediluvian world? The awful purpose of the offended Majesty of heaven was at length proclaimed: "I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping things, and the fowls of the air. I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven; and every thing in the earth shall die.' "" How were Noah and his family saved from the general ruin? Since however Noah and his family were to be spared; since the promise of the Messiah, made to Adam, still remained to be fulfilled; and since, therefore, another scene was to be prepared for the developement of the future wonders of the grace and providence of God, a divine ordinance was imparted, and directions were given, that these great objects might be securely effected. Noah was commanded to prepare an ark, an immense wooden edifice, calculated to float on the bosom of the waters, and to resist the action of the waves, with capacity to contain, not only his own family, but males and females of all the living creatures upon the face of the earth, and the food which they might require for their support, until the final subsiding of the predicted deluge, It has been imagined that Noah was one hundred and twenty years in erecting this stupendous fabric, because God, after declaring that "his Spirit should not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh," adds, "yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years." But this passage has no connexion with the period employed in the erection of the ark, but with a matter altogether distinct. The supposition is positively contradicted by the decided statements of the sacred narrative. When his eldest son was born, Noah is stated to have been five hundred years old; when the order was given to construct the ark, his three sons were married; the divine declaration was, “Thou |