principle, but we are to see it displayed in a more extended sphere; to observe it prompting to other and diversified duties; and rewarded, at last, by the sudden and miraculous removal of its possessor from the earth.

In glancing at the first two names which occur in this catalogue of faithful men, and in indulging the associations with which they are connected, there are two sentiments strongly suggested to the mind, which we shall here embody as introductory remarks.

In the first place. The mention of Abel leads us naturally to inquire after the character of Adam: here is no mention of his faith, who, having taught his children to sin, ought to have taught them also how to believe and to repent. He stands not at the head of this cloud of witnesses, who, we should have expected, would have become as distinguished for the elevation of his piety, as he once was for his dreadful disobedience. It were natural to suppose that he should have been exhibited as an instructive example of penitence and faith, leading us back again to that Being whom he too successfully taught us to forsake. But this is not the case. The Holy Spirit, in none of his communications, has recorded any thing of the faith of Adam. However resolute and invincible it may ultimately have become; however nobly it may

have led him to act when surrounded by subsequent temptations; and however brightly it may have illuminated his departing hour, when he came to taste the bitterness of that death, which he himself had introduced into the world; however, we repeat, the faith of Adam may have been distinguished by such "infallible proofs," the Scriptures maintain a solemn and fearful silence on the subject. They attach no worth,they attribute no greatness,-to the character of the primitive apostate; they never hold him forth to the admiration of his offspring, to kindle in them the flame of devotion or the purposes of virtue. They say nothing, indeed, of his utter and hopeless impenitence, and therefore they allow us to believe that he was recovered and restored; but, by passing him over in this roll and record of the good, where one of his immediate descendants finds such an honourable place, they seem to mark his presumption and to commemorate his guilt. There is an audible and an eloquent voice in this very silence of scripture. We are taught by it both the displeasure of Jehovah against sin, and that to the second Adam, rather than to the first, we are to look for the means and the motives of repossessing our primitive preeminence.

In the second place. We observe and are affected by the contrast between the fate of

Abel and Enoch. The one was crushed to the earth by the hand of a brutal and ferocious murderer; the other was conveyed to heaven, most likely by the " ministry" of some benevolent intelligence. The one met death in its most repulsive form, and will probably be the longest tenant of the sepulchre; the other entirely escaped it, and was the first to possess the happiness of perfect and immortal humanity. There is something instructive, in these characters being placed side by side on the page of revelation. The strong contrast they form strikes the mind as something remarkable. It seems to furnish an illustration of the mysterious diversities of fact and circumstance, which are perpetually occurring in the moral government of God. When we see righteous Abel falling beneath the stroke of inhumanity and violence, we are ready to fear that God hath forsaken the earth. While our feelings are yet occupied with the painful apprehension, another and an opposite picture passes before us, exciting another and an opposite train of emotion. We are called to lift our eyes from the blood of the first martyr, and to behold a member of that very species upon which the sentence of death has been pronounced, escaping from this guilty world, without experiencing for a moment a pang of its bitterness; and we are

as much astonished by the extraordinary interference of God in this instance, as we were confounded by the palpable want of it in the other; and we are taught, how cautiously it becomes us to pronounce on the character of Deity and the purposes of Providence, from single instances and isolated facts; how perfectly we may suppose harmony is preserved in the great whole, however inexplicable to us are particular appearances; and that, in the end, when we attain to that world where we shall no longer "see but in part," we may expect God to prove his own interpreter, to develop to his people the hidden reasons and the relative consistency of those events in his government, which, at present, are as mysterious in their occurrence, as the apparent abandonment of distinguished faith, or the bodily translation of imperfect virtue.

From this preliminary remark, we pass on to the more immediate subject of discourse. We are to exhibit to you the faith of Enoch. We shall consider, first, his life; and, secondly, his translation; as, respectively, its proof and its reward.

Our attention is first to be directed to the holy life of this distinguished patriarch. It is referred to both by Moses and Paul. In the

book Genesis" it is described by a figurative expression of great and emphatic significancy"Enoch walked with God;" and this, you may remember, is the first break which the historian makes upon his melancholy and monotonous account of the lineal descendants of Adam. He commences with our remotest progenitor, and advances through seven generations without once varying his language, or introducing an additional idea; he merely states, respecting each individual, that he was born-begat sons and daughters-and died; and thus he proceeds, without the least intimation of moral history or religious attainment, until he touches upon the name of this venerable man; then, for the first time, he interrupts the dry uniformity of his narrative, and, in one short sentence, pours such a flood of glory upon the memory of Enoch, as has rendered his character illustrious in every age of the church. And it may be worthy observation, that in the few lines allotted to him in the annals of Moses, the statement that he "walked with God" is twice made, as if to impress us with the singularity and the importance of the fact. In the text, Paul tells us, that, before his translation, Enoch had this testimony, "that he pleased God;" an expression designed, I imagine, to be equivalent to the one we have just noticed. "Enoch

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