Eve had remained long enough to have had children born to them, their little infants, the beauteous birds of Paradise, would probably have been translated, in due time, from the earthly Garden, to sing upon the branches of the Tree of Life in Heaven. But the tremendous Fall too soon threw a pall over the earth. Some think the tempter serpent was a fallen seraph; and the apple, and the tasting it, an allegory. But no matter. The effect is too evident. Sin is in the world, alive and loose, however it came. It is unknown, how long Adam continued in Paradise; probably not a year. It is generally thought, and so we hope, that Adam and Eve were personally pardoned. But Adam, it seems, communicated to his offspring his lapsed, not his restored nature. Adam lived above nine hundred years after his expulsion from the Garden. Eve's age is unrevealed; and it is remarkable, that the age of but one woman is recorded in Scripture. The first Adam soon fell; but there is a second Adam. Christ is now the Tree of Life, in the midst of the Garden. As Eve was taken out of Adam's side, so afterwards was the church, our Lord's bride, taken out of his bleeding side.

Sheth, or Seth, is the second name in our line. As Adam was made in the image of God, so was Seth born in the image of Adam; that is, fallen, frail, mortal, like himself. Adam indeed had two sons, some think they were twins, before he begat Seth; but one of them was slain without issue, the other was accursed. Here see the effects of the Fall. The first man born of woman was a murderer; the second was a martyr. What was the mark set upon Cain, to insure his life, while a vagabond in the earth, we know not. Cain, after his murder, wandered eastward of Eden, to the land of Nod, which means exile; where we find his wife first mentioned, who must have been his own sister, or niece; as we read that Adam had other sons and daughters. Cain's descendants were wicked, but ingenious. The first Lamech, one of Cain's posterity, was the first who took unto himself two wives, and thus introduced bigamy and polygamy into the world. This Lamech's children, by his two wives, were the first graziers, and organists, and braziers, that we read of in

history. But all the descendants of wicked Cain perished in the Deluge. Therefore, the name of Seth only was recorded in the genealogy, as the head of connexion between these primitive Fathers. In the days of Seth, began men to call upon the name of the Lord.

Of the other Names, in succession, there is nothing said, until you come to Henoch, or Enoch. This Enoch is the one called the seventh from Adam, because there were two others of the like name; one the son of evil Cain, another the son of good Seth; for Henoch and Enoch, and perhaps Enosh and Enos also, are but one name in their original. This Enoch was the central star of the patriarchal firmament. For though little is said of him, yet what more could be comprehended in his eulogy ? He walked with God. Hand in hand, as it were, he walked with God on earth; and afterwards, at an early age for those times, he walked with God into heaven, body and soul, without death. By faith, Enoch was translated, that he should not see death. God often takes away those soonest, that he loves the best.

Sheth or

Although but little, as we have seen, is said about Sheth and Henoch; yet still less is recorded of Enosh, Kenan, Mahalaleel, Jered, and Lamech the second. Of these five, the sacred historian has thought fit to give us only their names and ages. All we can gather of some of these primitive patriarchs, and this is very uncertain, is from the interpretation of their names. Adam, we before remarked, signifies earthy man, or red. Seth means substituted. Enosh or Enos, mortal. Kenan or Cainan, the nest, or one that laments. Mahalaleel, he that praises God. Jered or Jared, he that descends or rules. Henoch or Enoch, dedicated. Methuselah or Methusalem, he dieth, and water is sent forth. Lamech, poor, made low. And Noah or Noè, rest or consolation. As to their ages, the youngest, who did not live out half his days, before he was transferred to heaven, yet lived three hundred and sixty-five years. These long lives were then necessary, in order to people the infant earth. It is supposed that, in these early times, men dressed in the skins of beasts offered in sacrifice. And that, notwithstanding people lived so long, no animal food

was eaten until after the Flood. So little is revealed respecting five or six of the ten antediluvian fathers, that it is not certain, although it is generally concluded, that they were all good men. We have reason to think, they were all men of eminence, as well as of prudence and piety, in their day. And if not much is said, or known of them, it is the same now of many great and good men. But goodness is the only true greatness. One thing is certainly said of each one, except Enoch, and which will be said of us-And he died. These men have been gone to Judgment above four thousand years; some near five thousand. And if they were pious men, as we suppose, however obscure may be their names on earth, they are not obscure in heaven. And there were giants in the earth in those days; mighty men, men of renown. The sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were fair, and they bare these giant children upon the earth. The sons of God are commonly thought to have been the children of pious Seth, and the daughters of men the children of wicked Cain, who intermarried after the world became corrupted. Grace, says Matthew Henry, does not run in the blood, but corruption does. A sinner begets a sinner, but a saint does not beget a saint.

Of Methuselah, Noah's grandfather, we only know that he was the oldest man that ever lived. He lived almost

a thousand years. This was a great while for an immortal soul to inhabit a house of clay. But none can challenge life by a long proscription. Methuselah, or Mathusala, for the most of Hebrew names, though from the same root, are spelled differently in different parts of Scripture, Methuselah, the longest liver, carried death in his name. His name intimates the prophetic spirit of his father Enoch. He dieth, and water is sent forth. And Methuselah, it is supposed, died the very year in which the Flood came.

Noah was

The last name in our line is that of Noah. destined to connect, or hinge together, two worlds. Noah, like Enoch, walked with God. But, in his days, the wickedness of man was great upon the earth; so great, that it grieved God that he had made man. He determined therefore to destroy him. The time of God's pa

tience and forbearance toward provoking sinners is sometimes long, but always limited; reprieves are not pardons; though God bear a great while, he will not bear always.' Noah built the ark of the incorruptible gopher wood. It was five hundred feet long, and upwards. For a hundred and twenty years, after the threatening, was Noah preaching and building. The going on in building the ark was in itself a continued sermon. The daily sounds of the hammer were loud words. But they repented not. They mocked. The Flood came. The ark rode. It had no rudder.

The world was drowned. And the covenant-bow span

The angels guided it. The ark rested on Ararat. ned, and cheered the New Heavens and the New Earth. As Adam was the father of the first, so was Noah the father of the second world. Noah's three sons separated, and colonized the new world; all probably then of one complexion, unless the curse upon Canaan altered his colour. Nimrod, the grandson of Ham, and Noah's great-grandson, that mighty hunter before the Lord, built Babylon, and the Tower of Babel, and also, as most think, Nineveh, very soon after the Flood. Noah himself lived three hundred and fifty years after the Deluge. But human life was soon shortened, first to a hundred and twenty years; and in process of time, to our brief and melancholy three-score years and ten.

Noah was a type of Christ. As it was in the days of Noè, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of Man. The world was once drowned. It is next to be burned. When that time comes, and the stars shall fall like a shower of fire, Christ will be the only Ark of Safety.

It has been said, that the Old Testament ends with a Curse, and the New Testament with a Blessing. Then, if the Old Testament is a Paradise Lost, the New Testament is a Paradise Regained.

REFLECTIONS.

1. The name of Adam being placed at the Head of the line of mankind, forever confutes, to all who believe

the Bible, the fabulous pretences of some nations to a race of people, who are said to have lived before Adam, called Præ-Adamites.

It is remarkable, and no compliment to human pride, that the history of above sixteen hundred and fifty years, even from Adam to the Flood; and which is compressed, and crowded, into the half a dozen chapters of Genesis, as we said; is the only true record in the world of the Antediluvian Ages. Such is Human Fame. And such is the inestimable value of these authentic sketches of the first historian, Moses.

3. As no one of these men died much short of eight hundred years old, and many of them lived longer than that term; and as all these patriarchs, except Noah, were born before Adam died; they, as we before intimated, might easily, and probably did, receive from his venerable lips, before he left the earth, the account of the Creation, which he had received, either from God himself, or an angel of God. Also of Eden, of the Fall, the promise, and the precepts of piety. These were thence transmitted down from one to another. And after Adam's death, they could be corrected by Methuselah, who had lived, and talked with Adam; and thus would they be naturally received and treasured up, as divine oracles, by Noah. And from Noah they could be, and doubtless were, dispersed out of the Ark, over the second world; and then, after a period of above eight hundred years from the Deluge, collected, and recorded, by the learned and inspired Moses. Thus doth God preserve the history of

his Church.

4. We may assign some natural causes for the antediluvian longevity; such as the more healthful air, the more benign influence of the heavenly bodies, the comparatively paradisiacal state of the earth, and perhaps the superior medicinal knowledge of the plants. Yet, after all, the principal cause must be resolved into the preserving will and providence of God; in order thereby more speedily to populate the earth, and to promote the memory of religion.

5. We perceive that very small beginnings may produce very great and important ends, by the power and