RIGHTLY to value every subsequent part of revealed truth, we cannot too often fall back upon the simple history of the entrance of sin and sorrow into the world that God had made in beauty, and blessed because He delighted in it. It is as though we should. leave the wide estuary bearing on its surface hundreds of peopled vessels, and washing with its waves the walls of the thronged cities of confusion and traffic, and make our way back, out of the maze of thought and feeling such scenes call forth, to the source and spring of the mighty river; and find it breaking forth in its young strength, in the loneliness of some unfrequented wild—there everything is within our reach. There is little else to contemplate but itself, and the rock from which it gushes; and this is not beyond our easy range. Just so, do a few simple circumstances, produced by principles as simple, start into life, and then rush on, widening and widening in their course; till those who live in the ample scene to which they have enlarged, are unable to account for anything justly, and do but reflect from within the confusion which such complicated events and things must produce.
In the early chapters of Genesis we are, as it were, in the solitary grandeur of a beautiful world; with but two persons before us, the objects of the care and favor of Jehovah at first, and then of His judgments—and if our attention is fixed on them, we are introduced, in the brief narrative of their happiness and fall, into every principle that can give a reason for the many perplexities of our present circumstances; as well as into the presence and power of our God, and the crafty wickedness of man’s unfailing enemy—that old Serpent, the Devil. There is no difficulty here; the parties are but few, the time but brief, and the events contained in it very simple: and here it is wise to take our stand, and look around us. Two guileless and happy creatures are set over the beautiful works of God’s hand, and the Lord God walks with them in the garden which He had planted for them; and Satan was there in disguise and these are the parties. The time was surely short, but this is not accounted for to us, nor is it necessary for us to know: but the events (few as they are) what are they? These that were holy had become sinful—the happy and light-hearted— the slaves of sorrow, care, sickness, and death; and the garden that their God had made and adorned for them, shut against them; and above all, their God, from whom flowed every blessing, turned against them in judgment; and they, with the law of creation unaltered, sent forth to be the Parents of all the evil and sorrow that was pressing its heavy burden upon them; to be the hapless progenitors of every sigh, tear, and sin, in which unseen centuries were to abound; and then Satan had done this, for he had tempted the woman and the woman the man. And “By one man’s disobedience sin entered into the world, and death by sin.” Here then we have the disastrous facts, and the narrative accounting for them all. What then? And where are we? Surely inheritors of all that Adam had gained—sin, and therefore sorrow and death; and losers with him of all that he had forfeited. We are out of Paradise, and we are sinners; we are in fact circumstantially as he was, when he might have looked back in agony of thought, and seen the flaming sword, barring his entrance to that beautiful place, where he had heard the blessed voice of his God, and where nothing could call forth a tear—nay, where there was no tear in his heart to shed. How full of heaviness must he have been! how full of busy thought!—and could he not simply and easily account for all his loss, and for all his gain? Oh surely, he had sinned and God had turned away from him in anger, and he had turned away from God in fear; and Satan had caused it, and he had heard of the continuance of Satan’s power against him, till the woman’s seed should rise up to bruise his head. Are not these our circumstances? We are not in Paradise, for we have been born under the forfeiture of our sinning father; we are in a world of woe, subject to sorrow and death. No one will deny this; cannot we then as easily tell why this is? even that we have inherited his circumstances by being heirs of his sin; all is entailed upon us.
Sin is our entailed condition: sorrow and death our entailed circumstances as to this world; while Satan lives as busily to seduce to more sin, and to aggravate our aggrieving case; and God is from everlasting to everlasting, and the same to us as to Adam—the offenders’ righteous judge, and therefore, as to his condition, excluding still from Paradise; and more than this, the sure judge of every added sin while out of Paradise. Let us carefully sum this up again. The loss of Adam was holiness and peace as to his own condition; the glory and beauty of the garden suited to that condition—the favor, grace, and presence of his God—his gain positive sinfulness, and therefore wretchedness as to condition; a world of thorns and thistles accursed for his sake, as suited to that condition; the present judgment of God on him, as condemned already in his exclusion from Paradise, and subjection to sickness and death; and a surely anticipated eternal judgment upon every subsequent sin: besides the constant, restless, skillful enmity of one, whose power to seduce he had known so well. Oh! this is enough to wither the heart that thinks of it. Is this man’s case? are these his circumstances? These were Adam’s! and what else has he given to us? Yes, these are our only derived possessions. As we breathe our first breath in this poisoned world, it is but being as Adam was, when in infancy of thought and feeling, though in manhood of stature and capacity, his wretched forsaken soul realized in busy memory the brief but exquisite sweetness of the past; and looked onward to the dark and fearful chaos of the future, when these words were fulfilled— “He drove out the man;” and the flaming sword turning every way shone with the certainty of God’s judgment upon the untrodden waste of sorrow before him. But had he gained nothing else? yes he had: he had gained the knowledge of good and evil—he had gained intellectual power. If any read this paper, who are carried along in the thoughtless tide of this day’s prominent sin—the exaltation of man’s intellect, I entreat them to pause and consider what is asserted here. I ask them to consider Adam’s condition morally and circumstantially; and can they gainsay it? Is it not theirs? Then let them consider that along with all this evil and sorrow came in upon man the thing they boast in—mental power—I do not pretend to describe the measure of increased power Adam attained; but this is written, that the act of sin (which robbed him of everything else) gave him increased knowledge and power. It was not a false word of Satan when tempting him, “In the day ye eat thereof then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as Gods, knowing good and evil;” nor a false conclusion of the poor tempted woman, that the fruit was not only “pleasant to the eyes,” but “to be desired to make one wise,” for “The Lord God said,” (when describing the condition of these fallen and degraded ones) “Behold the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil.” He had then become wiser—he had attained increased knowledge; “their eyes were opened,” etc. But oh! shall we not learn from this how infinitely God sets holiness above wisdom or power; that without the first, the second does but lead the last into open rebellion against God. Can any question Satan’s possession of that which he tempted man to lose all else to win? and what will be the utmost exercise of his attained power with an unchanged heart, but rebellion as awful as Satan’s? Surely the less power a sinning man can have the better, for his sin will be the less flagrant; and Adam’s gain of wisdom and power was but accelerating the torrent of evil that was to overflow the world; and be the power what it may, (and it is great, and greatly cultivated and increased in this day) after all, what can it do to brighten the dark scene of moral waste before us? What could it do for Adam? It did not enable him to take sorrow from his heart, or sin from his soul; nor to remove the curse from the ground on which he trod. He might devise instruments of skill to till it; he might learn its riches, both in fruits and metals; he might find the silver and golden veins to deck and garnish about his sadness with: but the thorn and thistle ceaselessly springing from beneath his feet, and the sweat upon his brow would yet tell him of something which neither his skill or toil could touch. He might, as he does, search out the causes of the tempest and the cloud, yet they would both tell him of “SIN.” The groan of his heart which he can ill smother, and the groan of creation in the earthquake and storm go together, (though one is more unceasing than the other) in speaking the same shaming truth, (which his intellect may be busily seeking to deny,) that sin reigns unto death, and none can let it.
“Knowledge is power” indeed; but how poor an exchange for happiness, and when it is in the hands of a child of disobedience the whirlwind is less fearful, Adam attained knowledge, but his holiness and joy were gone; and what could his knowledge do for him but aggravate his sorrow, by giving him a deeper perception of the good he had lost, and the evil he had gained? But it gave him no clue by which to regain his loss, or to be rid of his gain. Whatever his intellectual advancement, it could not make him master of his evil circumstances, nor make a path for him back to God; but alas! as it has ever been, its knight is but exhausted in devising schemes to charm away the evil of the world to which it is banished, or to veil the horrors that sin has produced, so that they are questioned till the veil is rent, and there is no escape from them. Yes, its one constant effort has been, and is, to deny all truth, or so to soften its ruggedness as to make it very different from what it really is—to conceal its hideous features under a mask; to call light darkness, and darkness light; sweet bitter, and bitter sweet; to make the world attractive, as though there were no curse in it, and it were not the place of banishment; to make an Eden, where the thorns and thistles grow; to invent sweet music to fill the ear that might be pained by cries and tears, and pleasant pictures of things that are not; to rob death of its sting and shame by attaching a thousand pleasant feelings to the name of bravery; in short by making some gilded falsehood to go along with the sternness of every truth, and so to deceive and cheat into eternal ill by concealing that which (rightly understood) would have startled the soul, it might have been into the mercy of its God. This is fallen intellect. It is great, very great; almost all things are within its reach—but one—the knowledge of truth; “for the world by wisdom knew not God;”—and it uses all that is within its reach to hide the facts that might lead to that wisdom. Yes, it can dispute, and conceal, where facts are too plain for dispute; but can it dry up the fountain of tears that sin has opened in man’s heart can it stay the hand of Satan in sickness or death? Oh no; do what it will, these are the facts no philosophy can account for, and no intellectual skill remedy; but God’s blessed word has revealed to us the mystery—Sin, awful sin, irreparable by man, has entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death hath passed upon all men, for all have sinned.
And thus the glory of Paradise was hidden; “The sun had gone down while it was noon; and the earth was darkened while it was clear day.”—The little stream which flowed from its bosom soon began to widen. The word, “be fruitful and multiply” was unaltered; and Cain was horn, not in holiness, but in sin; not in Paradise, but in the desert. It has been often said, and it maybe so, that the exclamation of Eve on his birth, is expressive of her belief that her first-born was to be the seed so graciously promised to destroy her destroyer; but if so, how sad a proof is this of her fellowship with all her children, in their light and careless estimate of sin; that a child of sinners, born under the curse, conceived in sin, and born in iniquity, and crushed before the moth—should be the repairer of mischief—but little known, if it is not known to be infinite in extent and awfulness; how could this be? Alas! the first-born of sin was but a faithful exhibition of all that sin has done—a pattern of manhood in its fallen greatness; physically strong, (for Abel could not cope with him) yet morally helpless; intellectually great, (or what in these days would be called a master mind) for he was the builder of a city, and the father of Enoch, or the instructed one; and there speedily sprung up before him Jabal, the great musician, and Tubal-cain, the instructor of every artificer in brass and iron; but he was a despiser of truth, too proud to accept the salvation of his God—envious, and a murderer. Was he not a great man then? Yes, as the word is used by sinful men. Is it not a noble sight (they say) to see a man struggling with evil circumstances and mastering them? And surely Cain has no equal in this among all his descendants to this day. It was but a little before that the joys of Paradise were lost to him, and oftentimes doubtless he must have heard his parents speak with burning words of the bright scenes that had so quickly faded from before them; but yet there was something left, there were a few cleaving the faster to one another because of the desolation; there was a family circle, where the sorrows of each might be told to the other, and where the record of mercy might be dwelt on; this had been broken—there were but a few beating hearts in this world; and the gentlest and the holiest (for grace had changed it) had ceased to beat, and Cain’s hand had done this, and he was an outcast again—not from Paradise, that he had been before, but from this little hapless circle—not from God only as his Creator, but from God as his promised Redeemer—a fugitive and a vagabond a second time, and forever. I have asked my reader to consider the case of Adam; I now ask him to consider Cain’s; he said it was greater than he could bear: Oh! it is too fearful for the heart to realize as its own without distraction; yet what was the fact? why with the judgments of God doubled on him, the shame and sin of exposed murder, and the loss of the sympathy of every heart, yet did this man meet these adverse circumstances—grapple with them—give his intellect its freedom, and with no instructor, yet by the effort of his own genius, become the architect and builder of a city, and the father of mechanics (it may be) as able as we have this day; but vast as he was in the prowess of his intellect, and in the energy of his character, “he was of the wicked one;” and the first to execute the judgment of God, and give proof of the certainty of the word he questioned; for “death had passed upon all men,” and “he slew his brother,”
But my business is with the type presented to us in this first scene of the world’s fallen history—but I cannot speak of it without pausing a little to say, that I have purposely said nothing of the only really valuable possession which poor fallen Adam carried with him from Paradise—I mean “THE PROMISE,”—it was his all, and he might “take it on his shoulder, and bind it as a crown to him;” the first glimmering of the day-spring from on high in the midst of all the darkness—the only antidote his racked soul could have: Oh! how faith must have clung to it, dwelt on it, sought out its full meaning, and rejoiced in the riches of the grace, that could thus set about to counteract the evil ere it had well taken its first step.
All the grace of God is folded up in this promise, and so of course it is the basis upon which the types rest—indeed they are the development of it, or expressive of faith in it. I refer the reader to what has been said of Types in Vol. 2, Pages 250, 251. In the history before us we have a typical person and a typical thing united—Abel and his sacrifice, The conduct of the typical person is an exhibition of faith in all the truth revealed, and so foreshowing the Lord Jesus in His life and giving Himself to death—the sacrifice was typical of the sacrifice of the Lamb of God; as enforcing and explaining the previous word “thou shalt bruise his heel” more fully; in a few words I would say, they contain all the truth afterward amplified concerning the two-fold position of Christ as suffering from man and from God. For the sake of righteousness suffering from man, as Abel from Cain, in life and unto death—as a propitiatory sacrifice, suffering from God on account of the sin which He had reproved in His life.
The Scriptures refer us to these things, and in so doing explain them. First: “By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous; God testifying of his gifts, and by it he being dead yet speaketh.” (Heb. 11:44By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts: and by it he being dead yet speaketh. (Hebrews 11:4).)
Now in this, not only the principle of faith is introduced, as that which actuated Abel in all that he did, but the value of the sacrifice on which his faith rested, as unequivocally typical of the true sacrifice since slain; God did not testify of his faith, but of his gifts; the value was not in his faith, but in the gift that his faith presented—he offered it is said “a more excellent sacrifice;” and God testifying of the gift, he testified also that the presenter of it was righteous in it, “for by it he obtained witness that he was righteous.”
Here the righteous conduct of Abel, through the same principle of faith by the indwelling of the Spirit, is adduced—freed from condemnation by the excellent sacrifice, he walked not after the flesh but after the Spirit: and having the mind of God concerning all the things of the fallen world around him, receiving not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God, (1 Cor. 2:1212Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. (1 Corinthians 2:12).) he condemned the unbelief and misconduct of the world as seen in Cain; “and Cain slew his brother: and wherefore slew he him? because his own works were evil, and his brother’s righteous.” (1 John 3:1212Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him? Because his own works were evil, and his brother's righteous. (1 John 3:12).) In this Abel was a type of Christ, who was essentially righteous, and not partially so, but perfectly in all His ways—who in His conduct was the light of truth, condemning the darkness of the world—who lived by faith in all that God had said and so walked contrary to the world that disbelieved God’s judgment of it; and who, above all, presented Himself to God as the only sacrifice excellent enough to cleanse the sinners of the sin, which His life had reproved and made manifest; and though as Jesus, the Brother of the Cain world, yet the world slew Him, because His deeds were righteous, and contrary to theirs. As Abel suffered for righteousness sake, so did He by faith “resist unto blood, striving against sin;” and it is called the blood of righteous Abel—how much more that of the Son of God, who endured the contradiction of sinners against Himself, and in perfect righteousness resisted unto blood from the hand of man, that the righteousness so proved and perfected might be available for the stained and sinning hand that slew Him—it was righteous blood, and His death from the sinners (because He strove against sin) was the proof of it; but because He suffered at the same time for sin from the Father, it becomes imputable to him, who proved the righteousness of it by slaying [Jim, through the merciful wisdom of Him, who thus planned the meeting of things so contrary.
Thirdly— “And to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel.” The aspect of Christ’s suffering to death from the hand. of the antitypical Cain, as striving against sin, in which alone the death or blood of Abel is typical of Him, is full of dreadful import; for it is that which was and is the fullest proof of man’s wickedness, as it will be the full and terrible cause of His judgments; “for this is the condemnation, light is come into the world, and men love darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil;” and as in the days of Christ’s death, they sought to quench the light, that they might cover themselves with darkness to do their deeds of night unreproved, so do they turn away from the deed itself with all its condemning meaning, and say, “am I my brother’s keeper?”—but Christ has been in the world; and with a brother’s love, He has declared all to us, and shown us sin by His own holy obedience; and the voice from heaven to all who have the prolonged testimony concerning Him must be, “Where is Abel thy brother?” and then alas “what hast thou done? the voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto me from the ground,”...... This is the only cry of a righteous sufferer; it is for vengeance, and it is a true and awful thought, that the blood of the Son of God does so cry from this wicked earth; and not all the accumulated sin of its other deeds can cry so piercingly for the vengeance of God on it; and in this way the blood of Abel spoke typically, but it could say no more—not so the blood of Jesus; it does speak this, but it speaks ether and better things too, and of this the Apostle speaks, who is declaring the Church’s acceptance and glory; and in it he throws us off Abel, as a type, to the sacrifice which he presented, as giving us the propitiatory meaning of Christ’s death for sin, not from the hand of man, but from God—“it pleased Jehovah to bruise Him, to make his soul an offering for sin,” and by this are the better things, righteousness, peace, love, glory, adoption, power, and dominion obtained—all that that sin—removing and destroying sacrifice from the hand of a righteous Judge, giving sin its due, could open to us; even as it is written in the verses above, “ye are come to Mount Zion, the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and Church of the first-born, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the Mediator of the new Covenant,”—entrance into that city of glory, and fellowship with God, and Jesus, and all its blessed inhabitants, is the claim of that blood of sprinkling; it removes the flaming sword and claims admission there; it calls for blessing, not curse; and thus “speaks better things than that of Abel.”
There is something remarkable in the harmony of every feature in these typical histories. Abel was a keeper of sheep; Cain a tiller of the ground. I do not say only that the employment of Abel had reference to that which gave him his righteous standing before God, but that his flock which provided the typical victim Must have been a constant remembrancer to him of this truth. He owned God as his Creator and the Creator of his flock, in giving him the firstlings; but he owned Him in His holiness and mercy too as His Redeemer, in presenting the blood of it, as well as the fat. It was besides a more simple occupation, and required less natural skill and energy than that of Cain. Cain’s chained him to the earth; Abel was but a wanderer on the face of it; Cain sought to make the best of the world he was driven to, by gathering fruits and flowers from it; Abel only that he might return to whence he had been driven; Cain’s would have given him esteem before men—Abel’s requiring neither skill nor enterprise, and therefore held in contempt for its simplicity; and this is shown in the word of God, in that when Jacob and his sons joined Joseph in Egypt, (famed for its natural wisdom and might,) Pharaoh’s question “what is your occupation?” was replied to by Israel, “thy servants are shepherds, both we and also our fathers;” but yet “every shepherd is an abomination to the Egyptians,” and of this they were neither afraid nor ashamed. (Gen. 46:33, 3433And it shall come to pass, when Pharaoh shall call you, and shall say, What is your occupation? 34That ye shall say, Thy servants' trade hath been about cattle from our youth even until now, both we, and also our fathers: that ye may dwell in the land of Goshen; for every shepherd is an abomination unto the Egyptians. (Genesis 46:33‑34).)
But it is when they together come before God as worshippers, that the difference is so strikingly seen between them. Cain as the elder comes first; he does not forget God; he does not set Him altogether at naught; nay, he gives Him His high and holy place as God, and comes to Him as His creature in religious service—he was (in few words) a religious man—in the sense so commonly given to this title—he owned God as the Lord of the ground he tilled, and brought Him the first fruits of it to show his allegiance; it was the fruit of his own hard toil too, and therefore surely of value, in his account at least; and then too in comparing with the offering and worship of his younger brother, he might say, “There was no cost in that—it was an easy thing to give that in which there was no labor; and besides, God cannot he pleased with suffering and death; I present Him with the life and beauty of the world He made, surely this must please Him most.” It is remarkable that, up to this moment, as well as in this act, Cain was blamelessly both a religious and moral man—he was diligent in his occupation, and gave his diligence in part to God; how estimable a character in the world’s view would this be now—a man who goes to his church, keeps the sabbath, and is meritoriously filling the duties of his station in life, able, and enterprising—but being wrong in his judgment about God, he was really wrong in everything, and only wanted opportunity, which was soon given in the holy conduct of his brother, to show himself proud, envious, and a murderer.
Abel, with no fruit of his own labor, no work of his own hands to offer, brings what was God’s before, and in the face of all natural thoughts of right and wrong, and in apparent cruelty of heart, slays the unoffending lamb and presents it to God; and “The Lord had respect to Abel and his offering;” and the Scriptures as plainly tell us his act was the obedience of faith—the other’s the haughty rejection of what God had declared of Himself and the offerer, and so disobedience and sin, whatever its appearance and pretension.
And in what consists the difference? but that the one acted as though he had still been in Paradise, and was no sinner; and the other as a sinner, who knew “that without shedding of blood there could be no remission of his sin.” The one did not bring sin into the account, but acted as Adam might when he had not offended—the other, as knowing that he could not approach God at all as a sinner without a propitiation for his sins. When accepted of God, then Cain might have brought his fruits and flowers as offerings of thanksgiving for his acceptance in the blood of the Lamb; but to bring them as he did was but to set at naught the holiness of the God whom he pretended to worship, and to think as little of his own sinfulness. Sin was in question, and it must be avenged, or God would deny Himself; but the promise was given that His love would lay it on another, and in faith of this Abel presented his typical offering and in it, doubtless, did God and the offerer see the only fit victim; and God testified of his gifts that he was righteous, that his sin was prospectively laid on Him, whom the firstlings of his flock represented, and he stood acquitted; according to the word given in after days, as describing the righteousness which is by faith. “Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered; blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity.” I need say little of the offering itself, as it may be permitted me to open them at some future time in the continuance of the types; but I judge that it embraces very much, yet not all, of the truth afterward expanded before us in the book of Leviticus—it might be that the firstlings were not put on the altar, but treated as a sin-offering, while the blood flowed on or beneath it; but that the fat, as an offering made by fire, for “all the fat is the Lord’s,” (Lev. 3:1616And the priest shall burn them upon the altar: it is the food of the offering made by fire for a sweet savor: all the fat is the Lord's. (Leviticus 3:16).) was put on the altar, and consumed by fire from heaven, as in Lev. 9:2323And Moses and Aaron went into the tabernacle of the congregation, and came out, and blessed the people: and the glory of the Lord appeared unto all the people. (Leviticus 9:23)—the one denoting judgment and death; the other acceptance and life.
The acceptance of Abel’s offering was the first token, given as a witness to everyone, of the only way of a sinner’s meeting God, and of God’s readiness so to receive him. Cain was not rejected altogether, but he was as coming in that way; and as now, so did God then, graciously remonstrate with him in his self-righteousness, telling him that if he came in a right way he should be accepted too, and that the sin offering was lying at his door, (for this I judge to be the meaning of the 7th verse,) and that he had only to present it, and then all would be well; and that instead of his brother’s being preferred before him, he would still be in subjection to him as the elder brother. Unmoved in self-righteousness he went to talk with Abel, who doubtless did not disguise from him all that his soul knew of its sinfulness and yet of its peace: the first and the last must have been alike odious to Cain, and “he slew his brother; and wherefore slew he him? because his own works were evil, and his brother’s righteous.” What works but those presented to us in this history? it was an evil work for an unholy creature to make light of his sin, and the holiness and love of his God, and set them all aside, as though he could hide them under his offering of the fruit of the ground: it was a righteous work for a sinner, who knew his sin, to shelter himself in the blood of a blameless victim, when presenting himself before the holiness of God; “and he obtained witness that he was righteous:” and for this his acted and doubtless declared testimony for truth he died under the Socinian hand of his brother; and “he being dead yet speaketh,” telling us, that if we present the blood of Jesus, the fire from heaven will enter our souls, sealing us, and enabling us to speak of the acceptance we know, and calling us with Him, though in gentleness, yet to “resist unto blood striving against sin.”
Every feature of “the way of Cain” (Jude 1111Woe unto them! for they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Core. (Jude 11)) is described to us in the history of the rejecters of the antitypical Abel—the Lord Jesus Christ—personally righteous, and always worshipping in Spirit and in truth, He needed not to present an offering for Himself; but under all circumstances He bore witness to the value of the ritual services that told the great truth, “without shedding of blood there is no remission;” saying to the leper whom He cleansed, “Go thy way, show thyself to the priest, and offer for thy cleansing those things which Moses commanded for a testimony unto them.” As owned and accepted of the Father, He was hated by them; He did always those things which pleased the Father; but they said, “Say we not well that thou art a Samaritan, and hast a devil?”
They were a religious people, even as Cain, “they made long prayers, they compassed sea and land to make though it were but one proselyte, they paid tithe of mint, anise, and cumin, they built the tombs of the prophets, and garnished the sepulchers of the righteous, they appeared outwardly beautiful,” etc. But while this was true of them, they were a proud, self-righteous, unbelieving people, like Cain, “following after righteousness, but not attaining it; and wherefore? because they sought it not by faith, but as it were by the works of the law; for they stumbled at that stumbling-stone. They had zeal for God, but not according to knowledge; for they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God.” (Rom. 9, 10.) Any testimony that would underrate the righteousness they were actively seeking to establish, (going about to do so,) would of course produce their enmity, as destroying that which they were cherishing, and condemning their zeal and religion, as really ignorance and sin. This Jesus did, and therefore all the schemes to waylay and destroy him; and as Cain talked with Abel his brother, so did the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Herodians, one after the other, (as seen in Matt. 21 and 22; John 8, etc.) “seek counsel to entangle Him in His talk;” and though “they marveled,” and “no man was able to answer Him a word,” yet slew they Him; and wherefore? because His works and words were righteous and true, and theirs evil and ignorant.
That righteous blood has cried from the earth ever since, both for blessing and for judgment; and with it all who hear of it have to do: it is the witness of all truth acted in the world—not in word only, as revealed by God, but revealed truth sealed and confirmed in act; he who knows his sin, and sees the value of that blood, knows as to himself how much better things it speaks than that of Abel; but he knows also that it cries for a judgment, that will be commensurate in awfulness with its propitiatory value before God—And that it is but “yet a little while and He will lay judgment to the line, and righteousness to the plummet;” “where is Abel thy brother?” will be the demand of Him, who gave Him in His love; and it will be vain to say as now “I know not, am I my brother’s keeper?”
As far as judgment in this world can reach, it is clear that Cain, as a fugitive and a vagabond, represents to us—“Jerusalem that now is, in bondage with her children;” like Ishmael, cast out, of whom it was said, “his hand will be against every man, and every man’s hand against him, and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren;” for Israel had said “His blood be on us, and on our children;”—but as looking to a yet future judgment on the Gentile world, who have taken no warning from the Jew, but like them are madly seeking to appear before God (as Cain did) in their own righteousness, “there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful looking for of judgment, and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries.” For they are described, as having “trodden under foot the Son of God, and counted the blood of the Covenant an unholy thing, doing despite to the Spirit of grace;” (Heb. 10:26-2926For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, 27But a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries. 28He that despised Moses' law died without mercy under two or three witnesses: 29Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace? (Hebrews 10:26‑29)) so “Cain went out from the presence of the Lord.” And so it will yet be said, “Depart from me, ye cursed.”
Generation succeeded generation of Cain’s children, and they appear all to be engaged in amusement and gain until Lamech, apparently uninstructed concerning the sin that was upon them, or how to escape from it—even as with the Jewish people to this day— “His blood be on us, and our children.” It was in another race, beginning with Seth and in his son Enos, that truth was retained— “then men began both to call upon, and to call themselves by the name of the Lord.” In Lamech however, mercy breaks in again, and he too calls upon the name of the Lord. In continuing the type, as bearing most expressly upon the Jewish people, the marked and fugitive Cain even of this day, I see them sustained through a purpose of mercy under this word, “therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold; and the Lord set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him:”—and so it has been, their distinctness, and their sin, have been marked together—degradation is on their brow, for they are the thankless murderers of their blessed King—who, though He was rich, became as Abel (vanity or vigor) lowly and poor, that the sinner through His poverty might be made rich—but though it has been erringly thought that vengeance was man’s and not God’s, and crusades have been made for their extirpation, God has preserved them, and has been angry with their persecutors; and like Ishmael, they dwell in the presence of all their Gentile brethren far and wide unto this day: marked for their sin, and for their security too—for yet “all Israel shall be saved, when the fullness of the Gentiles is come in: for God will send a Deliverer out of Zion to turn away ungodliness from Jacob.” (Rom. 11) And then I judge they will be as Lamech, openly confessing their special and distinctive sin; he called his wives, and apparently in deep penitence of soul recurred to the entailed sin of his forefather Cain; he had other sins, and in the grace of God had doubtless learned them, but this was the greatest: in Cain he had slain, and in his own person slain again by despising the righteous Abel, “crucifying the Son of God afresh, and putting Him to open shame.” (Heb. 6) It was then he gave an answer to the prolonged cry from heaven to this earth, “Where is Abel thy brother?” “I have slain a man to my wounding, and a young man to my hurt;” his sin had found him out, and he confessed it—the blood of Abel was upon him, and crying out against him—it was no longer “Am I my brother’s keeper?” but with the full sense of the responsibility, which the shining of “ the true light” in the world had put on him; which his soul had quenched, if his hand had not—he bows before the cross, as having slain the Holy victim that was accursed there. And thus it must be with all that are saved—the sin of all whose hearts are at enmity with God, since His love has been revealed in the Person of Jesus, is enmity against Him, and the Father as revealed in Him; according to His word, “now they have seen and hated both me and my Father;” and this is the sin which the Holy Ghost reveals above all other sin, who speaks not of Himself, but of the Lord Jesus—“of sin because they believe not on me,” (John 16) and this is the soul’s sorrowful and penitent reply—
“And did that head, (circled with glory now,)
Those wreathed sorrows wear? the tale is true—
Yes! these, these hands did weave them for thy brow,
This bosom was the desert where they grew.”
“I have slain a man to my wounding, and a young man to my hurt;” or (according to the prophetic statement concerning the Jews in the latter day,) “they shall look on me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for Him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for Him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn.” (Zech. 12:1010And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn. (Zechariah 12:10).) “Behold He cometh with clouds, and every eye shall see Him, and they also which pierced Him.” (Rev. 710And cried with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb. (Revelation 7:10).)
But then never till the cry of that blood for vengeance be answered by the seven last plagues, will it be understood and heeded by man as against him, without his learning also, that it has another voice, “and speaketh better things than that of Abel;”—he who has learned its value, as a testimony of righteousness, will surely be led to learn its propitiatory power. The Spirit, that reveals its holiness, will tell of its cleansing power: it cries for vengeance on those that scorn it, or shed it afresh; but for blessing and favor to the full on those who see that God shed it, as well as man—and thus Lamech; in the confidence of acceptance in that which had proved his sin, (“for if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness,”) no sooner declares his sin, than he does his acceptance, and says, “if the poor outcast Cain, with the unrepented sin upon him, was avenged sevenfold, surely now though I may go through trouble and. sorrow abundantly greater than he did, I shall be avenged seventyfold.” This was the consciousness, not of God’s forbearing mercy, but of His favor—and will not this be Israel’s place in the coming last days hated now of the Gentiles, yet far more hated and persecuted the:; for it will be “the day of Jacob’s trouble,” when the nations will be gathered against Jerusalem, and they will say, “come let us cut them off from being a nation, that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance,” (Psa. 83) but if Cain be avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy and sevenfold— “O my God make them like a wheel, as stubble before the wind; let them be confounded and troubled forever, that men may know that thou, whose name alone is Jehovah, art the Most High over all the earth;” and thus is it ever, whether to the individual now, or the nation of the Jews then, however aggravated, the sin offering lieth at the door.—If the sin is seen, the sin reveals the sin offering. The Cain of one moment may be the Lamech of the next; standing in penitence in the blood which has proved the sin, righteous in the righteousness of God; come what may; though called to take the place of Abel, and suffer for the righteousness in which he is accepted, he can say “truly Lamech seventy and sevenfold.” “So let all thine enemies perish, O Lord; but let them that love Him be as the sun when he goeth forth in his might.” (Judg. 5:3131So let all thine enemies perish, O Lord: but let them that love him be as the sun when he goeth forth in his might. And the land had rest forty years. (Judges 5:31).)