ENOCH. "BY FAITH ENOCH WAS TRANSLATED." &c.—Heb. 11:5. London: J. B. Bateman, &c.
THE best notice of this little work, so much is there precious in it, would be to transcribe it from beginning to end. As this may not be done, the following extracts from its close will suffice, doubtless, to induce many of our readers to procure the book for themselves:—
“We have, however, still to look at the dealing and endowment of these saints, as we have already looked at their faith, their virtues, and their religion.
“The translation of Enoch was the first formal testimony of the great divine secret, that man was to have a place and inheritance in the heavens. By creation he was formed for the earth. The garden was his habitation, Eden his demesne, and all the earth his estate. But now is brought forth the deeper purpose, that God has an election from among men destined, in the everlasting counsels of abounding grace, for heaven.
“In the course of ages and dispensations after this, this high purpose of God was only dimly and occasionally, slowly and gradually, manifested. But in the person of Enoch it is made to shine out at once. The heavenly calling, at this early moment, and in the bosom of this elect and favored household, declares itself in its full luster. This great fact among the antediluvian patriarchs anticipated, in spirit, the hour of mount Tabor, the vision of the martyred Stephen, and the taking up of the saints in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. Such was the high destiny of this elect people.
“The prophecies of Enoch and of Lamech are samples of their endowments. And rich indeed, worthy of their dignity, these endowments were. For those prophecies, under the Holy Ghost, tell us, that glorious secrets had been entrusted to them. They were treated as in the place of friends. Shall I hide from them,' the Lord was saying to them, as afterwards to Abraham, 'that thing which I do'? For such privileges belong only to dignity. (See Gen. 18:18.) And if Abraham knew the doom of Sodom beforehand, Enoch, in a deeper, larger secret, knew the doom of Sodom beforehand. And his prophecy lets out a mystery of solemn and wondrous glory—that the heavenly saints are to accompany the Lord in the day of His power and judgment. And, as of a character equal with this, Lamech's which comes after, in its turn, with happier anticipations sketches the scene that lies beyond the judgment, days of millennial blessedness, ' the days of heaven upon the earth.' The Lord has not given up the earth forever. And these saints before the flood can speak of the great mystery, even before the bow in the cloud becomes the token of it. But they know that the judgment of it must come first; and they can speak of that mystery also before the fountains of the great deep were broken up ... .
“Such was the heavenly calling—its virtues, its dignity, and its endowments—of this antediluvian family of God. The end of their path was heavenly also, as heavenly as any feature of it. I speak not of the fact of its ending in heaven, but of the very style in which it so ended. No sign among the nations gave notice of it. No times or seasons had to mark or measure it. No stated age or numbered years had to spend themselves. No voice of prophecy had so much as hinted the blessed rapturous moment. Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him.' Nothing peculiar ushered forth that glorious hour. No big expectations or strange events gave token of its coming. It was the natural heavenly close of an undeviating heavenly journey.
“It was otherwise with Noah afterwards. Great preparation was made for his deliverance. Years also spent themselves—appointed years. But not so our heavenly patriarch. Noah was carried through the judgment; but Enoch, before it came, was borne to the place out of which it came.
“For the Jewish remnant, like Noah, will be carried through the judgment the saints now gathering will be in the sphere out of which the judgment is to be poured. Nor we are taught again and again, as I have noticed above, that exercise of power in that day, in company with the Lord, is part of the glory of the saints. (See Col. 3:4; Rev. 2:26; 17:14; 19:14))
"And if the days and years did not measure it nor signs announce it; did the world, I ask, witness it? Or was it, though so glorious and great, silent and secret?
"The language of the apostle seems to give me my answer, and so does all the analogy of Scripture. He was not found, because God had translated him.' This sounds as though man had been a stranger to that glorious hour. The world seems to have inquired and searched after him, like the sons of the prophets after Elijah; but in vain. (2 Kings 2:17; Heb. 11:5.) And this tells us, that the translation had been a secret to man, for they would not have searched, had they seen it.
"All scriptural or divine analogy answers me in like manner. Glory, in none of its forms or actions, is for the eye or ear of mere man.
“Horses and chariots filled the mountains; but the prophet's servant had to get his eye opened, ere he could see them. Daniel saw a glorious stranger, and heard his voice as the voice of a multitude; but the men who stood with him saw nothing only a terror fell on them. The glory on the holy hill shone only in the sight of Peter, James, and John, though the brightness there at that moment (night as it was) might have lighted up all the land; for the divine face did shine as the sun.' Many bodies of saints arose, attendants on the Lord's rising, but it was only to some in the holy city they showed themselves. The heaven was opened over the head of the martyr of Jesus, in the very midst of a multitude; but the glory was seen only by him. Paul went to paradise, and Philip to Azotus; but no eye of man tracked either the flight or the journey. And beyond all, when Jesus rose, and that too from a tomb of hewn stone, and from amid a guard of wakeful soldiers, no ear or eye was in the secret. It was a lie, that the keepers of the stone slept; but it is a truth, that they saw no more of the resurrection than if they had done so. Silence and secrecy thus mark all the glorious transactions. Visions, audiences, resurrections, flights, ascensions, the glory down here, and the heaven opened up there, all these go on, and yet mere man is a stranger to all. And the translation of Enoch takes company with all these. I assuredly judge; and so, I further judge, will another glorious hour, soon to come, in which they that are Christ's' are all to be interested.
“I have now reached and closed the fifth chapter. The first -part of the book of Genesis will be found to end here. For these chapters (1.-4.) constitute a little volume.
“1. This chapter opens the volume with the work of creation.
“2. Creation being complete, the Lord, the Creator, takes His delight in it; and, in the midst of it, and over it, places the man whom He had formed in His own image, with all endowments and possessions to make His condition perfect.
“3. Man, thus made perfect, being tried and overcome, we see the ruin which he wrought, and the redemption which God provided.
“4. 5. These chapters then show us one branch of this ruined, redeemed family, choosing the ruins, and another branch of it delighting in the redemption.
"This is simple and yet perfect. The tale is told—a tale of other days; but in the results and sympathies of which we live at this hour.
"It is the sight of the elect, believing, heavenly household, which we get in this little volume, which has, at this time, principally drawn my thoughts to it. They walked on the earth as we should walk; but they were, by their faith, hope, and destiny, all the while, very near heaven, as we are.
“Are we touching the skirts of such glory with unaffected hearts, beloved? Does anything more humble you in His presence, I ask you (for my own soul has already given its answer), than the conviction we have of the little estimation in which the heart holds His promised glory? It is a terrible discovery to make of oneself. That we have but small delight in the provisions of His goodness, is more terrible than that we have no answer to the demands of His righteousness. And yet both stand in proof against us. After Israel had left Egypt, they were tested by the voice of the law; but the golden calf tells that they had no answer for it. In the progress of their journey they are tested by the first-fruits of Canaan; but the desired captain tells that they had no relish for the feast. And what is the heart of man still? What was it in Christ's day? The parable of the marriage of the king's son, like the captain of the wilderness, tells us that there is no relish there for the table which God spreads. What are singing men and singing women to a heavy ear? The pleasant land is despised still, Canaan is not worth the scaling of a single wall or encounter with one Amalekite. The farm, the merchandise, and the wife, are made the captain to take us back, in spite of the invitations of love and the treasures of glory.
“Terrible discovery! And yet it is not hard to make it. The proof of it clings pretty close to us. We know how quickly present interests move us; how loss depresses and profit elates us; and then again we know, how dull the glory glitters, if but a difficulty or a hazard lie this side of it.
“Are we sorry because of this, beloved? Does it ever break the heart into sighs and groans before our God? Sad and solemn, if we feel it not thus—and terrible, when we deliberately talk to ourselves of making a captain again. And this we do when the pastime and the pleasures of the sons of men again give animation to our hearts; or when their honors or their pursuits become again our objects. Lot's wife, beloved, had got beyond Sodom: and that, too, in company with the elect, when it was found that she was still there, in such a sense as to perish with the city. Israel was as far as the wilderness of Paran; and that, too, in company with the ark of God, when it was proved that they were still amid the flesh-pots of Egypt. Serious remembrances for us all! holy warnings, that we wanton not with those lusts and enjoyments, which once we watched and mortified, "Of that day and hour knoweth no man '—are the solemn words by which the Lord refuses to pledge the moment of His return to His Jewish remnant. (Matt. 24:36.) That moment is to be to them as the thief of the night, or as the hour of a woman in travail. So as to death. If it come on any of us without a moment's warning the Lord has not been untrue to any pledge He has given. And so as to the rapture. In no case is the day or the hour pledged or made known. All is included in one word of deep and holy import—' Watch '—and that one word is addressed to all: What I say unto you, I say unto all, Watch.'
“Whether the close to us be by death or rapture—whether it be to Israel by being taken or left—the day and the hour remain alike untold; no pledge of it is promised at all. Each and all are set on the watch-tower. We wait for the Son from heaven;' they will have to wait for the day of the Son of nom;' but neither of us know the hour that closes the waiting.
"'This is common to them and to us. We stand in equal condition with them as to this. But together with this, there is a difference.
"The Jewish remnant are given signs. That is, they are told of certain things which must precede 'the day of the Son of man,' though they are left ignorant of the day or the hour of that appearing. (See Matthew 24:32-35.) The saints now gathering to the hope of the Son from heaven,' are, on the contrary, given no such signs, or told of any necessary precursory events.
"The Lord communicated His purpose of judgment to Noah; but said nothing to him of the time of it. But Noah knew that it could not be till his ark was built. He knew not the time when the waters were to rise; but he knew they could not rise, till he and his were lodged in safety. This was a sign, or an event necessarily forerunning the close of his history. And so with the earthly Israel. Circumstances must take place, though the day or the hour of it be not known, ere the Son of man can be here on earth again. But not so with Enoch. No circumstance necessarily delayed his translation. His walk with God was not a circumstance. And that was all that led the way to his ascension. And so with the Church now gathering. She waits for no circumstance—no years measure her sojourn here; no events prepare her heavenward way. She is not put, like the Jewish election, under the restraint of any signs or preceding circumstances.
"The Lord treats it as deceit to say, the time draweth nigh;' while the apostle expressly puts its under those words. (Luke 21:8; James 5:8. Gr.) After certain signs or events, the Lord tells the remnant that their expectation is near; the apostle tells us that ours is always so. (Matt. 24:33; Phil. 4:5. Gr.) The Lord exhorts the remnant to watch, because the day may otherwise overtake them; the apostle exhorts us to watch, because we are already of the day, and it is fit that we should act as day-men. (Matt. 24:43; 1 Thess. 5:5, 6.)
“Here lies a difference. But still, all are equally commanded to watch—we in this our day, as ever knowing that the end of all things is at hand,' and the remnant, in their coming day, even though they know that some event must go before.
“And beautiful and just this is. For if the things threatened be profoundly solemn, as they are, and the things promised be unspeakably glorious, as they are, it is not little to require of us to treat them as supreme—and that, in other words, is watching.
“And the sense of the nearness of the glory should be cherished by us. I mean its nearness in place as well as time. And we need be at no effort to persuade ourselves of it. It is taught us very clearly and surely. The congregation of Israel were set at the door of the tabernacle, and as soon as the appointed moment comes, the glory is before them. (See Lev. 8. 9.) So at the erection of the tabernacle, and so at the introduction of the ark into the temple. (Ex. 40.; 2 Chron. 5.) So when it had business to do (though of different characters) with the company on mount Tabor, with the dying Stephen, or with Saul on the road to Damascus—wherever it may have to act, and whatever it may be called to do, to convict, to cheer, or to transfigure; to smite to the earth the persecutor, to give triumph to the martyr, or to conform an elect vessel to itself, it can be present in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye. It is but a thin veil that either hides it or distances it. The path is short and the journey rapidly accomplished. We should cherish the thought of this, beloved. It has its power as well as its consolation. And so, ere long, when the time of 1 Cor. 15. arrives, that moment of the general transfiguration, as soon as the voice of the archangel summons it, the glory will be here again, as in the twinkling of an eye, to do its business with us, and in the image of the heavenly, to bear us up, like Enoch, to the heavenly country.
"'Then shall the Lord be glorified in His saints—not as now, in their obedience and service, their holiness and fruitfulness, but in their personal beauty. Arrayed in white, and shining in our glories, we shall be the wondrous witness of what He has done for the sinner that trusted in Him. And, as one, much loved and honored in the Lord, has just written to me, so I write to you, beloved. No lark ever sprang up on a dewy morning, to sing its sweet song, with such alacrity as you and I shall spring up to meet our Lord in the air.' And his exhortation to me, I would make mine to you (though feebly echoed from my heart), Oh, my brother, set it before your mind's eye as a living reality, and then let hope patiently wait for the fulfillment. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.' "