"And Lamech said unto his wives, Adah and Zillah, Hear my voice; ye wives of Lamech, hearken unto my speech: for I have slain a man to my wounding, and a young man to my hurt. If Cain shall be avenged seven-fold, truly Lamech seventy and sevenfold." We first find Lamech committing polygamy, and then murder; and so abandoned and callous was his nature, that he justified himself and Cain: if vengeance should fall upon any who sought to inflict punishment on Cain, how much more would vengeance fall upon any one who should seek to inflict justice upon himself! Thus man outrages God's mercy, longsuffering, and reprieve; these only strengthen the wicked in their wickedness; the escape and success of one emboldens the other, and together they pass on, only to plunge the deeper in guilt and ruin.

This closes this Chronicle of the dynasty of Cain and of the Cainites. We do not read of the death of any of them, save of this young man by murder. Their brief history reserved to us gives us a deep, painful insight into their heart's lusts, worldly possessions, unsanctified pursuits, unlawful passions; into their unholy domestic hearths; and into their diabolical actions; and thus the scene closes upon the progeny of the serpent, save as God gives us one more view as He stands over the Old World to proclaim the then coming judgment of the Flood for sin. So there I must leave that fallen dynasty under condemnation, the curse, left of God; and turn to the generation of Adam through Seth. Oh, tell me not that sin is a trifling thing,

that this conflict between God and Satan is a trifling thing; tell me not that God can be merciful without holiness, or that He will in any way clear the guilty save by casting out Satan, and by repentance and faith in our blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. He came to give life and strength as well as to redeem: "If I by the Spirit of God cast out devils; then the kingdom of God is come unto you." "If thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee is his desire, and thou shalt rule over him."

CHAPTER X.

ON THE BOOK OF GENESIS.

THE two last verses of the fourth chapter are the beginning of the history of the dynasty of Shem; and when the Bible was divided into chapters, it would have been better that the fifth chapter should have commenced at the twenty-fifth verse of the fourth chapter; the mind of the Spirit in the division of these two great communities, the natural and the spiritual generation, would have been more clearly comprehended; whereas, now that divinely-intended distinction is somewhat obscured. How cautious and how prayerful should we be when we touch the Word of God!

"And Adam knew his wife again; and she bare a son, and called his name Seth for God, said she, hath appointed me' another seed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew." (Gen. iv. 25.) As I have said, it is likely Eve had had many daughters, and it is not impossible that during that long period she had had sons also, perhaps some of the evil generation of Cain; for Seth comes upon the scene as one in whom his parents had hope. The promise of the holy seed had so fastened

itself upon their minds, that they waited His lineage, if not His advent.

"And to Seth, to him also there was born a son; and he called his name Enos: then began men to call upon the name of the Lord." Enos means fallen man, subject to all kinds of evil in body and soul. The entire human family seem designated in this name, Enos; the wound of sin and corruption, the evil nature, was to be exhibited, felt, before the Healer of the breach was to come.

Eve had seen to her sorrow that Cain was not the Promised One, Seth was a fallen being like herself, and at last, the disappointed parents, convinced of sin, named their son, 'fallen man, subject to all kinds of evil in body and soul.' "Then began men to call upon the name of the Lord "-Jehovah, or the promised Deliverer. This was God's purpose in His dealings with this infant Church, to convince them of sin, and to lead them to supplicate mercy in the name of the Lord, in the name of the Promised One. Thus was this spiritual generation, new community, Church founded; she became henceforth a divinely-organized Christian people, distinct from the Cainites: "another seed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew."

"This is the book of the generations of Adam" (v. 1) —that is, of the spiritual generation, as distinct from that of the house of Cain, which is before recorded. "Ye are a

chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people;" and this is just what we shall henceforth see this royal house to be-spiritual, no other formulary

whatever. If God afterwards gave to His people external form, it was only to give His grace visibility to those who were not "spiritually discerned," and therefore not capable of otherwise comprehending it. "God is in the generation of the righteous." And so the first words of the New Testament are-or, I should say, of the New Covenant, for this is the true meaning of Testament—“ The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham." St. Luke traces the lineage further back still, and says, "Which was of Enos, which was of Seth, which was of Adam, which was of God." (Luke iii. 38.)

Son in this passage was added by the translator; it is not in the original, and destroys the force and vitality of what was intended. "Of God," the spiritual generation is chronicled; and as in this first chronicle in Genesis there is not one of the dynasty of Cain, of Ham, of Canaan, or of Esau given either by St. Matthew or St. Luke. Oh, my dear reader, is it nothing to be, by the grace of God, of this spiritual generation? "God hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel." Our Saviour said, "Ye must be born again;""Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God;" but this was said to Nicodemus, a Pharisee; John the Baptist and Jeremiah were born of the Holy Ghost before they were born into the world, and so I am quite certain of spiritual generation. You of human institution, of a spurious order, but who are still sitting upon the twelve thrones judging the