name for the things which he intends to personify. To change the very terms themselves for certain symbolical appellations, would have the effect of involving his discourse in incomprehensible mystery: it would be introducing an enigma, not a personification. Where shall we find a parallel in the whole compass of the Bible for such a licentious abuse of personification? Besides, allowing that this absurd kind of personification could be at all tolerated, the symbolical name ought, at least, to have a determinate meaning; it should invariably stand for one and the same thing. The change of the proper term, for the name of a symbolical personage, could be justified on no other principle than that it was universally understood to be the substitute of some one object; but in the present case, the word Satan has no precise or definite idea attached to it; it is sometimes the principle of evil, sometimes the Jewish priests and rulers, at others, the pagan magistrates. How [repugnant to every sound principle of interpretation!]

VIII.

ON THE EXTREME CORRUPTION OF MANKIND BEFORE THE GENERAL DELUGE.

GEN. vi. 11.-The earth was corrupt before God, and was filled with violence.

THE account in the Scriptures of the history of the world before [the flood] is extremely concise, but, at the same time, extremely interesting. Of

the celebrated personages that then flourished, the names are seldom mentioned, and the transactions in which they were engaged, are not specified with any detail of circumstances. The inhabitants of the old world are involved in [obscurity]; they are made to pass before us like the shade of departed greatness, with an infallible judgement only passed by their Creator on their characters, and a distant declaration of their doom; as though it were the determination of God's providence to bury their memory in oblivion, and to make nothing distinctly legible but their destruction. Of the violences they committed, of the impiety they uttered, and of the miseries they mutually inflicted upon each other, the Holy Ghost condescends to give no particulars, but only stigmatizes them as atrocious criminals and rebels, whose enormous guilt exhausted the patience of their Maker, and rendered them unfit to live.

The same history informs us of a most atrocious murder, committed by the first-born man upon his brother, for no other reason than that he was wicked and his brother righteous. Such an event affords a view of human nature, in the early stage of its existence, which prepares us for the description given of human depravity in the context, "and the Lord looked, and beheld that every thought of the imagination of man's heart was evil, and that continually.”* It was necessary explicitly to state the extreme degeneracy into which mankind

were fallen, in order to justify the conduct of God in bringing upon them the flood. For God to destroy the work of his hand, to destroy that part of it which was made after his own image, was a most extraordinary measure in the conduct of providence, which nothing can account for but that extreme corruption which it is affirmed then overspread the world. In what that corruption particularly consisted; whether it involved the apostatizing from God to idols, or only manifested itself in gross acts of immorality; how long it had been accumulating ere it reached its height; and whether it was gradually or by sudden steps introduced; are circumstances of which we are not informed. All that we are expressly told is, that the earth was filled with injustice, rapine, and violence. From what we know of human nature and human affairs, we have reason to conclude that it was gradually superinduced, since great changes in the moral state of the world, whether in the way of improvement or deterioration, require a considerable space of time for their accomplishment. It is, on this account, next to impossible not to suppose, that the extreme degradation of manners under consideration was produced by slow degrees, and was effected by various causes. Some of these causes are, if I mistake not, suggested with tolerable clearness in the chapter out of which my text is taken.

We might with great truth assert, that the general cause of the extreme corruption then prevalent,

was the defection of our first parents, and that consequent loss of true rectitude and holiness which they first sustained in their own persons, and then communicated to their posterity. This tendency to sin in human nature is, indeed, the prolific source of all particular vices, which flow from thence as their fountain. But as a river, when it overflows its banks, must be swelled by accelerated floods or tributary streams, besides what it derives from its parent spring, so an extraordinary prevalence of vice, at a particular time, necessarily implies the cooperation of other causes, along with the original corruption of human nature. To say there is an inherent sinful bias in human nature, is sufficient to account for the existence of a large portion of corruption at any time, but affords no reason for its prevailing at one time more than another. To account for such an event satisfactorily, some specific and particular reasons must be assigned besides this general one.

The purport of the remaining part of this discourse is to point out what may appear some of the probable reasons, and to deduce a few practical inferences from the whole.

Let me request your attention while I state some of the particular reasons which account for the remarkable and prodigious corruption which prevailed in the lives of men immediately before the flood.

I. It may be partly ascribed, with great probability, to the neglect and abandonment of the

public worship of God. From the fact of Cain and Abel both presenting their offerings to the Lord, and from the acceptance of Abel's offering, because offered with faith, we may infer, that some time after the fall a mode of worshipping God was divinely prescribed, or how could Abel exercise faith in sacrificing; since faith implies, invariably, a divine testimony, or some divine interposition? We are further informed, respecting Cain, that, when the Lord remonstrated with him on the murder of his brother, he sentenced him to be a wanderer and vagabond; and Cain, deploring the severity of his sentence, said, "Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth; and from thy face shall I be hid." It is added, "And Cain went out from the presence of the Lord, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden."*

As his going out from the presence of the Lord is immediately followed by the declaration of his dwelling in a strange land, it is natural to suppose that the former expression denotes his quitting that country which God was wont in a peculiar manner to honour with his presence; where he afforded some spiritual manifestation of his power and glory.

It seems, in or near the place where Adam and his sons dwelt, there was placed the shadow, or some bright and visible token of the divine presence. The same is implied in the acceptance of

*Gen. iv. 14—16.