the original government was still in force. Cain found himself under law not less than Adam. Each man, as he sinned, incurred the penalty. The judgment of the flood announced that justice had abated none of its requirements; that law, "holy, just, and good," as at the beginning, wast as strong to vindicate itself against the last transgression as against the first.

The

Whatever was implied in the original institution of the Sabbath, continued to be implied, for the Sabbath, “made for man," continued to be obligatory. To what extent it was observed, is not at present the question; though there is strong probable evidence, from the practice of measuring time by weeks,* that it was never entirely lost sight of, and that in certain families, at least, it continued to be applied to holy purposes. Not only did the original reason of the Sabbatic appointment remain; it increased with every addition which was made to man's knowledge of God. impartation of such knowledge to the young would form part of the appropriate employment of the patriarchal Sabbath, as it did subsequently of the Jewish Sabbath, into which probably it was copied. For the pious among the patriarchs could not fail to perceive that the highest design alike, of the Sabbath and of the family economy, was, "that they should make (such truths) known to their children; that the generation to come might know them, even the children which should be born, who should arise and declare them to their children, that they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep His commandments;" that the knowledge of the laws and purposes of the Divine manifestation might be carried forward from age to age. In other words, the Divine Procedure in the

*Gen. vii, 4; viii., 10, 12.

64

THE MEANS OF DIVINE MANIFESTATION.

past is never lost to the present or the future. A new stage of Divine manifestation is not a commencement de novo, standing in isolation from all that has gone before, but presupposes, includes, and even promotes it.

CHAPTER III.

THE NEW ASPECT OF THE DIVINE CHARACTER, AND THE MEANS OF ITS MANIFESTATION; A REMEDIAL ECONOMY THROUGH THE FAMILY.

Law stated.

A THIRD Law of the Divine manifestation leads us to expect that the present stage will be found in advance of the preliminary or Paradisiacal constitution, and "will exhibit the evolution of new laws, facts, or means of manifestation."

Nature an ever

tion.

External nature would for ages continue to unfolding revela- present to antediluvian man a preternatural aspect. In emerging from the garden into the great Edenic region-comprehending probably large portions of Asia and Africa*—he took possession, in effect, of a "new world ;" and, for him, it was boundless. Experience was then taking its first lessons. Every step into the wilderness brought to light a new creation. Every discovery was virtually the imposition of a new law. Even the succession of day and night, the vicissitudes of the seasons, and the annual renewal of the face of the earth, had yet to be classed among the uniformities of nature. The phenomena of nature, regular and familiar as they at length became, would all appear, as they arose first into the hori

* Man Primeval, p. 18.

zon of human observation, to be so many wonders. The progress of civilization would be constantly multiplying and magnifying wonders. And even to the last, probably, the phenomena of the heavens would continue to possess, for antediluvian man, the exciting and alarming interest of preternatural interpositions of the Deity.

Direct Divine

manifestation

must now precede

man's constitution.

Had man's career been unimpeded by sin, the original order of the Divine procedure the unfolding of Would have led us to look, secondly, for an advance in the means of manifestation afforded by the natural constitution and social condition of man. But sin had interposed an obstacle to this orderly progression. Between man individual and man social the Fall had intervened. In order to the, resumption of the great plan, therefore, and as a part of it, a direct interposition is necessary-an interposition which shall meet the twofold exigency of the case, by both remedying man's objective condition in relation to God, and by restoring his character to holiness. Apart from such a provision, the Divine manifestation can not proceed, and man's earthly history is at an end. Our order of inquiry, therefore, is now reversed. Man must now stand aside till God has spoken. Before we can resume our investigation of the human being as a means of Divine manifestation, we must await a new and direct unvailing of the Divine character. The manifestation of God by man must wait a Divine manifestation to him.

*

Accordingly, the law which is now guiding our inquiries warrants us in expecting such advance in the direct means of Divine revelation. This might have been now looked for even if man had not fallen, but had come out of his * Supra, p. 14.

probation without a stain; for progressiveness is a law of the Divine procedure. But the fact of his having sinned and fallen—virtually essaying to displace God, and to make himself the end of creation-supplies a new and a most urgent reason, entirely distinct from the designed progressiveness of the plan, why, if he is to be spared, an additional revelation should now be made. His mere punishment, indeed, would have been just; but, elsewhere-in the doom of the sinning angels-the fires of Justice were already kindled; so that even if the earth had been left to career through immensity, a stricken and "a wandering star," it would have been only re-proclaiming an attribute already known. But if the law of progressiveness is in force, and if, besides, the Divine manifestation is to be continued to man, as well as by him, then new and peculiar means are necessary, both in order to vindicate the various stages through which the manifestation has already been carried --indeed, to vindicate its commencement at all, when such a crisis as sin has brought was fully and clearly in the Divine view-and also to vindicate its continuance still, and visibly to place the continuation of the great process on an adequate basis. Accordingly, the course which the infinitely blessed God was pleased to take, and which had ever formed a part of His all-comprehending plan, was one of MERCY;-a course, the details and wonders of which are still only in the process of evolution.

Means fundamen

In specifying the truths and facts belongtal to the economy ing to this new stage of the Divine proceto be distinguished from those added dure, it is proper to distinguish between those which are coeval with, and fundamental to, the economy, and those which were superadded from time to time, as man needed or was prepared for

afterward.