The beginning of things in nature and in grace; or, A Brief commentary on Genesis

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THE BEGINNING OF THINGS
IN NATURE AND IN GRACE

OR

A BRIEF COMMENTARY
ON GENESIS

BY
JOSEPH K. WIGHT

BOSTON
SHERMAN, FRENCH & COMPANY

1911

Copyright, 19 11
Sherman. French & Company

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CONTENTS

Introduction .

PART I
THE BEGINNING OF THINGS IN NATURE

I. Creation ....

II. The Creation of Man

III. The Unity of Mankind

IV. The Garden of Eden and the Fall
V. Cain and Abel

VI. Chronology ....

VII. The Flood ....

VIII. The Ethnological Record and Con
fusion of Tongues

21
39
53
58
69
80
90

105

PART II
THE BEGINNING OF THINGS IN GRACE

IX. Grace with Respect to the Individual
— The Calling of Abraham on
the Divine Side . . .115

X. Calling of Abraham from the Human

Side ..... 125

CONTENTS

XI. Jacob on the Position of Prayer in

THE Individual Life . . . 135

XII. Joseph, or the Exaltation and Triumph

OF Religion in the Ind^dual Life 147

XIII. The Family — (1) Marriage . . 160

XIV. The Family — (2 ) The Training of

Children ..... 169

XV. Beginnings of Grace in the Nation . 177

p

THE BEGINNING OF THINGS
IN NATURE AND IN GRACE

INTRODUCTION

INSPIRATION

It is evident that our interpretation of the
Bible will depend very largely upon what we con-
sider the Bible to be. If we look upon it simply as
a human production among other human produc-
tions,— a system of religion among other systems,
— then we shall expect mistakes, false standards,
and false reasonings, as we do elsewhere. But if
the Bible is exceptional — a revelation from God,
and not merely the teachings of man, we shall ex-
pect to find it a transcript of his character — a
pure, true, and safe guide in all that it professes
to be. It is given to man as God's way of salva-
tion from sin and death. In dealing with it, the
question of authorship is our first question.

THE WORD AND WORKS OF GOD EQUALLY FROM

HIM

It is much the same with the word of God as
with his works. Where did the heavens and the
earth come from-f^ Did God make them? or did
solid ground come from nebulous matter and that
we know not whence? If so, then we may believe
in a chance law evolving an orderly cosmos out of
chaos, in vegetable and animal, coming as the re-
sult of spontaneous generation, and man with his
wonderful faculties and possibilities the descend-
ant of Simian ancestors. Instead, however, of

2 INTRODUCTION

such impossibilities we are persuaded that science
herself will eventually acknowledge with devout
adoration the plain and only satisfactory solution
that a wise and Almighty God created all things
by the word of his power. He began with a clear
and definite plan. He spake and the result was
fitted to carry out that plan, and so is was all very
good. So we think with reference to the word of
God. God was its author, and not any chance de-
sign or instinct of human thought. Whence, for
instance, came the institution of sacrifice? Could
our first parents forecast that God could be pro-
pitiated in that way, when its full meaning did not
dawn on the world until four thousand years after
they were driven out of Paradise? Was it a mi-
grating impulse that led Abraham from Ur of the
Chaldees, or the call of God to a life of faith
in the unseen, which resulted in his being not
only the founder of the Jewish nation, but an
example to the whole Gentile world! Did Moses
and David build Tabernacle and Temple accord-
ing to human ideas, or after a pattern shown in
the Mount, which indicated God's dwelling with
men and the way of approach to him? Did Isaiah
speak of himself or some other man, when he
spake of the servant of the Lord who was a Prince
and a Saviour and who was to be exalted among
the nations, as also a Lamb led to the slaughter?
Did Daniel speak of earthly kingdoms when he
told Nebuchadnezzar of a stone cut out of the
mountains without hands, filling the whole earth

INTRODUCTION 3

and enduring forever? Was the Lord Jesus a
mere man, though proved to be the Son of God
by his resurrection and by transforming sinful
men into saints and heirs of eternal life?

But it may be said these questions refer to the
great scheme of salvation through Christ. That
is true. But that scheme and the inspired word
stand or fall together. The inspired word
is a part of God's revelation of the way of salva-
tion, and how it is linked in and forms a part of
the whole scheme of revelation we propose briefly
to discuss.

REVELATION A MATTER OF GRACE

Our first remark is that a revelation at all, be-
yond that made in his works, is a matter of free
grace. God might have said and virtually did say
for the first two thousand years of man's dwelling
on the earth and to the thousands of heathen since,
my works in Creation and Providence show the
wisdom, power and goodness of an Almighty Crea-
tor. That the heathen are without excuse for
their idolatry is the position taken by the apostle
in the first chapter of the Epistle to the Romans
and in his speech at Athens. And then there was
left in our spiritual nature not only a disposition
to worship God, but to seek reconciliation when
we have sinned, by repentance, as the Ninevites
did at the preaching of Jonah. This was still
further strengthened and directed by giving to
our first parents the institution of sacrifice. Fol-

4 INTRODUCTION

lowing these guides of what we may call natural
religion, there were not a few who followed him
before the Flood — as the sons of God and espe-
cially Enoch and Noah, who are described as
walking with God. And after the Flood were
such individuals as Melchisedec, and Job, and Ba-
laam, whose knowledge was correct but wrong in
his practice. The vast majority, however, sought
not after God. And so God began to put in exe-
cution a new scheme of revelation by sending his
Son to seek and to save the lost.

FOUR DIFFERENT METHODS OF REVELATION

The Revelation which began with the call of
Abraham has been carried out in four different
ways. First, there was the direct and special
message to the individual. A second method was
by a spoken, and afterwards a written message
through Prophets. A third was by Christ, the
Son of God. And the fourth by the Holy Spirit
in the hearts of believers. These different meth-
ods aid and supplement one another. Thus the
written word helps us to understand the mission
of Christ — especially his work as our great High
Priest. But my special thought in connection
with the subject of inspiration is the help they
give to the truthfulness and reliability of the
record. The written word has come to us through
fallible men. Can we have an infallible record
through a fallible source? Some would say, No.
And we should all say No, except for divine as-

INTRODUCTION 5

sistance. Did the writers of the Bible have this
assistance in sufficient measure to keep them from
error in fact and in doctrine? We maintain that
they did. Others allege that while correct theolog-
ically, they shared with others of their age in sci-
entific mistakes, and have therefore given us
myths and fables ; which we are to correct from
our more enlightened standpoint. It might be
asserted also that good men, influenced, as we be-
lieve, by the Holy Spirit, are constantly making
mistakes, not only in their conduct but in their
writings. Thus it is said an Apocryphal writer
asserts that the world can be divided into seven
parts, of which two-sevenths are seas and oceans
while the rest is solid land. More accurate knowl-
edge would have shown that two-thirds or three-
fourths are water. So one Clement, who lived
not long after the Apostles and wrote as Paul did
a letter to the Corinthian church, in the midst of
much good counsel, repeats as true the fable of
the phoenix, which was said to exist singly for
five hundred years and to rise from its own ashes.
Was this weakness, which has been the lot of good
men, though influenced by the Spirit, shared by
the sacred writers? Have they made mistakes
in facts? I think not, as I have attempted to
show in the following volume with respect to the
book of Genesis.

Two things have been attempted : First, to show
that no good reason has been offered for doubt-
ing the facts as stated; second, that any sugges-

6 INTRODUCTION

tion of alteration only increases the difficulties of
interpretation. Notably is this true with respect
to two leading facts of the first part of Genesis —
the Creation of man and the Fall. If these are
denied or in any way misrepresented, we come in
conflict with our inheritance through the first
Adam and our restoration through the second.
The Bible is a unit from Genesis to Revelation.
But the point which I wish now to urge is, that
the other parts of revelation lead us to expect ab-
solute truth in the record.

TRUTH TO BE EXPECTED WHEN GOD SPEAKS
DIRECTLY TO MEN

I have already alluded to the fact that the
word and works of God are from the same author.
In the 19th Psalm this thought is enlarged upon ;
and one of the specifications is that the law of the
Lord is perfect. The part then written which we
are prone to say is imperfect, is compared to the
works of God in the heavens as perfect. We get
our idea of perfection from the works of nature.
Exactness is the law in the biology of the universe.
Like produces its like now, as in the dawn of crea-
tion. The variation of the millionth part of a
second is not allowed in the clock whose wheels are
the stars. To this perfection Job is brought back
as he suffers from boils, and is confronted with
the injustice of friends and the seeming inequali-
ties of Providence. The Almighty points to the
work of his hands in the animal creation and Job

INTRODUCTION 7

repents of his hard thoughts about God and rec-
ognizes the fact that in his moral government, with
all the entanglements of sin and Satan, there are
no mistakes, any more than in the physical.
When such a God speaks to his servants as he did
to Abraham there is no doubt about the truthful-
ness of the command, or the duty of obedience.
Even when the command seemed to run counter to
the promise — especially when it said, "Take thy
son Isaac and offer him up on the mountain which
I will show thee," he did not argue with God about
the unreasonableness and mistake of thus putting
away the child of promise, but goes directly to
work to carry out the injunction. It was God
who commanded, and therefore it was right. He
would make it plain. The Lord would provide,
and so he did.

TRUTH TO BE EXPECTED WHEN GOD SPEAKS
THROUGH HIS SON

Again God spake through his Son. Is there
any doubt about the truthfulness of him who
dwelt in the bosom of the Father; and as the rep-
resentative of his character and perfections one
so like God never before appeared among the sons
of men. He represented the law more clearly than
Sinai. The morality of Pharisees stood aghast
at his unveiling of sin. He changed men's
ideas of virtue and greatness ; laid down new mo-
tives for obedience, and instituted a code of ethics
never equalled. And yet he was as simple and sin-

8 INTRODUCTION

cere as a child. He made no display of power or
learning. He was a King among men and yet he
had no palace, throne or army. He wielded no
sword. His only weapons were truth and love.
He went forth as a Conqueror and yet suffered
apparent defeat. His was a kingdom which took
hold on the spiritual and eternal. He lifted men
up into the presence of God and yet he looked
upon them with such compassion and tenderness
that mothers brought their babes to be blessed.
He showed his power over the natural world by
stilling winds and waves and healing all manner
of disease. He attested that he was the Son of
God by rising from the grave on the third day
and thus proclaiming that death was abolished,
and through him was life eternal. Moreover he
begins the spiritual life while we are in the flesh
and we have the evidence now in our hearts that
he is "the way, the truth and the life."

TRUTH TO BE EXPECTED WHEN GOD SPEAKS
THROTJGH HIS SPIRIT

A single idea will be sufficient in speaking of
the truthfulness of revelation through the Spirit.
How clearly the weakness and corruption of man
is described, and over against it, the way of faith,
the workings of different graces, the need of
prayer and of constant and growing cleansing
through the Spirit's own divine agency. This is
really revealed in two ways (1) in the written
word and (2) in the consciousness of believers

INTRODUCTION 9

the world over and in all ages. There is no gain-
saying of this record and no Christian would
think of denying it. Notice how full this revela-
tion is. It goes back to Abraham, is wonderfully
developed in the Psalms which speak the experi-
ence of human nature in all its varied moods — is
especially the theme of the Epistles, and has been
flowing down in the hymnology and Christian lit-
erature of all ages. Some would write inspired
on the choicest of these productions and very
properly so, as they are the breathings of the
Holy Spirit in the heart of man. Caution is,
however, to be observed (1) that these utterances
agree with the written word (2) that there be no
attempt or pretext to give any new revelation, and
consequently (3) that there be no claim to be on
a parity with the sacred writers who were inspired
to give to man an infallible written word.

Let us proceed to show how truth is guaranteed
to man in the written word. Before stating these
reasons in detail there are one or two minor points
that need to be mentioned.

1. Chronology is sometimes argued about as
if dates in the margin were part of the text. At
the best they are only the calculations of unin-
spired men who have sought to reach approxi-
mately the truth. These dates vary and no one
can be absolutely positive within hundreds of
years.

2. Authorship where not stated is solely a
matter of inference.

10 INTRODUCTION

3. Some hold that inspiration must be verbal
in order to be correct. This is, of course, true in
direct messages and in such passages as those con-
taining instructions about building the Taber-
nacle. But God's usual method of employing men
to be co-workers with him, is to take them with
all the faculties, original and acquired, with
which they are endowed. Thus Moses, learned in
the wisdom of the Egyptians, did not pretend to
intrude his ideas into the specific instructions
about priests and sacrifices, but he did dare to
argue with God about the destruction of his peo-
ple, and was accepted in the one case as much as
the other. So God used the poetic genius and
tastes of David, the clear reasoning of Paul, the
practical sense of James, the statesmanship of
Daniel, and even the disobedience and petulance
of Jonah to carry his spiritual messages to men.

TRUTH GUARANTEED THROUGH WRITERS MOVED BY
THE HOIiY SPIRIT

How has he guaranteed their truthfulness?
The only adequate and all-sufficient answer is that
holy men spake as they were moved by the Holy
Ghost. In a certain sense this is mysterious. So
is the operation of the same agency in regener-
ating and sanctifying our lives. Only in this case
the work extends further, in keeping their writ-
ings from error. Let us specify the particulars
which make us believe this.

1. The intimate connection with other portions

INTRODUCTION 11

of Scripture, which we consider infallible. When
God spake directly to man or when he spake
through his Son or through the Holy Spirit there
was only one course left open, and that was to as-
sent to the truth of the message. No small part of
the Bible is taken up with what they said and did.
Those who recorded these things had no motive to
vary from the exact truth. The Jews would have
been better pleased if they had conformed to their
views. And the Gentiles would not have perse-
cuted if they had suppressed their testimony.
But they could not but speak the things they had
seen and heard. And they had a special promise
from Christ himself that when he went to the
Father he would send the Spirit of truth, who
should guide them into all truth (John 16:13).
Partaking therefore of his life and seeking to ex-
emplify it in the world, they claimed the right to
speak with authority as having received the prom-
ise.

2. Another guaranty of the truth, was the
spirit of prophecy or foretelling the future. If
there is anything in which man is weak, it is in
saying what shall happen even on the morrow.
But here were men who announced the time and
place of Christ's birth, the character of his life,
the details of his suffering, death and resurrec-
tion. And while we have the humiliation and suf-
fering, we have also the exaltation and glory —
two things so incompatible in the same person,
that the Jew is accepting the latter and looking for

12 INTRODUCTION

temporal glory and that he should deliver Israel,
did not accept Christ as the Messiah. These fore-
castings of the future also were not only a writ-
ten message but inwrought into their very his-
tory in type and sacrifices and service of the tab-
ernacle, and in the lives and characters of indi-
vidual after individual during the centuries of
preparation. As has been said, the greatest mir-
acle of Christianity is Christ himself, not only in
his life and teachings, but in his death and resur-
rection, turning the tide of human experience from
death to life. So the greatest miracle of human
writings is the Scriptures foretelling often what
the writers themselves did not understand, the suf-
ferings of Christ and the glory that should fol-
low.

3. I add another guaranty and that is the
unity and harmony of the writings themselves. I
might begin by saying that there is unity and
harmony with the fundamental principles of mo-
rality as recognized and approved by the Chris-
tian conscience the world over. Take, for ex-
ample, purity of morals in a world of sensuality
and corruption, there is not a line of Scripture that
panders to, much less justifies vice in any form.
In the midst of polygamy there is no justification
of its practice. In the midst of wars and hatred
its testimony is for love and peace. And so in
the midst of falsehood and deceit, the sacredness
and obligation of truth is preserved inviolate.
We no more expect myth, fable or historical in-

INTRODUCTION 13

accuracy than we would a justification of impur-
ity or sensuality. But it is said all literature has
its myths and fables — ^we say except Biblical.
And if tentatively it be allowed, it only increases
the difficulty of interpretation and explanation.

But let us keep more strictly to the unity and
harmony of the writings themselves. Considering
the fact that the Bible includes forty different
human authors and extends over a period of six-
teen hundred years this is most marvellous. It is
not uncommon for an individual writer to dis-
agree with himself. But here is the great won-
der that writers not living at the same time or
place, all harmonize in the great scheme of man's
salvation. It is part fitting into part from the
Fall to Calvary and from Calvary to the redeemed
around the throne praising the Lamb that was
slain.

Perhaps the most specious objection to this
unity is the one urged that the conquest of Ca-
naan and the slaying of thousands is contrary to
the love and kindness of the New Testament. Here
is an appearance of discord in history and doc-
trine, and which in the Old Testament seems to be
emphasized in the imprecatory Psalms. But this
is easily understood when we look at the typical
nature of much of the Old Testament history.
In the establishment of a kingdom, the first thing
is subjection — the complete overthrow of all ene-
mies. This was typified by Joshua and David.
Christ in the establishment of his kingdom de-

14. INTRODUCTION

mands entire subjection on the part of individ-
uals and also of the nations of the earth. The
method by which it was to be brought about did
not appear in the Old Testament except as im-
perfectly typified by the peaceful reign of Solo-
mon. But Christ is the true Joshua — the con-
queror by truth and love. And the work is going
on until that kingdom which is righteousness and
peace comes on earth as in Heaven. So the
thought is one — salvation through an atoning
Saviour, submission to him as King, and by the
power of a motive which is eminently not of earth
but from Heaven. How wondrous the love and
patience that has been teaching to man these les-
sons of the ages.

I might have stopped here, but am inclined to
add a word from my own experience. This might
be duplicated by the experience of the vast ma-
jority of workers among non-Christian peoples.
I went to China in 1848, not long after the be-
ginning of missionary effort in the five treaty
ports. These facts soon appeared: (1) The
darkness and superstition wrought by idolatry
about fundamental spiritual truths. Take for
example the idea of one God as the Creator of all
things. Not only was this beyond the concep-
tion of the common people, but philosophers and
wise men were in the same darkness. Confucius, an
eminently wise and practical man, simply ignored
what he could not understand. He centred all
duties, both to government and to one another, in

INTRODUCTION 15

the family — making our ancestors the object of
reverence and worship. But the cravings of man
to know about his own origin and of all things
about him could not thus be set aside. So one of
the common beliefs is that of the giant Pwanku,
who is represented with mallet and chisel chipping
out the universe from the solid rock. Buddhism
that came in to supplement Confucianism about
worship of gods (though Buddha himself was a
man) and of the existence of the soul after death,
accounted for Creation by the succession of egg
from the bird and the bird from the egg and so
on indefinitely — ending not in a Creator but in
ignorance. (2) It was a matter of devout thank-
fulness that in the midst of such darkness and
ignorance one could speak with perfect confidence
of a Creator, of man's origin and fall and the
need of a Saviour. It was a matter of surprise
that the simple statement of the truth found so
ready a response in the human mind. Assent
was given by the intellect, even though the heart
and old habits resisted. With the hope that I
could help in spreading the light I went to work
with the aid of my Chinese teacher, to translate
Genesis into the local dialect and also prepare a
compendium of Biblical history and doctrine.

(3). This work was interrupted by being
obliged, through the advice of a physician, to re-
turn to this country in 1857. The thoughts and
plans, however, had so far taken root that I pur-
sued the studies here so far as I had leisure from

16 INTRODUCTION

other duties. I am glad that the thankfulness for
revealed light has continued through these subse-
quent years. The inclination has been not to look
for the mistakes of Moses, but for the eternal veri-
ties revealed through Moses. Not that I would
depreciate in any way humble and reverent criti-
cism. By all means let men use all their learning
and knowledge in seeking for truth. We honor
those who do it, however much they differ from us.
But much depends on our point of view. It is one
thing to look upon the Flood as an overflow of the
Valley of the Euphrates and hunt up Babylonian
legends to support that theory, and quite another
to consider it universal and sent by Jehovah to
punish mankind for sin, and yet hold out the way
of escape by an ark of salvation. And then I must
confess that indignation sometimes waxed hot
when some critics — not all — would pervert the
simple and graphic narrative about individuals
and make the patriarchs a story about tribes or
nations. Why, we can almost see them with their
tents and flocks, or sitting under the oaks of
Mamre. We stand by their altars when Jehovah
was worshipped in the midst of surrounding idol-
atry. And their faults are recorded as clearly as
their virtues. And then what a picture of the rela-
tion of the individual soul to God. See the faith
of Abraham, the type of all believers the training
of Jacob and transforming him from a supplanter
to Israel, a prince of God, and then how this per-
sonal relation culminates in Joseph with his mas-

INTRODUCTION

17

tery over temptation and in love instead of wrongs
against his brethren, and in his exaltation over the
world as represented in his being ruler over
Egypt. It will not seem strange, therefore, if
some of us are obliged to say, not proven, to not a
few of the claims of the critics, notwithstanding
their acknowledged learning and scholarship. I
sometimes think they are using the wrong end of
the glass in looking microscopically at objects
and divergencies, instead of taking in as with a
telescope the magnitude and unity of God's plans.
They say of their conclusions that they are proved
beyond a doubt. But I imagine the controversy
will not be over until the Bible comes forth clear
and resplendent with no apology for myth or
fable, with no change of history as in Deuteron-
omy from the close of desert wanderings to post-
exitic times. We believe its truth in all statement
of facts will shine out just as positively as its
purity and complete adaption to the wants and
capacities of man. When Christ was crucified, his
friends came with linen and spices to prepare him
for his burial. They were loyal in their grief.
They sought to make all amends possible for what
his enemies had done. But their work was un-
necessary, for he was not dead, but risen. So the
written word has about it a living vitality which
cannot be buried any more than a living Christ.
We apologize and bring our explanations. But
are they in accord with the living word? If not,

18 INTRODUCTION

they will lie in the grave and be forgotten. May

the time be hastened when we shall all rejoice in

the living word, man's safe and only guide from

earth to heaven. t tt tct

J. K. W.

PARTI

THE BEGINNING OF THINGS
IN NATURE

THE FIRST ELEVEN CHAPTERS
OF GENESIS

CHAPTER I
CREATION

1. The main thought of the Bible is God's reve-
lation of salvation for man. But who is the Re-
vealer? and who is the Saviour? No answer is so
appropriate and satisfactory as this, that he who
provided the salvation is the Creator — our Crea-
tor, and the Creator of all things.

THE ULTIMATE AGREEMENT OF SCIENCE AND
REVEIiATION

As the main thought of the Bible is acknowl-
edged by all to be theological or religious, it is
held by some (as, for example. Canon Driver in
his "Commentary on Genesis") that its statements
may be true theologically but not scientifically.
Driver quotes with approval the remark of Abbe
Loisy that "the science of the Bible is the science
of the age in which it was written. And to ex-
pect to find in it, supernatural information on
points of scientific fact is to mistake its entire
purpose." (p. 33). This seems plausible. But
take the first verse of Genesis, "In the beginning
God created the heavens and the earth," and it
would be difl5cult to say whether it is a scientific
or a theological fact. The few details of the cre-
ative process in the first chapter might be called
scientific statements, which some would dispute,
but when we come to the record, "God created

m THE BEGINNING OF THINGS

man in his own image," shall we call that a scien-
tific or a theological statement? Canon Driver
and others would put it in the realm of antiquated
science, but a fuller and fairer investigation may
show that it is true both scientifically and theo-
logically. If Revelation is from God, the direct
inference is that what he says accords with his
character in being absolutely true. The words
and works of God are both from him, and need
no reconciliation, except in our interpretation. In
the interpretation great mistakes have been made,
but we can rest assured of an abiding agreement
in the last analysis ; because God is the Creator
and Author of all that we are trying to reach by
both science and revelation. The following pages
have been written with the hope of finding such an
agreement possible; and the result has been an
increasing conviction that whenever science has
attempted to find fault with revelation, the only
satisfactory solution is to come back to the words
of the Book.

CEEATION OUT OF NOTHING

2. In the beginning^ says the record. When that
was, no one can say. Science has helped us to say
very positively that it was more than six thousand
years ago. The great fact is not when, but that
God created the heavens and the earth. There
are two possible ways of accounting for the exist-
ence of matter (1) that it is eternal; (2) that it
was made out of nothing. An attempt by Sir Wm.

CREATION «3

Hamilton, Wilford Hall, and others, to think of a
third way , viz., that matter was condensed or
evolved out of the being of God, is unsatisfactory.
Its leaning is towards Pantheism, or that God is
the soul of the universe. God created, not simply
fashioned, but created the original material. Mat-
ter in its original simplest form is supposed to
have been nebulous. Unresolved nebulae are found
in various parts of the heavens. And in our own
solar system, Jupiter, though thirteen hundred
times larger than the earth, has a specific gravity
less than water. From this and other indications,
it has not yet attained to an organization as com-
plete as our earth. Guyot is inclined to maintain
that in the expression, "the earth (Heb. ereto)
was without form and void," there is a reference
to matter in general, and that waters (Heb.
ruaim) refers to a gaseous or fluid state of the
universe ("Creation," by Guyot, chap. 6).

THE SPIRIT THE AUTHOR OF LIFE

S. Over this chaotic state the Spirit of God
moved or hovered. Genesis gives the word, which
occurs only here and in Deut. 32: 11, the force of
brooding over, as the eagle over its young, and
thus imparting life. This thought which is foreign
to any merely human cosmogony, is especially im-
portant as the record of an underlying truth, that
the Spirit is the author of all life. We know that
the highest life, that which links us to God, is from
above, or the work of the Spirit. So here in the

^4 THE BEGINNING OF THINGS

great work of creation, before chaos is awakened
into order and life, the Spirit of God is repre-
sented as brooding over unorganized matter. As
matter could not make itself, so its subsequent
forms of order, life and beauty are of divine ori-
gin. This truth has two significant bearings —
First as to the record itself. It confirms the
thought of inspiration. It is an advance state-
ment of what human wisdom would not have ven-
tured to state so early in the record. And second,
science, as long as it confines its investigations to
the material and does not allow for the workings
of the spiritual above and over it, imposes a lim-
itation upon itself — a limitation which makes it
fall short of the truth. In the revealed cosmogony
mind and matter are indissolubly connected — God
the Creator and the thing created ; and we fear the
scientific will never be right unless the theological
is admitted to its right position also.

LIGHT

4. We come now to the actual work of creation
during the six days or periods of time. The first
thing created was light by the simple fiat of the
Almighty. This was physical light, for in one
sense God was always light. "In him is no dark-
ness at all" (1 John 1:5). Physical light is con-
nected with motion and heat. There is no local-
izing either in this creation of light. Heat there
was in abundance on our earth, and a luminous
atmosphere seems to have continued for ages, not

CREATION 25

needing, and perhaps not having, the light of the
sun until the fourth day or period. This creation
of light preceded and would be helpful to life
whenever it should appear. Heat, the usual ac-
companiment of light, does not cause life, but pro-
motes and stimulates it after it once exists. The
living plant responds to light and heat from the
sun, but the sun has no such effect on dead wood
or inorganic matter. Prof. Haeckel maintains
that in its first or lowest forms, life comes through
spontaneous generation. But Pasteur and others
have shown that even in fermentation, a living
germ is a necessity. By chemical analysis and
microscopic observation, we may get very near to
life, but we never touch it, much less can the most
consummate skill make a living worm.

DAYS LONG PERIODS OF TIME

The first time period was marked by the crea-
tion of light. It had been night, — darkness, phy-
sical darkness, in our solar system at least, until
this entrance of light which was the first morning,
and it was called Day. These days had no meas-
ure, according to our standard of twenty-
four hours each, until the fourth period. This
St. Augustine long ago recognized, and called
them Dies ineffabiles, peculiar days. This use of
the term day, for periods of time longer than
twenty-four hours, is so generally acknowledged
that there is no need of spending time in discuss-
ing it.

26 THE BEGINNING OF THINGS

Translators of the Bible into heathen languages
after spending time in choosing the best words,
often find them inadequate, and are obliged to lift
them from their surroundings and give them a new
and higher meaning. Days and firmament are
examples of what might be called a two-fold use.
Days are used in a limited and also in an enlarged
sense, and the other (firmament) clinging, it may
be, to antiquated science, and yet ready for the
new meaning when it breaks upon the understand-
ing of men.

ATMOSPHERE

5. The next creative process was the making
of the atmosphere or expanse; which our transla-
tors, following the Septeragint and the Vulgate,
translated firmament. This translation (approved
by Driver) has given currency to the idea that
the Bible supported the theory that the heavens,
in which the stars were placed, was a solid sphere.
If so it was manifest that at least the lower part
of this firmament was transparent and the upper
might be and could be left to further investigation
to modify. But the American translators give
expanse as the equivalent for the Hebrew word.
And this suits the office which the atmosphere was
called upon to discharge of separating or bearing
up the waters in the clouds from the waters be-
neath. It has been estimated that prior to this,
an enveloping vapor extended some two thousand
miles or more above what we now call oceans, and

CREATION ^T

that the oceans themselves were throwing up hot
spray or steam from the uncooled globe.
("Miracle of To-day," p. 64).

It is not necessary to dwell upon the important
uses which the atmosphere serves in bearing up
and distributing moisture over the globe, nor its
relation to animal and vegetable life. Neither is
it necessary to discuss whether it was first made
pure, or was for a time filled with gases, such as
carbonic acid, which would have been helpful to
the plants of the carboniferous period. Air, like
light, has its thousandfold uses, which the sacred
narrative does not pause to mention.

6. The third day brings us into contact with
vegetable life. But before its appearance, and in
order to bring the world into shape for a habita-
tion for man, there was the gathering of the
waters into seas, and the appearance of dry land.
With the knowledge which we have gained from
the up-turned edges of soil and rock, this has been
a slow process. From the seething caldron of
vapor and steam, the igneous rocks were slowly
cooled, and lifted up into mountain ranges. And
then these have been washed down and deposited
in sedimentary rocks. Again and again have con-
tinents and islands been lifted up, and as often
submerged. Rivers have found channels and
worn them into deep canons by waters more abun-
dant than now flow between their banks. Suc-
cessive forms of vegetable and animal life have
clothed and peopled the surface, leaving no vestige
except in their tombs, of their former existence.

28 THE BEGINNING OF THINGS

Volcanos have lifted mountains, poured down tor-
rents of lava. Coral insects have built up islands.
And as we look at these manifold changes, we won-
der how long this process has been going on. Sir
Wm. Thompson estimates that the time required
from incipient incrustation to its present state
does not exceed eighty million years. But with-
out going back so far it has been estimated that
the time from the formation of the sedimentary
rocks has been thirty million years. This esti-
mate is based upon the rate of erosion in such a
river as the Mississippi ( see Le Conte Geology, p.
264). These long periods of time, even if we
reduce them thirty or eighty millions of years to
ten or through millenniums, teach us this lesson
that if God was so long fitting up a world for sin-
ful man — the corresponding fact of a purified
world and an eternity in the future for redeemed
man, should not seem strange.

VEGETABLE LIFE

After the appearance of dry land, the next step
was the introduction of vegetable life. The two
points stated are (1) that God did it, and (2) that
this life had the power of reproducing itself.
Inorganic matter tends to disintegration and
decay. Its highest and most permanent form is
the crystal. But neither in that form, nor in any
other, has it any tendency to pass into the life of
either vegetable or animal. Spontaneous genera-
tion is not the method, but the seed, having life in

CREATION 29

itself and like producing its like through succeed-
ing generations. One apparent difficulty is a day
for vegetable life and then after that a day for ani-
mal life, whereas they were largely intermingled
for long periods of time. But all that seems in-
tended is to specify the introduction of each form.
The changes incident to each, follow in long suc-
cession. It was thus with light and air. Light at
first was not localized even in our solar system.
And the air or atmosphere about our earth, under-
went great changes in purity and temperature
before man appeared. So far as known, one of
the lowest or most simple forms of vegetable life is
graphite^ a cryptogamous fern which appears
among the coal plants of St. John, N. B. (Dana's
Geology, p. 157). We have a right to assume
that all the possibilities and variety of vegetable
life down to the fruits and grapes of our own time,
were in the mind of the Almighty when he called
upon the earth to bring forth "herbs yielding seed
and fruit trees bearing fruit after their kind."
And yet it would seem as though there was a spe-
cial thought with regard to the carboniferous
plants, from which we obtain our supply of coal.
The abundance and richness of this form of vege-
table life may be judged, when it is estimated that
forests like those of the valley of the Amazon
would produce only half an inch of coal, while
there are coal beds varying from four to twenty
feet in thickness. These plants were allied to ferns
and ground pines. And of them some five hundred

so THE BEGINNING OF THINGS

varieties are enumerated, many of them of great
size — all fresh water plants, but not like plants
now in existence.

Another notable fact about coal-beds is that
they are found in the Arctic regions. This is true
also of later forests. Magnolias, Hickories, South-
ern Cypress and Sequoias now peculiar to Cali-
fornia, once grew in Greenland. The same also
may be said of animal life. The elephant was at
one time a native of Great Britain, and his remains
with those of other animals belonging to the trop-
ics, have been found in the frozen regions of Si-
beria.

For a long time — perhaps until the fourth day
or period, the atmosphere about our earth seems
to have been self-luminous and more heated than
now, with a greater degree of moisture, and more
or less filled with carbonic acid and other gases
favorable to vegetation and to some types of ani-
mal life.

7. In the fourth day or period, nothing is said
about any act of creation, but only the appoint-
ment or designation of sun and moon to fulfill cer-
tain purposes. Of their existence before this,
nothing is said, nor of the time when he made the
stars. The cooling of the earth and the dissipa-
tion of gases in the atmosphere was doubtless a
slow process, even after the sun began to appear.
This state of the atmosphere accounts for coal
and forest trees of southern climes in the north
more satisfactorily than the change in polar direc-
tion, which it is sometimes thought took place on

CREATION 31

the fourth day. While light and heat resident in
the atmosphere were favorable for the extraordi-
nary growth of the carboniferous period, yet con-
tinuous light and heat would not be the most suit-
able for man. He needs the alternation of day and
night, the change of seasons and of climate. To
secure these ends the sun and moon were ap-
pointed as luminaries. At the same time there
was such a clearing of the atmosphere that the
stars were visible also.

OUR RELATION TO OTHER WORLDS

In following out the history of creation on this
world of ours, it is not necessary to refer to other
worlds, yet as we are a part of the universe which
God has made, there are some thoughts which
thrust themselves into notice as we read the brief
statement, "He made the stars also."

The first is the enlarged conception which we
get of God as the Creator of the heavens, as well
as of the earth. We are part of a whole, which
seems almost infinite in variety and extent. When
David looked at the heavens he wondered at the
condescension of God to man. And yet he only
saw some five or six thousand stars, while the tele-
scope brings to view from forty to fifty millions.
And some authorities say over one hundred mil-
lions. And yet their great number is eclipsed as
we learn something of their magnitude, velocity
and immense distances from us and from one an-
other. Certainly no being is so great as he who

32 THE BEGINNING OF THINGS

made and controls them. Omnipotence and omni-
presence gain new significance as we think of him
who "bringeth out their host by number and call-
eth them by their names."*

Another thought is that God has the highest
regard for those attributes of character which
have to do with moral qualities, rather than great-
ness or might. Intellectual insight which foresees
and provides for wants, thousands of years before
needed, and marvellous power such as seen in the
creation and government of worlds, are not to be
compared with the love and mercy exhibited in the
salvation of men. This view of the divine charac-
ter is to be taken into account, when the question
arises, why did God choose so inconspicuous a
world as ours — a world not visible to other sys-
tems— for the display of a plan of salvation vastly
more significant and important than any other act
that has transpired in all the universe.'* That the
Son of God should die for the restoration of any
of his creatures on any part of the universe
makes that spot, however insignificant otherwise,
the moral center. Whether it be the physical cen-
ter is an entirely different question. Alfred Wal-
lace has sought to establish the fact "that our sun
is one of the central orbs of a globular star cluster

* ** In the Harvard Observatory on the Andes erected for
the purpose of photographing the stars, it is said that a single
negative 17 by 14 inches caught the picture of 400,000 stars
and that it would take two thousand plates to cover the entire
heavens." Dr. F. E. Clark's "Continent of Opportunity,"
p. 113.

CREATION 33

and that this star cluster occupies a nearly cen-
tral position in the great plane of the milky way."
(From an article in the "Independent," and after-
wards published in a book.) Other scientists claim
that we cannot define the bounds of the universe,
that there is no proof that we are in the center
and that we are drifting through space at the rate
of a million miles a day. Into this discussion we
need not enter, except to say that we assume that
God alone is infinite, and that the universe, how-
ever boundless, is finite. Why God has so exalted
this earth above other worlds in creating man in
his own image and then when he had fallen, of re-
deeming him through his only Son, may remain a
mystery until we have left the body and have be-
come more familiar with the marvelous works of
God.

8. Animal life, or the work of the fifth and
sixth days. The first thought is the vast variety
of animal life. The waters swarmed with swarms*
of living creatures. The air was peopled with
birds, and on the land were living creatures from
the animalculae invisible except by microscope to
the immense reptiles of the carboniferous period
and the great beasts of a later age. The perfec-
tion of these organisms in all their minute details

* The wonderfully prolific period of shell fish or part of
these "swarms " is seen in the fact that out of the 60,000 to
70,000 feet of rock on the earth's surface 15,000 to 20,000 feet
was added by these minute creatures. Ehrenberg estimates
that a cubic inch of chalk contains more than a million of the
shells of Rhizopods. (Dana's Geology, p. 471.)

34 THE BEGINNING OF THINGS

is no less wonderful than the magnitudes and ve-
locities of the heavenly bodies.

2. There were certain laws imposed on animal
life at the beginning which are more or less dis-
puted in scientific circles. (1) Life is from God.
(2) There is a marked distinction between animal
and vegetable life, even in their lower forms. The
worm, though it grows in the ground, is not a root.
A grub, though it looks like the leaf on which it is
feeding, or the bark to which it clings, is different
from either. (3) That the law of succession and
transmission is that like produces its like both in
the animal and vegetable kingdoms. (4) Aside
from the skill and purpose evidenced in the indi-
vidual animal in fashioning all the parts for the
end for which it was made, there is a plan and
purpose in the whole cosmos, attested by the
words concluding each act of creation, "God saw
that it was good." It was good and suitable for
the great end which he had in view. That there
was a plan is evident from such facts as the laying
up of coal and metals long before they were
needed, and from the wise adjustment of the dif-
ferent parts to one great whole, as the atmosphere
to the lungs of the animals breathing it, and the
amount of water to the growth and perfection of
plants depending upon it. And then there is the
direct relation of all these different parts to man
as the supreme head and ruler here on the earth.
With reference to the law of like producing its
like, there is and has been from its promulgation

CREATION 35

six thousand years ago, ample evidence that it is
the uniform law of nature. A modification of this
law, which admits of variation and improvement
within certain limits, has been exalted into a law
and is the basis of the theory of Evolution.

EVOLUTION

It seems necessary briefly to discuss this theory,
as it has an important bearing upon modern in-
terpretations of Scripture. The word is some-
times used in a very vague sense. Thus Dr. Ly-
man Abbott in his "Problems of Life," (p. 191)
says, "This is what Evolution means — ordered
progress, development from poorer to richer, from
lower to higher, from less to greater — ^progress."
In this sense all theists are Evolutionists. It re-
quires but little examination of God's methods
both in nature and in grace to see that he ad-
vances in the line of progress. The question is
whether the progress is a part of his impress on
the material, or whether it inheres in matter.
True Evolutionists adopt the latter view. Thus
Le Conte says, "Evolution is (1) continuous, pro-
gressive change, (2) according to certain laws,
and (3) by means of resident forces." ("Evolu-
tion," p. 8). Or more fully Mr. Joel A. Allen in
his Preface to "The New Natural History" says,
"All living creatures, including the physical part
of man himself, may be and probably are, the
lineal descendants of a single ancestral stock com-
mon to them all; and all the differences between

36 THE BEGINNING OF THINGS

the different sorts of animals are due entirely to
the familiar forces of nature which have operated
over an enormous lapse of time and are still oper-
ating today in exactly the same way that they
have operated in the past." Prof. Tyndall would
say that the molecular forces determine the form
which the solar energy shall assume — resulting in
the one case in the formation of a cabbage, in an-
other in the formation of an oak. The switching
of the machinery which is governed by no law or
purpose results, it may be, in a grasshopper or in
the formation of a man.

It is neither kind nor fair to charge a theory
with tendencies which its advocates deny. Le
Conte, for instance, strongly maintains the imma-
nence of God in all things — "through him all
things exist and without him there would be and
could be nothing" ("Evolution," p. 300).
And yet he clothes matter with an inherent force
which makes it capable of originating a new form
of life. It may take thousands of years to do it
and yet it does it all the same. How this differs
from Prof. Haeckel's frank avowal of spontaneous
generation it is difficult to say. But if materialism
is not accepted in its full form, there is the claim
that inherent force is the determining cause in
each successive generation. Says Le Conte, "Or-
ganic forms follow one another in a continuous
chain, each derived from a preceding, and giving
origin to a succeeding. This is a law of deriva-
tion, and we might call it a law of causation"

CREATION ST

("Evolution," p. 65). This might result in any
haphazard development, as a cabbage or a man,
or it might be claimed that the modification might
go on improving on self -constituted lines. That
is, if the final result of the thought of matter (if
such a thing is conceivable) was man, then when
bulk was in evidence as in the Reptilian period,
we might have had a man of huge proportions — a
great Saurian with snake-like head and a body as
big as a trolley car, but certainly not very elegant
in appearance. Or when at the time of the great
beasts of the pre-glacial period, a tangent flying
off towards man would have given us something
like the cave lions, bear or hyenas with their car-
niverous dispositions. But since, according to
evolution, man has developed from the ape, and he
is what he is, may we not properly expect a still
higher and more beautiful animal evolved from the
birds? Some scientist has very properly sug-
gested this as a future possibility — certainly a
possibility if it is to be decided by material forms.
The difficulty then with the hypothesis of Evo-
lution is, (1) its tendency towards materialism.
(2) When this is denied, it gives to matter the
attributes of divinity — if the inherent force can
look forward to a grand plan such as has been
developed in the past from Chaos to Cosmos. (3)
It disturbs the uniformity of nature, which is that
like produces its like. (4) It takes a modification
of that law, which gives room for variation and
improvement and makes it the central law. And

38 THE BEGINNING OF THINGS

yet discarding as we must the theory of Evolution
as stated by its advocates, there are certain truths
which the discussion has called out that are to be
recognized as: (1) God has clothed organic forms
with the power of reproduction. It is not a new
creation, every time a seed produces its like, or an
egg the offspring of the parent; but a wonderful
potency of perpetuating life and the peculiarities
of one generation down to the next. (2) With
the like producing its like, the variation is also
perpetuated. In this way improvements are made
on the original stock in animal and vegetable, and
especially in this way are the advances in civiliza-
tion perpetuated. This may well be termed pro-
gressive development. It is this which has given
to the theory of evolution its force and currency
in the popular mind. It is what many mean when
they say God works through evolution. If by that
is meant a force inherent in matter, then we deny.
But if the directing thought is God's and not mat-
ter, then we affirm. But we must take exception
to language that is misleading. It is a contradic-
tion to say God directs, when matter by inherent
force directs itself. The organic forms of matter
have a relation to God very similar to that occu-
pied by angelic beings. They do his bidding.

CHAPTER II
THE CREATION OF MAN

Before taking up the main topic of this chapter
there are two preliminary subjects which it is
necessary briefly to consider. One is that of
God's Sabbath, and second, the documentary
theory.

god's sabbath

1. After the brief account in the first chapter
of the creation of man (1:26-31), it is said,
(II. V. 2), "and on the seventh day God finished
his work which he had made . . . and God blessed
the seventh day and hallowed it ; because that in it
he rested from all his work which God had created
and made." The question arises, was this seventh
day like the preceding six? if so, it would cover
a long period of time. In favor of this is the lack
of the formula, "the evening and the morning were
the seventh day." It is at least open to us, who
are living, as we think, in this seventh day, to
speak of it as the day of redemption. After the
creation of man God ceased creative work. He
had reached the highest point on this earth, and
the point towards which all preceding steps led.
And now he looks at man in a new and higher as-
pect. This is God's Sabbath — the day which he is
hallowing until the work of redemption is com-
plete. We would speak of the Old Dispensation

39

40 THE BEGINNING OF THINGS

as the evening, and the New, with Christ's coming,
as the morning. And if so, we anticipate the
change from the seventh as rest after six days'
labor to the first of the week, and hallowing work
by making redemption the first and greatest of
all works. This makes God's Sabbath of the ages
grandly typical of the weekly human Sabbath
which he instituted at the beginning long before
its promulgation on Sinai. That the human
writer should have understood the significance of
what he was putting down is not to be expected.
It is one of those indications like the Spirit of
God brooding upon the waters that indicates di-
vine as well as human authorship. The Bible, with
its many authors, is a unit — a unit because prac-
tically it has only one author. Like the works of
God they are composed of individuals, but they
make one great whole. The unity of this book
and its divine authorship will appear more plainly
as we go on.

THE DOCUMENTARY THEORY

2. Man having been thus created and placed
in his high position, it was but natural that the
writer, having gone over the works of creation,
should recapitulate and enlarge upon this part of
his work, and hence as we look upon it, are given
the details in the second chapter, fourth verse and
following. The introduction of the term Jehovah
(Lord God, auth. ver.) has puzzled many com-
mentators and led to the theory of different docu-

THE CREATION OF MAN 4.1

ments in the composition of Genesis. In the first
chapter the term God alone is used, while in chap-
ter 2, Jehovah God is the term. The reason for
this might very properly be sought in the narra-
tive. In the first chapter, the usual term God, as
God of nature, is sufficient, but he wishes to con-
nect his special work, the creation of man^ with
God in his covenant relation, or Jehovah as the
God of his people. (Ex. 3: 13). God that made
man in his own image is to redeem him. And so
as the God of redemption he uses in the second
chapter the term, Jehovah God. Whether this
was the only or the main reason for the change of
term in the second chapter, can hardly be afiirmed
very positively, as no reason for the change is
given by the writer, but it seems as good a reason
as the one invented in these days that he was using
another document. Whether the writer used other
documents or not, is a matter of no consequence,
since by using them he made them his own. From
what sources the Evangelist Luke obtained his in-
formation about the birth and early days of Jesus
we know not. He is responsible for their correct-
ness. And so Moses, or whoever wrote Genesis is
responsible for the book as it stands. If there are
any disagreements they are his, or the disagree-
ments of the book, or if, as we maintain, these
books were inspired, they are divine disagree-
ments. There is no need of mystifying a discus-
sion which ought to be brief and simple, and that
is, is the Bible inspired? If so, the writers were

42 THE BEGINNING OF THINGS

kept from fundamental error. Verbal inspiration
makes the writers simply amanuenses or type-
writers dictated to, which is not God's way of
using men. He uses men as men, as he did Proph-
ets and Apostles, with all their humanities. How
much of error may have been allowed to creep in
can be determined by criticism, which can and
ought to be as sharp and only as sharp as truth
will allow. Certainly there is no call to hide any
disagreements by old documents for which the
writer was not responsible. With reference to the
vast array of learning involved in this discussion
the following conclusions have been reached. (1)
That no substantial agreement has been reached
as to results. (2) That the traditional view of
the authorship of most of the books of the Bible
is accompanied with the fewest difficulties as to
facts and doctrines. (3) That it was the evident
intention of the Author of Revelation to make a
book fairly intelligible to the ordinary mind and
not one dependent on the dictum of scholars, whose
learning is more of the letter than of the Spirit.

CREATION OF MAN

3. With reference to the creation of man, three
things are stated very explicitly in the narrative
in Genesis. (1) That it was the last and crown-
ing work of creation. After that God rested, or
ceased to make any new forms of life. When the
Flood was sent, new forms were not created to
take the place of those destroyed. (2) That man

THE CREATION OF MAN 4.S

differed in his creation from the animals in being
made in the image of God. (3) That all mankind
descended from a single pair.

It is well to take up these points in order, as
this is the great battleground between science and
revelation, and where science has so far claimed
the victory that not a few Biblical commentators
are found supporting its views. Let us see how
the matter stands. And first as to the Antiquity
of man. It is admitted by Geologists that pre-
historic remains of bones closely resembling the
human have been found in caves with those of ex-
tinct animals. Skeletons have been found, one of
a man six feet high, and others shorter. These
skeletons showed "fair average human skulls," ac-
cording to Huxley. Others had marks of in-
feriority. (Dana's Geology, p. 574). This in-
feriority of structure is generally acknowledged
by Naturalists, and if we follow the theory of
Evolutionists, man's precursor would necessarily
be of a low type. The Pithican Homopus Erectus
or ape-like man, whose skull was found in Java
in 1894, and who was supposed by many to fur-
nish the missing link between man and the ape, was
said to have had a brain capacity half way be-
tween the lowest man and the highest known type
of ape. Besides skeletons, stone implements,
charcoal and relics of fire and bone, drawings of
animals have been discovered, usually in caves
with the bones of fierce animals now extinct, such
as the cave bear, cave hyena, cave lions, and the

44 THE BEGINNING OF THINGS

old elephant, which was one-third larger than the
elephant of our own time. These remains belong
to the Glacial period, which some think lasted
twenty-five thousand years, and the close of which
was, say, twelve thousand years ago. The conclu-
sion generally adopted as the result of these sci-
entific investigations is expressed in a book, quite
largely used in schools (Redway & Hinman's Na-
tional Advanced Geography, p. 34), "At one
time many thousands of years ago all or nearly
all people were more ignorant than the most sav-
age tribes now living. They probably did not
know how to make many things, but lived in caves,
wore no clothing, and ate only fruits, nuts, roots
and such insects as they could catch, and such
small animals as they could kill with clubs and
stones. At last some one may have learned how
to tie a harp stone on the end of a stick and thus
make a spear with which to spear fish or kill ani-
mals. Then some one may have learned that
sticks rubbed together will get hot and at last
burn, thus starting a fire."

The question arises, is this conclusion that the
so-called Paliolithic or Neolithic man living in
caves — the companion of extinct carniverous ani-
mals, was our ancestor, a correct one or not.'' Our
answer is that however near these animals approxi-
mated to the human in their physical structure,
they were in no sense the being which God made
in his own image, and from whom we are de-
scended. ( 1 ) The first argument is that the world

THE CREATION OF MAN 45

was not ready for man at the time it is affirmed
that he appeared. In the Biblical narrative one
is impressed with the thought that the consumma-
tion and crown of the work of creation is man. In
the work of the six days God spoke and it was
done, but when the creation of man is reached
there is deliberation and consultation. And when
it goes forward it is in the exaltation of the ma-
terial form so that it contains as in a temple the
likeness of the great God, the supreme Creator
of all things. The spiritual in its highest form
is united to the material, and that makes humanity
and then the work of creation ceases. And as we
examine the work of creation from the scientific
standpoint, we are brought to the same conclusion,
the exaltation of man. It is laying up in store-
houses for his use and approaching slowly through
different grades of vertebrates, until the apex of
the Pyramid is reached in the human, the highest
of animals. But the time for that consummation
had not been reached in the Glacial period.

In geological formula this was the Tertiary
period, followed by the Post Tertiary or Quater-
nary period. Dana says the Tertiary was the age
of mammals and the Quaternary the age of man
(Geology, p. 141). At the beginning of the lat-
ter the gigantic carniverous animals passed away
with the cold of the Glacial period, and in their
place came such animals as the stag family and
the ox, or the herbivorous instead of the carniver-
ous (Geology, p. 589). It was the period too of

46 THE BEGINNING OF THINGS

continued changes and increase in the land sur-
face of the globe (lb. p. 588), and of completed
river systems, such as the Amazon, Mississippi,
Ganges, etc. (p. 587) ; of the gradual purification
of the atmosphere (p. 593), and of the waters
of the ocean (p. 593). In fact it was the age for
perfecting and finishing the previous acts of crea-
tion. It was the house being furnished and made
ready for its inhabitant. In the Biblical narra-
tive this completeness of preparation is present.
Just as afterwards the Tabernacle and Temple
were completed before the Shekinah came to fill
with its glory the Holy Place. And if we rightly
read Geology there was no readiness for man's ap-
pearance until the close of the Glacial period.
Prof. Winchell says that it has been nearly unani-
mously agreed that post glacial time does not ex-
ceed ten thousand years, and probably amounts to
about eight thousand years. (See note in Dr.
Orr's "God's Image in Man," p. 306). There is
no intention of using this argument of the unpre-
paredness of the earth as absolute proof that man
has not existed the many milleniums that have been
claimed, but it is some satisfaction to find that
Geology confirms the historical view and places
the creation of man at a period where it seems to
properly belong.

2. A second argument is that man, with his
spiritual nature and capacities, could only have
been made by a direct creative act of God. What
is man.? He has been described as the sum total

THE CREATION OF MAN 47

of animals. The vertebrate type which exists in
the fish, which is more fully developed in the ani-
mal with legs for locomotion, and more or less of
brain power finds its perfection in the erect form
of man, with mind to carry out his wishes and to
direct his hands and feet to go and do as he
pleases. As an animal he is the highest and best
fitted to govern of all that dwell on the earth. But
he is not a mere animal. You only touch the bor-
der of his humanity when you say he is the highest
of animals. Three characteristics might be men-
tioned which distinguish him from the mere animal.
We might speak of others, which are like but-
tresses to the bridge which spans the chasm be-
tween our two natures — speech and reason seem
distinctly human, but the one is made with vocal
organs ; and animals, as they approach man and
seem made for his benefit, have in some measure
the reasoning faculty. We pass, therefore, to
these features, which belong distinctly to the spir-
itual and not to the physical part of our nature.
First man is a moral being ; second a religious, and
third an immortal being. First, he is gifted with
a moral sense. He approves the right whether he
does it or not. An animal feels the obligation of
instinct, but the ought that represents duty from
a moral standpoint he fails to see. This moral
faculty or conscience represents not only clearer
discernment or intellectual power, but a distinct
individuality or will power, coupled with a sense
of moral obligation. Nature is more or less a

48 THE BEGINNING OF THINGS

machine working in grooves and by a power out-
side of itself. In plant life there is the beginning
of individuality, which is more manifest in the ani-
mal, as it shows wishes or desires of its own. But
in man, whose will is operated upon by motives,
individual responsibility assumes a higher form.
Another nature — we call it the spiritual — comes
in and dominates the physical. He who allows the
lower nature to rule is animal in his tastes and
appetites. If governed by the higher, by his moral
nature or conscience, he is spiritual.

This moral or spiritual nature is still fur-
ther emphasized when we say man is a religious
being. There is in him a tendency to worship and
hold fellowship with God. If he knows not the
true he seeks the false. In the savage this may
show itself in the desire to avert evil. He feels de-
pendent upon some higher being and tries to pro-
pitiate his favor in crude or superstitious ways.
But the religious nature in its natural normal
state hungers after God, as the bird for its nest,
or the hart for the water brooks. The spiritual
in man can only be satisfied by him who made the
spirit, and so it cries out, "My soul thirsteth for
God, for the living God."

The same may be said about the longing
for immortality. It shows itself even when most
crushed out, in care for the dead, in providing for
their spirits in the happy hunting ground; but in
the soul responsive to its nobler instincts the
thought is, "I will be satisfied when I awake in thy

THE CREATION OF MAN 49

likeness." Likeness to God is certainly not like-
ness to the animal or the material. That dies, as
all things earthly die. But the spiritual lives, even
when suffering punishment that is called death.
For a spirit once created never becomes non-ex-
istent.

We have then in man a nature, which is not
merely above all animals, but which is distinct
from all that can be developed out of material
forms. It is not an evolution, but a gift to the
already highly developed animal of something
higher, in the bestowment of another nature. Oth-
erwise we destroy the spiritual and make man only
material without any link to bind him to God and
the spirit world. This seems to be the drift of
commentators who, like Canon Driver, follow the
evolutionary theory. He holds very positively to
the theological fact of the relation of God to the
world, but is just as positive about the progress
of man from anthropoid ancestors. He defines
the image of God as the gift of self-conscious rea-
son (p. 15, "Commentary on Genesis") and
argues against the high intellectual capacities of
our first parents, as Miltonic rather than Biblical
(p. 56). It is contrary, he says, to progress, to
the gradual advance from lower to higher, from
the less perfect to the more perfect which is
stamped upon the entire range of organic nature,
(p. bQ). But surely if God is the Creator he can
control and modify the work of his own hands.
He can proceed by gradual advance or by leaps

50 THE BEGINNING OF THINGS

and bounds, if the latter seem necessary. This he
has abundantly indicated, not only by the intro-
duction of vegetable and animal life in creation,
but the same thing is manifested more or less now.
There are not only constant forces acting like
water in the erosion of river channels, but erup-
tive-forces sudden and terrific, as the earthquake.
It is hard to tell which has caused the greatest
changes on our globe — ^the eruptive or the erosive.
And then the gift of self-consciousness is no gift
at all, but simply the result of other endowments.
The main thing was the gift of a spiritual nature
involving reason, individuality and responsibility.
Possessing these he would become conscious of
their existence. We are not to hide the gift by
specifying only one of its results.

3. Another argument is drawn from our con-
dition since the Fall. It is readily seen that our
spiritual nature is not now in the image of God
as it came perfect from his hands. We are like a
broken statue with the lineaments blurred, but not
obliterated. There is in man an approval of that
which is good, but a reluctance to perform — a
struggle between right understanding and a per-
verse will ; immortal, and yet forgetting his destiny
in the present, god-like and yet often basely ani-
mal; capable of and often rising to the highest
civilization, and yet sinking again to barbarism.
This is easily explained by the narrative in Gen-
esis. He was made upright, but fell from the es-
tate in which he was created, by sinning against

THE CREATION OF MAN 51

God. Adam's nature became corrupt, and his de-
scendants inherited his corrupt nature. Accord-
ing to evolution, man was imperfect before Adam
and imperfect since. The Fall came upon him,
says Driver, "when he was immature in intellect
and culture" (Gen., p. 57). We at once feel
that the Fall, which was really a test of man's obe-
dience and a punishment for disobedience, came
upon him when he was unprepared to meet it.
This is usually met by talking about the Fall as if
it were a step in man's upward progress and
development.

The claim for the scriptural narrative, there-
fore, is, (1) That it is the only adequate explana-
tion for the moral, religious and immortal nature
which exists in man. (S) That the Fall or cor-
rupt tendency in man now, can only be explained
by the same authority which states his original
condition and the departure from it. (3) Pro-
gressive development in the race, especially in its
corrupt state, is due, not to innate forces in man,
but to divine grace and power working in and
with Revelation, and especially in the gift of his
Son.

From our standpoint we are obliged to say that
nothing more delusive and subversive of Christi-
anity can be imagined than this theory which
starts with the evolution of man from anthropoid
ancestors, or the so-called Peliolithic and Nico-
lithic man in the time of the Glacial period. The
same force carries him through the stone, iron

52 THE BEGINNING OF THINGS

and bronze ages, down to Babylonian and Egyp-
tian civilizations. It makes a myth of the Fall
and of innocence and intelligence in the Garden
of Eden. It develops monogamy out of polygamy,
civilization out of savagery and barbarism, and
reaches its haven of the perfect man without
miracle, or a divine Christ, or the Holy Spirit.
What a sin against the religious nature of man,
which so needs help and which has the promise of
it so abundantly given in the Word of God. What
a sin against him who has given us that nature
and so exalted us above the beasts that perish, by
linking us to himself, and to another and better
life than this.

[Note. It might have seemed proper that reference should
have been made to Davis' work on the Image of God in man.
He goes over the same gromid in part as the above, showing
the inadequacy of Evolution to account for man's higher and
spiritual nature. But the main part of the argument had been
written before I learned of the publication of his work.]

CHAPTER III
THE UNITY OF MANKIND

Those who hold to the statement that Adam was
made in the image of God, hold also to the view
that Eve was the mother of all living. But if man
descended from anthropoid ancestors, he was
probably made in groups like other animals. Thus
Driver says, "All mankind are not descended from
a single pair, but arose independently in different
centers of the globe," and so he says, "The real
unity of the race consists not in unity of blood,
but in unity of mental constitution and of moral
and spiritual capacities." "Each race," he adds,
"independently passed through similar moral ex-
periences, and each similarly underwent a 'fall.' "
("Commentary on Genesis," p. 57). Three fund-
amental points are here involved: First, The fath-
erhood of God; Second, The brotherhood of man,
and Third, The marriage relation, as between one
man and one woman. The first we have already
considered in the last chapter, in the fact that God
made man in his own image. The brotherhood of
man. Driver holds only in a modified form. We
are like birds of the same feather, though our
pedigree does not go back to the same ancestor.
We will take this up a little later on. At present
it is to be noticed that there is an inherent im-
probability that different races possessed with in-
dependent wills, should have met the Fall in the

53

54 THE BEGINNING OF THINGS

same way. Why did not some escape, as was the
case with the angels, when put to a similar test
of obedience?

1. MARRIAGE

In discussing the unity of the race it is
necessary to say a word about marriage. In read-
ing the account we see the difference between man's
creation and that of animals. Not only did God
decide to make man in his own image, but he only
makes at first a single individual, whereas in ani-
mal life, the "waters swarmed with swarms of liv-
ing creatures." And in providing a suitable com-
panion for man, none could be found in the animal
world — ^none among the descendants of his so-
called Anthropoid ancestors, and so out of man
he made woman. And then he pronounces on this
new pair the great law of marriage, "Therefore
shall a man leave his father and his mother and
shall cleave unto his wife ; and they shall be one
flesh." Here was a distinct planning and looking
forward to what was best for him and for human
society as long as he existed on the earth. And
then is it too much to say that he was planning for
the best good of man in his brotherly and sympa-
thetic relations to his fellow man? He knew
what distinctions would arise in society — how civi-
lization, wealth and station would make barriers in
contrast with ignorance, vice and barbarism, and
so he removed the greatest barrier by making all
men brethren. We are of one blood — ^have one

THE UNITY OF MANKIND 55

Father, one Saviour, one Heaven, is the message
to our common humanity. And nothing so stirs
our sympathy for the fallen and degraded, as this
fact that we are brethren, capable of being ele-
vated and united in the glorious position of Sons
of God. That God looked forward to and planned
all this in the creation and marriage of our first
parents, is what the Bible would have us believe.
That human nature in its ignorance and sin should
have evolved marriage in the divine sense and
meaning, out of promiscuous co-habitation or
polygamy is not conceivable. History plainly
teaches that there has been no such evolutionary
tendency in any of the nations of the earth. The
difficulty is in keeping depraved human nature up
to the Biblical standard. It is only done by the
authority of God, looking, of course, to man's
best good individually and socially.

2. UNITY OF THE RACE

Let us proceed therefore with the arguments
which we think go to establish the unity of the
race from a scientific standpoint. It is well to see
that in taking the Bible as it is, we are not teach-
ing antiquated science, but truth which the best
investigation has proved to be correct. We need
also to dissipate the assumption of superiority
which as a part of egoism we are disposed to
claim for the Caucasian race. Cultivation and
training ought to do for other races all that they
have done for us.

56 THE BEGINNING OF THINGS

There are two theories about race distinctions.
One theory would make these distinctions funda-
mental and radical, involving different race-cen-
ters or origins of man — say five or seven. The
other theory is that in some remote past, the pre-
Adamite race started from a given center — say
Lemuria off the east coast of Africa, and became
diversified in the lapse of ages, as we now see
them.

The argument for race distinctions is founded
for the most part on external differences, such as
color of the skin, fiber of the hair, projection
of face and lips beyond the line of the forehead
and alleged differences in brain development. But
these differ in the same race, as the Indian in
color, from the almost black on the shores of the
Rio de la Plata to the almost white Mandans of
the upper Missouri. The shaft of the hair is
found to differ in the same individual as well as
in different races. And within the limits of mod-
ern history the Lapps, Finns and May gars all
descending from a common stock, exhibit the most
marked differences in skull and general conforma-
tion— the Maygars being tall and well made and
the Lapps short and uncouth ("Unity of Man-
kind" by Dr. Cabell, p. 96). It is to be remarked
also that these differences are not so great as in
some animals — the dog, for example. The fol-
lowing facts, therefore, with respect to the so-
called different races can be clearly proved.

First. They are anatomically the same. There

THE UNITY OF MANKIND 57

is the same number and variety of bones, the same
temperature of blood, the same formation of skin.
There is also the same period of arriving at the
full development of the physical powers, the aver-
age duration of life, the tendency to disease and
similarity of diseases. Second. Beyond this the
mental and moral constitution are the same. We
expect of course variation between the mental
caliber of a civilized European and a Hottentot,
which in generations would show itself in cranial
development; but fundamentally their natures are
the same. Allowing for civilization and environ-
ment, memory, the reasoning faculties, the distinc-
tion between right and wrong, the disposition to
worship, the consciousness of sin, the need of
forgiveness are all alike in every race. This agrees
with the declaration of Paul as he stood in the
center of the world's civilization and declared that
God "hath made of one blood all nations of men"
(Acts 17:26).

CHAPTER IV
THE GARDEN OF EDEN AND THE FALL

GENESIS, CHAPTERS 2 AND 3

In continuing the account of man's creation the
narrative describes his abode — then the creation
of woman and the law of marriage between one
man and one woman. After that we have the ac-
count of the Fall and the Expulsion from Para-
dise. The man thought with reference to the
works created centers in man.

1. MIST AND RAIN

Before speaking of his abode, an explanation
is thrown in of the state of the vegetable world.
No plant of the field and no herb had yet sprung
up (S:5). That is, the vegetable life suited for
man had not yet been created. Vegetation of a
different kind, and belonging to the carboniferous
period, and such as was needed for the leviathans
and carniverous animals before the herbivorous,
but not for the more recent animals. For this
previous vegetation, all the moisture required and
perhaps in great abundance, was furnished by the
mist going up from the yet uncooled earth. Evi-
dently the atmosphere was not purified and did
not concentrate the moisture in clouds, and there
was no rain.

That which specially interests us is that here is
a bit, not of antiquated but of anticipated science,

58

EDEN AND THE FALL 59

such as confirms the results of the most recent in-
vestigations with regard to the history of our
globe. As man could not learn this from tradi-
tion, nor from any science then known, the only
conceivable source is the inspiration of the Al-
mighty. And to this we look rather than to any
Babylonian or Egyptian documents.

2. GARDEN OF EDEN

Man having been made, Jehovah God placed
him in a garden "eastward in Eden" (v. 8). From
the description the garden was more like a park
of considerable extent, with four rivers. Two of
these rivers, the Euphrates and Tigris, are identi-
fied with rivers of the same name, while the others
are in dispute. The location is also in dispute,
whether at the mouth of the rivers near the Per-
sian Gulf or at their source in Armenia. Fig
leaves and the absence of clothing would suggest
the more Southern locality.

This garden, man was to dress and keep (2: 15)
showing that labor or employment is not incon-
sistent with a state of innocence and happiness.
Free use was granted to all the trees of the garden,
with one exception, and that was, the "tree of
knowledge of good and evil." The name of the
tree indicates another idea beyond the fruit it
bore. In this case it was a test of obedience.
Obedience would result in knowing the good by
experience. There would be the approbation of
God and of one's own conscience. Disobedience

60 THE BEGINNING OF THINGS

would result in knowing the evil and its effects.
The test was a simple one, and so the question of
obedience was easily understood. Fruit must
have been abundant in the garden, and only one
tree was forbidden. The tree of life was accessible
until after disobedience. This seems a symbol of
a truth underlying the whole of Scripture, that
life is provided for us by God himself — is his gift,
but is withheld from the disobedient. Wherever
bestowed it is an invaluable and eternal blessing.

S. THE FALL

The next topic carries us still further into the
region of symbols. The tempter appears under
t]|e guise of a serpent — a specially fitting emblem,
when we consider its cunning in securing its prey
and avoiding danger. Some have thought it un-
derwent a change after the curse, and became, what
it was not before, a crawling animal. But of this
we are not sure. It seemed in no way repulsive
to Eve, whereas, since then, all her descendants
have looked upon snakes, even when not venomous,
with repugnance. The power of speech, we must
consider one of Satan's devices and not a mere
suggestion to the mind of Eve, without any out-
ward expression. She had not yet become evil so
that the depraved nature could be the medium of
wicked thought, as with us. The serpent's method
however, was the same that the devil pursues with
us. As Matthew Henry says, "he questions, first,
whether it were a sin or no ; second, he denies that

EDEN AND THE FALL 61

there is any danger in it ; third, he suggests much
advantage by it. And these are his common
methods." He begins very cautiously, by asking
what appeared to be an innocent enquiry, "Yea
hath God said, ye shall not eat of every tree of
the garden?" He seemed to intimate that the
command, not to eat, extended to the other trees.
To which the woman replies, that this was not so.
"We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the gar-
den, but of the fruit of the tree, which is in the
midst of the garden, God hath said, ye shall not
eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die."
The not touching, does not appear in the original
command, but it is always safe to avoid that
which is forbidden. The danger is in holding the
parley, even if the law be reaffirmed. It is a gain
to the tempter, to get an ear for his evil sugges-
tions. And so he goes on to say, there was no
danger in disobedience. "Ye shall not surely
die." This was a bold lie, but it might start a
doubt about the justice, a certainty of the pun-
ishment. And he follows it up by affirming that
instead of danger, there would be decided advan-
tage. Ye shall be as God himself — (not as gods
— for of false gods Eve knew nothing). He
adroitly uses the name of the tree as an assur-
ance that their knowledge should be enlarged. In
a sense it would be true, but by a bitter instead
of a pleasant experience of evil. And instead of
becoming like God, they would be made like Satan,
antagonistic to God. So far the tempter ad-

62 THE BEGINNING OF THINGS

dressed the ear. After this he could afford to be
silent, as he sees the temptation working through
the eye, as Eve looks at the beauty of the for-
bidden fruit. It was then an easy step to open
transgression — to taking the fruit and giving it
to her husband, who thus became a partaker in
her act of disobedience.

The first effect of their sin was hiding from
him against whom they had sinned; and a sense
of shame or guilt in making themselves aprons to
cover themselves. The hiding from God reveals
to us the terms of friendly intercourse which he
had, up to this time shown his children. This
was now broken up, and was one of the penalties
of disobedience. Man was expelled from the gar-
den and from access to the tree of life. Under
harder conditions than before, he was to till the
ground and seek to reap from it the fruit of his
labors.

4. PUNISHMENT

As this was man's first transgression and as it
was far-reaching in its results, it is well to con-
sider what the punishment was, and why it was
inflicted. Those who hold to the imperfection of
our first parents, would hardly consider the Fall
and Expulsion from Eden as a punishment. It
was rather a part of the upward progress of the
race from savagery to civilization. They would
claim that the varied races were involved in the
same moral condition as the Adamic race by in-

EDEN AND THE FALL 63

dependent processes. For all must acknowledge
that man as he now exists is a sinful being. How
he became so is the difficult question, especially if
we do not accept the exact statement of the Bibli-
cal narrative. No one would venture the state-
ment that God made man imperfect, and therefore
he became sinful. It is almost equivalent to say-
ing he made man sinful, which is repugnant to all
our ideas of God. So that we are forced to ac-
cept the only other alternative, that God made
man perfect, and that as a free agent he fell from
that high estate by sinning against God. (See
Driver's attempt to avoid this conclusion. Gen.
p. 56). When sin has been committed, that it
should be punished is a necessity in all govern-
ment. The Bible treats it as an intentive truth
to be accepted without argument, just as the
being of God. If no penalty is inflicted, "the
magistrate beareth the sword in vain." Some
preach a gospel of rewards and no punishments.
But that is not the gospel of the Kingdom of
Heaven — nor of any known system of govern-
ment. What then is the penalty? Death or the
opposite of the life promised. Obey, and you
have the one. Disobey, and you have the other.

(1) DEATH TO THE BODY

Life was first immortality to both soul and
body. Immortality to the soul is, in a sense,
natural. It belongs to its very existence. And
from the whole tenor of Scripture it is never taken

64 THE BEGINNING OF THINGS

away. With the body it is different. It is earthly
and, like all things of earth, perishes. In creating
man in his own image, God endowed this transient
material with immortality. As a punishment of
sin it was sent back to its original condition.
"Dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return."
Some indication of what might have been our lot
was given by the prolongation of human life to
nearly a thousand years, and by the translation
of Enoch without seeing death. This first gift of
longevity to the body and then the shortening of
man's days on the earth, seems vastly more satis-
factory in view of what man is and of what he
was made for, than the assertion of Canon Driver
"that the longevity here described is physiologi-
cally incompatible with the structure of the hu-
man body" (Gen. p. To). It is incompatible with
the structure of the body that it should rise again.
And yet we believe in that, as a result of divine
power. And we believe in it as a restoration to
man of all that he lost in the Fall.

With this taking away of the immortality of the
body there was inflicted the sorrow and burden,
which in this life accompanies sin. The woman
was especially to suffer, and the ground was to
be cursed for man's sake. Thorns and thistles
were to grow spontaneously, and in the sweat of
his brow, man was to cultivate the soil. The extra
labor involved has in it the seeds of blessing, for
labor is better than idleness. It was punishment,
as has been witnessed by the sorrows and miseries

EDEN AND THE FALL 65

of these thousands of years ; but not wholly with-
out its consolations. It is a harder task to sub-
jugate nature and ourselves than if we had con-
tinued innocent, but there is a greater reward if
we come off victorious.

(2) SPIEITUAL DEATH

Death came not only to the body, but to the
soul. As the soul continues its existence while
the body dies, the main significance of death is not
in the outward and material. The particulars in-
volved show, however, that it is a fearful reality.
There is (1) Alienation from God — manifest in
hiding from God, as our first parents did in the
garden. (2) Subjugation of the higher nature to
the lower. The reverse of this was the teaching
of man's whole organization. As an animal, the
brain, not size or strength, was the dominating
faculty. Through centuries, life in animal was
progressing from mollusk to vertebrate, and from
vertebrate in fish to vertebrate in animal. And
from vertebrate in animal with his four paws for
locomotion, to the upright position in man and
with his brain using hand and arm for higher
purposes than instinct ever suggested. And then
crowning all, comes the supreme work of God,
subjecting brain to the control of moral power,
representing God within us and God over and
above all his works. When Eve listened to the
serpent it was rebellion against the fundamental
law of our being. Disobedience was disorder, con-

66 THE BEGINNING OF THINGS

fusion, anarchy, not only in man, but in the
whole realm of nature that sympathized with his
fallen condition. (3) In this state man could no
longer do good, and (4) was prone to evil. With
reference to the two last features, subsequent his-
tory furnished abundant evidence.

(3) DEATH ETERNAL

Eternal death follows necessarily from death of
soul and body. Once begun, it must continue to
man and his descendants, as long as the aliena-
tion from God lasts. How long this alienation
shall last and how it can be removed, depends on
him against whom sin has been committed. That
there was hope of restoration is intimated in this
connection. But the first thought is the making
clear that suffering and punishment follow sin.
The law is guarded first on the side of justice and
then afterward on the side of mercy and forgive-
ness. God who made man knows just what he
needs in the way of strength of motive, to keep
him in the path of virtue and obedience.

(4) THE FIRST PROMISE OR PROTEVANGELISM

Lest our first parents should sink into despond-
ency, there came with this infliction of punish-
ment, the foreshadowing of the conflict between
right and wrong and obedience and disobedience.
It was to be a conflict vastly prolonged. It was
to be waged through the ages between the great
spiritual forces represented by sin, evil and Satan

EDEN AND THE FALL 67

on the one hand, and on the other by conscience,
the obligation to do right, and especially God in
Christ. The seed of the woman was to bruise the
head of the serpent and the serpent was to bruise
his heel. After ages of this conflict, and since
Christ has appeared in the flesh, no clearer de-
scription has been given of the fight and the ulti-
mate victory than in this brief sentence — this ray
of hope, as Adam and Eve were thrust out of
Paradise. Here is prophecy begun by Him who
knows all from the beginning to the end.

(5) SACRIFICE

In connection with this promise, comes an indi-
cation of regard for the guilty pair. It is said,
"Jehovah God made for Adam and for his wife
coats of skins and clothed them." (3:21). How
much this implies it is diflicult to say. From the
fact that sacrifices are spoken of in the next chap-
ter, it does not seem an improper inference that
they were now instituted and that the skins were
from beasts, slain for that object. If so, a great
truth is here symbolized that through sacrifice,
the nakedness of the soul is covered by the right-
eousness which God has provided by the substi-
tution of a victim in the place of the offender.
How far our first parents realized the truth thus
set forth it is impossible to say. Eve seemed to
hold by faith to the promise in calling her first-
born as one gotten from the Lord, or as some
think it should be translated, "I have gotten a

68 THE BEGINNING OF THINGS

man — Jehovah" — as if not only the promise of
bruising the head of the serpent was to be ful-
filled in this boy, but that the boy himself was
Jehovah-God manifest in the flesh. However,
while some see too little in the record, we would
not go to the other extreme, of finding more than
the type and shadow of things to come.

CHAPTER V
CAIN AND ABEL

GENESIS, CHAPTER 4

This chapter is a sequence to the story of the
Fall, and shows that the sin of our first parents
involved their offspring. Of the sinfulness of the
whole race there can be no doubt. Two ways of
explaining it are common among theologians.
One is that by nature we are children of wrath.
The old law of like producing its like is true of
man in his spiritual nature. Born of parents,
who after the Fall, were corrupt, we partake of
their corruption. Another idea is that of federal
headship. As we partake of the blessings of
Christ, the second Adam, by coming into cove-
nant relation with him through faith, so through
the first Adam we share in the results of his trans-
gression. The two explanations melt into each
other, as we view them from the standpoint of the
first or second Adam.

(1) THE FIRST MURDER

That the first-born of our race should be a mur-
derer, and that too of his own brother, is not a
pleasant fact to read about, so soon after the
creation of man in God's image and the placing
him innocent in the Garden of Eden. And then
how strange that the brother who was so unsus-
pecting, and who was accepted by God in his wor-

69

70 THE BEGINNING OF THINGS

ship, was not kept from harm by the Almighty;
when at the same time he condescended to reason
with and protect the wicked brother. Thus early
are we taught that the rewards of the righteous
are not in this life. We are also taught the long-
suffering and patience of God towards the worst
of criminals.

The occasion of Cain's anger against his
brother, was because Abel's sacrifice was accepted
of God, while his was not. Adam doubtless acted
as priest in his own family, just as Abraham did,
until his sons were grown and had households of
their own. Cain and Abel were engaged in rural
occupations — the one a tiller of the ground, the
other a keeper of sheep.

(2) SIGNIFICANCE OF SACRIFICE

At the end of days, which some suppose was the
Sabbath, others the end of the year, or at the
time of harvest, they came with their sacrifice.
Both brought of the fruits of their toil, and so far
as expressions of thankfulness were concerned,
this was the proper method. Cain may have ar-
gued, I am a tiller of the ground, and I bring
these fruits as a token of gratitude. This is nat-
ural religion, and from a human standpoint, was
correct. But it did not meet with the divine ap-
proval. In what way that approval was mani-
fested is not certain. Many think that as in later
times, the sacrifice of Abel was consumed by fire.
If not in that way, it was made plain to Cain that

CAIN AND ABEL 71

his offering was not accepted. In the Epistle
to the Hebrews, it is said that "by faith, Abel
offered a more excellent sacrifice than Cain"
(11: 4). If by faith, there must have been some
previous instruction as to the method and object
of sacrifice. As a thank-offering, and without
any revelation of the divine will, Cain's offering
was as appropriate as AbePs. But if God had
signified that he preferred another way, then that
way must be followed. How far our first parents
were instructed as to the nature of sacrifice and
its conniection with the promised deliverer, Reve-
lation does not inform us. We suppose light on
this matter became clearer as the time approached
for Christ's coming. Possibly all they knew was
that sacrifice was to be of the firstlings of the
flock. This meant expiation — substitution of life
for life. Doubtless there was a tendency to the
idea of Cain, that a sacrifice was simply a thank-
offering, or as they were called by the Greeks, the
food and drink of the gods. Thus Homer "de-
scribes Jupiter and the rest of the gods, as going
from Olympus to a festal sacrifice, which the
Ethiopians presented to him, and which lasted
twelve days" (Knapp's "Theology," p. 380). The
same idea is expressed in the cooked sacrifices, or
offerings of the Chinese. In connection with this
festal idea, there is also ample evidence of the
idea of expiation, or at least appeasing the anger
of the gods. Hence it was believed that the more
precious the victim, and the more nearly connected

n THE BEGINNING OF THINGS

with the offerer, the more certainly would the
gods be appeased. Hence the splendid hecatombs
mentioned by Homer, and hence human sacrifices
and the offering of children by their own parents.
Asar says of the Gauls, "that unless the life of a
man was given for the life of men, they did not
think that the immortal gods could otherwise be
appeased." (See Hill's "Divinity," p. 443). It
is not necessary to claim that this expiatory idea
of sacrifice was handed down by tradition from
our first parents, though that certainly is prob-
able. To this may have been added the yearnings
of our fallen nature to find a way of reconcilia-
tion to God. There is certainly no evidence that
the typical idea so constantly prominent in Scrip-
ture and which kept the Jews from excess as in
offering human sacrifices, was ever present, except
in connection with revelation. And yet the typi-
cal, as well as the expiatory idea, was always a
part of acceptable sacrifice. It must have been so
with Abel ; for his offering was acceptable through
faith in the future and not merely because of obe-
dience to a divine command. Cain's offering was
without faith ; and so he neglected both the typical
and the expiatory idea. And yet he was, in his
way, religious. He brought an offering to the
Lord. From this it is evident that mere worship
is not sufficient. The external performance of
what we may think duty may not be acceptable in
the sight of God. Without faith it is impossible
to please him. Shut out of Paradise, man's hope

CAIN AND ABEL 73

is in God's way of return and not by seeking to
climb over the wall.

This explanation of the meaning of sacrifice
and the reason why Cain's offering was not ac-
cepted is more in accord with the fundamental
thought of the Old Testament in looking at the
future, than the less prominent but important
idea of regarding our motives in the worship of
God. (This last is Driver's explanation. Gen.,
p. 64).

The acceptance of Abel's sacrifice, while his
was rejected, stirred up envy and anger in the
breast of Cain. His countenance fell and he was
very wroth. Notwithstanding his unreasonable
anger, God reasons with Cain. He reminds him
that he knew enough of God to know that his deal-
ings were right — that if he did well he should be
accepted, but if not, sin lay at the door. There
are two interpretations of this last clause. One
that if he did not do well, repent and sin, that is,
a sin-offering, lay at the door. Come with the ap-
pointed sacrifice and be accepted. The other in-
terpretation personifies sin as lying in wait at the
door. Sinful passion lay as a ravenous beast to
devour him; but thou shouldst rule over it, con-
quer the rising temptation before it is too strong
for thee, and subdue it. Driver, who holds the
latter view, adds, "It teaches a profound psycho-
logical truth, the danger of harboring a sullen and
unreasoning discontent. It is a temper which is
only too likely to lead to fatal consequences, and

•74 THE BEGINNING OF THINGS

which therefore as soon as it begins to show itself
should at all costs be checked." ("Commentary on
Genesis," p. 65).

The reasoning of God seemed, however, to have
no effect on Cain. He concealed his wrath for a
time, talking with Abel under the guise of friend-
ship, and waiting until they could be alone in the
field. And then he rose up against his brother
and slew him.

Notwithstanding the sin of Cain, God still rea-
soned with him and did not visit his crime with
the punishment it deserved. He was to bear the
burden of his sin in a life cursed. By some vis-
ible mark it was known that he was God's pris-
oner and was not to be killed. It is evident as
we read on that the curse was not in the depriva-
tion of worldly comforts and blessings. For the
descendants of Cain were the inventors of that
period, not only in useful arts, but in music as
well.

It is to be feared that the forbearance of God
had but little effect on Cain and his posterity, for
we read that Lamech, the seventh from Adam,
was a polygamist and murderer, and seemed to
boast as if he should escape punishment as Cain
did before him (4: £3, M), As Abel received
not the rewards of righteousness in this life, so
Cain and his descendants were not punished for
their evil deeds in the present. Cain undoubtedly
felt the remorse of his guilty deed, but unwilling
to accept the advice of God, went out, as the nar-

CAIN AND ABEL 75

rative reads, "from the presence of Jehovah"
(4:16). He left the region where his parents
resided and where we suppose they still sacrificed
to God, while he himself would no longer worship
in a way which had proved unacceptable. Gov-
erned by his fears he built a city, not in our mod-
ern sense, but a fortified dwelling place.

(3) SETH

As Abel had been slain and Cain had gone
eastward, a new successor of the promise was
granted in the person of Seth. This line of
promise towards the Messiah is one kept care-
fully in view, if not by the human historian, yet
by God himself. Other sons and daughters were
bom to our first parents and their descendants,
but the history never loses sight of the seed of
the woman and of his personal name, that was
to bruise the head of the serpent. This personal
mention does away with the speculation indulged
in by some that we have in these chapters the
names of tribes, instead of persons.

In this line of Seth we come to an interesting
record in the days of his son Enoch that "then
men began to call on the name of Jehovah."
(4:26). What had been the neglect, and what
was the occasion for this new interest we are not
informed. Incidentally we learn that some 250
years after the Fall, there was such an increase
in the human family that history takes on the
usual parlance of what belongs to the nation

76 THE BEGINNING OF THINGS

rather than the individual. This service of Je-
hovah which began in Enoch's time seems to be
one of those glimpses which we have of the spir-
itual life before the Flood.

( 4 ) ENOCH

A second glimpse comes several generations
later in the time of Enoch, who, like Lamech of
the line of Cain, was the seventh from Adam. He,
apparently roused by the defiance and reckless-
ness of such men as Lamech, who gloried in their
"exemption from punishment" prophesied that
"the Lord would come with ten thousand of his
holy ones to execute judgment and convict the
ungodly of their deeds" (Jude 14 and 15 vs ).
Enoch's translation to the presence of God was
a still further lesson to those of that age that the
rewards of righteousness were in the future.
Long life was a temptation to indulge in wick-
edness, and so man's days were shortened. Enoch
only lived out about half of the usual period of
man's days ; and was not for God took him. Per-
haps his translation indicated the way in which
we would have been taken to another world if
our first parents had not sinned.. The third and
last glimpse of the spiritual life of this period
shows a state of sad decline in those who repre-
sented the Sons of God.

(5) SOXS OF GOD

At first sight we might imagine that those thus

CAIN AND ABEL 77

designated were angelic beings (as in Job 38:7)
and thus get the sanction of Scripture to the
lustful idea of the gods of the heathen, but we re-
member that man was made in God's image and
so was entitled to be called his son. And that
among the descendants of Adam there were those
like Abel who worshipped aright, and that in
Enoch's time, there were those who, responsive to
the original longings of man after God, sought
him, and that there were men like Enoch and
Noah who walked with God, and we also know
from human experience, that those thus walking
and called his sons, might fall into sin as Israel
and the church have done, so we conclude that
there were a goodly number among the descend-
ants of Seth who had earned the right to the title
of Sons of God, as in these days we have of being
called Christians.

(6) GENERAL CONCLUSIONS

Doubtless all attentive readers of these first
chapters of Genesis, are struck with the brevity
of the record. Here are ten generations covering
a period of two thousand years (according to the
Hebrew, 1656 and the Seventy 2262) and after
the story of the Creation and the Fall, a short
chapter covers the ground from Adam to Noah.
But what is written is sufficient to admirably fit
into the plan of a Revelation of salvation for
man.

78 THE BEGINNING OF THINGS

First comes the origin of man — made in the
image of God.

Second, how he became sinful.

Third, the consequences of that sinful state,
(a) in man's depraved nature; (b) in the pun-
ishment inflicted upon sin.

The character of God appears in clear accord
with subsequent revelation (1) Just in the pun-
ishment of sin. (2) Merciful (a) in the promise
of victory to the seed of the woman; (b) in sac-
rifice which looked to a substitute for man's sin;

(c) in long-suffering to the sinful and rebellious;

(d) in intimations that immortality would be
granted to those who walked with God.

Still further there were some lessons about
sin. In its simplest form sin is an act of disobe-
dience. But it is against God, who has placed
man in the highest position a creature, who is in
one sense an animal, could occupy. He was linked
to God, with the implied thought that dominion
belonged to the higher nature. He yielded to the
lower nature — acted contrary to the laws and
position in which God placed him. Disobedience
in the moral world was like inaccuracy in the phy-
sical. The motion of the planets is free and
smooth in their orbits, admitting also of special
movements, yet the accuracy of revolution is ab-
solute, admitting of no variation even to the
thousandth part of a second. So in the sphere of
moral revolution obedience should be simple, ab-
solute, and unquestioning to the Father and Ruler

CAIN AND ABEL 79

of all. While man is a free moral agent and
is thus responsible for his own choice, there is
here clearly stated the agency of the devil in
tempting man — a fact which is recognized
through the whole of subsequent revelation. 3.
We have here an admirable study in Psychology:
(1) The methods of attack on the part of the
tempter. (2) The yielding and excuses on the
part of the tempted. (3) The growth of envy
into hatred and murder. (4) The way of escape
offered and resisted, and the effect of remorse and
fear. Here are pictures of actual reality, true in
every age, and plainly indicative of the need of
divine help, as the tendency of man to go astray
is seen to be so strong.

• CHAPTER VI

CHRONOLOGY

Before proceeding with the next great physical
fact, it may be well to say a few words with ref-
erence to Chronology. Chronology is only the
dry bones of history. History begins with man —
with Adam, according to the Bible. Adam was
created in God's image, as the last and highest
of the animal creation, and for whom all the other
parts of creation had been made subservient. In
this science agrees perfectly with revelation.
When he was created is in a measure pointed out
by both in perfect harmony with one another. It
would naturally be, when all things were made
ready for his appearance. Certainly it would not
be in the carboniferous period, when the atmos-
phere was not purified and when the animals
were not suited to his tastes and wants. Nor
would it be in the time of cave-bears, cave-lions,
hyenas and other carniverous beasts, when some
have fancied the bones of our ancestors have been
found. It would not have been before or in the
intense cold of the Glacial period, when many
types of animals were destroyed. But a more fit-
ting time would be when the garden, like the
earth, of which it was a part, was complete — ^when
its continents with up-heaved mountain ranges
and river systems, received their final adjustment,
when the grapes, grains and fruits for man's use,

80

CHRONOLOGY 81

and for the birds, fishes and animals that were to
be his companions and helpers had been created —
then and not till then would seem the time to in-
troduce man into the world over which he was to
have dominion. Through successive stages and
during many long periods of time, the construc-
tion of the pyramid had been going on, and the
lines converging towards the Apex, and when it
had been reached in man, the image of his Crea-
tor, what else could be expected than that the
work of creation should cease? Can we through
science, approximate to the time of this consum-
mation and completion? The first attempts to
compute the time geologically were from the time
occupied in the erosion of rivers, as for example,
the Niagara gorge. At first Lyell thought that
it must have taken one hundred thousand years to
have worn back the rock to its present position.
More careful observations have made great reduc-
tions in this estimate, and now the general con-
sensus of authority is that "the post-glacial time
cannot be more than ten thousand years, and
probably not more than seven thousand." (See
Dr. Orr's "God's Image in Man," p. 175). How
strikingly near this comes to Biblical representa-
tion of the time when man appeared, is apparent.
We have two witnesses, one stating that man was
created about six thousand years ago, and the
other declaring that the world was not ready for
his appearing until a period ranging from seven
to ten thousand years ago, and inclining to the

82 THE BEGINNING OF THINGS

smaller number. In view of this argument there
are certain conclusions that may be put down as
highly probable, though they have been disputed
by critics of high authority.

1. As to man's appearance on the earth, the
conclusion from these two witnesses is that it was
comparatively recent. Prof. Kent, however,
affirms that the combined evidence of archaeology,
anthropology and geology indicate that man has
existed on the earth at least twenty-five thousand
and probably one hundred thousand years."
("Historical Bible," vol. 1, p. 5). This of course
is to allow time for the evolution of man from
anthropoid ancestors. It is not necessary to re-
peat the arguments (see above, p. 50) to show
that the gap between animal and man cannot be
bridged by time, however long, but by the creative
power of God. And as we have just stated, geol-
ogy in the progressive stages of its development
was not ready for man's appearance until the
post-glacial period.

2. History. We reach a much more precise
and definite period as to the beginnings of history
than that which comes to us from any other
source. It is no little satisfaction to have mists
and cloud-lands of fabulous record cleared away
by the sunlight of a simple and authoritative
statement. Thus according to Berosus, ten kings
before the Flood reigned for 432,000 years. The
last of these was Xinthros who reigned 64,800
years, and is supposed to correspond to Noah.

CHRONOLOGY 83

(See Driver's "Genesis," p. 80). These absurdly
fabulous periods of the historians are paralelled
by the ages of the Paliolithic and Neolithic man,
the stone age, the iron age, etc., before our sav-
age ancestors reached civilization. The strange
thing about this civilization, which blossomed out
so vigorously, say from 4000 to 5000 B. C, is
that it was hardly surpassed by later develop-
ments. The monuments make mention of sculp-
tors, brick-makers, carpenters, masons, smiths,
including those who worked in gold and silver,
jewellers, potters, miners and weavers and basket
workers. Cuniform writing had been invented,
the length of the solar year (S65 1-4 days) had
been determined, and eclipses predicted. (See
"Historical Bible," pp. 6-7). Prof. Clay in his
book, "Light on the Old Testament from Babel,"
refers to a silver vase, the date of which he gives
as 4100 B. C. This vase with its engravings of
birds and animals, is so elaborate a piece of work-
manship— "comparable in many respects with
our own," that one could hardly believe it to be of
so ancient a date (p. 52). This early civilization
came as a surprise to those who imagined that
long ages were necessary to the development of
art and industry in our savage ancestors, but it
is just what we might expect if our first parents
were created in the image of God and lived on for
nearly a thousand years. Long experience and
native ability would have made them proficient not
only in meeting necessities, but in the invention of

84 THE BEGINNING OF THINGS

those things pertaining to ease and luxury. And
so we read in the brief record of their inventing
instruments of music as well as making instru-
ments of brass and iron (4:21 and 22). And
then when a vessel was needed to save themselves
and the animals from destruction by the Flood,
they had all the art and capacity necessary for
such an undertaking. God directed as to the
main features, but the details were left to Noah
and his helpers.

A corrected chronology is therefore much
briefer and more in accordance with the facts of
the case as revealed by the monuments of the past.
This is its broad general aspect. When we come
to the question of centuries — much remains to be
adjusted. In the sacred record the ruling idea is
to give the line of succession culminating in Christ
— the seed of the woman. Its accuracy in this re-
spect is unquestioned. But yet it has not seemed
necessary to mention all the names. We have ex-
amples of such omission by comparing Ezra 7 : 1-
5 with 1 Chron. 6 : 3-14, where, according to the
latter, six consecutive names have been dropped.
If no names are omitted in the ancestrv of Moses,
his grandfather had 8,600 male descendants and
probably as many female in Moses' lifetime (Num.
3: 27, 28). In the familiar ancestry of David only
six or seven names cover a period of four hundred
and eighty years. (See Ruth 4:18 and 1st
Kings 6:1). Readers of the Bible will also no-
tice that while we have independent records of

CHRONOLOGY 85

years up to the time of Abraham, we have none
before that to the Deluge, and none between the
Deluge and Creation. (See various articles of
Prof. W. Henry Green on the Pentateuch) . How
much allowance should be made for such omis-
sions of names, it is hard to say. This much is
certain, that the Chronology given in the margin
of the English Bible, which is known as Ushers'
and which is shorter than any other, is not neces-
sarily to be followed as correct. This gives the
date of Creation as 4004 B. C. and of the Flood
as 2348 B. C.

A question arises, Are there any dates so posi-
tively fixed by Babylonian or Egyptian Chron-
ology as to make any change necessary in the
Biblical statement so far as dates are known? A
brief summary of facts as given by the best auth-
orities will show that a brief lengthening of the
short chronology of Usher is all that is needed.
In Babylon the date of the reign of the first king,
Sargon 1st, is given as 3800 B. C. Before this
there were nomadic kings or rulers of tribes often
settled in cities. This previous civilization is sup-
posed to have extended back to 5000 B. C. Sar-
gon became the first world conqueror, and under
his son Naram-Sin, inscriptions are found as far
West as the island of Cyprus. In Egypt a simi-
lar state existed — first tribal rule and then con-
solidation into the Northern and Southern King-
doms. The Northern, comprising the Delta was
probably earlier and more advanced than that of

86 THE BEGINNING OF THINGS

the valley above. Braested mentions the discov-
ery of the calendar year of 365 days by astrono-
mers living in 4241 B. C. (p. 35 of his history of
Egypt), a discovery which is ascribed by others
to Babylonians (see above, p. 116), writing in
hieroglyphics and in a more cursive style was
probably introduced about this time. The two
kingdoms of the North and South in Egypt were
united under Menes in the year 3400 B. C. At
one time he was said to have reigned 11,000 years
before the Christian Era. Historic civilization is
placed by Petrie and others at 5000 B. C.

It is seen therefore that a high state of civiliza-
tion existed before the Deluge; and that it cor-
responded in point of time to the inventive era
mentioned in Genesis. How to account for this
is the question which spontaneously arises in the
mind of every thoughtful reader. The evolu-
tionary theory is that it gradually arose from
savagery and barbarism through a long period of
thousands of years. But observation during the
historic period does not confirm this theory. The
two ways out of savagery to civilization* which
are known to men are either by God's direct
agency as in the call of Abraham and of the
prophets and especially by the mission of Christ,
or by the Church taking the initiative and intro-

*Dr. Whately in his Lecture on the "Origin of Civilization'*
makes the following remark: " Facts are stubborn things and
that no authenticated instance can be produced of savages
that ever did emerge unaided from that state is no story but a
statement hitherto never refuted of a matter of fact. ' ' ( Quoted
by Dr. Orr in his work "God's Image in Man," p. 187.)

CHRONOLOGY 87

ducing the seeds of new ideas. In every case the
intellectual uplift has been through the moral, or
else it has been temporary and lapsed into bar-
barism. The only satisfactory solution therefore,
is the Biblical, that God made man upright, with
mental and moral capacities of the highest order
— ^waiting only for their development and growth
in earthly surroundings. Man's long life before
the Flood gave him exceptional advantages for
this development, through the seeds of corruption,
were working within him. At length moral cor-
ruption set in, as we are told in Genesis, and the
devotion to idolatry in Babylon and Egypt is
abundantly confirmed by the monuments. And
nothing is more evident than the debasing effects
of idolatrous worship on those who practise it.
The tendency downward was not arrested by the
severe punishment of the Deluge. And thus came
in the savage state by departure from God, and
not by the inherent weakness of our anthropoid
ancestors.

A third conclusion crowns the record. Since
we find that in every point the Biblical account
best agrees with the facts as recorded in nature —
in man's constitution, condition and early history,
we have no hesitation in ascribing it to the same
divine care, which called Abraham and sent Christ
into the world, and say, it is a Revelation from
God. Some of the facts could not be known by
man; others could be handed down by tradition.
And so God and man co-operated as in all works

88 THE BEGINNING OF THINGS

pertaining to man's salvation. But I marvel at
two things : First, the brevity of the record when
it had to do with those "men of renown" living
before the Flood; and second, its constant adher-
ence to the great truth of one God, the Creator
and Governor of the world, while all other litera-
ture is persistently saturated with idolatry. And
so we consider the record God-inspired, rather
than derived from Babylon or any other human
source.

A fourth conclusion is somewhat anticipatory.
The long lives of the Antediluvians had not only
their effect on civilization, but in the increase of
population during these two thousand years.
How far man was scattered over the globe and
how numerous the population, it is impossible to
say. We cannot tell about the destruction of life
by wars, pestilence, and other calamities. Neither
do we know positively about the rate of increase,
whether the same as in our day augmented by the
great longevity of the Antediluvians. Prof.
Townsend however, makes the calculation of the
population of the earth in the thirteenth century
after Creation, on the basis of doubling every
thirty-three and a half years, instead of every
twenty-five, to have been sixteen hundred and
forty-nine billions, two hundred and sixty-five
millions (p. 50, "Deluge History or Myth").
This seems almost incredible when we have been
accustomed to think from the brief history of
the few names mentioned, that the population of

CHRONOLOGY 89

the globe could not have extended beyond the Eu-
phrates and Mediterranean basins. But probably
two thousand years elapsed between Creation and
the Deluge, or say the same length of time as from
the birth of Christ to the present, and how rapid
have been the changes. And so we are to remem-
ber what might have been accomplished by the
migrations and civilization of a stalwart race liv-
ing as many centuries as we do years. Prof.
Townsend's calculation implies a dense population
reaching to the remotest corners of the earth.
He thinks, and there are reasons advocated by
others, that North and South America were more
accessible before the Deluge than now, and that
there has been a subsidence of the connection be-
tween New Guinea and Australia and of the
islands in the South Pacific. Perhaps there was
in that portion of the globe a vast continent of
which we see the mountain peaks and ranges in
the Hawaiian and other groups of islands. There
will be occasion to refer to this subject again in
the next chapter. It is alluded to now to show
that it may be necessary to rectify our thinking
about the civilization and population of the globe
in the Antediluvian period.

It will be seen that no attempt has been made to
adjust chronology to any given standard, but
merely to show that adjustability is possible; and
also to show that science and revelation, so far
from being, antagonistic, are really in harmony
and like mortice and tenon fit into one another in
supporting the truth.

CHAPTER VII
THE FLOOD

GENESIS, CHAPTERS 6. 7, AND 8

In considering this topic there are two aspects
which require attention — one is the physical fact
and the other the moral, or the Deluge as a pun-
ishment of sin and the escape therefrom by Noah
and his family. As a physical fact it is only one,
perhaps the last of many subsidences of the land,
which have taken place on a large scale in the
geological history of the globe. We often think
there is nothing so stable as the solid ground.
But the most permanent and changeless thing in
its past history has been the water. Dry land was
first called out of the deep, and evidence is abun-
dant everywhere of constant elevations and de-
pressions. Coal beds were elevated and the rank
vegetation grew luxuriantly, and then it was
sealed up by depression and compression under
water and often under stratified rock, and in many
cases, elevated again and the process repeated.

With regard to the depression accompanying
the Xoachian Deluge, which is indicated by "the
fountains of the great deep being broken up,"
there are two questions (1) when did it occur .^ and
(S) was it universal.^ There are some facts,
however, which it is well to mention before decid-
ing these questions very positively. First, Geol-
ogists agree that prior to the appearance of man,

90

THE FLOOD 91

there was a disappearance of the large carniverous
animals. Mr. Alfred Wallace in his work on the
"Distribution of Animals," speaks "of the recent
and almost universal change that has taken place
in the character of the fauna on the entire globe"
(Vol. 1, p. 149). Not only has this taken place
with regard to cave-lions, bears, etc., but arma-
dillos, large horses and tapirs. And in Australia
kangaroos as large as an elephant are among the
extinct fauna. With reference to this sweeping
away of so many large and fierce animals, he says
it was an item of mercy in the judgment of the
flood, for it made the world a better habitation
for man (lb. Vol. 1, p. 150). The use of the
word "flood," was doubtless an inadvertence by
Mr. Wallace, for he thinks that this change in the
fauna of the globe took place at the time of the
Glacial epoch, some fifty or one hundred thou-
sand years ago. We are inclined to accept the
conclusion that the Glacial epoch and its accom-
panying cold is largely responsible for the de-
crease of the gigantic carniverous animals. But
there are some animals, notably the Mastodon,
that seem to have become extinct at a later period.
Their bones have been found near the surface
in bogs or peat beds, and in their stomachs re-
mains of twigs of trees, representing the present
flora of our globe.

In this connection it is well also to notice an-
other fact. Since the Glacial epoch there is evi-
dence of a submergence of at least a great part

92 THE BEGIXXIXG OF THINGS

of the northern hemisphere under the waters of
the sea. The deposit made by this submergence
consists of marine gravel, or, as it is called from
its character in certain localities, inundation mud.
Thus one of the hills in the Snowden range in
Xorth Wales is covered with a marine gravel at
a level of 1,130 feet above the sea. And this
gravel contains shells in abundance — all of exist-
ing species. Prof. Presturch says that the same
submergence prevailed over the whole of Ireland,
the whole of Wales, all the center and north of
England, and over the whole of Scotland. A large
part of Russia and all Xorthern Germany are also
included. Italian geologists report gravels with
three hundred kinds of existing shells, piled up
at elevations of twenty-four hundred feet above
the Mediterranean. Charles Darwin speaks of
massive marine gravels in Patagonia and their
connection with the destruction of the great mam-
malia of South America. (See Duke of Argyll's
paper in "Nineteenth Century Magazine," Jan.,
1891, p. 24). The question arises, was this sub-
mergence synchronous with the Flood? In dis-
cussing this question, it is necessary to free our-
selves from the present stable conditions of land
and water. Subsidence and elevation seem to have
been a part of the continuous history of the earth
after the Glacial period. Oceans swept over parts
of what is now dry land. And great lakes with
immense outlets covered large parts of continents.
In addition to what has been said on a previous

THE FLOOD 93

page about the condition in Europe, it is said
that the great lakes of our own land were one vast
body of water, and the Mississippi, fifty miles
wide. This period is called the Champlain period
when the lake which gives the names, must have
reached the Highlands of the Hudson River Val-
ley, and the St. Lawrence was an arm of the
ocean, five hundred feet deep at Montreal. It was
probably in this period that the great loess de-
posits along the banks of the Hoang-ho in China
were made (Dana's Geology, pp. 354 and 661).
Of course with these floods, the erosion of river
beds was greater than now. But there was an-
other force in prominent action, and that is
earthquakes. Not only was there the upheaval
of mountain ranges, the twisting and scattering
of rocks, but also change of river channels, which
have been made more complete by the action of
water. The great canons of the Rockies and the
present channel of the Hudson River through the
Highlands testify to the mighty power, which was
so prevalent at that time all over the earth. We
would not therefore confound this period of great
floods, great convulsions, upheaving of mountain
ranges, digging out channels of rivers, fashion-
ing soil and climate, with the period of a com-
pleted earth and that milder and shorter catas-
trophe of the Noachian Deluge, when man had
been placed in possession of his abode and was
punished for his sin.

It is to be acknowledged then that this view

94 THE BEGINNING OF THINGS

of the succession of events after the Glacial
period makes it a little uncertain about ascribing
the presence of marine shells and other marks of
inundation to these earlier subsidences or to the
Noachian Deluge. There is, for example, in the
Hudson River Valley evidence of drift of clay,
gravel and sand under water, belonging appar-
ently to the convulsive period after the Glacial,
when a way was opened to the sea through the
granite of the Highlands. Later than this, if our
conceptions are correct, comes a destruction of
large animals different from those destroyed by
glacial cold — such, for example, as the Mastodon
found near the surface, and having in their
stomachs undigested twigs of spruce and fir.
(Dana, p. 567). This looks like an effect of the
waters of the Flood, and if corroborated by other
evidence would be an argument for the universal-
ity of the Flood. For the Mastodon was an in-
habitant of Europe as well as of America. But
the time has not come to be positive about the uni-
versality of the Deluge from Geology alone.

Let us proceed, therefore, to consider other ar-
guments for its universality and also such objec-
tions as it seems necessary to notice. (1) It is
said by some that there is not water enough on
the earth to cover the highest mountains. This
is doubtless true if we suppose that an extra
quantity was needed to cover mountains five miles
high. But the subsidences of the land, which
have often occurred at different periods of the

THE FLOOD 95

world's history would solve that problem. The
fountains of the great deep were broken up, as
well as accompanied with a continued and heavy
rain fall.

(2) Another difficulty is the size of the ark
and the number of animals to be accommodated.
But it was evidently constructed for its carrying
capacity. And it is to be remembered that it
was built on the plan of him who knew what was
needed, and for the purpose of rescuing so much
of animal life as he did not wish to be destroyed.

(3) In connection with this gathering of ani-
mals to the ark, there comes the question, how
wide was the range from which they were gath-
ered? From the immediate vicinity it would not
be a matter of great difficulty. But when seas
had to be crossed, as in the case of the Marsupial
or Kangaroo family, from Australia, or the North
American bison or the Armadillo of South
America or the limited range, say of birds of
Paradise; and then back again to their former
habitat, without leaving some trace of their origin
where the Deluge is known to have occurred, the
difficulty assumes proportions which has led not
a few to contend for a limited rather than a uni-
versal Deluge. It is to be noted, however, that
the existing species of all these animals, is not
more than one-third the size of those that have
passed away. "In South America over one hun-
dred species of extinct Quaternary quadrupeds
have been made out." (Dana, p. 568). This

96 THE BEGIXXIXG OF THIXGS

Quaternary period is the period of man, but how
early in it he was created, and whether the ex-
tinction of the larger animals was owing to the
Flood or to pre^dous subsidences ; and if to the
Flood, how the present species reached their pres-
ent habitat, are questions which are still under
discussion.

(4) Those who hold to a limited Deluge also
hold that there is no hiatus or break in the civili-
zation before and after the Flood. It would seem
as though this should be the case, and possibly if
more thorough investigation were made with this
thought in view, such break would be found. But
it is remarkable that in the Scripture narrative
where the punishment is sent to correct the evil in
man, there seems but little break in the tendency
to idolatry. Xoah Hved after the Flood, three
hundred and fifty years, and must have been a wor-
shipper of Jehovah all his days, but his descend-
ants went sadly astray, with the exception of
such sporadic cases as Melchisedec, and probably
the patriarch Job.

The idea of a limited Deluge is followed by two
classes of expositors. One class, seeing the diffi-
culty about the distribution of animals in gath-
ering them over seas and sending them back to
their former habitat, have adopted the view that
man where he existed (that is, in the Mediterra-
nean and Euphrates basins) was overtaken and
punished by the Flood, but the rest of the world
was undisturbed, and that this answered all the

THE FLOOD 97

purposes intended as a punishment upon man.
The language of universality was used from the
writer's standpoint, as Paul speaks of the gospel
as preached to every creature under heaven (Col.
7:28). There is no intention on their part of
denying the original record.

Another class of expositors — represented by
Canon Driver — go still further, and maintain
that the true origin of the Biblical narrative
about the Flood is found in the Babylonian story,
and that it was confined to the narrow limits of
the Tigris Euphrates valley. It is true that the
Babylonian story has many points in common
with the Biblical statement, as the gathering of
animals, the sending out of birds. But it falls
far short in not recognizing one God and the
great purpose for which the judgment was sent.
In the Bible it is a punishment for sin with the
great typical idea of escape through faith and
obedience to God's command. In the Babylonian
story it is the mere saving of life when a city was
to be destroyed through the anger of the gods.
And in the details the ship is seven stories like a
pagoda on land with the unnecessary additions
of rudder and mast, while the ark is simply a
floating refuge with the proper three stories, and
designed for its carrying capacity. And if the
Flood was limited to the Euphrates Valley, why
was it necessary to gather not only clean but un-
clean animals and creeping things, since the earth
could have been easily supplied with such crea-
tures from the regions not overflowed.

98 THE BEGINNING OF THINGS

But more directly let us notice the arguments
for the universality of the Deluge.

PROOFS OF UNIVERSALITY

1. It was universal with respect to man. This
is hardly assented to, by those who hold that the
Flood was confined to the Euphrates basin. But
those who think it was limited with respect to
animal life generally believe that it reached all
mankind, as it was sent upon them as a punish-
ment for their sin. The impression in reading the
Bible is that as it only relates events connected
with nations residing in Egypt, Eastern Europe
and Western Asia, that man had not penetrated
to the regions beyond. But when we consider
that two thousand years probably elapsed between
Creation and the Flood, and that the increase of
the human family with their long lives was far
greater than at present, the conclusion of Prof.
Townsend that the population of the globe was
up among the billions, seems correct. (See above,
p. 127). We know that the Israelites increased
in two hundred and fifteen years from seventy
souls to six hundred thousand armed men, or
about two millions, all told. It is necessary there-
fore to correct our first impressions about the
limited part of the globe occupied by man in the
time of Noah, and suppose that the race was
spread abroad wherever there was the means of
subsistence. Ships may have been no new thing
when the ark was built, as recent discoveries have
shown that they were not in Solomon's time.

THE FLOOD 99

2. A second argument in favor of the univer-
sality of the Deluge is the language and thought
of the Bible. True, many have been disposed to
limit the language to the then known world. But
II. Peter 3 : 5-7 can only mean that as the whole
material world had been destroyed by water, so it
should be by fire. Strong as is this language,
even more strong seems the argument from the
evident thought of God in revelation. For two
thousand years men were left to see if they would
seek after God. They had the argument from his
works spread out before them. They dug for
iron and worked the precious metals, and pon-
dered the movement of star and planet and fixed
with accuracy the Solar year, and yet found not
wisdom (See Job 28), except the so-called Sons
of God for a time, and they went astray with the
crowd. And beyond that the severe judgment of
the Flood was not a remedy against the prevail-
ing tendency to idolatry. Corruption was uni-
versal. (Ps. 14). As corruption was universal
so was the punishment. The law was, the soul
that sinneth it shall die. And so its expression
in the type was universal. But beyond the type
expressed by the universality of the Deluge came
another idea, and that is of escape. This was
symbolized by the ark. As to our first parents,
there was mercy in the promise that the head of
the serpent should be bruised by the seed of the
woman, so to Noah, the second head of the race,
came the type of salvation in the midst of de-
struction.

100 THE BEGINNING OF THINGS

The conclusion therefore which seems to best
agree with all the facts of the case, is that the
Deluge was universal. The distribution of ani-
mals over the earth's surface, the difficulty of
gathering them across seas and returning them to
their former habitat without leaving a trace of
their origin presents a difficulty which we know of
no way of overcoming. But over against that is
the destruction of a class of animals represented
especially by the Mastodon which were evidently
destroyed, not by glacial cold as were many of
the huge carnivorous beasts, nor apparently by
later cataclasms before man was created, but to
a later period, which is represented by the
Noachian Deluge.

It remains to look briefly at the sin, the pun-
ishment, and the escape.

THE SIN OF THE ANTEDIIiUVIANS

The sin which is specially mentioned is that
against the marriage relation. Not that there
were not other sins, as for example, idolatry,
which we know from other sources was conspicu-
ously prevalent. But this is singled out as a sin
against the foundations of society, which this
book is specially concerned in upholding. Mar-
riage between one man and one woman was the
primal order, as God first instituted it. Any
deviation from that rule always brought disaster
in the household, and its widespread violation
would weaken the family tie, let loose violence and

THE FLOOD 101

passion, and introduce savagery and barbarism
even more quickly and directly than idolatry.
Two particulars of this sin of the Antediluvians
are mentioned: First, Polygamy. They took them
wives, it is said, of all that they chose (6:2).
The primal order seems to have been the custom
until the time of Lamech, the seventh from Adam
in the line of Cain. He had two wives. In the
line of Seth, we do not know that there was any
departure from the original law, until this period.
Second, The ground of their choice was not any
consideration of what such marriages might lead
to, or whether it was right in the sight of God or
no, but simply that they were fair. At first the
result seemed favorable. Their children were
mighty men — men of renown. In what way their
might was shown, we are not informed. But suc-
cess does not prove we are right. In fact while
they were glorying in their strength God was
grieved over their wickedness. The strong lan-
guage is used that it repented the Lord that he
had made man on the earth (6:6). Such lan-
guage is used from the standpoint of human ob-
servation and experience. The result had not
been what might justly have been expected. All
flesh had corrupted its way. The creation of the
highest being on earth and placing him as Lord
over other creatures seemed to be a failure. He
was not carrying out the purpose of a being made
in God's image, which would be to keep the ani-
mal, the material part of his nature subject to

102 THE BEGINNING OF THINGS

the spiritual. Of course in the great and glori-
ous plan to be unfolded in the ages, it was no
failure, but for the present it looked so. The
so-called Sons of God were one in transgression
with the others, and hence the determination — in
which divine repentance agrees with the human —
to annul the past and commence anew.

The punishment sent was not without warning.
There are two interpretations of the phrase, "Yet
shall his days be a hundred and twenty years"
(6:3). One would refer it to the shortening of
man's life, which took place after the Flood. And
the other that the warning of the coming Flood
was given one hundred and twenty years before
it actually took place. Some would say that
Noah was engaged for that time in building the
ark, and that thus he was a preacher of righteous-
ness both by his words and deeds.

ARK

The great thought of mercy was specially rep-
resented by the Ark. From this time forward it
stands out as a type of salvation from universal
and overwhelming destruction. It is implied that
others beside Noah might have availed themselves
of this refuge had they been so inclined. But
while Noah was making preparation others of his
generation continued as before, marrying and
giving in marriage, until the day he entered into
the Ark (Matt. 24:31).

THE FLOOD 103

CLEAN AND UNCLEAN ANIMALS

One specification about clean and unclean ani-
mals may look as though there was an anticipa-
tion of what took place under the Mosaic Dispen-
sation. But the institution of sacrifice necessarily
drew the line between those proper for that ser-
vice, and those that were not. How far this dis-
tinction went, we cannot say. But it was prob-
ably very much enlarged upon in the Levitical
law.

As a type of divine mercy, the Ark suggests
these thoughts: 1. It was salvation from punish-
ment, and that punishment meant destruction.
2. This salvation was safe and complete. It meant
more than sacrifice, which pointed out a way of
approach to God. This, that there was a new
world for the saved. S. That the method, so far
as Noah was concerned, was the same as that by
which men have been saved through the ages ;
and that was by faith. 4. As the heir of the
righteousness which is by faith, Noah was made
the second head of the human family and a
covenant made with him that God would no more
destroy the earth by water. The sign of the cove-
nant was the bow in the cloud, whether now for
the first time visible, or something already exist-
ing which was made the sign, we can hardly say.
5. That the type was imperfect, as all types are,
and so we have the record of Noah's falling into
sin. (See Fairbank's "Typology of Scripture,"
Vol. 1, p. 272).

104 THE BEGINNING OF THINGS

MESSIANIC PROPHECY

The sin of Noah was made the occasion of the
second prophecy respecting the Messiah. The
promise according to the arrangement of the
Hebrew, is that God shall enlarge Japheth and
shall dwell in the tents of Shem. According to
this view, God is the subject of both verbs. An-
other interpretation is that Japheth shall dwell in
the tents of Shem, which however apparently true
in these latter days, when European nations are
occupying Asia, does not seem to be the refer-
ence here. Enlargement to Japheth is true, but
the great Messianic promise is to Shem. The
victory over the serpent is to come, not merely
through the seed of the woman, but through God's
dwelling in the tents of Shem. What that dwell-
ing was to be and how he should come in the
flesh is left for later prophecies Of the three sons
of Noah, Shem is pointed out as in the line of
promise.

CHAPTER VIII

THE ETHNOLOGICAL RECORD AND
CONFUSION OF TONGUES ,

GENESIS, CHAP. 10 AND 11 : 1-10 !

The two facts stated in this chapter, viz., the
ethnological record and the confusion of tongues,
are necessarily preliminary and commend them-
selves to the ordinary judgment, as the best and
most truthful historical statement that could be
given of the interval between the Deluge and the
calling of Abraham. It is somewhat of a sur-
prise that the attempt should be made to throw
suspicion on the truthfulness of this record ; but it
seems to follow as a result from denying the auth-
enticity of the previous chapters. When it has
been granted that the creation of man reaches
back thousands of years before the Biblical rec-
ord— that there were different race-centers in-
stead of mankind being descended from a single
pair, and that the Deluge was local instead of
universal, then we can also believe that the de-
scendants of Noah were imaginary persons and
the confusion of tongues a fundamental race dis-
tinction instead of the confusion of one common
tongue. If, however, we hold to the view that
the previous chapters are correct, then this rec-
ord of the nations is eminently satisfactory, for
it gives (1) The great divisions of the human
family as they are recognized today — the sons of

105

106 THE BEGINNING OF THINGS

Shem occupying Asia, Japheth Europe, and Ham
Africa. The exceptions which occur in this dis-
tribution are pointed out with sufficient accuracy
and agree with the narrative of subsequent events.
The prominent exceptions occur among the
earlier descendants of Ham — Canaan occupied
Palestine, until they were dispossessed by the
Children of Israel. Nimrod also, the founder of
the Babylonian Empire, the conqueror of Assyria
and the builder of Ninevah was the Son of Cush
(10: 8-12). And yet into that same region went
the Children of Eber, a descendant of Shem (v.
21.) (2) Though many names cannot now be
recognized, yet many of them agree with lands
and places which have become familiar in histori-
cal periods — as Cush for Ethiopia, Mizraim for
Egypt, Canaan for the primitive people of Pal-
estine.

(3) Babylon, both by Scripture and according
to human record, is the first city which was built
after the Flood — or was it rebuilt? It is certain
that the disposition to centralize there was ob-
noxious to the divine plan. Why, is not clear. If
it was to escape another Flood, when God had as-
sured Noah that it would not take place, it would
seem as though they would have built a tower on
a mountain instead of a plain. Could it have been
in any way an act of defiance in rebuilding cities
which had been prominent and well-known before
the Flood, and perhaps noted for their wicked-
ness? If this supposition is tenable that the at-

CONFUSION OF TONGUES lOT

tempt was to rebuild Babylon, rather than first
found it, we can easily account for a chronology
on the part of the Assyrian Babylonian Empire
which goes back to 5000 B. C.

(2). THE BUILDING OF BABEL AND THE CON-
FUSION OF TONGUES

(Genesis 11: 1-10.)

This is the last of the series of great historical
facts recorded in the first part of Genesis. They
are facts in the province of nature which concern
all nations and all parts of the globe. It is evi-
dent that sin was not held in check by the terrible
punishment of the Deluge; much less was it elim-
inated from man's thought and action. As the
race began to multiply, they repeated over again
the evil of their ancestors. It was the spirit of
self-reliance instead of seeking for divine wisdom
and guidance. It has been called the birth of
heathenism, if indeed its birth should not be
traced back to Cain and his descendants. Nimrod
the strong, the mighty hunter, is their leader and
representative. Their thought is expressed in
their saying, "Let us make a name.'' The word
translated name is the same with Shem — who as
the holder of the special Messianic promise, it is
thought, did not share in the scheme for the cen-
tralization of the race in the plain of Shinar.

(3) SPEECH

The method adopted for stopping their ambi-

108 THE BEGINNING OF THINGS

tious scheme was very different from the over-
whekning destruction of the Flood. How the
confusion of speech came we can hardly tell.
Speech, in the first place, we suppose to have been
a gift of God. There was first the gift of
thought and reason, and then the power of ex-
pression or the gift of speech. As Trench says,
"God did not teach man words, as one of us
teaches a parrot, but gave him the capacity and
then evoked the capacity which he gave." ("Study
of Words," p. 15, quoted by Drummond in "As-
cent of Man," p. 178).

The latter writer, with other Evolutionists be-
lieves in the gradual development of the vocal or-
gans, through different embryonic stages, from the
lower animals, until the power of speech was
reached. On the other hand, our view of the Bib-
lical statement is that the perfect man, made in
the image of God, had the power of expression
given, as well as reason and capacity of thought.
This power of expression, tested by man's nam-
ing the animals, was undoubtedly developed and
added to, as experience demanded. This became
the one language of earth before the Flood, and
after, until the building of Babel. TMiat that
language was, whether wholly lost, or one of the
three great family stock of languages, the record
does not determine. It is something that the thou-
sand different languages now existing on the earth
can be reduced to three groups — ^the Semitic, the
Aryan and the Turanian. Taylor Lewis likens

CONFUSION OF TONGUES 109

the relationship of these three to the geological
formation of the rocks — the Semitic representing
the primitive formation — the Aryan the stratified
formation, broken yet presenting much clearness
of outline and direction, while the Turanian is
more like confused volcanic masses or solitary
boulders scattered here and there, yet showing
marks of the localities from whence they came, or
some correspondence in the very irregularities of
their fracture." (In Lange's "Genesis," p. 373).
As an example of this latter class might be men-
tioned the language of the Hottentots or Bush-
men of South Africa, which is described as con-
sisting of "deep aspirated gutturals, other harsh
consonants, and a multitude of ugly inimitable
clicks." (See "Missionary Herald" for 1850,
p. 173).

This general relationship of different lan-
guages has not little weight in proving the wnity of
the race. Races which have been thought to be
too antagonistic to be related, have been found to
be near of kin. Thus through the Sanscrit, the
ancient and dead language of the Hindoo, it has
been found that we and they belong to the same
group, the Indo-European. This seems more re-
markable when it is remembered that between
these people of kindred languages, there is inter-
spersed a dividing sea of Semitic languages and
peoples represented by the ancient Syriac, He-
brew and Arabic with their cognate languages.
In language the Hindoo is a nearer brother to

110 THE BEGIXXIXG OF THINGS

the Anglo-Saxon than either is to the Arabs or
Jews. (See Taylor Lewis in Lange's ''Genesis,"
p. 379).

Another connecting link is with the Malays
and the Polynesian group of Islands. For the
purpose of ascertaining this connection, Wm.
Von Humboldt investigated the Kawi — a lan-
guage of Java, and found that it could be
traced back to the Sanscrit as its root and source.
There are remains of temples in Java which owe
their origin to India, but in. the language legends
and customs of the people, there is a connecting
influence dating further back. (See ''Princeton
Review,-- 1852, pp. 290 and 42T).

To this may be added the testimony of Dr.
Codrington who has made vocabularies of forty
of the Mulanesian languages, and says that they
are not only homogeneous, but a branch of one
great family, including the Malayan and Poly-
nesian. Judge Fernander, for over thirty years
a resident in the Hawaiian Islands, pubHshed a
volume (Furbush & Co., London, 1885) giving a
comparative vocabulary of the Polynesian and
Indo-European languages. If these views are
correct, an affinity is established with the San-
scrit for all those diverse and isolated regions ex-
tending from Madagascar to within forty degrees
of the west coast of South America. The conclu-
sion of Prof. W. D. Whitney, who is known as
one of the most cautious of philologists, is per-
haps as far as we can go, with our present

CONFUSION OF TONGUES 111

knowledge. While he would disclaim for lingu-
istic science the power to prove that the human
race in the beginning formed one Society, yet he
says, "it is even far more demonstrable, that it can
never prove the variety of human races and ori-
gins." ("Life and Growth of Language," p. 269).

In the breaking up the concentration of the
race, on the plains of Shinar, we have one of those
divine acts which show the varied control which
God exercises over the nations. Men go on in
their own methods for a time, developing arts
and industry and, it may be, plunging into sin,
thinking God has no control over human affairs,
and then like an earthquake, comes a new force,
showing that God governs, and that his plans
must be carried out. This was the way at the
Flood. More quiet, yet equally effectual, was the
confounding of human speech. Still more noise-
less and yet even more important was the calling
of Abraham.

In confounding the speech of men, the thought
of God was not merely to stop the town-builders,
but to scatter the Sons of Noah to people the
earth. As far as a great structure was concerned.
Babel was eclipsed not long after, if not in extent,
certainly in durability, by the great Pyramid.
This covered thirteen and one-half acres, and was
480 feet in perpendicular height. Some give the
date of its erection as about 4000 B. C. A more
conservative estimate is 2190 B. C. (See Piazzi
Smith's book on the "Great Pyramid.") This

112 THE BEGINNING OF THINGS

latter date corresponds to the time between the
confusion of languages and the call of Abraham.
Other great buildings and temples followed soon
after, both in Babylon and Egypt, showing that
man was not, in those early days, lacking in arch-
itectural skill. And the unearthing of libraries
with their clay tablets, has shown the great prog-
ress in literature, even in the more recondite labor
of forming codes of laws. These indications in
the way of buildings and literature, show that
the benumbing and demoralizing tendency of
heathenism had not yet very largely affected the
race. After the confusion of tongues and the
consequent separation and hostility of tribes,
there would be a settling down into barbarism in
many lands. The process is one that has been re-
peating itself — so that the homes of the greatest
civilization have become the lair of wild beasts;
and the scattered inhabitants are only able to
build hovels out of the ruins of the palaces, where
their fathers dwelt. Progress there has been with
the race, especially since the purpose of God
began it, in Abraham and afterwards in Christ,
but it has kept to no country or people, while
other cults look to the past for the days of their
glory.

PART II
THE BEGINNING OF THINGS IN GRACE

FIRST. WITH THE INDIVIDUAL

SECOND. WITH THE FAMILY

THIRD. WITH THE NATION

CHAPTER IX

GRACE WITH RESPECT TO THE INDI-
VIDUAL—THE CALLING OF ABRA-
HAM ON THE DIVINE SIDE

GENESIS 12.

Nothing is more obvious, even to the ordinary
reader of the Bible, than that at the calling of
Abraham, we open a new chapter in the record of
God's dealings with man. The eleven chapters
of Genesis before we reach his time are brief.
There is a short account of the two thousand and
more years in which we have the story of Crea-
tion, the Fall, the Deluge, and the Confusion of
Tongues. And then a verse or two gives the bio-
graphy of those men who lived so long, Adam
and Noah, those two fathers of our race, and liv-
ing each nearly a thousand years, have but brief
mention. But when we come to Abraham, who
is in one sense our spirtual head, it is entirely
different. When we ask the reason for this, it
is not far to seek. It is not the length of his
days, for he lived but a few years, as compared
with his fathers. It is not that he was a great
warrior, or a great builder like Nimrod. Many
migrations went out from the valley of the Eu-
phrates, but this of Abraham's is the only one
that attracts the inspired historian. It was
simply that he was called of God and responded to
that call. It was but right and natural that man

115

116 THE BEGINNING OF THINGS

made in the image of God, should seek his fellow-
ship and presence. But this he failed to do. The
independent will, which was a part of the image of
God, showed its alienation as soon as he had
fallen by hiding from him. And though there
was a promise of restoration and victory, the first
born of Adam was a murderer. As men multi-
plied they all went astray. Even the severe judg-
ment of wiping out the race, with the exception
of one family and the shortening their days, did
not restrain wickedness or lead men to seek after
God. And so, after the long trial and waiting
to see if any would seek him, God reverses the
process and begins the search after man. This is
Revelation beginning in the call of Abraham,
passing on to the training of a peculiar people,
the coming of the God-man who is the restorer of
the divine image and the head of a spiritual race
as Adam was of the earthly natural race. This
new race is typified and represented by Abraham
the father of the faithful, to whom came the prom-
ise, and whose faith was accounted for righteous-
ness, and in Jacob who though weak as a man,
was through grace a prince with God, and in Jo-
seph, whose exaltation in Egypt foreshadowed
the triumph of the new vital principle over the
powers of darkness.

(1) INSUFFICIENCY OF NATURAL RELIGION

In God's calling of Abraham we see, first, the
insufficiency of natural religion or of any process

GRACE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 117

of evolution by which man through his own
strength and wisdom can reach a clear and cor-
rect view of God. Much less can he hope for sal-
vation through any effort of his own. God alone
can say whether man is to be saved, and if so,
how. As far as we can interpret God's plans,
man seems to have been left after the Fall to his
own desires, to see if he would seek after God. In-
stead of that, they all went astray. If we seek
for the reason, why men who built Babylon and
Nippur and who had the civilization and litera-
ture found in their ruins, and who also had such
exceptional representatives of the true faith as
Melchisedek and the patriarch Job, how they
could turn aside to idolatry, we can only find the
reason in the moral obliquity of the race. As
Adam hid in the garden from God, so his descend-
ants did not like to retain in their minds the
knowledge of God. (Rom. 1). At first men seem
to have deified even Aurora and the powers of
nature as fire, but these did not rebuke sin any
more than Baal and Astarti or the four-footed
beasts, which they substituted in place of the true
God. The downward tendency towards gross
idolatry, superstition and savagery is plain and
manifest the world over. Partly civilized peoples
look back to a higher condition and to renowned
sages whom they never expect to equal. The
Egyptians of today could not build the Pyramids.
The Chinamen of this century would not think of
equalling Confucius and Mencius. The stupid

118 THE BEGIXXIXG OF THINGS

priests of Buddha walk among shrines and tem-
ples erected by the active missionaries of their
faith, who had an eye to beauty and a zeal and
ability in propagating their system which has long
since died out. The thought that has saved the
world from the grossest heathenism, was in the
divine mind, and first began to be carried out in
the call of Abraham.

(S) THE MESSIANIC PROMISE

This calling was to the reception of the Messi-
anic promise, that in him, that is, in Abraham,
should all the families of the earth be blessed
(12:3). Coupled with that was the promise to
make of him, a great nation. Here was a great
advance upon the promise to our first parents.
That spoke of victory over the serpent, but here
in addition, was a blessing to all the families of
the earth. In one sense it was restricted to Abra-
ham and his seed, but only for the sake of a great
blessing to all the families of the earth. It was
the begiuning of the gospel of glad tidings, God
had done good iu providing a home for man and in
giving him the blessings of his Pro^ddence, but he
had been obliged to punish man for his transgres-
sion. Now he would reveal attributes of love and
mercy, as they had never been revealed before.

(3) COVENAXT OF CIBCTTMCISIOX

In order to make this promise more binding
God made a covenant by which he as the main

GRACE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 119

part, agreed to do certain things to Abraham,
who, on his part, was to signify his acceptance by
receiving the sign and seal of the covenant. This
seal of circumcision has been a witness through
the ages of God's call to Abraham, and the prom-
ise made that his seed should be God's people.
The seal of the covenant had this significance,
that as man created in the divine image should
have dominion over the animal within, as well as
the animals without — so in circumcision the flesh
with its appetites and passions should be held in
check.

(4) PROVIDENTIAL GUIDANCE

This covenant on the part of God insured
Providential guidance, instruction and discipline.
A large portion of the narrative is taken up with
the details of this guidance. It was both present
care and provision for the future. A brief sum-
mary is all that can be attempted. It included
(1) all the ordinary acts and duties of life, as
well as those which we would call more spiritual
and religious. Hagar's eyes were opened to be-
hold a well of water for the relief of herself and
son. Abraham's servant was guided in the selec-
tion of a wife for his master's son. Jacob's self-
ish life was beaten out of him, not only by visions
of angels, but by a long course of discipline with
his still more selfish uncle. Joseph was exalted
to be ruler of Egypt and saviour of his people,
not by one sudden step from the shepherd's staff

120 THE BEGINNING OF THINGS

to the royal purple, but through slavery, severe
temptation, prison and neglect, until his spirit
was chastened into strong dependence on God.
And then how important towards the ultimate
end, were minute and apparently unimportant de-
tails, such as the sending of the Ishmaelites at
the right juncture, in turning the purpose of Jo-
seph's brethren and taking him to Egypt. Then
the treacherous memory of the chief-butler and
the recalling of his obligation after two years had
passed, shows how all things, even the hidden
workings of the human mind, are under the di-
vine control. And yet (2) this control or guid-
ance, does not interfere with the free agency of
the human actors. The brethren of Joseph, for
example, thought they were accomplishing their
purpose. They did their wicked act, told their
lie to their father, felt the remorse, which natu-
rally followed their cruelty and deceit. And still
out of their evil doings God brought about the
good result of saving much people alive. (3)
Though this guidance was not limited to occasions
when it was sought or asked for, yet it was often
given in answer to prayer. Providence means
seeing before and a perfect readiness to meet all
emergencies in advance as well as after they
have arisen. This anticipatory part of the great
scheme helps us in understanding that petition
and answers to petition, are parts of a foreor-
dained plan and purpose, which God is carrying
out in the history of individuals and nations. He

GRACE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 121

wants his people to come into fellowship with him,
to ask and receive. He protects from harm, as
when Laban pursued after Jacob, but in the
great crisis of his life, when a brother's wrath
was to be appeased, there was the wrestling, the
urgent entreaty, and the direct answer to his re-
quest. Thus prayer was honored — the sup-
planter became a prince with God, and the scheme
of Providence included an apparent contradiction,
in yielding to the wants and supplications of the
human. (4) Another fact needs to be noticed
about this guidance, and that is, it was marked
and peculiar towards the people of God. It is
said in the Psalms "He suffered no man to do
them wrong; yea, he reproved kings for their
sakes" (105: 14). Abimelech and his friends who
came to Isaac at Beersheba said, "We saw cer-
tainly that the Lord was with thee," and therefore
they wished to make an oath and covenant, be-
cause "thou art now blessed of the Lord" (Gen.
26: 28). This special favor is made very plain
in the narrative. A distinction is made even be-
tween Laban and Jacob — ^the latter receiving
more largely of the gifts of Providence — so that
he increased exceedingly and had much cattle and
maid-servants and men-servants and camels and
asses" (30:43). The same fact was exemplified
in the brothers Jacob and Esau, where the dis-
tinction between the two — the one the child of
promise and the other not — is so great, that it is
said, "Jacob have I loved, and Esau have I

122 THE BEGIXXING OF THINGS

hated." The whole record carries this impression
that it was written for the sake of the covenant
people. All the others are mentioned inciden-
tally, and as their history is interwoven with that
of Israel. When Egypt was blessed and the fam-
ine was in other lands, the pivot around which
these events revolved was the bringing Jacob and
his sons into Egypt and saving them alive.

The discrimination thus shown, was not be-
cause of the intrinsic goodness of the parties so
chosen. Jacob, for example, was rightly called
a supplanter. He readily joined in the deceit to
rob his brother of his father's blessing. And
though strictly honest in his dealings with Laban,
he looked out sharply for his own interests. And
yet upon him was conferred the blessings of the
covenant. His sons also, with the exception of
Joseph, were anything but exemplary young men.
Envy, murder, lust and revenge were in the list
of their crimes. These things are clearly and
frankly recorded, that we may see that it is by
grace we are saved, and not by our own good
works ; and also that we as sinners may be encour-
aged to trust in the covenant and promise of God.
This fact remains clear and unmistakable that
God in his Providential guidance, has special care
for his people. They are the children, for whom
he builds the house, to whom he gives the educa-
tion, and who are to receive the inheritance. This
lesson taught to the Patriarchs runs through the
whole Bible. The church is the bride, the chosen

GRACE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 123

people, the seed corn, through whom the families
of the earth are to be blessed. The practical les-
son is not to find fault with this guidance, because
it is special in its kindness, care and gifts, but so
to place ourselves in covenant relation to God
that we shall be sharers in his bounty. God's spe-
cial love was in this beginning of the gospel, con-
fined to a single individual and then to his family
and seed. But it was that the families of the
earth might be blessed in him. The outflow of
love is to all — Jew and Gentile — to the spiritual
not to the natural seed of Abraham. If we listen
to the call of God, we can be heirs of the prom-
ise.

(5) Another thought in connection with this
care and guidance on the part of God, was the
clearer light thrown upon the meaning of sacri-
fice. At the very first, it was made plain that
sacrifice was not a mere thank-offering, but one of
the firstlings of the flock, where in some way not
revealed, life must go for life. Fuller teachings
seem to have been purposely reserved until the
occasion had arisen. This was furnished by the
command of God to Abraham to take his only son
Isaac to offer him upon the mountain, afterwards
to be used as a site for temple offerings. Isaac
as the promised seed, and so representing the
Jewish race, or more generally the spiritual seed
of Abraham, was laid upon the altar, showing
that he deserved to die, and that he was only
saved by the substitution of a victim appointed
in his place.

IM THE BEGINNING OF THINGS

The position of man therefore, as represented
by Isaac, was that of condemnation — deserving
death, and only saved by a substitute. Whether
a lamb could take this place or not, or whether
it was a type of another and better victim, was
not so clear. It was for the time, the appointed
substitute and they had to wait to understand
what the type signified — whether a lamb, or some
one who could more adequately take our place.
While we see the mercy, which Abraham saw in
providing a lamb instead of his son, we are to
look further and see mercy meeting justice, assent-
ing to its claims, fulfilling all the demands of the
law and yet rescuing the guilty. It is a substi-
tution of the Creator for the creature, of the holy
for the sinful, of the Son of God — the Isaac of
the father's heart — for man, deserving wrath and
condemnation.

CHAPTER X

CALLING OF ABRAHAM FROM THE
HUMAN SIDE

So far we have been looking at the caU of
Abraham from the divine side. We need to see
the response in the human heart. Before looking,
however, at those spiritual characteristics, which
reveal to us the excellency of Abraham as the
father of the faithful, there are personal features
which show us the man as he lived in his tents in
those olden times. Stanley in his "History of the
Jewish Church" (Sect. 1, p. 12), says the mi-
gration of Abraham from Mesopotamia differed
but little in its external aspects from a Bedouin
chief in modern times, starting with his family,
his droves and his servants on some journey to a
distant land. "There are their flocks of sheep
and goats, and the asses moving underneath the
towering forms of the camels. The chief is there
amidst the stir of movement, or resting at noon
within his black tent, marked out from the rest,
by his cloak of brilliant scarlet, by the fillet of
rope which binds the loose handkerchief round his
head, by the spear which he holds in his hand to
guide the march and fix the encampment. The
chief's wife, the princess of the tribe, is there in
her own tent, to make the cakes and prepare the
usual meal of milk and butter, the slave or the
child is ready to bring in the red lentil soup for

125

126 THE BEGINNING OF THINGS

the weary hunter, or to kiU the calf for the un-
expected guest.

We cannot but admire the wisdom that thus
chose Abraham, engaged as he was in the ordinary
occupations of life. He was to exemplify the
graces of faith and obedience as he went about his
daily duties. If he had been called to be a recluse,
others would have said he does not have to fight
our battles. He is alone and does not understand
our surroundings and temptations. What the
world wanted was the example of one of their own
numbers living their life of faith when surrounded
by the present ; and an obedience to the unseen,
event when the seen was demanding our constant
care and attention.

Abraham was the tenth generation from Noah
and born two years after his death. His father's
name was Terah, a descendant of Shem. He was
born in Ur of the Chaldees, B. C. 1996. Ur is
generally supposed to be the ancient Nippur,
formerly on the shores of the Persian Gulf,
though now a hundred miles inland. At the time
of Abraham's call, this city was a maritime em-
porium, a walled town, with a high civilization
and large commerce, situated in a rich country,
said to be the original home of the wheat plant
and famous for its dates and other fruits. It
was also the holy city of the Chaldeans. The
temple located there has recently been explored,
showing the polytheistic character of this early
home of Abraham, and also a high degree of

CALLING OF ABRAHAM 127

literary attainment and activity, as witnessed es-
pecially in the code of Hammurami. The Poly-
theistic tendency of the times is referred to by
Joshua in calling upon the people to put away
the gods which your fathers served on the other
side of the flood (or, as Kent translates, "beyond
the River"). The first step in Abraham's jour-
ney was to Haran, where he remained about five
years, and where his father Terah died. Haran
is represented as a large commercial city five
hundred miles to the northeast of Ur, and where
Sayce says a native of that place would have
found himself more at home than in any other
city of the world. Here Abraham's brother Nahor
remained and Jacob, the grandson of Abraham
went thither for his wife. (See Peloubet's Notes
for 1901, and Geikie's "Hours with the Bible").
At Haran came the first intimation to Abra-
ham of his destination. The "not knowing
whither he went" (Heb. 11:8), seems to refer
especially to the period before the departure
from Haran. In this second stage, he took
Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother's son, and all
their substance that they had gathered, and the
souls they had gotten in Haran (12:5) and de-
parted for Canaan, probably by the way Damas-
cus. From thence they journeyed south through
the land to Bethel, where he builded an altar unto
the Lord (v. 8). Here in about the center of
the promised inheritance, the Lord appeared
unto him and said, "Unto thy seed will I give this
land" (12:7).

128 THE BEGINNING OF THINGS

As we pass on to the main features of Abra-
ham's character, aU must note the fact made clear
in both Testaments, that faith and its resultant
fruits, is the grace made prominent in his life.
"Abraham believed God and it was counted unto
him for righteousness." (Gen. 15:6; Rom.
4:3). It belongs to the symmetry of gospel de-
velopment that a grace so fundamental should
show itself as the first in order historically. And
this faith unfolded in the history is the counter-
part of the same faith in individual believers. The
first step was renunciation of idolatry and de-
parture from the land of his fathers.

The most obvious proof of leaving off any sin-
ful course of life, is to get up and go away from
those who practice it. This is set forth by Bun-
yan in describing Christian as leaving the City
of Destruction. And it often requires more than
one warning to get fairly away from our sur-
roundings. Haran is only half-way to Canaan,
and many stop there. The effectual caU to
Abraham was when his destination was made
known to him. How God appeared on these dif-
ferent occasions, we know not. It was probably
in different ways, for once he came as a traveller.
But his presence and personality and the words of
promise were clear and distinct. And Abraham
believed in and worshipped the Lord who appeared
to him, according to the practice of the worthies
who had gone before, building an altar wherever
he pitched his tent. There must have been some-

CALLING OF ABRAHAM 129

thing of this true worship kept up by others, as
probably by Shem and certainly by Melchizedek,
but the tendency with the great majority was
towards idolatry.

Special emphasis is given in Scripture, to
Abraham's faith in the future. The promise was
to his seed, and yet he waited, twenty-five years
for a son. The land in which he dwelt as a
stranger was to be his, and yet he had no posses-
sion in it but a burying-place. And then there
was no history such as we have, to bolster up a
weak faith against appearances. Noah alone be-
lieved God about a threatened destruction, and it
came. Here was a promise of good, would it
take place? His seed was to be as the sand of the
sea, and he had no children.

Another evidence of faith was his obedience.
This was always prompt at every indication of
duty. If he was to take a long journey, he took
his tent, gathered his flocks and his household
and moved forward. When circumcision was ap-
pointed as the seal of the covenant, it is said "that
in the self-same day he did as God said unto him"
(17:23). And in the great trial of his faith,
when told to offer up his only son Isaac, the com-
mand came apparently in a vision of the night,
for it is said, he rose up early in the morning
and at once undertook the prescribed duty,
though so painful and trying to a father's heart.

And this obedience was not only prompt, but
unquestioning. The test was severe. It was his

130 THE BEGINNING OF THINGS

only son Isaac, whom he loved — ^the child of his
old age and the child of promise. He was to take
him and offer him up for a burnt-offering. It
was not easy to still the doubts and questionings,
which must have arisen in his mind, except as in-
timated in the Epistle to the Hebrews that he ex-
pected his son's resurrection (11: 19). But what-
ever way God might adopt of vindicating him-
seif, Abraham knew his duty was obedience; and
resolutely undertook it, even to the uplifted knife,
when God stayed his hand.

Over against this grace of obedience, was one
which is, in some measure its opposite, that of
patient waiting. They who are quick and prompt
often find it difficult to wait. They wish to be
up and doing. And so when anything desirable
is long delayed, the hard thing is to wait, or to
abstain from using some crooked device of our
own, instead of accepting God's time and way.
As a fact, Abraham failed in this particular more
than in the others mentioned. In accordance with
the custom of those times, and at the suggestion
of Sarah, he took a concubine, who bore him Ish-
mael. Abraham seems to have expected that this
son should have taken the place of the promised
seed. It was not in this way, however, that God
chose to carry out his plans. Marriage as first
instituted was to be honored, and any departure
therefrom, however excusable on account of pre-
vailing custom and the incompleteness of Revela-
tion, was not to be canctioned. And in this case,

CALLING OF ABRAHAM 131

concubinage yielded its usual fruits of jealousy
and trouble in the household. In the waiting,
however, God tested Abraham's faith no less than
by prompt and willing obedience. Through those
long years — a quarter of a century — it seemed
as though the promise would fail. From a human
point of view it seemed impossible — so absurd
that Sarah laughed with derision, yet God was
true to his promise, and trained Abraham to that
important lesson of patient waiting on him alone,
or of hoping against hope, simply because God
said so.

The graces thus far considered are those which
are specially exercised towards God. They could
indeed have no existence, unless through an abid-
ing sense of Jehovah's presence, supreme author-
ity, and the assurance that he would do all that
he had promised. Faith in God was the starting
point, even before Abraham could have left his
own country and his father's house. And the
root of obedience, of patient waiting and of those
kindly graces towards man was faith. He be-
lieved God, and therefore he did as bidden. He
believed, and therefore he could wait. He be-
lieved in God, who was patient and forgiving
towards him, and therefore he was kind and forgiv-
ing towards man. There is an apocryphal story
repeated by Stanley that Abraham was taught the
lesson of kindness to strangers by God himself.
It is said that an old man of an hundred years,
passed Abraham's tent, to whom he offered hos-

ISa THE BEGINNING OF THINGS

pitality. But when he gave him food and saw
that he asked no blessing, and that when he lay
down at night he prayed not to God, Abraham
ordered him out of his door, because he would
not worship. When he had gone, God met him
and said, "Couldst not thou bear with a stranger
for one night, with whom I have borne for an hun-
dred years?" Abraham accordingly went after
the man, brought him back to his tent, and
treated him kindly. The story may not be true,
but the truth hid under it is correct, that our best
instruction in kindly graces towards man comes
from God's dealings towards us. Perhaps we
would not be justified in saying that the hospital-
ity so religiously practised by the Arabs of the
present day is the direct result of some siich in-
cident as specified in the story, but he who walks
with God as Abraham did, as a friend, must feel
the weight of his example as well as his direct
commands. The best humanity is that which
comes into closest contact with divinity.

It is well to notice other points in his treat-
ment of others, which show a reflection of his
friendship with God. One was his treatment of
his nephew Lot. On account of the increase of
their flocks, they found it necessary to separate.
Instead of Abraham insisting on his own rights
as the elder of the two, and the one to whom the
promise of the land had been given, he gives to
Lot the choice. And then when Lot and his neigh-
bors were captured in a raid by the kings of the

CALLING OF ABRAHAM 133

East, instead of leaving him to the just conse-
quences of his selfish mistake, Abraham shows
both forgiveness and courage by going to the
rescue; and in the only warlike expedition of his
life, conquers chieftains or kings who had made
this the business of their lives.* And with what
unselfishness he restores goods as well as per-
sons, instead of making them the prize of war,
as was suggested by those whom he had rescued,
(ch. 14).

The same high-minded delicacy characterized
Abraham's dealings with the sons of Heth, when
he bought the cave of Macpelah for a burying-
place for Sarah his wife (ch. 22). How elevated
in tone the whole transaction. These strangers —
these dwellers in tents, had so impressed upon the
owners of the soil their honorable dealings and
methods of living, that they would take no advan-
tage of them in a bargain, and treated Abraham
as "a prince of God" among us. The fair and
honorable man, begat, as was his due, the respect
and kind treatment of his neighbors.

It is worthy of remark that Abraham did not
seek to carry the body of Sarah back to the home

***Chederlaomer is clearly an Elamite name (Kudur-La-
gamar). Amraphel may well be the later form of the name
of the famous Babylonian king Hammurabi who ultimately
delivered his nation from the Elamite yoke. Ellasar is per-
haps the Hebrew form of Larsa, one of the important towns
of Southern Babylonia. The fact that the Elamites ruled
Babylonia prior to 2200 B.C. and that these Eastern powers
at times extended their authority to the Mediterranean is es-
tablished by the testimony of the Babylonian inscriptions."
(Kent's Beginnings of Hebrew History, p. 85.)

134 THE BEGINNING OF THINGS

of his ancestors in Haran or Ur. This is a com-
mon feeling with those who have left the home of
their fathers. Joseph desired that his father and
that he himself should be buried in the land given
them by God. Canaan was to Abraham and all
his descendants the land of their inheritance, even
when they owned only a burying-lot. But beyond
the earthly Canaan there is every reason for the
assertion of the author of the Epistle to the He-
brews that they looked for a City whose builder
and maker is God (11:10). God appeared re-
peatedly to Abraham, and the only legitimate in-
ference was that he had a habitation where he es-
pecially lived or manifested himself. To that
home or city Abraham looked forward as a place
where Enoch and the true Sons of God had gone.
These, then, are the graces which have made
Abraham known and respected among all nations,
Jew and Gentile. He was no warrior, no builder
of cities, no philosopher or teacher, simply a
plain man dwelling in tents. He was called of
God, and became a friend of God. And so he has
left an example of faith and obedience towards
God and of kindness and unselfishness towards
men which have been an encouragement and help
in all ages.

CHAPTER XI

JACOB ON THE POSITION OF PRAYER
IN THE INDIVIDUAL LIFE

Before proceeding with the life of Jacob, there
are one or two general observations which ought
to be made. (1) One is that these are not the
biographies that would have attracted ordinary
historians and poets. They would have written
about Nimrod, the mighty hunter, the builder of
Babylon, or Cheder-Laomer, king of Elam, or
Tidal, king of nations (Gen. 14:11). But here
is Abraham not even a king, only the chief of a
tribe, who fought only one battle. And why was
he selected .f^ He was the called of God and re-
sponded by a willing faith and obedience. It was
a life that took on the spiritual and eternal, a life
that was important only as it took hold on God
and yet a life that has helped revolutionize the
world and give us new conceptions of a greatness
greater than that of sword or world-wide fame.
(2) We need more than one example of those who
have walked by faith. Abraham is such a bril-
liant example of faith and obedience, and was so
honorable in his dealings with men that he seems
of better clay than ordinary mortals. That we
be not discouraged we need another type like
Jacob, the Supplanter.

As Abraham's character — his faith and obedi-
ence— illustrate a part of religious experience in

135

136 THE BEGINNING OF THINGS

the individual, so another and very important
part is illustrated by Jacob, and that is prayer.
Not that Abraham and the other patriarchs were
not men of prayer, but it stands out more promi-
nently in the history of Jacob's life. The record
about Isaac is comparatively brief. He was in
a measure the completion of his father's life.
Like him, he was a man of peace, following the
same industries and having many of the same ex-
periences. One incident with regard to the wife
of Isaac shows a similar stage of civilization in
Egypt and among the Philistines a generation
apart (Gen. 12: 11, 20: 2 and 26: 7).

In the most important incident in the lives of
father and son, they stood together. The father
took the son to offer him as a sacrifice, but that
son was no mere child, but a young man of
twenty or twenty-five. (This is the opinion of
Josephus.) At that age he would have had all
the hopes and aspirations of an heir of his fath-
er's wealth, and of the divine promises. If the
obedience of Abraham, ready to slay his son, illus-
trates the love of God the Father, who did not
withhold his only Son, surely the acquiescence of
Isaac in the stern command, shadows forth the
submission of Christ, in laying down his life of
his own will, for the salvation of a lost world.

The relation between Abraham and Jacob is
best seen by the phraseology, which is used after
this in speaking of the history of God's chosen
people. They are sometimes called children of

JACOB AND PRAYER 137

Abraham. Especially is this applied to his spir-
itual children, inasmuch as they exhibited his
faith. At other times they are called children of
Israel. Isaac is not mentioned except when the
three patriarchs are spoken of together. The
truth taught seems to be this, that in the prayer
of the one and in the faith and obedience of the
other, we have the fundamental and indissoluble
parts of all religious experience.

Paul was a man of great faith and unswerving
obedience or loyalty to the Lord Jesus; yet of
the transition period of his life it is said, "Be-
hold he prayeth." Prayer does not belong to the
natural man, however much he may practise its
forms. Prayer was not natural to Jacob, though
by natural descent a son of Abraham. His dispo-
sition was to trust in himself, and seek to carry
out his plans by circumventing or supplanting
others. How he was cured of this tendency, and
his character as well as his name changed from
Jacob to Israel is unfolded in the history.

The difference between Jacob and his twin
brother Esau was marked from their birth. Twins
often resemble one another, but here the diver-
gence was manifest not only physically, but in
their dispositions. Esau did not care for the
quiet pastoral life of caring for flocks, but pre-
ferred roving about as a hunter. Jacob, whose
homelike tastes, pleased his mother, had also an
over-reaching disposition. This was manifest in
the bargain, which he made with his brother for

138 THE BEGIXXIXG OF THINGS

his birthright. There is this redeeming feature
on the part of Jacob, in this transaction. He saw
and in a measure appreciated the excellence of
the promise made to Abraham and repeated to
Isaac. And we need to bear in mind that Abra-
ham lived until his grandsons, Esau and Jacob,
were fifteen years old. And the same disposition,
for which he was commended by Jehovah, "that
he will command his children and his household
after him" (Gen 18:19), doubtless characterized
him, in impressing the lessons of his life upon
those who were to be the inheritors of the prom-
ises made to him. Esau with all this knowledge
and with the position of first-born, despised his
birthright. For the sake of satis fyincr his hun-
ger, he forfeited all for which his grandfather had
left his native land, and for which he had waited
for years. If Esau thus lived for the present,
and was careless of and despised future good, we
certainly cannot justify Jacob, who was mean
enough to take such an advantage, and bargain
away his dish of lentils, wliich he ought to have
given, for what he knew would be a valuable pos-
session.

But if in this case, Jacob's conduct was that of
a supplanter, sharp and over-reaching for his
own benefit, the next transaction in which he ap-
pears, was still worse. It was a clear case of
deception and unblushing falsehood — suggested,
it is true, by his mother, but readily fallen in with
and adopted by the son. Isaac was old and blind

JACOB AND PRAYER 139

and confined to his bed, and thought he would
soon die — though he actually lived forty-three or
sixty-three* years after this, dying at the age of
one hundred and eighty. It is probable that he
recovered in a great measure from his sickness,
and was able to be about again. With his strong
ideas of the right of the first-born, Isaac called
Esau, that he might give him his fatherly bless-
ing before he died. Rebekah hears the conversa-
tion, and perhaps excusing herself on account of
the character of Esau, and his marriage with the
daughters of the land, and remembering also the
divine word that the elder should serve the
younger (25:23), called her son Jacob, to co-
operate with her in securing the blessing for him-
self. Jacob was now fifty-seven or seventy-seven,
according as we reckon the number of years spent
in Mesopotamia), and so, of course, no mere
child. The mother's appeal was to his self-inter-
est. And his grasping, covetous nature acqui-
esced in the plan of deception, which he carried

* The usual calculation is that Isaac was now 137. Joseph
having been introduced to Pharoah in his thirtieth year (ch.
41: 40) and having been 39 (ch. 45: 6) when his father aged
133 (ch. 47: 9) came into Egypt, must have been born before
Jacob was 91; consequently as his birth occurred in the 14th
year of Jacob's sojourn in Mesopotamia (cf . ch. 30 : 25 with
29: 18, 21, 22) Jacob's flight must have taken place when he
was 77. But Jacob was born in Isaac's 60th year (25 : 26) hence
Isaac was now 137. There are however, difficulties connected
with this reckoning. It takes for granted that Jacob was in
Padan Aram only 20 years, whereas Kennicott thinks it 40,
14 for his wives, 20 of after service and 6 for wages. Accord-
ing to the latter Isaac at this time was 117 (Pulpit Commen-
tary in loco).

140 THE BEGINNING OF THINGS

out not only by putting on Esau's garments and
covering his hands and the smooth of his neck
with goat-skins, but boldly silenced his father's
doubts by one falsehood after another.

When the deception was discovered, as neces-
sarily it would be as soon as Esau returned, the
latter determines to retaliate and kill his brother
as soon as the death of his father should take
place. The mother, aware of his intention, sends
Jacob away to Padan Aram to her brother.

BETHEL, CH. 28

And here comes in that wondrous grace on the
part of God, which gives this refugee from re-
venge, the hope that the blessing of Abraham
rested upon him, more surely than the words of
Isaac. Very indefinite and intangible was the
birthright, unless he had the assurance that
Abraham's God was his God. He had been try-
ing by subterfuge and deception to obtain the
blessing. The ^^sion as he slept on the stone at
Bethel, was that that was not the way, but to
seek it from God himself. Jacob's way was Hke
Paul's going about to establish his own righteous-
ness, but the vision of the one at midnight and
the other at mid-day, was that Jehovah and the
angelic host is our only defence. How puny and
useless the efforts of man by the side of the open
heavens. This is the thought that man needs to
realize, before he takes Jehovah to be his God.
It was a personal revelation to Jacob and Paul.

JACOB AND PRAYER 141

And in one sense it is a personal revelation to
every man before he gets into the light. It is
God finding us, instead of our getting the bless-
ing by our own struggle.* And that opens
heaven and makes our heart a temple, where the
angels ascend and descend. This vision of
heaven brought near, found its highest realization
in Christ Jesus, taking our nature and making a
complete and perfect ladder by which heaven
lifts earth into light and life. It is salvation for
sinful man.

As to Jacob himself he had the blessing of
Abraham confirmed and the promise added of per-
sonal care in all places where he should go ; and
that he should be brought again to the land prom-
ised to him and to his seed. One thought would
be that after this, Jacob would be a new man, that
the light of that vision and the encouragement of
those promises, would have lifted him out of his
former self. But in a measure he is Jacob still.
He had to deal with one disposed to take all pos-
sible advantage in every transaction. Laban de-
ceived him about his wife, and changed his wages
ten times. Jacob yielded to the deception about
Leah, as if sent by the Lord as a reminder of his
own fault. It looks also as though he secured
an extra share of cattle by one of his old subter-

* There is the waiting for the action of our own will, as in
the case of the Prodigal Son, when he came to himself — and
there is the divine calling and stimulus to right action. They
are both true and it is not necessary here to attempt the recon-
ciliation.

142 THE BEGINNING OF THINGS

fuges. But then again he went even further than
strict justice in bearing the loss of that which
was stolen or torn by beasts (31:39). Further
than this there was a constant recognition of
God's hand, which was so manifest that Laban
said, "I have learned by experience that the Lord
hath blessed me, for thy sake" (30:27). We
know that Jacob made a vow to give a tenth to
God, of all that God should give him" (28:22).
There is no record of the way in which the vow
was carried out. But as it became a law among
his descendants, we suppose that he adhered to
it. And there is nothing like a conscientious ad-
herence to the principle of giving a proportion
to the Lord, that takes the selfishness so com-
pletely out of a man.

An equally potent factor in subduing selfishness
is generosity. And Jacob was ready now to do
a generous act, as he had been before to do a
mean one. It is true that he proposed by the
present which he prepared for his brother to ap-
pease his anger (32:20). But when this had
been done in answer to prayer, he still urges the
acceptance of the present. And it was no insig-
nificant gift that he offered. "Two hundred she
goats and twenty he goats, thirty milch camels
with their colts, forty kine and ten bulls, twenty
she asses and ten foals" (32: 14 and 15). It was
astonishing that he who went out with only his
staff, twenty or even forty years before, could
give so freely and have anything left. But the

JACOB AND PRAYER 143

Lord had evidently been with him, and this pres-
ent said in speech stronger than words, I was a
supplanter, I wrongly obtained the birthright. I
sinned in deceiving my father. But here is the
best reparation I can make. I obtained nothing
by my deception. But the Lord has blessed me.
Accept this and let us be brothers.

PENUEL, 32

But whatever gifts might do, Jacob had learned
not to depend on them, or upon any efforts of his
own. In accordance with the command of God,
he had gathered his family together and started
on his return journey. The first difficulty was in
getting away from Laban, his father-in-law. La-
ban seemed to regard the large family and numer-
ous herds as in a measure belonging to him as
the chief of the tribe, and so to avoid strife or
even angry words, Jacob stole away. Laban fol-
lowed and overtook him after a seven days' pur-
suit, in Mount Gilead (31:23). Here God ap-
peared to Laban, warning him not to enter upon
any discussion. After they had agreed that
neither should pass that boundary line with the
intention of injuring one another, Jacob went on
his way and was still further encouraged by a
vision of two hosts of angels (32: 2) as if one
would keep from dangers in the rear and the other
from those in advance. And yet when the messen-
gers whom he had sent forward to learn the sit-
uation, returned with the word that Esau was

144 THE BEGINNING OF THINGS

coming to meet him with four hundred men, he
was greatly afraid and distressed: 32:7.) While
Jacob had been following the arts of peace, his
brother had become a military chieftain — a shiekh
of the desert, who would consider this roving un-
protected band, a lawful and easy prey for one of
their raids. And then there came the remembrance
of that vow of vengeance for his deceit. Here was
an easy chance to execute it. Might would soon
show to whom belonged the birthright. If Jacob
had tried to flee where could he go? He had just
fled from Mesopotamia and was under obligation
not to return. If he should try, he could not
escape from his brother. Will Esau kill him as
he had threatened to do? And with four hundred
men he had the power. Certainly his only hope
was in God. And so in deep humility and with
absolute dependence on God, he prays " I am not
worthy, of the least of all the mercies and of all
the truth, which Thou showed unto Thy servant."
(32:10). God had been true and merciful to him
and he had not been true to God. He had trusted
to his own devices and not to the promise. And
the trouble which threatened was purely the re-
sult of his own deceit. If God helped, it would
be by treating him not as he deserved. And upon
the mercy of God he dared to trust, because of
the promises, and the command of God to return.
The promise made to Abraham and renewed to
Isaac, had also been made his when God appeared
to him at Bethel. And the command had come

JACOB AND PRAYER 145

to him, to "return unto thy country and to thy
kindred and I will deal well with thee." (32: cf
31: 13). He was therefore in the path of duty.
Thus called of God to return, he could plead the
promises and say, how are these to be fulfilled, if
Esau should come and smite me and the mother
with the children. Knowing the difficulties and
knowing also how God had removed these difficul-
ties in the case of others, he prays "O God of my
father Abraham and God of my father Isaac,
deliver me I pray thee from the hand of my
brother." The intensity of this desire is repre-
sented to us more vividly, by the wrestling of a
man with Jacob until the breaking of the day
(v. 24). As this man is afterwards spoken of as
God (v. 30) it seems not unreasonable to think
of him as our Divine Intercessor, who can easily
overcome us by a touch and yet graciously con-
descends to our infirmities, hears our prayer and
allows us to prevail, and calls us princes, when
it is by his grace and power that we are able to
overcome. Over against the condescending grace
at Bethel, which revealed the open way to Heaven,
we get at Penuel a glimpse of the finished High
Priestly work of our Intercessor, making the
unworthy Jacobs, princes of God in renouncing
worldly aid and in relying on divine power.

The result of this plea, was the change in Esau
from the dreaded enemy to a reconciled brother.
Some may think little of such an answer to prayer.
There was no miracle such as men may expect who

146 THE BEGINNING OF THINGS

watch for signs. It was simply the victory over
a heart turned from its purpose and answering to
the quiet demand of love, instead of vengeance,
crushing with the sword and sending cries and
desolation through the camp of the helpless. And
this new name given to the Conqueror has little of
the ring, which men love, who are brevetted on
the battle field. And yet here is a man who has
learned the great lesson of all true conquest, that
God is greater than man and that he who wins
there, must bow the knee in prayer. Jacob was
first won to God, before he could win Esau to him-
self. To some Jacob may seem as little trans-
formed at Penuel as at Bethel. He was Jacob
still down to the end of his days. He had not a lit-
tle of human weakness left in him, when in sadness
he said all these things are against me: (42: 36).
But our weak human nature was to learn through
him the short-sightedness of men in comparison
with the far-reaching goodness of the plans of
God. But Jacob showed the power of grace,
in selfishness changed to justice and magnanimity,
in self-dependence changed to trust in God, in the
victory of love over hate. And then as Moses and
Samuel showed what their mothers were, so
Joseph showed what his father was. And then
Joseph exalted knew the worth of that father
who though despised as a shepherd, he could pre-
sent to Pharaoh as a man of God whose blessing
could enrich a king. In communion with God he
spoke as a prophet. And in his death no one in
all the land of Egypt was more honored.

CHAPTER XII

JOSEPH, OR THE EXALTATION AND

TRIUMPH OF RELIGION IN THE

INDIVIDUAL LIFE

It is but natural as we have the fundamental
expression of religious life in faith, and prayer
that we should also have the result or growth in
the exaltation of the individual and in his influence
over others. We have seen something of this ef-
fect in the Patriarchs whose lives we have already
considered; as in the manifest change and uplift-
ing of character in Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
The latter especially exhibits a marked change
from a selfish person, disposed to rely on human
expedients to a man of prayer who could plead
only the mercy of God. Not only was Jacob's
life corrected and purified, but he was the father
and instructor of Joseph who is one of the most
perfect characters in all history. It is in him that
we especially see the growth and culmination of
religious ideas as started in the call of Abraham
and illustrated in this first chapter of Old Tes-
tament worthies. If we had no clearer light, this
record would show what religion is and ought to
be, in the faith, obedience and uplift of those who
follow its teachings.

The history of Joseph falls naturally into three
periods. 1. That of his home life for seventeen
years. S. His life of humiliation as a slave and

147

148 THE BEGINNING OF THINGS

prisoner until he was thirty. 3. His exaltation
as ruler of Egypt — a period extending to his
death at a hundred and ten.

I. Joseph's home life

Joseph seems to have been gifted with a nature
peculiarly lovable and receptive to the truth. This
was perhaps one reason why he was a favorite of
the father, as well as the fact that he was the son
of the beloved wife. It was evidently the inten-
tion of Jacob to assign him the position of first-
born. This was indicated by giving him the coat
of many colors or as it is usually translated of
a long tunic with sleeves (37: 3 Rev. ver. margin.)
In China this would be the garment of the scholar
or officer instead of that worn by the coolie or
workman. This would be sufficient to arouse the
enmity of his brethren. They would say, he is
placed before us, who are older than he. In ad-
dition to this jealousy Joseph was cognizant of the
e^-il deeds of his brethren and reported them to
his father. What these deeds were is not re-
corded. Caravans passed in those days to Egypt;
and Driver's supposition that there was some dis-
honesty in the sale of flocks is not improbable.
In addition to these causes of enmity Joseph re-
peated the dreams, which seem to have been given
him as a divine intimation of his future advance-
ment. If he had been older perhaps prudence
would have led him to have kept those dreams to
himself. However if he made anv mistake about

JOSEPH 149

this, it was purposely allowed as part of the chain
in the providential leading, which was to bring
about the desired result. Its first effect was to
provoke the brothers to hinder an outcome which
seemed improbable and yet one that they could
not face out of their minds. It was hard for ten
men to agree on the best method of ridding them-
selves of the dreamer. Murder was the surest. But
from that some recoiled. Their point was
gained as they supposed by selling him to a party
of Ishmaelites who were on their way to Egypt.
Now he would be out of their way ; and they could
say an evil beast had devoured him. This false
report would deceive their father, especially as
they brought back his coat covered with blood.
One of the things which afterwards troubled their
memories, was that they saw the anguish of his
soul and would not hear (42: 21). To Joseph it
must have seemed a sad ending to his life's hopes,
where he, a lad of seventeen, was sold as a slave
and taken away into an unknown land to be again
sold to some hard bondage.

The lesson of this part of Joseph's life, is the
value of religious instruction in the family. That
Abraham practised it we see from the influence
such instruction had over the servant sent to find
a wife for Isaac, and God himself said, I know that
he will command his children and household after
him, that they may keep the way of Jehovah.
(18: 19). That Jacob sought to do his part faith-
fully in this matter is seen in Joseph, who, at the

150 THE BEGINNING OF THINGS

age of seventeen, was thrown into entirely differ-
ent surroundings. We shall see how he met these
surroundings as we go on. Now we wish to look
at the instruction which helped to keep him faith-
ful in the hour of trial. Certainly one thing
which had a strong hold upon him, was the pres-
ence of God. He was no local God, for he was
present in Egypt as well as at his father's altars.
He had been with his father at Bethel and Penuel
and in Mesopotamia as well as in Canaan. He
was the God who had instituted sacrifice way back
when Adam and Eve fled from Paradise. He
knew of the secredness of the marriage tie and
how God regarded any deviation from that law
as wicked and deserving of punishment. Whether
this knowledge came from its first institution or
from later teachings respecting it, we cannot say.
And if the human relationships were thus made
clear, the divine side in creation — the power and
goodness as given in the first chapters of Genesis
may have been handed down by tradition. Tradi-
tion would apparently be the source. And yet we
know that the code of Hammurabi was written in
the time of Abraham. And how much earlier writ-
ing was employed we cannot say. And then
through those long years of waiting and prepara-
tion, the Patriarchs may have thought profoundly
on what seems to us the few truths of revelation.
Take this one thought of God's being and pres-
ence, how it entered into the fibre of Joseph's
thinking and acting.

JOSEPH 151

II. Joseph's humiliation

There are three ways in which this thought of
God's presence showed itself in the next period
of his life. 1. There was a cheerful acceptance
of the position in which he was placed. However
hard to be a slave and be torn away from his
father's home as shown in the anguish of his soul,
yet he did not sit down and mope or meditate ven-
geance. Doubtless he came to the conclusion that
the hand of God was in the hard method his
brethren took of ridding themselves of him, and
so there was a ready attempt to make himself use-
ful and seek the good of the master to whom he
was sold. This disposition was seen by his first
master, who gave him the position of major-domo
or superintendent of his affairs. And then again,
when by false accusation, he was thrown into
prison, he wasted no time in self -justification or
complaint against others, even though his feet
were hurt with fetters (Ps. 105:18). So mani-
festly was the Lord with him that the keeper of
the prison entrusted the other prisoners to his
over sight. This cheerfulness and readiness to
serve and adapt one's self to surroundings may not
seem a great grace, but it is in the line of obedi-
ence to God's will.

2. More positive was his mastery over tempta-
tion. He did not stop to consider the pleasure with
which Satan is wont to bait his hook in such cases,
nor the circumstances favorable to concealment.
It was sin against God, and he ran from it as

152 THE BEGINNING OF THINGS

quickly as possible. Where so many are slain,
it was a victory, the example of which has helped
others in the same fight through the ages.

3. His trust in God helped him in his treat-
ment of his brethren and gave him the victory
over every thought of resentment. At first the
position which he took may have seemed harsh.
He knew not what kind of men his brethren were
— whether unfeeling and ready for some wicked
deed, as when he left them. His first thought seems
to have been to get possession of his younger
brother. But as he saw the tender solicitude of
Judah for his father and how he had become re-
sponsible for Benjamin's safe return, he no longer
restrained himself, but seeing the providential in-
tent that his father and all his brethren and their
families should be saved alive, sends chariots and
food for them all to come to Egypt. Not only
did he thus manifest kindness in the beginning
and receive them graciously; but when, after his
father's death, they began to think he would re-
quite the evil which they had done unto him. Nobly
and generously did he reply, that while they meant
it for evil, God meant it for good, and assured
them, I will nourish you and your little ones. And
he comforted them and spake kindly unto them
(50:16-21).

The first thought suggested by this period of
Joseph's life, is the wonderful providence of God.
We hardly wonder at the view which Jacob took
of the situation, before it was fully developed.

JOSEPH 153

All these things are against me, was his com-
plaint. How little did the selling Joseph as a
slave and the false accusation of his master's wife
look like advancement. How the forgetfulness of
the chief butler seemed to put it off still fur-
ther. And yet it was all working to the result
prognosticated to the boy in his dreams. The
lessons suggested by such providential leading are
those suggested by Joseph's actions, first to ac-
cept cheerfully what seems hard and difficult.
And yet this is not an easy task, nor one quickly
learned. Joseph began the task in anguish of soul
and ended it by becoming trusted master in every
position in which he was placed. Second, we are
to stand fearlessly and positively by the right.
The consciousness of rectitude carries with it not
only the smile of one's best self, but the blessing
of Jehovah.

JOSEPH A TYPE OF THE MESSIAH

Instead of taking up the next period of Joseph's
life, or that of his exaltation, it seems best to
take up the thought of his being a type of the
Messiah, which necessarily brings in also some
things connected with his humiliation. This posi-
tion of a Messianic type was a new step in the de-
velopment of revelation. The first step was the
promise to our first parents of victory over the
serpent, through the seed of the woman. This was
confirmed to Abraham and a new idea added by
making his seed a source of blessing to all the

154 THE BEGINNING OF THINGS

families of the earth. In addition to the promise
was the institution of sacrifice, showing a way of
reconciliation through substitution. And now a
third thought is added that the promised deliverer
had his forerunner in such a person as Joseph. It
is not necessary to hold that Joseph himself or
his contemporaries should have understood this;
but that we, looking back, see how certain features
in some of the worthies of the Old Testament fore-
shadowed the person and work of Christ. Moses
as the introducer of one Dispensation, speaks of
another Prophet like himself whom God would
raise up to do a similar work, but most of these
forerunners went on doing their own work, uncon-
scious of its significance. We are specially inter-
ested in seeing how much of truth was foreshad-
owed in their conduct. Thus in Joseph there is,
first, the exaltation growing out of his humilia-
tion. The road to the prime ministry was through
slavery. Christ was exalted both because of his
work and his character. He stands alone in ex-
alting us through his death — ^but in a measure it
could be said of Joseph as of Christ, "thou hast
loved righteousness and hated iniquity, therefore
hath God exalted thee" (Ps. 45: 7). There is also
the striking external fact that one was sold and
the other betrayed for the same price — thirty
pieces of silver.

Second, There was the saving much people alive.
In the one case it was the family of Jacob — the
chosen seed. On the other it was a great multi-

JOSEPH 155

tude whom no man can number. In the one case
it was from starvation. In the other an eternal
salvation from sin and its curse here and here-
after.

Third, The method of saving by forgiveness
was one of the striking points in which Joseph was
a type of Christ. Joseph was tempted to retaliate,
and perhaps thought he ought to, when he accused
them of being spies. And his brethren expected
nothing else after the death of their father. But
he had been learning God's purpose in bringing
him into Egypt to save, and that purpose could
only be carried out by forgiveness. The victory of
the world over its enemies is by force, by revenge
and hate. Christ's victory is by love — by mercy
and forgiveness. Here was a foreshadowing of
the divine way, which must have made its impres-
sion on those who were taught so much by type
and symbol. It is true that we are not to read
too much of gospel teaching into the Old Testa-
ment record, neither on the other hand are we to
minimize the truth designed to help the faith that
looked to the future. Sacrifice and Jacob's vision,
made clear that the way to heaven was open. It
was open to such a man as Jacob. And it was
open to Jacob's sons, who evidently were not wor-
thy, but who still were saved, forgiven and treated
kindly, by the very person they had injured.

Fourth, Still another thought was that the per-
fection of this salvation was in the future. Joseph
"took an oath of the children of Israel saying.

156 THE BEGINNING OF THINGS

God will surely visit you, and ye shall carry up
my bones from hence" (50: 25). He was confident
that the promise to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob
would be fulfilled, and that Canaan should be
theirs. While there was this earthly hope and
the type was complete in his belief in the promise,
the question may arise whether he was equally cer-
tain about the heavenly Canaan. Joseph lived for
the most of his life, where they sought to realize
immortality by keeping the body from corruption.
This shows the longing of the human mind to
escape death. The Egyptians carried this to an
extreme when they made mummies of cats and
bulls. But beyond the care of the mortal, there is
the innate longing for continued existence which is
a part of our nature. When God made man in his
own image, a part of that image was to be im-
mortal, just as God himself is. And though man
fell, yet the immortal was not annihilated, nor the
hope of it banished through sin and corruption.
As reason and conscience existed though de-
throned, so with the hope of immortality, though
death was pronounced. This hope was strength-
ened before the Flood by the translation of Enoch.
When God called Abraham, there was not only
a promise about the possession of Canaan, but a
statement of his relation to God, that in him per-
sonally, rather than in his gifts, would be "his
exceeding great reward" (15:1). In the unseen
and spiritual he was to look for his support and
joy, more than in the earthly. To Jacob was

JOSEPH 157

given the vision of the open heavens and the way
of access there. He felt that alone there in Bethel
he was near God's home and close by the gateway
to Heaven, up which the angels invited him to as-
cend. Very properly therefore does the writer of
the Epistle to the Hebrews describe the Patri-
archs as seeking a heavenly country, and that God
had prepared for them as well as us a City (Heb.
11: 13-16). Joseph we must consider as a sharer
in these hopes of immortality. God was to him a
Saviour, causing good to come out of evil, ruling
Egypt as well as Canaan as its sovereign, having
his home in Heaven. The earthly promise was
only a part — a foretaste of those open gates which
his father saw, when the angels ascended and de-
scended to help the human towards the divine.

UNITY OF REVELATION

1. After having passed in review the first chap-
ter of divine revelation, or the beginnings of grace
as shown to the individual, the first thought that
impresses us is the unity of the divine plan and
purpose in Revelation. It is as the Apostle says,
"the gospel preached beforehand to Abraham"
(Gal. 3:6). It was not only that Christ should
come — but that salvation is for sinners like Jacob
— through faith like Abraham — breathed out in
prayer, as in Jacob changed to Israel. And then
in Joseph we have the type of the forgiving,
exalted Saviour. Surely here is not a little of the
fundamentals of the gospel foreshadowed for the

158 THE BEGINNING OF THINGS

guidance of believers before Christ came in the
flesh.

REVELATION FROM GOD

2. The unity of Revelation emphasizes the fact
that its beginnings as well as its fulness are from
God. The fruit is the outcome of the blossom
which began when Abraham was called out of Ur
of the Chaldees. That there should have been so
much of truth revealed then, when all the world
was going astray, shows clearly that its source
was not Babylonian or of any other human origin,
but from God.

SUFFERING AND EXALTATION

3. It is a little singular how the two ideas of
a suifering and an exalted Saviour — which seemed
to the Jews so irreconcilable — were kept side by
side all through the Old Testament. The two
great sources for faith and thought to dwell upon
were type and promise — type indicated that the
way of access to God was by blood, and on the
other hand was the promise of victory and bless-
ing through the seed of Abraham. In Joseph as
a type of Christ two ideas were combined — hu-
miliation and exaltation, slavery and kingly
power. As the humiliation was on earth so would
the exaltation be, Egypt governed by the word of
Joseph, or the world accepting the laws and prin-
ciple of the kingdom of Heaven. The humiliation
was of a different character in David, the great
national type of the Messiah. There was more of

JOSEPH 159

suffering because of sin, and patient waiting for
the kingdom, but yet it was triumph and subjuga-
tion of enemies, and the exaltation prolonged in
Solomon's peaceful and prosperous reign. In this
anticipated glory of the Son of David, suffering
and humiliation were forgotten, and so they re-
jected the Christ when he actually came in the
flesh. May the reverse not be true of us that we
forget his exultation and second coming; and so
neglect to co-work with him in establishing the
spiritual, which is ever true glory of his reign
upon the earth.

CHAPTER XIII
THE FAMILY— (1) MARRIAGE

The first step in the beginnings of things in
grace is the relation of the individual soul to God.
The next step is the relation of the family to God.
With reference to the family we begin with mar-
riage. For upon the right understanding of that
relation, depends very largely the happiness and
right influence of the home.

1. The origin of marriage is given in the sec-
ond chapter of Genesis. God made an help suited
for man, as it was plain from want of congenial
companionship that it was not good for him to
be alone. The beasts had been brought before
Adam and he had named them. If he had de-
scended from them, he might have found the re-
move from them not too great, to prevent compan-
ionship. But the father of our race was not a brute,
nor the son of a brute, but made by his Creator
to rule over them. The formation of woman from
man, and in a single pair, was significant of the
law of marriage. Animals seem to have been cre-
ated in groups or swarms — but here is one man
and one woman, indicating a monogamous instead
of a polygamous union. And besides this, the in-
timacy of the union was signified. It was bone of
his bone and flesh of his flesh. So that the rule
starts from the very beginning. "Therefore, shall
a man leave his father and his mother and shall

160

THE FAMILY 161

cleave unto his wife; and they shall be one flesh"
(v. 24). A union so perfect was not to be inter-
fered with, either by taking other wives, or by di-
vorce, except when there is a fundamental violation
of the contract by either of the parties. To this
original law, our Saviour brought back the insti-
tution, saying to the plea of the Jews that Moses
had allowed divorce for other reasons, "In the be-
ginning it was not so" (Matt. 19: 8). This primal
law of Paradise was enforced by various incidents
in the course of the narrative.

The first temptation to vary from the marriage
contract was presented to Abraham in the fact
that the promise seemed likely to fail through
want of offspring. After what seemed a very
long waiting, Sarah persuaded her husband to
take her maid as his concubine. But the promised
seed was not to be through Hagar, but by the law-
ful wife. It is true there is nothing said about
the unlawfulness of the secondary marriage; but
the natural results in a disturbed household were
plainly manifest. The concubine, as the mother
as she supposed, of the promised heir, was led to
despise her mistress and this led to her banishment
from home, even before the birth of Ishmael. And
then when Isaac was weaned, Sarah, jealous of
what was perhaps boyish raillery on the part of his
half-brother, who was fourteen years the senior,
insisted upon the bondwoman and her son being
cast out. It was not easy for Abraham to con-
sent to this, for his heart yearned towards his

162 THE BEGINXIXG OF THINGS

eldest son, but directed by God, he followed his
wife's advice. Ishmael, who doubtless, had been
for a time recognized as son and heir of his
father's position and wealth, was remanded back
to his mother's servile position. If this was not
a rebuke to the departure from the law of mat-
rimony, it certainly was honor put on the original
marriage as the one to be recognized in the line
of promise.

1. The trouble and difficulty in a polygamous
marriage is again brought to life in the case of
Jacob. The one whom he chose and who would have
been his only wife, was Rachel. But Laban, who
cared more for the customs of the country than his
promise gave him Leah instead of Rachel — so
eventually he had four wives instead of one. Rachel
the loved one, envied Leah because the children
were hers, and Leah envied Rachel the affection
of her husband. Rachel, however, continued to
hold the primary place in Jacob's affection, and
her children were the honored and also the en\ded
ones in the household. If the sons of Jacob had
all been the sons of one mother, it is hardly to be
supposed that the plot against Joseph would have
assumed such dark proportions, as to plan against
his life, and then sell him as a slave.

2. While there was this clear intimation that
marriage should be confined to one man and one
woman, there was no positive prohibition against
polygamy. With reference however, to the sanc-
tity of marriage, which polygamy does so much to

THE FAMILY 163

weaken, the teaching was very explicit. On two
different occasions, once in Egypt and once in
Canaan, was this lesson taught Abraham (chs.
12 and 20). Abraham was fearful that in
his wanderings among powerful princes, he would
be taken and killed for the sake of his wife; so
he persuaded her to say that she was his sister.
Doubtless there was ground for this fear, and
Sarah seems to have been actually taken to the
harems of Pharaoh and Abimelech. How Abraham
expected to recover his wife, we do not know, but
it became an occasion of divine rebuke in both in-
stances. The design of rebuke was to teach in
the most emphatic way possible, the sanctity of
the marriage relation. The tie was indissoluble,
admitting of no trifling or laying aside. It was
better even to run the risk of losing life itself,
than to violate this union. There was a rebuke
of Abraham's prevarication and want of trust in
God's providence, Abimelech also was threatened
with death, if he did not restore the woman whom
he had unwittingly taken, and the reason given
was that she was a man's wife. (20:3). It is
a little singular that Isaac should have committed
over again the mistake of his father, and in the
same place, three-quarters of a century later
(26:7). He was rebuked by Abimelech, who
seemed to remember better than Isaac, the warn-
ing given to his father; and did not proceed as
far in attempting to take her away from her hus-
band. This threefold repetition shows the prone-

164 THE BEGINNING OF THINGS

ness of men to disregard the sanctity of this rela-
tion, and how positively it was the purpose of
God to enforce the rule on this subject and guard
it by the strongest penalties. We see the effect
of this teaching in the case of Joseph. The temp-
tation came in a way so easy to be concealed, that
it was only a strong sense of the greatness of the
sin that made him proof against it. He had been
taught by the way God had dealt with his ances-
tors, that he should beware of incurring his dis-
pleasure. He would trust in God's providence to
vindicate the right, and he did not trust in vain.

Another lesson about the sanctity of marriage
is inculcated in this connection with reference to
continence between unmarried persons, as in the
case of Dinah (ch 34). The sin was not in its
worst form, as marriage was proposed, but the
insult and disgrace to their sister, her two brothers
were determined should be revenged. The man-
ner of showing this resentment cannot be justified,
but the deed done was wrong. Perhaps the ven-
geance was allowed, to show in the midst of those
nations the necessity for moral purity. And the
restraint, which kept them from pursuing the sons
of Jacob, doubtless had the approval of conscience,
that though conducted with too great violence,
it was in a measure justified because of sin against
virtue. And for this reason it was recorded that
sin in this direction is to be carefully guarded for
the sake of the purity and peace of society. For
men are prone to excuse and allow indulgence in

THE FAMILY 165

themselves, which if committed against those re-
lated to them, they punish with the utmost
severity.

3. Another point upon which light is thrown
is the mode of entering upon this relation. Mar-
riage in the Lord, or marriage on the ground of
religious rather than worldly considerations, is
more than once set forth. The first plain viola-
tion of such religious considerations was before
the Flood, when the sons of God* or the worship-
pers of Jehovah took them wives of all which they
chose. Not only does this indicate a tendency to
polygamy, but the choice was not based on reli-
gious grounds, but on mere fancy, or as the record
says, because they were fair. The giving up of
a religious basis as the ground of choice, resulted
in the bad education of their offspring, who be-
came men of renown — or as Calvin says "the first
nobility of the world were honorable robbers, who
boasted of their wickedness." And because of this

* Driver holds that '* the Sons of God" were semi-divine,
supra mundane beings. "It is not apparent," he says, "why the
intermarriage of two races each descended from a common
ancester should have resulted in a race characterized by gigan-
tic stature or abnormal wickedness." We must see in it an
ancient Hebrew legend or (to use Delitzsch's expression) a
piece of * unassimilated mythology ' the intention of which
was to account for the origin of a supposed race of pre-hisioric
giants (Comp. on Gen 6:3). It is well known, however, that
theocratical magistrates as representations of God's judicial
sovereignty are expressly called Elohim or gods (see Alexan-
der p. 82: 1). And so the term sons of God or gods to repre-
sent worshippers of God agrees first with the uniform teaching
of the Bible that the origin of the human race is from one
pair, and second, only with this rendering does the religious
bearing of the text have any value.

166 THE BEGINNING OF THINGS

wickedness the catastrophe of the Deluge was vis-
ited upon the old world.

When the sons of Abraham and Isaac were to
be married, the question of the proper person to
be selected, was a matter of no little solicitude.
Had thej been governed by a worldly policy an
alliance with some of the princes among whom
they were located would have seemed wisdom. It
would apparently have made their residence
among them safe and pleasant. But then the
patriarchs saw that the result would have been to
have gone down to their level. Lot's family be-
came like those among whom they dwelt, copied
their standard of morals and came near sharing
in their destruction. With the determination
therefore to keep free from idolatry and its evil
practices, Abraham proposed to send his servant
— supposed to be Eliezer of Damascus (15:2) —
to Mesopotamia to seek a wife among his kindred
for his son (ch. 24). He believed the Lord would
send his angel and prosper the errand of his faith-
ful servant. But if the one sought would not come,
Isaac was not to go there to live (v. 7, 8). Doubt-
less at the age of forty, he had been consulted in
this matter and was willing to abide by a decision
which was prompted by religious rather than car-
nal notions. He must have seen those in sur-
rounding tribes that would have attracted the
eye — ^but with him as with his father and the faith-
ful Eliezer there was a disposition to abide the
guidance of the good providence of God. His

THE FAMILY 167

religious character and the way he treated this
matter is seen, when, near the expected time of the
return of the camels, he went out into the field to
meditate — a word associated in the Psalms with
meditation on religious subjects (See Ps.
119: 15, 23 and 27). In the same spirit that the
servant asked to be guided in finding the one whom
the Lord had appointed, he would hope and ask
that the journey and the object of it might be
blessed and terminated sucessfully.

Jacob's quest in the same direction and for a
similar object, was mixed up with the desire to es-
cape from the wrath of his brother; but still the
main object in his going must have seemed near a
realization when he saw the beautiful Rachel and
loved her with such ardor that the seven years of
service for her, seemed but a few days.

The space taken up with these narratives and
the divine guidance involved, show that religious
considerations and prayer for guidance should
control our thought and action in this important
step of life.

It is difficult to leave this subject without a re-
mark or two. 1. The primal law of marriage
is not one evolved by man's experience, but one
laid down by the Creator at the very beginning.
It is one which man has been disposed to disobey ;
but the experience of mankind, as well as the
authority of Christ, which brings us back to this
primal law, has proved to be the wisest and best.

2. That if men acted on the conviction, that

168 THE BEGINNING OF THINGS

religious considerations should control their
actions in this matter, and should seek divine
guidance before entering upon such an intimate
life union, there would be less disposition to dis-
solve it by seeking a divorce.

3. Literature and public sentiment need to be
educated to see that love, like all other affections
and impulses of our nature, is to be under the
control of the divine will. Fancy and passion may
be strong, but if wrong, they must be con-
quered. Love at sight or the power of passion
are not the polar stars, which are to indicate our
course in life, as if the Fates or Cupid were our
gods instead of the Lord of heaven and earth.
Let love to him be first, and not love to the crea-
ture. The bride sought in obedience to duty and
to whose presence and home, the faithful servant,
in answer to prayer was guided, became, though
he had never seen her, the beloved wife of Isaac.
A mother's loss, who had loved him as her only
child and as the child of promise, was more than
made good in this new relation. Our methods are
different, but the underlying principle should be
the same. And the result in life long happiness
will mark heaven's approval.

CHAPTER XIV

THE FAMILY— (2) THE TRAINING OF
CHILDREN

We have seen how in the primal law of marriage
God had regard for the family, Ist, in guarding
against promiscuous marriage as among beasts,
which, according to some, was the condition of our
ancestors ; and 2d, against polygamous marriage,
which would have entailed envy, jealousy and mur-
der as seen in the most favorable circumstances
in the household of Jacob; or 3d, guarding
against any method of concubinage or divorce. God
honored the original bond, as in the case of Sarah
and her son, instead of Hagar and Ishmael.
Three times was the law of the sancity of marriage,
which admitted of no trifling, much less of divorce,
repeated to Abraham and Isaac. And Joseph
stood by the rule, thus inculcated, even to im-
prisonment under a false accusation.

More directly with regard to the family, these
three things show the importance of religion in
that relation. 1st, the acceptance of the seal of
the convenant. 2d, the position given to worship
by the head of the household. 3d, the recognition
of the duty of training children.

ACCEPTANCE OF THE SEAL OF THE COVENANT

1. With reference to the first, the acceptance of

169

170 THE BEGINNING OF THINGS

the seal of the covenant, it is not important whether
that seal was something new and given to Abra-
ham for the first time, or whether it had been in
use among the Egyptians before this period.
Baptism, as a rite and significant of cleansing,
had been in use long before Christ set it apart, as
connected with the Christian system. "Circum-
cision was practised as early as the period of the
2d dynasty (3998-3721 B. C. Petrie), and whence
Herodotus declares that the custom spread to the
Ethiopians, the Phoenicians and the Syrians of
Palestine (i. e., the Jews)" (See Driver's Gen. p.
189). The difficulty is to account for the intro-
duction and continuance of such a rite. Driver
suggests that it was an initiation into manhood.
The age at which it was performed was seven
to ten in Egypt, and among the Ishmaelites thir-
teen, according to the age of their ancestor, when
he received the rite. If this is the correct state-
ment about circumcision among the nations, it
was a very different thing as practised by the
Jews. The time for its performance was in in-
fancy— when the child was eight days old. And
then it was a sign of a covenant. God on his part,
promised to be a God unto them, and to give them
the land of their sojoumings for an everlasting
possession. In making the children partakers
of the sign of the covenant, the idea was that they
were included in the blessing promised to their
fathers. Parents give their worldly possessions to
their children and in this rite, God took hold of

THE FAMILY 171

the parental instinct and continues the blessing,
and promises of religion to succeeding genera-
tions.

Another idea dwelt upon at a later period, was
the spiritual import of circumcision, and that was
the subjugation of carnal appetites to the divine
law. The heart, as well as the body, was to be
circumcised.

As far, however, as the family was concerned,
this rite drew the children into allegiance to the
God of Israel. They were consecrated by the
parents to his service and were to be co-partners
in the blessings promised.

WORSHIP IN THE HOUSEHOLD

2, Another mark of family religion and of the
fact that he was a worshipper of Jehovah was the
prominence given to that worship, especially by
Abraham, whenever he pitched his tent. He did
so at his very first coming into the land of
Canaan, when the Lord appeared unto him,
(12: 7) and at his next removal repeated it, build-
ing an altar and calling upon the name of the
Lord (12:8). So also at Hebron (13:18) and
at Beersheba, where he planted a grove and called
on the name of the Lord, the everlasting God
(21:33). It is significantly said of his first ap-
pearance in this region, "and the Canaanite was
then in the land" (12:6). In the midst of an

m THE BEGINNING OF THINGS

idolatrous* people, Abraham comes with his com-
pany of 1500 to 2000 persons, accompanied with
their flocks and herds, and is especially distin-
guished from the people by whom he was sur-
rounded, as a worshipper of Jehovah — the living
and true God. Abraham was the head of a
nomadic tribe and could arm over three hundred
men for war, but he was not a warrior, except
when necessity required. He was not a mere
herdsman — feeding and caring for his flocks, but
the distinguishing feature of his life was that he
believed in and worshipped an unseen God. An
altar dedicated to him, was in the center of his
encampment, and doubtless smoked with the burn-
ing of the morning and evening sacrifice. Abra-
ham acted as the head and priest of his family,
and would, in this respect, be followed by the
other patriarchs, as they followed his example
in practising the rite of circumcision. For
typical reasons a change was made in the priest-
hood, limiting it to the family of Aaron. But

* While it is evident that the majority of the Canaanites
were idolaters, yet there were remains of a more correct faith.
Melchisedek is called a priest of the most high God and
seems from his age or position to have held a recognized
supremacy over the surromiding chieftains (14: 18-20).
Abimelech warned of God recognized who it was that ad-
dressed him, calling him Lord and feeling that he could not
destroy the righteous (20: 3). Abraham it is true feared that
that knowledge of God was slight (5: 11). The degeneracy
of Sodom showed that there at least, the fear of God had lost
its practical effect. And as idolatory had crept into the fam-
ily of Laban in the time of Rachel (31 : 19) so it seems to have
made more positive inroads among the tribes of Canaan.
Hence the need of new testimony on the part of Abraham
before these natives were cut off.

THE FAMILY 173

the religious service of which the altar was the
type, belongs in all generations, to the head of
the family. He is the priest and leader in relig-
ious thought and devotion in that little world of
influence, which helps so mightily in building up
religion in the Church and in the State. The
example of Abraham is set before us as the rule
for all families, and one of the ways, by which the
clearer gospel brought through the seed of Abra-
ham, is to bless all the families of the earth.

FAMILY INSTRUCTION

3. With regard to the direct training of chil-
dren and servants, there is this statement on the
part of Jehovah himself, "For I have known him
to the end that he may command his children and
his household after him, that they may keep the
way of the Lord to do justice and judgment
(18:19 R. v.). Abraham had already been
twenty-five years in the promised land and what
he had already done was evidence that he
would continue in the same path of duty. There
is a slight difference of meaning in the R. V. from
the authorized, — the former emphasizing the fact
that the purpose of God was to continue in Abra-
ham's descendants a recognition of true religion
in doing justice and judgment, by this family
training. The hope for the perpetuity of religion
from one generation to another, rested upon the
proper care of parents in the government of chil-
dren. The term command shows an authority on

174 THE BEGINNING OF THINGS

the part of parents, which is not exercised, and
not even thought of, by the majority of parents in
these days. Government was patriarchal, which,
in the family where love restrains undue authority,
ought to be wise. The kind of training* exercised
in the family, or household, outside of the children,
was reflected in the servant, who was sent to Meso-
potamia, to secure a wife for Isaac. His implicit
reliance on divine guidance showed an amount of
faith and trust which would have done credit to
his master Abraham. This training of the house-
hold has passed out of modern experience almost
entirely. If, in our altered circumstances, the
responsibility could be felt and acted upon that
the religious condition of those employed or de-
pendent upon us, rested upon the master or em-
ployer, some of the evils which now threaten
society might be averted. There is a proper
Christian communism, where labor and capital,
employer and employee, master and servant, meet
on a common level, before the one Lord and
Father of us all. This idea was set forth as well
as it could be in that dispensation by servant and
master sharing in the same religious rites and by
the master feeling the responsibility and care of
his household in instructing them as well as his
children.

*Some might think when Abraham took 318 trained ser-
vants to rescue Lot, that the training was especially for war.
But while such discipline may not have been neglected, other
incidents show that another training was as carefully attended
to, which would help in the service and worship of God.

THE FAMILY 175

It should, perhaps, be noticed that this refer-
ence to family training is placed in connection
with that remarkable destruction of the cities of
the plain. As elsewhere in the Bible, there are
twofold motives given for obedience — one by the
blessings promised, and the other by punishment
on disobedience. It was on this occasion that the
birth of Isaac was definitely promised (18:9-15),
when, according to human expectations, it seemed
impossible. And, at the same time, by the de-
struction of the cities of the plain (ch. 19), was
enforced the lesson of Lot's mistaken choice in
locating his family where the surroundings were
favorable for the accumulation of property, but
exceedingly bad for the training of his family;
and where the lesson of destruction upon the
wicked was so placed upon the borders of the
promised land that it should be a constant re-
minder to the children of Israel that however sin
might prosper for a time, it would not go unpun-
ished.

Note. — In order to understand the destruction
of the cities of the plain, it is not necessary to
suppose that the Dead or Salt Sea had no ex-
istence before the time of Abraham. Geologists
affirm that it existed from early Tertiary times.
(Dawson on "Science in Bible Lands," p. 481.)
But that does not settle the question about its ex-
tent or the subsidence of portions of its shores.
Some think that the southern portion below the
peninsula, which was only a depth of about thir-

176 THE BEGINNING OF THINGS

teen feet, whereas the northern end has an aver-
age depth of over one thousand feet, is the site of
these cities. Others think that the plain of the
Jordan which Lot chose, and which could be seen
from Bethel was the location. The bituminous
condition of the soil, the presence of salt and sul-
phur, and possibly earthquake changes in a region
where they are so common, would account for the
overthrow of those cities, as so vividly described
by an apparent eye-witness: "The smoke of the
country went up as the smoke of a furnace."
(19:28).

CHAPTER XV

BEGINNINGS OF GRACE IN THE NATION

In speaking of the beginning of things in grace,
the plan was to speak of the beginnings of grace
first in the individual, then in the family, and
lastly in the nation. Logically this would have
involved an attempt to follow the Jewish nation
(1) in its deliverance from Egypt, (2) its period
of instruction in the wilderness, and (3) their
settlement in the land of promise. Such an at-
tempt necessitated a survey of the remaining
books of the Pentateuch and the book of Joshua.
As this would have required another volume, I
content myself with stating some of the principles
upon which such a survey would have been con-
ducted.

GOD THE AUTHOR OF REVELATION

1. It has been a great satisfaction to reach the
conclusion, that not only did God create the world
and place man, whom he made in his image, to
rule it, but that when he fell, he began a plan of
salvation reaching through the ages — a plan
whose fundamental principles are the same, and
yet vary as the blossom differs from the fruit.

CHANGES IN FORM OF WORSHIP

2. The changes cluster around certain lines,
which already appear in the treatment of the in-

177

178 THE BEGINNING OF THINGS

dividual in Genesis. These changes appear espe-
cially in sacrifice or the way of approach to God.
(1) The first change was in the officer or priest.
In Genesis it was the head of the family or tribe.
Henceforth it was to center in one Great High
Priest as the head of the nation and a type of the
high priesthood of Christ. With him were to
serve the members of his family as priests and the
tribe of Levi as helpers to the priest. (2)
Change in the victim or sacrifice was from an un-
written to a written and elaborate code. Abel
offered a lamb of the flock. Noah "took of every
clean beast and of every clean bird and offered
burnt offerings upon the altar" (Gen. 8: 20). In
the Mosaic Dispensation different beasts or birds
were assigned for different offences. The third
change was in the erection of a tabernacle with
its worship, instead of the now simple worship
at an altar wherever the tent was pitched. This
worship defined more clearly the method of ap-
proach to God — first by the brazen altar the blood
of the substitute, then the cleansing, and the
golden altar in the holy place, before God, in his
supreme essence and glory was revealed to the
worshipper. These changes required one place
of worship, one altar, one Sanctuary. This one
Sanctuary was at first the Tabernacle, and then
the Temple. An objection has been made that
the Deuteronomic code inculcated one Sanctuary,
and that this is post-exitic. But the one Sanc-
tuary grew out of the change in the High Priest-

GRACE IN THE NATION 179

hood of Aaron and the laws respecting sacrifices,
and belongs to Exodus. And these things Moses
repeats at the close of his life, as he had, at the
command of God, instituted them forty years
before. That there should have been a return to
the old method of family and tribal worship
under Samuel, after the capture of the ark, and
under Elijah and Elisha, when these prophets
sought to bring back the ten tribes to the worship
of the God of their fathers, was natural and ex-
cusable. And then there is a tendency to increas-
ing strictness in the observance of an outward
form. Thus the Sabbath, reconsecrated at Sinai,
was post-exitic in the strictness of its observance.
Circumcision was Abrahamic, but the time for the
rigid enforcement of the rite grew as the cen-
turies passed. The same thing we should expect
to be true about the one central Sanctuary. And
so the facts of the case only confirm rather than
overthrow the plain historical statement.

TYPICAL CHARACTER OF THE OLD TESTAMENT

3. It is to be remembered that the typical
character which was introduced in the book of
Genesis is kept up through the whole Old Testa-
ment history. Joseph was a type of Christ, and
Moses claimed that a prophet of the New would
be raised up, as he was a prophet of the Old. To
one at all observant, it is surprising how often
and constant these shadows and forecastings of
the future appear in the details of worship and in
the construction of the Tabernacle, as well as in

180 THE BEGINNING OF THINGS

the general course of God's providence. Christ
himself has given us an example of the way in
which Old Testament events are to be interpreted.
Manna was a wonderful provision for the Jews
in the wilderness, but it was more than that. It
was a type of himself as the true bread (John
6:41). Paul enlarges the same idea in its appli-
cation to other things (as in 1 Cor. 10). With
two such interpreters we are not to overlook the
typical import of many things which, as simple
history, are obscure. One or two examples will
suffice. Canaan was a two-fold type (1) of the
heavenly Canaan; (S) of the possession and sub-
jugation of the world to Christ. In the literal
conquest, thorough extermination of the inhab-
itants and of idolatry was required. With dif-
ferent weapons and with a higher end the spiritual
subjugation should be carried on. Every knee
must bow and every tongue confess. It is true
that the purity of the nation and their separation
from surrounding idolatry demanded severe meas-
ures. But beyond was the thought of complete
and thorough subjection to the King of Kings.
And this subjection was anything but hard-
hearted and cruel. Similar was the teaching of
loyalty and obedience, in subsequent history. It
demanded harsh acts in the literal and outward
type. But the lesson was absolutely necessary.
To obey was better than sacrifice, and to hearken
than the fat of lambs. And the teaching of that
lesson, though it involved the hewing of Agag in

GRACE IN THE NATION 181

pieces, and the denunciation of enemies in the im-
precatory psalms, should in no way detract from
the character of God as loving and forgiving.
David conquered his enemies to show that Christ
would be victorious over all his foes — but when
he thought to build a temple to God's praise he
was not allowed to do it because he had been a
man of war ; and it was left for his son — a man of
peace, typifying the great peace given. God is
just, but he delights in mercy. It was a just de-
duction that a Jewish lawyer gave to Christ's
enquiry about the teachings of the law. Thou shalt
love the Lord thy God with all thy soul, mind and
strength (Luke 10:25). Love him because he
has shown him self a God of Love.

The only correct and safe rule of Biblical inter-
pretation is to follow the thought of God — the
author of Revelation. If it be necessary in hu-
man interpretation to follow the spirit of thought
of the author — how much more so in a revelation
from God, to have the spirit of God (See 1 Cor.,
2: 10) — which sympathizes with his plans and the
methods he has used in making himself known
to the children of men.

INDEX

INDEX

Abraham, call of , 115 f., 125
f . ; courage of, 133 ; faith
of, 129; home of, 126; hos-
pitality of, 131; head of
tribe, 171; friend of God,
132; forgiveness of, 133;
journies of, 127 ; obedience
of, 7, 129 ; parents of, 126 ;
patience of, 130; prince of
God, 133; priest, 172; trial
of, 129; wife of, 127.

Abbott, Dr. Lyman, 33.

Abel, 69.

Abimelech, 121.

Adam, 39 ff.

Adam, first and second, 69.

Agag, 180.

Allen, Dr. J., 35.

Alter, 172, 178.

Animals, clean and unclean,
103.

Animal life, 33.

Antidiluvian, sins of, 100.

Ape-like man, 43.

Atmosphere, 26.

Arabs, 132.

Argyll, Duke of, 92.

Ark, 95, 102.

Babel, 107.

Babylon, 106.

Baptism, 170.

Balaam, 4.

Bethel, 127, 140.

Bible, authorship, 9, 42;
critics of, 16 f ; chronology
of, 9; inspiration of I, 5;
infallible, 4 f ; revelation I,
and science, 12; unity of,
6, 12 f; word of God I.

Braested, 86.

Brain development, of, 65.

Buddhism, 15.

Bunyan, 128.

Cabell, Dr. 56.

Cain and Abel, 69 f.

Canaan, 134.

Caucasian race, 55.

Children Training of, 169 f.

Children, 173.

China, 14.

Chinese Sacrifices of, 71.

Chronology, 77, & 9 f .

Chronology, Egyptian, 85.

Chronology Babylonian, 85;
Ushers, 85.

Christ Joseph type of, 153.

Circumcision, 118, 170.

Clement, 5.

Clay, Prof., 83.

Coal beds, 29 f.

Codrington, 110.

Conscience, 47.

Confucius, 14.

Concubine, 161.

Corruption, 51.

Covenant People, 122.

Covenant relation, 123.

Covenant Seal of, 169 f.

Creation, 3, 5, 21 fF; and
Buddhism, 15; of man, 39
f, 42 f; plan of, 34; pur-
pose in, 34.

Dana, 29, 33, 43, 45, 93, 94,95.
Davis, 52.
Dawson, 92, 175.
Days in Genesis, 25.
Dead Sea, 175 f.

185

186

INDEX

Dinah, 164.

Driver, -21, 26, 49, 51, 53, 63,

64, 73, S3, 97, 165, 14*. 170.

Death, Physical, 65; spirit-
ual, 65; eternal, 66.

DocumentarT Theorr, 40.

Duty, 47. '

Eden, 59.
Election, 117.
Enoch, 4, 76.
Erosion, 50.
Esau, 1-21.

Ethnological Records, 105 f.
European, 57.
Evolution, So ff, 49, 51.
Eve, Mother of all mankind,
53.

Fall, 6, 58 f, 50, 60 f, 69.
Faith, 70.

Fairbanks, 103.

Family, 160, 169: instruc-
tion'. 173.

Femander, 110.

Flood, 16, 99 f ; Babylonian
story of, 97; limited, 96:
Universality of, 9S.

Garden of Eden, 5S f.

Geologv, SO.

Glacial' Period, 44, 46, 91.

Grace toward the Individual,
115.

Green, Prof., S5.

God. Creator, -2, 49 ; charac-
ter of, 7S ; fatherhood of, 53 ;
truthfulness of, 6 f ; moral
government of, 7 ; words of
if, 6, 22: workis of if, 6,
22.

Guidance, 119.

Guyot, 23.

Haeckel, 25, 35.
HaU, Wilford, 93.
Hagar, 119.

Hamilton, Sir William, 23.

Hammurami Code, 137, 150.
Haran, 157, US.
Henrv. Matthew. 60.
HiU's Theology, 7-2.
Hindoo. 109.
Holy Spirit, S.
Hottentot, 57.
Household, Worship in, 171;

training of, 174.
Hunger for God, 48.
Huxley, 43.

Idolatry, 14, 117 f.
Individual, 147 ; responsibil-
ity, 4S.
Indians, 56.
Inundation mud, 92.
Inspiration, 1 flF; verbal, 4-2.
Image of God, 49.
Immortality, 4S, 63, 156.
Isaac, 121,'l-23, 129, 136.
Ishmael, 161.

Jacob, 121 f: and Abraham,
136: and angel, 145; and
birthright, 13S; dream of,
140: and Esau, 137, 143;
falsehood of, 13-S; humility
of, 144: and Laban, 141;
and Leah, 141; liberality
of, 142; the supplanter,
137; and prayer, 133 f:
vow of, 142.

Jehovah, 41.

Jesus, truthfulness of, 7 f ;
character of, S: resurrec-
tion of, S ; reign of, 14.

Job, 4, 6.

Josephus, 136.

Joseph, 1-22, 147 ff; cheerful-
ness of, 151; courage of,
153; dreams of, 14S; sold
into Egypt, 149: exalta-
tion of, 154: forgiveness,
152, 155 : his home life,
14S; his home training,
150; humiliation of, 151;
religion of, 150: resigna.

INDEX

187

tion of, 151; suiFering of,
158; temptation of, 152;
type of Messiah, 153.

Kant, 82.

Kawi Language, 110.

Kent, 127.

Knapp's Theology, 71.

Laban, 121, 141, 143.
Labor, 59.

Land Depression of, 90.
Land Creation of, 27 f.
Lange, 109, 110.
Lamech, 74, 76, 101.
Leah, 162.
LeConte, 28, 35, 36.
Lemuria, 56.
Lewis, 108.

Life, author of, 23, 34; ani-
mal and vegetable, 34.
Light, 24.

Likeness to God, 49.
Lot, 127, 132, 175.
Love, 181.

Man Antiquity of, 43; broth-
erhood of, 53; his com-
munion with God, 48;
creation of, 39 f, 42 f;
created perfect, 63; when
created, 80, 82; his place
in creation, 34; before the
flood, 87 f ; immortality of,
47; moral being, 47 f;
religious being, 47 f ; spirit-
ual nature of, 46 f ; unity
of, 53 f .

Marriage, 54f, 130, 160f, 165;
Abraham's violation of
vows, 161; Christ view of,
161; divine guidance in,
168; of Isaac, 166; of
Jacob, 167; Jacob's viola-
tion of vows, 162; Joseph
regard for, 164; origin of,
160; primeval law of, 168.

Matter, 22.

Mastedon, 91, 94.
Melchisdeck, 4, 117, 129.
Menes, 86.
Messianic promise, 118;

prophecy, 104.
Miracles, 12.
Moral conflict, 66.
Moral motive, 48.
Moses mistakes of, 16.
Mt. Gilead, 143.
Mulanesian language, 110.
Murder, 69 f.
Myths, 5.

Nahor, 127.
Natural religion, 116.
Nation grace in, 177.
Nature human, 49.
Naram-Sin, 85.
Nimrod, 107.
Noah, 4.

Obedience, 59.

Offering, 178; Offering,

Cain'3, 72.
Old Testament typical, 179.
Orr, Dr., 46, 80.
Ought, 47.

Padan Aran, 140.

Paliolithic Man, 44.

Pantheism, 23.

Pasteur, 25.

Patriarchs, 122.

Paul, 137.

Peloubet, 127.

Penuel, 143.

Petrie, 86.

Polygamy, 101.

Population before the flood,

98.
Prayer, 135.
Presturch, Prof., 92.
Priest, 178;

high, 179.
Promise the first, 66.
Prophecy, 11.
Protevangelism, 66.

188

INDEX

Providence, 3, 152.
Psalm Imprecatory, 13.
Punishment, 62.
Pyramids, 111.

Race beginning of, 56; dis-
tribution of, 56 f, 106;
from God, 158; unity of,
55, 108.

Rachel, 162.

Rain, 58 f.

Reason, 47.

Rebekah, 139.

Redway and Himman's Geo-
graphy, 44.

Revelation and Grace, 3;
method of, 4f; God author
of, 158, 177; unity of, 157.

Sabbath, 39, 179.

Sacrifice, 67, 123; human,

71 ; institution of, 2, 3.
Salvation, 3.
Sancrit, 109.
Sayce, 127.
Savage, 48.
Science and the Bible, 2 ; and

revelation, 21, 59.
Serpent, 60.
Seth, 75.

Sin, 78 f; origin of, 51.
Sons of God, 76, 165.
Speech, 47, 107.
Spiritual nature, 48.
Spontaneous generation, 25,

28, 35.

Stanley, 125, 131.

Stars, 31.

St. Augustine, 25.

Substitution, 70.

Succession, 34.

Subjection of all nations, 179.

Suffering and Ebcaltation, 158.

Tabernacle, 2, 178.
Tablets, 112.
Temple, 2, 178.
Tertiary period, 45.
Theist and Evolutionist, 35.
Thompson, Sir William, 28.
Tongues confusion of, 105.
Townsend, Prof., 88, 98.
Transmission, 34.
Trench, 108.
Truth, 6 f.
Tyndall, 35.

Unity of mankind, 53 f.
Ur of Chaldees, 126.

Vegetable Life, 28, 58.
Von Humboldt, 110.

WaUace, Alfred, 32, 91.
Whately, Dr., 86.
Whitney, Prof., 110.
Winchell, Prof., 46.
World, 31.

World before the Flood, 89.
Worship, 171; forms of, 177.
Writings early, 112.

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