serpent, persuaded Eve to violate her Creator's injunction respecting the forbidden fruit, and to forfeit her title to immortality in the vain hope of obtaining a superior degree of knowledge. "When the woman," says Moses,

gave also

saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit and did eat, and unto her husband with her, and he did eat." By this act of disobedience, the dispensation of innocence was annihilated; virtue forsook the human bosom; and man, together with his unborn posterity, became obnoxious to the wrath and punishment of an offended God.

4004,

B. C. The eyes of our deluded progenitors were now opened to a humiliating sense of their depravity; the consciousness of their nakedness overwhelmed them with confusion; and instead of presenting themselves, as formerly, before the Object of their adoration, they retired, to make themselves aprons of fig-leaves, and to elude the anger of their Maker by concealment. This project, however, was of no avail; for they were immediately alarmed by the voice of the Deity, and called forth to answer for their transgression. In this exigence Adam attempted to extenuate his fault by charging his wife with the first breach of the commandment, and Eve, with greater justice, accused the serpent as the cause of her misfortune, but at the same time acknowledged her transgression. "The serpent," said she," beguiled me and I did eat." Hereupon the Almighty proceeded to pass judgment upon the offenders, of whom the serpent was doomed to endure the heaviest curse among beasts, to go upon his belly, to subsist upon dust, and to maintain a perpetual enmity with the seed

of the woman *, till the latter should eventually prove victorious; the woman was condemned to bring forth her helpless progeny in pain and sorrow; and Adam was sentenced to a life of toil and inquietude, in consequence of a curse which was imposed on the ground for his sake, God having declared that, on account of his disobedience, the earth should henceforth produce thorns and thistles, that in toil and sorrow he should eat the herb of the field, and that his body should finally return to the dust whence it was originally taken. After these awful declarations, the Creator graciously vouchsafed to clothe the unhappy pair with skins, and compelled them to quit the blissful abode of Paradise, lest, by rashly eating of the fruit of the tree of life, they might elude the stroke of death, and entail upon themselves eternal sorrows and infirmities. To obviate the possibility of such a circumstance, Adam was driven out, together with his fallen companion, to till the ground from whence he had been taken; and a cherubim was placed at the eastern extremity of Eden, with a flaming sword, that turned every way, to guard the tree of life.

To what part of the globe our first parents removed after their expulsion from Paradise, it is impossible to determine: but it is highly probable that Eve brought forth her first-born, Cain, in the first year of the world, and her second, whom she named Abel, the year following.

By this declaration," I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel," the redemption of mankind was clearly predicted to be accomplished by Jesus CHRIST, who in due time was born of a woman, and who was manifested to destroy the works of the devil. See Galatians,iv 4, and 1 John iii. 8.

ap

These persons, as they advanced to years of maturity, selected employments of a different nature-the elder plying himself to the labours of tillage, and the younger undertaking the care of the flocks: their dispositions also were diametrically opposit; for Cain was gloomy, revengeful, and avaricious; Abel ingenuous and truly pious.

The two brothers, in process of time, brought their respective offerings to the Almighty, but with very different success; for whilst the oblation of Abel, consisting of the finest * lambs of his flock, was graciously accepted, the fruits of the earth, as offered by Cain, were totally disregarded. This circumstance wrought so powerfully on the mind of the first-born that his countenance is said to have fallen, and his heart was dilated with wrath. God, however, condescended to expostulate upon the impropriety of this behaviour, and demanded what reason he could adduce in his own justifi

It is highly probable that sacrifices were first instituted by the Almighty in the garden of Eden, immediately upon the fall of our progenitors: for as the Deity then vouschafed to promise a Saviour, who, in the fulness of time should redeem his people from their sins, we may reasonably suppose that he also instituted those oblations for sin which were regularly offered in sueceeding ages, till the great atonement made by the High Priest of our profession upon Mount Calvary.

I am also inclined to believe that God clothed Adam and Eve with the skins of those beasts which were then sacrificed, to show the necessity of believers being clothed with the righteousness of Jesus Christ, which himself, in the New Testament, compares to a wedding garment; and of which St. Paul energetically speaks, in his Epistle to the Philippians, chap. iii. ver. 9.

cation, since if he acted justly he would assuredly be accepted, and he could blame none but himself for the consequence of his own misconduct. The Deity also reminded him that he ought not to be incensed against Abel, who instead of attempting to injure or supplant him, would always pay him such respect as was due to an elder brother. "Unto thee," says the Divine speaker, "shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him." Cain, however, was so far from profiting by his Maker's admonition, that he resolved to murder his brother with the first convenient opportunity, and actually perpetrated the crime of fratricide whilst conversing with Abel in the fields.

B. C.

The assassin having thus gratified his revenge, 3875. and being questioned by the Deity respecting his brother, endeavoured to evade a confession of his crime, by asserting that he knew not what was become of him, and churlishly asking, If he was his brother's keeper. But he was soon convinced of the futility of this attempt, and his guilty soul was appalled, not only with a full discovery of his transgression, but with a sentence that doomed him to perpetual inquietude, remorse, and infamy. "Now," saith God, "art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand. When thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength; but a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth." This denunciation, though in reality milder than could have been expected, was deemed insupportable by the criminal, who in an agony of grief exclaimed,

"

My punishment is greater than I can bear; for thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth : and from thy face shall I be hid, and I shall be a fugitive

and a vagabond in the earth, and it shall come to pass that every * one that findeth me shall slay me." However, to obviate this dread of his fellow mortals, God declared that a seven-fold vengeance should fall upon any` individual who attacked his life, and at the same time set a peculiar † mark upon him, as a protection against such a circumstance. Hereupon Cain quitted the place of his nativity, and migrated into the land of Nod, where he founded a city which he called, after the name of his son, Enoch.

B. C.

Shortly after this occurrence another son was 3874. born, to console our first parents for the loss of

As the enemies of revelation, and of our holy religion, eagerly embrace every opportunity of pointing out an apparent contradiction in the Sacred Writings, it seems necessary to ob serve in this place, that, though Moses has only given the histories of Cain and Abel subsequent to the expulsion of our progenitors from Eden, and previously to the birth of Seth, yet, as a rapid increase of population was naturally attached to the lives of the ante-diluvians, who began to have children as early, and to leave off as late, in proportion, as men do now, and as many generations which are successive with us, were contemporary before the flood, the number of persons living, at once, upon the earth, must certainly have answered any defect that might rise from other circumstances. So that, by a moderate computation on these principles, it will appear, that there was a considerable number of people in the world at the time of Abel's assassi→

nation.

Many persons have supposed, from this portion of Sacred History, that Cain's complexion was changed to a hue congenial to the nature of his crime; and have therefore regarded him as the progenitor of the blacks: but as only one family, viz. that of Noah, was preserved from the deluge, this opinion seems ill founded. Various other conjectures have been formed on the subject, but they are all unworthy of notice.