cach more absurd than the other, have been invented for that which the introduction of God, by faith, renders perfectly simple. Modern science, with a less active and more practical mind, stops at second causes, and is but little occupied with God. Geology has taken the place of the cosmogony of the Hindoos, Egyptians, Orientals, and Philosophers. To the believer the thought is clear and simple; his mind is assured and intelligent by faith. God, by His Word, called all things into existence. The universe is not a producing cause; it is itself a creature acting by a law imposed on it. It is one having authority who has spoken; His word has divine efficacy. He speaks-and the thing is. We feel that this is worthy of God. For when once God is brought in, all is simple. Shut Him out, and man is lost in the efforts of his own imagination, which can neither create nor arrive at the knowledge of a Creator, because it only works with the powers of a creature. Before, therefore, the details of the present form of creation are entered upon, the Word simply says, "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." Whatever may have taken place between that and Chaos, forms no part of revelation. It is distinct from the special action of the Deluge which is made known to us. The beginning of Genesis does not give a history of the details of creation itself, nor the history of the universe. It gives the fact that in the beginning God created: and afterwards, the things that regard man on the earth. The angels, even, are not there. Of the stars it is only said, "He made the stars also." When, we are not told.

By faith, then, we believe that the worlds were created by the Word of God. But sin has come in: and righteousness has to be found for fallen man, in order that he may stand before God. God has given a Lamb for the sacrifice. But here we have set before us, not the gift on God's part, but the soul drawing near to Him by faith.

By faith, then, Abel offers to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain-a sacrifice which (founded on the revelation already made by God) was offered in the intelligence which a conscience taught of God possessed,

with regard to the position in which he who offered was standing. Death and judgment had come in by sin, to man insupportable, although he must undergo them. He must go, therefore, to God, confessing this; but he must go with a substitute, which grace has given. He must go with blood, the witness at the same time both of the judgment and of the perfect grace of God. Doing this, he was in the truth, and this truth was righteousness and grace. He approaches God, and puts the sacrifice between himself and God. He receives the testimony that he is righteous-righteous according to the righteousness of God. For the sacrifice was in connection with the righteousness that had condemned man. The testimony is to his offering; but Abel is righteous before God. Nothing can be more clear, more precious on this point. It is not only the sacrifice which is accepted, but Abel who comes with the sacrifice. He receives from God this testimony, that he is righteous. Sweet and blessed consolation! But the testimony is made to his gifts, so that he possesses all the certainty of acceptance, all the value of the sacrifice offered. In going to God by the sacrifice of Jesus, not only am I righteous (I receive the testimony that I am righteous), but this testimony is made to my offering, and therefore my righteousness has the value and the perfection of the offering, i. e, of Christ offering Himself to God. The fact that we receive testimony on God's part that we are righteous, and at the same time that the testimony is made to the gift which we offer (not to the condition in which we are) is of infinite value to us. We are now before God in the perfection of Christ. We walk with God thus.

By faith, death having been the means of my acceptance before God, all that belongs to the old man is abolished for faith; the power and the rights of death are entirely destroyed-Christ has undergone them. Thus, if it please God, we go to heaven without even passing through death (compare 2 Cor. v. 1-4). God did this for Enoch, for Elijah, as a testimony. Not only is sin put away, and righteousness established by the work of Christ, but the rights and the power of him who

has the power of death are entirely destroyed. Death may happen to us; we are by nature liable to it: but we possess a life which is outside its jurisdiction. Death, if it comes, is but gain to us; and although nothing but the power of God Himself can raise or transform the body, this power has been manifested in Jesus, and has already wrought in us by quickening us (comp. Eph.i.19), and it works in us now in the power of deliverance from sin, from the law, and from the flesh. Death, as a power of the enemy, is conquered; it is become a "gain" to faith, instead of being a judgment on nature. Life, the power of God in life, works in holiness and in obedience here below, and declares itself in the resurrection or in the transformation of the body (it is a witness of power with regard to Christ in Rom. i. 4).

But there is another very sweet consideration to be noticed here. Enoch received testimony that he pleased God, before he was translated. This is very important and very precious. If we walk with God, we have the testimony that we please Him, we have the sweetness of communion with God, the testimony of His Spirit, His intercourse with us in the sense of His presence, the consciousness of walking according to His Word, which we know to be approved by Him-in a word, a life which, spent with Him and before Him by faith, is spent in the light of His countenance and in the enjoyment of the communications of His grace and of a sure testimony coming from Himself, that we are pleasing to Him. A child who walks with a kind father and converses with him, his conscience reproaching him with nothing; does he not enjoy the sense of his parent's favour?

In figure, Enoch here represents the Church. He is taken up to heaven by virtue of a complete victory over death. By the exercise of sovereign grace, he is outside the government and the ordinary deliverances of God. He bears testimony by the Spirit to the judgment of the world; but he does not go through it (Jude, 14, 15). A walk like that of Enoch has God for its object. His existence is realised-the great business of life, which in the world is spent as if man did every thing—and the fact that He is interested in the walk of men, that He

takes account of it, in order to reward those who have diligently sought Him.

Noah is found in the scene of the government of this world. He does not warn others of the coming judgments, as one who is outside them, although he is a preacher of righteousness. He is warned himself and for himself; he is in the circumstances to which the warning relates. It is the spirit of prophecy. He is moved by fear, and he builds an ark to the saving of his house. He thus condemned the world. Enoch had not to build an ark in order to pass safely through the flood. He was not in it: God translated him-exceptionally. Noah is preserved (heir of the righteousness which is by faith, for a future world. There is a general principle which accepts the testimony of God respecting the judgment that will fall upon men, and the means provided by God for escaping it: this belongs to every believer. But there is something more precise. Abel has the testimony that he is righteous; Enoch walks with God, pleases God, and is exempted from the common lot of humanity, proclaiming, as from above, the fate that awaits men, and the coming of Him who will execute the judgment. He goes forward to the accomplishment of the counsels of God. But neither Abel nor Enoch condemned the world as that in the midst of which they were journeying, receiving themselves the warning addressed to those who were dwellers therein. This was Noah's case: the prophet, although delivered, is in the midst of the judged people. The Church is outside them. Noah's ark condemned the world; the testimony of God was enough for faith, and he inherits a world that had been destroyed, and the inheritance of all believers, righteousness by faith, on which the new world, too, is founded. This is the case of the Jewish remnant in the last days. They pass through the judgments, out of which we, as not belonging to the world, have been taken. Warned themselves of God's ways of government in the earth, they will be witnesses to the world of the coming judgments, and will be heirs to the righteousness which is by faith, and witnesses to it in a new world, wherein righteousness will be accomplished in judgment by Him who is to come

and whose throne will uphold the world in which Noah himself failed. The words, "heir of the righteousness which is by faith," point out, I think, that this faith which had governed a few was summed up in his person, and that the whole unbelieving world was condemned. The witness of this faith before judgment, Noah passes through it; and when the world is renewed, he is a public witness to the blessing of God that rests on faith, although outwardly all is changed. Thus Enoch represents the Church, in figure; Noah, the Jewish remnant.

The Spirit goes on (verse 8) to produce examples of the Divine life in detail, always in connection with Jewish knowledge, with that which the heart of a Hebrew could not fail to own; and, at the same time, in connection with the object of the Epistle and with the wants of Christians among the Hebrews.

In the previous case, we have seen a faith which, after owning a Creator-God-recognises the great principles of the relations of man with God, and that onwards to the end upon earth.

In that which follows, we have first the faith which takes the place of strangership on earth, and maintains it, because something better is desired; and which, in spite of weakness, finds the strength that is requisite, in order to the fulfilment of the promises. This is from 8 to 16. Its effect is entrance into the joy of a heavenly hope. Strangers in the land of promise, and not enjoying the fulfilment of the promises here below, they wait for more excellent things-things which God prepares on high for those who love Him. For such He has prepared a city. In unison with God as to His own thoughts, their desires (through grace) answering to the things in which He takes delight, they are the objects of His peculiar regard: He is not ashamed to be called their God. Abraham not only followed God into a land that He showed Him, but, a stranger there, and not possessing the land of promise, he is, by the mighty grace of God, exalted to the sphere of His thoughts; and, enjoying communion with God and the communications of His grace, he rests upon God for the time present, accepts hig position of strangership on earth, and, as the portion of