even then, rather smothered and choked, than kindled into a flame; in a word, it went quite out, without consuming what was brought to be offered up.
D. Let not our truly reverenced lord and father be disquited at all this; if he accepts not what you bring, you are discharged of the debt, and need bring no more; nor have the trouble of such labored collections of rarities any more; when he thinks fit to require it again, you will have notice, no question, and then it, being called for, will be accepted, or else why should it be required?
Cain. That may indeed be the case, nor do I think of attempting any more to bring an offering; for I rather take it, that I am forbidden for the present; but then, what is it that my younger brother triumphs in? and how am I insulted, in that he and his house are all joy and triumph, as if they had some great advantage over me, in that their offering was accepted when mine was not?
D. Does he triumph over your majesty, our lord and sovereign? Give us but your order, and we will go and pull him and all his generation in pieces; for to triumph over you, who are his elder brother, is an horrid rebellion and treason, arid he ought to be ex pelled the society of mankind.
Cain. I think so too, indeed; however, my dear children, and faithful subjects, though I accept your offer of duty and service, yet I will consider very well, before I take up arms against my brother; besides, our sovereign father, and patriarchal lord, Adam, being yet alive, it is not in my right to act offensively without his command.
D. We are ready therefore to carry your petition to him, and doubt not to obtain his license and commission too, to impower you to do yourself justice upon your younger brother; who, being your vassal, or at least inferior, as he is junior in birth, insults you upon the fancied opinion of having a larger share in the Divine favor, and receiving a blessing on his sacrifices, on pretence of the same favor being denied you.
Cain. I am content. Go, then, and give a just account of the state of our affairs.
D. We shall soon return with the agreeable answer; let not our lord and father continue sad and dejected, but depend upon a speedy relief, by the assistance of thy numerous issue, all devoted to thy interest and felicity.
Cain. My blessing be with you in your way, and give you a favorable reception at the venerable tent of our universal lord and father.
Note. Here the cursed race being fully given up to the direction of the evil spirit, which so early possessed them, and swelling with rage at the innocent Abel, and his whole family, they resolved upon forming a most wicked and detestable lie, to bring about the advice which they had already given their father Cain a touch of; and to pretend, that Adam, being justly provoked at the imdutiful behavior of Abel, had given Cain a commission to chastise him, and by force to cut him off, and all his family, as guilty of rebellion and pride.
Filled with this mischievous and bloody resolution, they came back to their father Cain, after staying a few days, such as were sufficient to make Cain believe they had been at the spacious plains, where Adam dwelt; the same which are now called the blessed Valleys, or the Plains of Mecca in Arabia Felix, near the banks of the Red Sea.
Note here also, that Cain having received a wicked hint from these men, his children and subjects, as before, intimating that Abel had broken the laws of primogeniture in his behavior towards him (Cain;) and that he might be justly punished for it; Satan, that cunning manager of all our wayward passions, fanned the fire of envy and jealousy with his utmost skill all the while his other agents were absent; and by the time they came back had blown it up into such an heat of fury and rage, that it wanted nothing but air to make it bum out, as it soon afterwards did in a furious flame of wrath and revenge, even to blood and destruction.
Just in the very critical moment, while things stood thus with Cain, Satan brings in his wicked instruments, as if just arrived with the return of his message from Adam, at whose court they had been for orders; and thus they, that is, the Devil assuming to speak by them, approach their father with an air of solemn, but cheerful satisfaction at the success of their embassy.
D. Hail, sovereign, reverend, patriarchal lord! we come with joy to render thee an account of the successs of our message.
Cain. Have you then seen the venerable tents where dwell the heaven-born, the angelic pair, to whom all human reverence highly due, is and ought always to be humbly paid?
D. We have.
Cain. Did you, together with my grand request, a just and humble homage for me pay, to the great sire and mother of mankind 1
D. We did.
Cain. Did you in humble language represent the griefs and anguish which oppress my soul?
D. We did, and back their blessing to thee bring.
Cain. I hope, with humblest signs of filial duty, you took it for me on your bending knees?
D. W“e did, and had our share; the patriarch lifting up his hands to heaven, expressed his joy to see his spreading race, and blessed us all.
Cain. Did you my solemn message too deliver, my injuries impartially lay down, and due assistance and direction crave?
D. We did.
Cain. What spoke the oracle? he is God to me; what just commands do ye bring? what is to be done? Am I to bear the insulting junior’s rage? and meekly suffer what unjustly he, affronting primogeniture, arid laws of God and man, imposes by his pride iinsnfferable? Am I to be crushed, and be no more the firstborn son on earth, but bow and kneel to him?
D. Forbid it, heaven! as Adam too forbids, who with a justice godlike, and peculiar to injured parents, Abel’s pride resents, and gives his high command to thee to punish.
Cain. To punish? say you, did he use the word, the very word? am I commissioned then to punish Abel?
D. Not Abel only, but his rebel race, as they, alike in crime, alike are joined in punishment.
Cain. The race indeed have shared the merit with him; how did they all insult, and with a shout of triumph mock my sorrow, when they saw me from my sacrifice dejected come, as if my disappointment was their joy?
D. This too the venerable prince resents; and to preserve the race in bounds of law subordinate arid limited to duty, commands that this first, breach be not passed by, lest the precedent upon record stand to future times to encourage like rebellion.
Cain. And is it then my sovereign parent’s will?
D. It is his will, that thou his eldest son, his image, his beloved, should be maintained in all the rights of sovereignty derived to thee from him; and not be left exposed to injury, and power usurped, but should do thyself justice on the rebel race.
Cain. And so I will; Abel shall quickly know what it is to trample on his elder brother; shall know that he is thus sentenced by his father; and I am commissioned bat to execute his high command, his sentence, which is God’s; and that he falls by the hand of heavenly justice.
So now Satan had done his work, he had deluded the mother to a breach against the first and only command; he had drawn Adam into the same snare; and now he brings in Cain prompted by his own rage, and deluded by his (Satan’s) craft, to commit murder, nay, a fratricide, an aggravated murder.
Upon this he sends out Cain, while the bloody rage was in its ferment, and wickedly at the same time, bringing Abel, innocent, and fearing no ill, just in his way, he suggests to his thoughts such words as these:
Look you, Cain, see how divine justice concurs with your father’s righteous sentence; see, there is thy brother Abel directed by Heaven to fall into thy hands unarmed, unguarded, that thou mayst do thyself justice upon him without fear; see, thou mayst kill him; and, if thou hast a mind to conceal it, no eyes can see, nor will the world ever know it, so that no resentment or revenge upon thee, or thy posterity, can be apprehended, but it may be said some wild beast had rent him; nor will any one suggest, that thou, his brother and superior, could possibly be the person.
Cain, prepared for the fact by his former avowed rage, and resolution of revenge, was so much the