thus artfully contrived by the master of all subtlety, the Devil; so he immediately runs upon his brother Abel, and, after a little unarmed resistance, the innocent poor man, expecting no such mischief, was conquered and murdered; after which, as is to be supposed, the exasperated crew of Cain’s outrageous race overrun all his family and household, killing man, woman, and child.
It is objected here, that we have no authority in scripture to prove this part of the story; but I answer, it is not likely but that Abel, as well as Cain, being at man’s estate long before this, had several children by their own sisters; for they were the only men in the world who were allowed the marrying their own sisters, there being no other women then in the world; and as we never read of any of Abel’s posterity, it is likewise as probable they were all murdered, as that they should kill Abel only, whose sons might immediately fall upon Cain for the blood of their father, and so the world have been involved in a civil war as soon as there were two families in it.
But be it so or not, it is not doubted the Devil wrought with Cain in the horrid murder, or he had never done it; whether it was directly, or by agents, is not material, nor is the latter unlikely; and, if the latter, then there is no improbability in the story; for why might not he that made use of the serpent to tempt Eve, be as well supposed to make a tool of some of Cain’s sons or grandsons to prompt him in the wicked attempt of murdering his brother? and why must we be obliged to bring in a miracle, or an apparition, into the story, to make it probable that the Devil had any hand in it, when it was so natural to a degenerate race to act in such a manner?
However it was, arid by whatever tool the Devil wrought, it is certain that this was the consequence, poor Abel was butchered; and thus the Devil made a second conquest in God’s creation; for Adam was now, as may be said, really childless; for his two sons were thus far lost, Abel was killed, and Cain was curst, and driven out from the presence of the Lord, and his race blasted with him.
It would be an useful inquiry here, and worthy our giving an account of, could we come to a certainty in it; namely, what was the mark that God set uponCain, by which he was kept from being fallen upon by Abel’s friends or relations? but as this does not belong to the Devil’s history, and it was God’s mark, not the Devil’s, — I have nothing to do with it here.
The Devil had now gained his point; the kingdom of grace, so newly erected, had been as it were extinct without a new creation, had not Adam and Eve been alive, and had not Eve, though now one hundred and thirty years of age, been a breeding young lady; for we must suppose the Tvomen, in that state of longevity, bare children till they were seven or eight, hundred years old. This teeming of Eve peopled not the world so much as it restored the blessed race; for, though Abel was killed, Cain had a numerous offspring presently, which, had Seth (Adam’s third son) never been born, would soon have replenished the world with people, such as they were; the seed of a murderer, cursed of God, branded with a mark of infamy, and who afterwards fell all together in the universal ruin of the race by the deluge.
But after the murder of Abel, Adam had another son born, namely, Seth, the father of Enos, and indeed the father of the holy race; for during his time and his son Enos, the text says, that men began to call on the name of the Lord; that is to say, they began to look back upon Cain and his wicked race; and, being convinced of the wickedness they had committed, and led their whole posterity into, they began to sue to Heaven for pardon of what was past, and to lead a new sort of life.
But the Devil had met with too much success in his first attempts, not to go on with his general resolution of debauching the minds of men, and Bringing them off from God; and therefore, as he kept his hold upon Cain’s cursed race, embroiled already in blood and murder; so he proceeded with his degenerate offspring, till, in a word, he brought both the holy seed, and the degenerate race, to join in one universal consent of crime, and to go on in it with such aggravating circumstances, as that it repented the Lord that he had made man, and he resolved to overwhelm them again with a general destruction, and clear the world of them.
The succession of blood in the royal original line of Adam is preserved in the sacred histories, and brought down as low as Noah and his three sons, for a continued series of fourteen hundred and fifty years, say some, sixteen hundred and forty say others; in which time sin spread itself so generally through the whole race, and the sons of God, so the scripture calls the Men of the righteous seed, the progeny of Seth, came in unto the daughters of men, that is, joined themselves to the cursed race of Cain, and married promiscuously with them, according to their fancies, the women, it seems, being beautiful and tempting; and though the Devil could not make the women handsome or ugly in one or other families, yet he might work up the gust of wicked inclination on either side, so as to make both the men and the women tempting and agreeable to one another, where they ought not to have been so; and perhaps, as it is often seen to this day, the more tempting for being under legal restraint.
It is objected here, that we do not find in the scripture, that the men and women of either race were at that time forbidden intermarrying with one another; and it is true, that literally it is not forbid. But if we did not search rather to make doubts than to explain them, we might suppose it was forbidden by some particular command at that time; seeing we may reasonably allow every thing to be forbidden, which they are taxed with a crime in committing; and as the sons of God taking them wives, as they thought fit to choose, though from among the daughters of the cursed race, is there charged upon them as a general depravation, an4 a great crime, and for which it is said, God even repented that he had made them, we need go no further to satisfy ourselves, that it was certainly forbidden.
Satan, no doubt, too, had a hand in this wickedness; for as it was his business to prompt men to do everything which God had prohibited, so the reason given why the men of those days did this thing was, they saw the daughters of men, that is, of the wicked race, or forbidden sort, were fair; he tempted them by the lust of the eye; in a word the ladies were beautiful and agreeable, and the Devil knew how to make use of the allurement; the men liked and took them by the mere direction of their fancy and appetite; without regarding the supreme prohibition: They took them wives of all which they chose, or such as they liked to choose.
But the Jext adds, that this promiscuous generation went farther than the mere outward crime of it; for it showed that the wickedness of the heart of man was great before God, und that he resented it. In short, God perceived a degeneracy or defect of virtue had seized upon the whole race; that there was a general corruption of manners, a depravity of nature upon them; that even the holy seed was tainted with it; that the Devil had broken in upon them, and prevailed to a great degree; that not only the practice of the age was corrupt, for that God could easily have restrained, but that the very heart of man was debauched, his desires wholly vitiated, and his senses engaged in it; so that, in a word, it became necessary to show the divine dis pleasure, not in the ordinary manner, by judgment and reproofs of such kind as usually reclaim men, but by a general destruction to sweep them away, clear the earth of them, and put an end to the wickedness at once, removing the offence and the offenders all together; this is signified at large, Gen. vi. 5. “ God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” And again, ver. 11, 12. “The earth also was corrupt before God; and the earth was filled with violence. And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth.”
It must be confessed it was a strange conquest the Devil had made in the antediluvian world, that he had, as I may say. brought the whole race of mankind into a general revolt from God. Noah was indeed a preacher of righteousness, and he had preached about five hundred years to as little purpose as most of the good ministers ever did; for we do not read there was one man converted by him, or at least not one of them left; for that at the deluge there was either none of them alive, or none spared but Noah and his three sons, and their wives; and even they are (it is evident) recorded, not so much to be saved for their own goodness, but because they were his sons: nay, without breach of charity we may conclude, that at least one went to the Devil even of those three; namely, Ham or Cham, for triumphing in a brutal manner over his father’s drunkenness; for we find the special curse reached to him and his posterity for many ages; and whether it went no farther than the present state of life with them, we cannot tell.
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