Family Culture

Front matter

PAR RAN

Se aS 4 J tS at ed

GM. ELLIOTT LIBRARY =

Preface

© Tr is difficult to speak or write in an adequate manner concerning the bouk of Genesis. The rags of modern criticism, aud the brodiery of eulogium, seem equally mean beside that document which glows with the purple and gold of the Orient. Certainly the finger-marks of eld are upon it. Antique dignity and simplicity continually shine out. But age bas had no withering influence. It is still full with affluence of life, and fresh with youthful vigour. Fundamental truth, historic reality, and spiritual importance, constitute the sap which cannot perish. It will always live, and always be life-giving. Its voice rings clear, and swells musically, because it is an authentic voice laden with divine signification. Itis true that the German critics, renowned for erudition, have discovered nothing in Genesis save legendary poetry—the rustle. of dead leaves, and the wail of hollow winds. But their eyes were not purged from the mists of sin, nor their lips purified by live coal from the altar of God. They were not qualified to see, hear, or speak with insight or reverence. For in this field the instruments of science are blunt and powerless, unless tempered ni the fire of spiritual prrity. The old Serpent, transformed into the Mephistopheles of Goethe, met them on the road to Paradise, and with infernal glozing and lying sophistry rendered them blind and perverse. So they found Eden a wilderness, and Eve an Arabien squaw.

We are introduced at once to the oldest system of physics, or metaphysics. Not that God designs in the Book to teach us Philosophy or Science. He has a nobler object in view. Yet, whatever Sciolism may prate to the contrary, all the statements are in strict and solemn harmony with the highest discoveries of educated reason and the deepest conclusions of philosophic generalization. We get a single glimpse of a region older than death or vi PREFACE.

time. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” ‘The statement deserves to be considered alone ; for, in fact, ages uncounted, and revolutions without human historian, transpire before the Spirit broods with plastic power over the void of darkness and uproar. We are necessarily led. backward to a fact which philosophy cannot measure, or even Yeceive. To the period in the abysses of eternity when God created the very matter of the worlds. The human maker cannot create, in the radical or absolute sense. He has so much raw material before him which he fashions into diversity of form for the purposes of life; or, so many elements, which he mingles for the production of a new substance, under known conditions. But the Great Workman, the World-builder, had to create his materials without matter to operate upon: It is vain to evade this, as some have done, by contending for the eternity of matter. The theory only gives us another divinity, senseless and blind, rn everlasting matter-god lying motionless under the shadow of the eternal throne. In leading us from the sanctuary of a solemn mystery higher than reason, it plunges us into a gulf of disorder and contradiction where reason is confounded. “By faith we understan@ that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.” The Ancient of days, after an eternity spent in the glory of his own fathomless nature, and the enjoyment of his own perfections, sent abroad his energy of power. The potential will and the imperial voice called for the things that “were not, as though they were.” Tn the void desert of space, stars and angels, worlds and spirits started into life, unsullied, in vestures of the morning. When Geological science first began to rend open the huge stone-book of the earth, and by the lamp of Induction read in dark mines the ancient annals of nature, some timorous Christians trembled, and many infidels were glad. It was feared on one side, and hoped on the other, that some scroll would turn up to falsify divine tradition, and darken the illuminated face of Moses. Especially was this the case when it beeame undeniably manifest that life and death were both in the world before Adam. According to old theology death came by sin, not only to Adam and his posterity, but likewise to the in-

PREFACE. Vii ferior creation. But it so happened that the Biblical account was perfectly in accordance with the natural record. Death indeed came to Adam, and hath passed upon all men, because all have sinned; but the beasts of the field, and the fishes of the sea are not included in such category. Nature shews that death was from the beginning one of the conditions of their existence, and Revelation calls not in question the sentence. The scientific view, of the earth under divine agency passing through tremendous revolutions, in storms of flood and

fire, and receiving into its bosom successive races of animal life, before the creation of man, is an elevating view So far from coming into collision with the testimony of Moses it powerfully corroborates all that he declares concerning the original dignity of man. During measureless ages, and great cycles of being, the God whom we adore was building @ stately mansion. According to his wisdom and pleasure he was gradually evolving a finished world. He crowded it with divine forms of sculpture, and landscapes of etherial painting. And, at last, he fashioned one in his own image as lord and ruler, king and high priest of all. The fruitful valleys laughing in exuberance, the lofty mountains clothed with sunlight, the solemn woods hung with dusky crimson drapery, the glassy lakes serene in repose, the undulating hills robed in emerald, the crystal streams and rushing rivers, skirted with blowing flowers and branching trees,—all demanded a Seer and an Interpreter. One who might enter the vast temple of Nature with sacerdotal garments on, and collecting in his spirit the beauty and sublimity of all visible things, make creation vocal with intelligent worship.

A portion of this book has confounded a few unbelieving Astronomers. They read, concerning our earth, that the sun was appointed to give it light by day, the moon by night, and the stars appointed for times and seasons. In the spiritual Chronicle our orb is central, and other suns and systems of inconceivable magnitude, take a secondary place as ministering servants. The man whose soul is only mathematical, without faculty for moral grandeur, cannot understand this. From some high tower, telescope in hand, he takes a sweep of wide circumference in the wilderness of the universe. Returning from his journey in the milky way amid sublimely viii PREFACE.

wheeling suns, he looks coldly on this little planet, and almost scornfully on the ancient doeument which singles it out for prominence and conspicuous renown. He might bé’aware that even in our own world we have sacred streams, hallowed mountains, and consecrated vaileys. Places which owing to intellectual, moral, and supernatural associations are always adomed with grace and splendour in the heart and imagination of man. Charmed by the genius and sorrows of the passionate, creative poet; purified by the crimson of the warrior, or martyr; washed and worn by the tears and footsteps of pure self-sacrifice ; —such spots of earth are glorious for ever. The waters are always fresh and limpid there, the palm tree flourishes without winter, and the verdure is green with eternal bloom. As in the narrow field, so in the wider. There are many mansions in the house of our Father.

But there is one small orb in material extent, whose moral history is awful in depth and range. It is a place where the lights of heaven, and the glooms of hell, have met and com-mingled. With its tragedy of sin, and its mystery of love, it stands out as the spiritual battle field of everlasting destinies. Powers and principalities learn from it the manifold wisdom of God. Unfallen spirits, in all mansions of regal beauty, have their conceptions of God their Creator, dilated and deepened. They burn with more intense ardour of seraphic fire. They bow and adore under the vail of wings with reverence more profound.

We perceive at once that our original Head is not that sullen hairy savage which false philosophy has painted, in defiance of collective reason and divine tradition. We do not find an uncultured Barbarian roaming the forest for prey, and fighting with beasts hardly more ferocious than himself. But he arises before us erect and majestic, in material, mental, and spiritual beauty. We find not an outcast flung from the stern destinies to mourn in the solitudes of Nature, without articulate speech, or moral code, or open spirit-land. Heis not a Fatherless child blindly seeking sustenance, society, law and religion through force of instinct, tortured with poisons, and mocked by phantoms on the road. No! we discover him walking with God, his Creator and Father, who has given him, as was well observed by the great Newton, “ Both

PREFACE, ix reason and religion in the gift of speech.” In his intellectual vision, his spiritual insight, and his visible regality he stunds before us as the image of God, the anointed of the Futher. His countenance glows with supernal radiance, he is clasped with angels in the covenant of love, and he lifis a mighty voice in the universal hymn which is music in the ears of the Holy One. Ethnology, as well as Geology and Astronomy, bears witness in our holy cause. Tradition, Institution, Language, point all races backward to one family. The immense *flood of life whose roar is. heard in all onr gates, narrows as we travel eastward, till we reach its source in the golden fountain of Paradise. The sinless age, the malignant spirit, the fall, the sacrificial rite,—are in the deepest roots of the world’s language, and among the oldest traditions of its people. Unity in variety becomes increasingly evident as Science widens her dominion, and sharpens her instruments. The Asian mystery comprehends and reconciles all. It cannot be outgrown or nullified. It is truly pleasant to find that the most credible science does not give us, whut Coleridge called, an “ ourang outang theory of the universe.” We are not led in a dreary journey of shame and degradation to find our primal parent in a matted wood, or on a barren shore, as an unshapely lump of animal ferocity. We rejoice to look upon a son of God, environed with light and power, dilated with attributes of the highest life, and wandering the slopes of Eden in fellowship with his Creator.

We are approaching a portion of the record which brings heaviness and affliction. The prospect is unspeakably dreadful; but conscientiousness will not suffer us to close our eyes. As we look steadily and think seriously, the ancient scene lives again with its proximate consequences. Wailing voices of anguish are heard which rend the heart, and tears drop from eyes bright as the lamps of the azure. Sounds and shapes and voices of misery, wrath, and woe, accumulate and darken around us. ‘The glory of Paradise perishes under the tempest of divine indignation. The shades of funeral gloom settle down as a pall over the garden of the Lord. We dimly perceive the high priest and monarch with sullied garments and a discrowned head. Disappointment, shame, remorse, and fear have stormed the citadel of a once pure x PREFACE.

spirit. The subduing thunders of a violated Law, the awful countenance of offended Godhead, the triumphant aspect of the Fiend, the groaning of polluted Nature, the sullen gloom of the Criminal, the bitterness of Sin, the shadow of Death, the unknown Woe,—all in vivid light or solemn shady rise up before the reflective mind, and are powerfully heard, seen, .and felt by the spiritual man. Modern Rationalism, which seeks to destroy or banish every supernatural element, has laboured to transform Satan into an abstraction. We need not be surprised at this, when we call to mind that she has sought to accomplish the same work with the personality of the living God. It is surely easier even to reason, to conceive of a personal fountain of evil, than of a bodiless abstraction floating over humanity, and falling on the mind like night-dew. The same frozen theory of impiety complaeently informs us that Death is a debt we owe to Nature; but shuddering consciousness gives it the lie, by feeling that it is a debt we owe to Justice. The deepest convictions and healthiest feelings of the inner man are in religious consonance with the teaching of inspired truth. True, that a few daring leaders of the Infidel host, and a few imbruted profligates, have encountered the Angel of death with apparent tranquility. By a long course of unhallowed speculation and impure conduct, man may be dehumanized. Scaled and crusted over with Ignorance, Sin, and Godless theory, he may die as a dog dieth. Butit is not the less true, that such cases are exceptions. The masses of the people tremble as they near the dark river, whose waves are threatning. They find themselves face to face with the issues of life, the realities of a moral condition, and the certainties of responsibility and judgment. Sin is the sting of death, and death is the penalty of broken law. It is a judicial infliction, connecting every man with the original representative father. But how can we open gates of mercy to those whose remorseful, clamorous, despairing cries ascend in such wild and ghastly terror ? The beginning of human ruin was the belief of a lie. The falsehood of Satan, through his instrument, the Serpent, consisted in imputing selfishness to God. As if the gracious Father were cruelly withholding from his child food necessary to the development of his nature, the clearness of his vision, and the fulness of his enjoy-

PREFACE. xi ment, Distrust in God and faith in the enemy conceived and brought forth sin in an external act of disobedience. The Evil Spirit was, truly, a liar and a murderer from the beginning, false concerning God, and destructive towards man. The victim, in the room of ascending into a loftier region of intelligence and fruition, made the strange discovery that he was naked, guilty, and miserable. The selfishness which had been imputed to God, clave to man as arobe of spotted leprosy, and remains as the radical disease of his fallen nature. Separated from God sby sin, how may the re-union be effected, and life restored again? There is only one road. “I aM THE Way, THE TRUTH, AND THE LIFE: NO MAN COMETH UNTO THE FaTHER, BUT BY ME.” “God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them.” Man rises from the ruin of the fall by the beliefof truth. The truth of God in Christ shrined in the gospel testimony. And as the falsehood charged him with selfishness, the truth refutes the slander of Satan, by revealing God in all the glory of his infinite and disinterested love. O,my brother man! perish not at the base of that mountain, in sin and infernal pride. Look up! It is Calvary thou art near! The heart of God is unveiled in transcendant grace, unfolding in one astonishing view the wrath and compassion of the Eternal, the enormity of sin and the opulence of pardon, the severe majesty of law and the richness of abounding favour, the abyss of ruin and the completeness of recovery. Read those crimson lines in the light of human history, and by the fire of thy own consciousness, and wash away thy guilt in that purple flood. In fine, on this subject, as man originally entered into the kingdom of Satan by an action of positive disobedience, impelled by falsehood ; so he now enters into the kingdom of God and of favour, through an action of positive obedience, inspired by the belief of the truth. In the Laver of Regeneration, the believer, in whose heart life divine has been awakened, is born of the water for the manifestation and enjoyment of his spiritual power and privilege.

It may be objected by some, that we are considering Genesis by the light of other documents. How can we do otherwise? It is not for us to throw away the advan. tages of our stand-point. We rejoice that our position in xii PREFACE.

space and time enables us to take a comprehensive survey. We stand under the great sheltering tree of life which the ages have nourished, and by the wide river, fed froma thousand branching streams, which maketh glad the city of God. We cannot speak asif in the infancy of time, or the youth of humanity, because we have read and seen the unfolding and ripening of the purposes of God. The temple has been built for which generations supplied the scaffolding, and we await, believingly and serenely, the return of the glorious Builder, to dwell in the midst of His people.

But unless we muse and meditate all through Genesis, which would make a volume large as the one we are prefacing, it is time to say a few words concerning the book, and the author before us. Mr. Campbell is a clear-leaded, large-minded man; evangelical in doctrine, and catholic in spirit. The exposition which he furnishes, in the dialogue form, is happy and efficient both in construction and execution. We cannot vouch for the accuracy of aJl the author’s statements, especially when he makes excursions im the fields of science, chronology, and conjectural criticism. Still, in the main, his book is both solid and lively, compactly built, and instinct with the breath of life. Even the disquisitions which are questionable as to their truth or importance, only reveal that manly freedom which is willing to push speculation as far as inay be consistent with reverence for established and fundamental verities. And always ready to step back and adore, where God has reared a boundary wall, putting the sandals off the feet when standing upon holy ground. The expositor occupies a position of great importance. Only second to the Prophet and Apostle who were inspired by the Holy Spirit. Let not the reader suppose that expositors are abounding. You may find in shoals the men who prose or declaim, moralise or philosophise from texts, but an expositor does not arise once in an age. The laws of language and the laws of thought, the nature of evidence and the constitution of the human mind, the history of the world and the dispensations of God,—all furnish their contributions to his masculine frame. By Philology, Logic, and Induction; by context, ancient custom, and analogy of faith; but chiefly, by native energy of mind, and eminent purity of heart, the true

PREFACE. xiii expositor absorbs and transfuses himself, until he catches the spirit of the original writer, in reasoning and feeling. He triumphs with him in the strength of his argument, flames with him in the fire of his passion, and soars with him on the wings of his imagination. Loosing himself in his subject, he reproduces in modern idiom, the grand outlines of truth and divinity which originally came from heaven in another language, amid diverse habitudes of thought, and dissimilar aspects of life. Itis but seldom that.a being is found sufficiently powerful, pure, and plastic for genuine, life-giving exposition. We are sorry to have to say, that the most of our pretended expositions are dull, unprofitable books. Remarkable for their specific gravity, and intolerable heaviness. The mind of God, the teaching of the Spirit, is not poured out fresh and limpid, as if flowing and warbling from the throne and fountain head. But, on the contrary, small driblets of the wine of heaven are lost in torrents of ditch-water. Grim systems of fleshless metaphysics, and dry essays on subordinate topics make up bulky volumes, which always pay the booksellers, sometimes the authors, but never the readers. Let the reader, then, be thankful, that he has got hold of a genuine exposition; and if he be so far enlightened as to wish that it had been less fragmentary, and more consecutive and complete, he may console himself by the reflection, that it is, at all events, the best of its class.

GEORGE GREENWELL.

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