in the fulness of time in the royal tribe of Judah, and be ultimately a branch of the stock of the house of David, agreeably to this prophecy, " And thou, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, art not the least among the princes of Judah; for out of thee shall come a Governor, that shall rule my people Israel." And that this government in the person of the Immanuel was a spiritual and not a temporal government or kingdom, Christ himself affirms, by expressly saying, "My kingdom is not of this world;" which language refers us to his spiritual rule and government of an eternal nature, and is a plain affirmation of his own divinity, for nothing is eternal besides God. Therefore, in the genealogies of man, from Adam unto Noah, we have infolded, the generations, according to the natural order of the flesh, of the divine Logos; and in the event of this little work falling into the hands of alarmingly-inconsiderate, or lukewarm objectors, surely they might do well, with regard both to their present and future state of being, to consider whether, from the foundation of the earth to this moment, the passing events of our world could possibly

have accorded with the whole roll of the volume of the Book, and thus have exactly agreed with every particular and tittle of prophecy, which Jehovah in his omniscience predictively declared of Christ concerning both his human and divine natures, and the place of his nativity.

An account of the wickedness of the world, which occasioned the deluge, follows this detailed biography of Christ's antediluvian ancestors, and whose natural generations are again taken up and concluded in the New Testament. The terrific catastrophe of the flood, which can alone be equalled by the certain destruction of our present world by fire, was brought about by the fratricide Cain and his impious posterity, whose expatriation from the land of his nativity for the benefit of the faithful, in the early ages of the church, divided the inhabitants of the world into two large tribes or nations of people. The rights of primogeniture,* so eminently esteemed and particularly dwelt on in Scripture, were forfeited by wretched Cain, who, so far from being reclaimed by his expulsion and future

*See dying Israel's address to Reuben, his first begotten Son.

exclusion from all intercourse with his father's house, and being led to repentance by the just severity of his punishment, became by the obduracy of his own naturally wicked heart, and the augmented iniquity of his natural issue, the direct cause of the flood.

The numerical increase of mankind and consequent extension of their local habitations, would necessarily produce in time an approximation, and finally an union of all the aborigines of the stock of Adam, and this we see accordingly took place. Previous to this time the Deity, to mark the superior degree of esteem and eminence of a part of the inhabitants of the world, calls the descendants of Seth, by way of distinction," the sons of God," because they had hitherto by sacrifices typical of Christ, maintained and practised the knowledge and worship of Jehovah, the only true God, as first instituted by the Creator, and which the sacrifice of Noah on the day that he stepped from the ark makes plainly intelligible to us; showing us the views entertained by the antediluvian church, and that they assuredly knew, that without the shedding of blood, typified in oblatory worship, there could be no

remission of sins. The dominion of man clearly pointing out the indivinity and insufficiency of mere creature life, and as positively directing them to the single and alone subsisting promise of the advent and sacrifice of that antitype or seed of the woman, promised on the fall of man, before his expulsion from the garden of Eden.

The descendants of Cain, alike irreligious and immoral, are called by the Deity the children of men, being universally without a knowledge of God, and indulging in the practice of every licentious and unjust propensity, without restraint; or, as they were men of nature without a knowledge of God, and therefore in reality what St. James says of the worldly wisdom of natural men, "earthly, sensual, and devilish." The association of the righteous and the wicked, had its origin in the beauty and seductive blandishments of the daughters of Cain, and produced, among other evils, contracts of affinity, and a departure from the holy and original institution of marriage, which we find Noah and his sons had strictly observed; all flesh had corrupted its way, the earth was filled with violence, and the deluge ensued.

On this promiscuous association of the descendants of Adam, general apostacy rapidly ensued; the language of the Deity is brief, but alarmingly comprehensive.

"And 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 it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.

"And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.

"But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.

"These are the generations of Noah: Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God.

"And Noah begat three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

"The earth was also corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence.

"And God looked upon the earth, and