CHAPTER I. - THE ADAMIC FOREVIEW OF HUMAN HISTORY.
And I will put enmity between thee
and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy
head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. Unto the woman He said, I will
greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception in sorrow thou shalt
bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he
shall rule over thee. And unto Adam He said, Because thou hast hearkened
unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded
thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it cursed is the ground for thy
sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; thorns
also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the
herb of the field; in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till
thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken for dust
thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.
THE brief revelation given to Adam in
Eden immediately after the fall threw light upon the character and course
of human history as a whole, and foretold its grand result as viewed
from a moral standpoint. Brief and few as the predictions are, they
are all-embracing in their compass, and profound in their depths of
meaning. They are multurn in parvo the entire history of
mankind summed up in a few brief sentences. They differ widely from
subsequent prophecy in character, as befits such primitive predictions.
There is about them a combined simplicity and majesty, which stamp them
as Divine. Their range is universal, so that all ages and all lands
bear witness to their marvelous fulfillment.
They deal not with minor matters or
temporary, passing experiences and changes, but with all the great permanent,
essential facts and phenomena of human existence, including conception,
birth, food, labor, the relation of the sexes, the conditions of agriculture,
the existence and variety of suffering, the phenomena of conscience,
and the relation of men to the evil one, as well as with the awful though
universal fact of death.
Wonderfully condensed and pregnant with
latent meaning as they thus are on their human side, they are not less
marvelous on their Divine side; that is, in what they reveal of God,
and of His character and His purposes. If His creative words and works
had revealed His wisdom, power, and goodness, these utterances with
their fullness of moral majesty reveal as clearly His righteousness,
His justice, and His grace. That to Adam, in the hour of his utter ruin,
should have been given the assurance of the redemption of his race,
is in itself a proof of the Divine mercy. At the gloomy crisis when
man fell under the power of moral evil, the promise revealed the glorious
goal of human history final and complete victory over this evil. Man
was not left in his self-inflicted ruin without an intimation that God
had toward him purposes of redeeming grace. He was made to feel himself
the subject both of judgment and of mercy, and thus was laid the foundation
of all true religion in sinful beings a consciousness of unworthiness,
a sense of guilt, helplessness, and utter dependence on God, mingled
with a hope based on Divine promises, and a faith built upon Divine
predictions. Despair was forbidden as much as pride and self-dependence.
On this dark page of human history the first after man had passed out
of his Maker?s hands into his own there fell the light of foretold redemption,
like a gleam of sunshine gilding even the storm-clouds of judgment with
beauty and glory.
These primitive predictions, it should
be noted, were not equivocal, oracular, or but dimly comprehensible.
On the contrary, they were singularly definite and simple, so that no
one can misunderstand their plain meaning. If they were in one point
mysterious, the mystery lay not in what was revealed, but rather in that which
was left unrevealed. The mode
of redemption and restoration was not made plain; that was left a mystery
which the fulfillment of the promise would alone entirely remove, but
on which clearer and still clearer light was in subsequent ages to be
granted. The glorious terminus only was revealed at first, not how or
when it was to be reached. The scheme of Divine mercy was not fully
explained, but it was made perfectly clear that such a scheme existed,
and that the Almighty Creator and righteous Judge of man purposed to
be also his Savior and Redeemer.
The foreview of history given to the
father of the human race after the fall consists of two contrasted portions.
I. THE PROMISE OF REDEMPTION.
2. THE PREDICTION OF THE PENAL CONSEQUENCES
OF SIN.
We will consider them in this order,
which is that in which Scripture presents them, and which is in itself
an illustration of the truth that ?mercy rejoices against judgment.?
The God against whom they had sinned hastened, if we may so say, to
cheer and encourage the trembling criminals with the blessed hope of
ultimate recovery and restoration, before
He proceeded to utter the sentence of punishment, and declare to them
the inevitable results of their fall.
The Eden prophecy of redemption predicts,
first, a perpetual enmity and conflict between the serpent?s brood and
the woman?s seed; and, secondly, the ultimate destruction of the tempter
and destroyer himself, by a suffering yet victorious deliverer, who
is mentioned as ?the seed of the woman.? ?I will put enmity between
thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise
thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.? Not only would a fixed and
inveterate enmity exist throughout the future history of the race between
man and the serpent this was but a figure of the truth but a similar
and deeper antagonism would exist between the tempter and mankind. ?Thy
seed, ? the seed or posterity of the serpent, must mean those among
men who should imbibe the devil?s spirit, and be partakers of his character,
subjects of his ?power of darkness? as contrasted with those who should
be of an opposite character.{#Mt 23:33; Joh 3:10.}
Enmity would exist between good men
and bad, the conflict then commenced between man and his tempter would
be continued in the history of the human race. But further and mainly,
a special ?seed, ? a person, a great individual
descendant of Eve should in due time arise in whom this conflict would
culminate: ?He shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.?
The redemption of men should be accomplished through a man, and through
a suffering man one who would himself be bruised in the battle, not
fatally crushed like his adversary, but yet not free from hurt. The
serpent should in the end be completely destroyed, his head
crushed by this ?woman?s seed.?
Now we know who is styled by pre-eminence
?the Seed, ? who because men are partakers of flesh and blood ?Himself
likewise took part of the same; that through death He might destroy
him that had the power of death, that is, the devil and deliver them
who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.?
These words have always been held, and rightly held, to be the first promise and prophecy of the Redeemer of mankind the Son
of God, who by incarnation became ?the woman?s Seed.? Nor can any question
be fairly raised as to the fact that we have in these words the germ
of the Messianic idea so largely unfolded subsequently in the Old Testament,
and realized historically in the events of New Testament gospel story.
What was that idea interwoven with the histories, prophecies, laws,
and ordinances of Israel, and pervading the Bible from beginning to
end? Was it not that there should arise, as the Deliverer of sinning
and suffering humanity, ONE who should Himself suffer before He triumphed,
one who should be a bleeding Victor, a conquering Victim, a self-sacrificing
Savior? The Anointed One, the Christ, was first ?to suffer, ? and only
then ?to enter into His glory.? The prophets testified beforehand ?the
sufferings of Christ and the glories that should follow.? Nature itself
taught that, ?except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it
abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.? The martyred
Abel, the offered Isaac, the outcast Joseph exalted to be lord of Egypt
and Savior of his brethren, Moses rescued from a watery grave to be
king in Jeshurun, David despised in his father?s house, hated and hunted
by Saul, yet father of the royal line of Judah and founder of the kingdom
of Israel, all these and similar incidents presented continually the
same ideal, each adding to it some new and special feature, until Isaiah
was inspired to present the perfect portrait of the Divine yet human
sufferer, who was to be the victorious Savior of men. He was to be Jehovah?s
servant, humbled, marred in form and in visage, without beauty or comeliness,
despised, rejected, sorrowful, burdened with grief, laden with transgressions
not His own, wounded, bruised, stricken of God and afflicted, oppressed
and ill-used, cut off prematurely and unjustly, numbered with transgressors,
laid in a grave, made a sin-offering. And yet He was to be ?exalted.
and extolled and very high, ? to have ?a portion with the great? and
to ?divide the spoil with the strong, ? to justify many, to become an
intercessor for transgressors, to sprinkle many nations, to be the arm
or power of the Lord, and through Him all the ends of the earth should
behold the salvation of God.{#Isa 52:, 53} He was to be ?cut off? in the midst of His days,
yet He was, as ?Messiah the Prince, ? to finish the transgression, and
to make an end of sins; to make reconciliation for iniquity, and bring
in everlasting righteousness; to cause Jewish sacrifice and oblation
to cease, and to confirm a covenant with many.? {#Da 9:24-27} He was to be ?a child
born? to Israel, and yet ?the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the
Prince of peace.?
Now though in the light of its own fulfillment
and realization in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ, this
MESSIANIC IDEAL has become familiar to the mind of Christendom, what
mystery must have overshadowed it, and what perplexities must have attended
any attempt to give it even in imagination a definite embodiment previously to the event. How impossible
therefore that it could have been a mere human invention, whether of
Moses or of Adam or of any one else! Here, in the earliest prophecy
of Scripture, a document dating back at least to the days of Moses,
and possibly much further, we meet with the distinct germ and embryo
of this strange, mysterious, peculiar Messianic ideal, predictions which
subsequently shaped for ages the expectations of a nation, and the fulfillment of which in history has
since shaped for ages more the
experience of a world.
It is true that the Jews lost sight
of one half of the ideal the foretold sufferings of Messiah and dwelt
only in anticipation on His glories; but this makes it only the more
remarkable that the Scriptures of the prophets, which they read continually
in their synagogues, should present so fully and so frequently a feature
as to which the people were blinded. Whence did they get this ideal?
Whence did Moses get it? Or if, as some think, Moses embodied in Genesis
documents which even in his day belonged to a primitive antiquity, whence
did the writers of those documents get this notion of the double bruising,
the suffering Victor, the tried but triumphant Redeemer of mankind?
Place the date of the birth of this ideal where we will, it must have
been in existence before the death of Moses, else we could not meet
it in the Pentateuch. Now whether Moses found it in some ancient document
or received it through Noahic tradition, or more directly by Divine
inspiration, little matters to our present argument. The point of that
argument lies in the fact that fifteen
centuries at any rate before the strange Messianic ideal was realized
in an actual character, the essential features of it were foreseen,
foreshadowed, and foretold.
Who foresaw them? Certainly not Moses
or the prophets by mere human intelligence, for they understood not
their own predictions, but searched ?what, or what manner of time the
Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when It testified beforehand
the sufferings of Christ, and the glories that should follow.? There
is but one rational explanation of the early existence and long continuance
of this Messianic ideal. It was the hope set before the lost and ruined
human family, by their compassionate and omniscient Creator; ?holy men
of old spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.? This primitive
germ of a prophetic character, which afterwards occupied so ruling a
position in the hearts and minds of men for ages before it was realized
in history, and the actual appearance of which on the stage of human
life, not only forms the greatest and most widely spread era of mundane
chronology, but has proved by far the most influential event that ever
happened in human experience this first Messianic prediction must have come ?by inspiration of God.?
From this first prophecy of the Redeemer right on to the last prediction
of Christ prior to His advent, this leading feature of triumph preceded by defeat, glory introduced by suffering, redemption for man secured by self-sacrifice,
is uniformly kept in view and gradually developed. So markedly is this
the case, that after His resurrection Christ could reproach His incredulous
disciples with being ?slow of heart to believe all that the prophets
had spoken, ? and ?beginning at Moses and all the prophets? He could
expound to them ? in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself,
? putting to them the unanswerable question, ?Ought not the Christ (or
the Messiah) to have suffered
these things, and to enter into His
glory?? He reminded them that not only had He Himself told them
that suffering and death were to befall Him, but that it was predicted
in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the Psalms, adding,
?Thus it is written, and thus it behooved the Christ to suffer
and to rise from the dead the third day, and that
repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name among
all nations.? The oak tree of Messianic prediction lies latent in the
acorn of this Eden prophecy. Judaism and Christianity alike are the
outcome of this ideal, the one of the mere prediction of it, the other
of the fulfillment of the prediction. These are facts that cannot be
gainsaid. How are they to be explained? Whence
came the embryo if not from God?
The only alternatives seem to be either
frankly to admit the inspiration of the Eden promise, or else to deny,
not only that it has ever been fulfilled, but that Messianic predictions
as a whole have been so. This would be to assert that they were one
and although so exactly answering to notorious and universally influential
facts, unmeaning Jewish speculations; and even then there would remain
to be explained the difficulty that the
Jews who wrote and treasured these predictions did not understand them,
had not the true ideal before their minds, and
when it was realized in history actually failed to perceive that a suffering
Savior was a fulfillment of their own prophecies, or a realization of
their long-cherished hopes.
Now it must be freely granted that Messianic
prophecy as a whole has not yet received its full accomplishment, that only a part of it has done so. ?The woman?s
seed? has not yet completely crushed the serpent?s head, as is evident
from his present tremendous and universal activity in our world, where
the tempter is undeniably still alive and at large! He is still in our
day what our Savior called him in His day, ?the prince of this world,
? and what Paul called him, ?the god of this world, ? ?the spirit that
now worketh in the children of disobedience.?{#Joh 14:30 2Co 4:4 Eph 2:2} Sin still reigns unto death. No one
contends that the work of human redemption is as yet complete. It stands
indeed to reason that it could no more be accomplished in a few centuries
than was the work of creation. This Christian age, though fast nearing
its close, has not yet run its course; and according to Scripture, another age the millennial is to succeed the one in which we live
before the old serpent will be fully destroyed, before redeemed humanity
will rest and rejoice in the new heavens and new earth, wherein dwelleth
righteousness.
But it may nevertheless be boldly asserted
that the prophetic program presented by inspiration at the beginning
of the Adamic age has, even in this its first point, the promise of
redemption, been largely fulfilled,
and that the unfulfilled portion is so closely linked and indissolubly
connected with the fulfilled, as to warrant the confident expectation
that it also will in due season become matter of history instead of
prophecy. In order to show this, we must consider a little more fully
each of its three points: the COMING, SUFFERINGS, and TRIUMPHS of the
woman?s ?Seed.?.
1. THE COMING OF THE SEED. It cannot
be questioned that among all those born of woman one individual stands out solitary, supreme, pre-eminent; that though
there have been many heroes among men, He rises above them all high
as the vault of heaven above the hills of earth. Rightly or wrongly
He is this day believed in and beloved, esteemed to be Divine as well
as human, obeyed as Lord, worshipped as God, and trusted as Savior,
by over four hundred millions of mankindthat is, by a third of the entire
human family; that He holds this place, not among the more ignorant,
superstitious, and degraded nations of the earth, but on the contrary
among the most advanced, intelligent, and highly cultured.
And why? He holds it because He is believed
to have sacrificed Himself for the salvation of men, to have died and
to have risen from the dead, to be evermore the living, loving, almighty
Savior of the human race, who will yet return to earth and finish the
work He has begun. Let all this be truth or error, it matters not to
our present argument. We are not now defending the faith of Christians,
but calling attention to the fact of its existence as a proof of the
fulfillment of the Adamic program. We point to the fact that a great
Deliverer has, in the judgment of the most enlightened part of mankind,
appeared among men in the person of one who was emphatically the woman?s
Seed ?born of a virgin, one who Himself professed that He came into
the world to save it, who engaged in a personal struggle with the tempter
and defeated him, whose mission it was to destroy him and his works,
who resisted his temptations, delivered his victims, exposed his delusions,
endured his malice, and who finally yielded to his power of death that
He might by rising again destroy both it and him.
?He hell in hell laid low,
Made sin He sin o?erthrew;
Bowed to the grave, destroyed it so,
And death by dying slew.?
It is over one thousand eight hundred
years since this great Deliverer appeared, and each generation as it
passes beholds His name becoming a greater and greater power in the
earth. The influence of His life and death, of His words and example,
increases year by year continually, and at the present rate of progress
will soon fill the world. The greatest intellects of all ages have owned
the unique excellence and felt the unequalled power of the character
and teaching of Christ. Kepler, Bacon, Newton, Milton, Shakespeare,
in our own land; Goethe, Schelling, Hegel, Kant, in Germany, even the
infidel Jew Spinoza, have left on record their hearty recognition of
His matchless personality. Jean Paul Richter speaks of Him as ?the holiest
among the mighty, and the mightiest among the holy, who lifted with
His pierced hand empires off their hinges, turned the stream of centuries
out of its channel, and still governs the ages.?
In a word, we may say that all men,
no matter what their faith or what their indifference and unbelief,
who have considered carefully this subject, admit that the man Christ
Jesus stands high above all. Napoleon?s well-known testimony shows how
profoundly the character and worth of Jesus of Nazareth impressed a
leader among men, though himself the very opposite of Christlike, a
destroyer and not a Savior of his fellows. ?No man will accuse the first
Napoleon of being either a pietist or weak-minded. He strode the world
in his day like a colossus, a man of gigantic intellect, however worthless
and depraved in moral sense. Conversing one day, at St. Helena, as his
custom was, about the great men of antiquity, and comparing himself
with, them, he suddenly turned round to one of his suite and asked him,
?Can you tell me who Jesus Christ was?? The officer owned that he had
not yet taken much thought of such things. ?Well, then, ? said Napoleon,
?I will tell you.? He then compared Christ with himself and with the
heroes of antiquity, and showed how Jesus far surpassed them. ?I think
I understand somewhat of human nature, ? he continued, ?and I tell you
all these were men, and I am a man; but not one is like Him: Jesus Christ
was more than man. Alexander, Cesar, Charlemagne, and myself founded
great empires; but upon what did the creations of our genius depend?
Upon force. Jesus alone founded His empire upon love, and to this very
day millions would die for Him.? ?The gospel is no mere book, ? said
he at another time, ?but a living creature, with a vigour, a power,
which conquers all that opposes it. Here lies the Book of books upon
the table (touching it reverently); I do not tire of reading it, and
do so daily with equal pleasure. The soul, charmed with the beauty of
the gospel, is no longer its own; God possesses it entirely: He directs
its thoughts and faculties; it is His. What a proof of the divinity
of Jesus Christ Yet in this absolute sovereignty He has but one aim
the spiritual perfection of the individual, the purification of his
conscience, his union with what is true, the salvation of his soul.
Men wonder at the conquests of Alexander: but here is a conqueror who
draws men to Himself for their highest good; who unites to Himself,
incorporates into Himself, not a nation, but the whole human race.?
On another occasion Napoleon said: ?From first to last Jesus is the
same; always the same majestic and simple, infinitely severe and infinitely
gentle. Throughout a life passed under the public eye, He never gives
occasion to find fault. The prudence of His conduct compels our admiration
by its union of force and gentleness. Alike in speech and action, He
is enlightened, consistent, and calm.. Sublimity is said to be an attribute
of divinity; what name then shall we give Him in whose character were
united every element of the sublime? I know men; and I tell you that
Jesus is not a man. Everything
in Him amazes me. His spirit outreaches mine, and His will confounds
me. Comparison is impossible between Him and any other being in the
world. He is truly a being by
Himself His ideas and His sentiments, the truth that He announces,
His manner of convincing, are all beyond humanity and the natural order
of things. His birth, and the story of His life; the profoundness of
His doctrine, which overturns all difficulties, and is their most complete
solution; His gospel; the singularity of His mysterious being, His appearance,
His empire, His progress through all centuries and kingdoms: all this
is to me a prodigy, an unfathomable mystery. I see nothing here of man.
Near as I may approach, closely as I may examine, all remains above
my comprehension great with the greatness that crushes me. It is in
vain that I reflect all remains unaccountable. I defy you to cite another
life like that of Christ.?
Account for the strange coincidence
as we will, there is no denying either that the Divine program foretold
long before Mosaic times of the advent of a great Deliverer who should
be the woman?s seed, or that one answering to the prediction did actually
appear in our world 1, 800 years ago; nor that this individual is now
more widely regarded than ever before as the Savior of mankind. His
coming is admitted to have introduced into the world a new moral force,
a force which is opposed to evil in all its forms. He appeared as the
great antagonist of moral evil, and of its author. It is asserted of
Him that ?He was manifested to take away our sins, ? that He came ?to
destroy the works of the devil, ? and, more, to destroy him himself.?
#Joh 3:5 and 8. No
candid mind can fail to see in the
advent of Jesus Christ of Nazareth an apparent
fulfillment of the promise given in Eden.
2. THE SUFFERINGS OF THE SEED. These
were dimly intimated in the original prediction, but largely described,
as we have seen, in later Messianic prophecies; and we ask, Was suffering a conspicuous feature in the history of Jesus Christ of
Nazareth? The question scarcely needs a reply, for it is universally
recognized that He was the Prince of sufferers. To no form of human
suffering was the ?Man of sorrows? a stranger, and all His sufferings
came upon Him because He willed to be the Savior of men. It was in His
struggle with the serpent that He was bruised and crushed, His heel
or human nature bruised even to death! ?He bowed His head, and gave
up the spirit.? His incarnation itself involved the suffering of supremest
self-denial. He emptied Himself of His Divine glory and became an ?obedient
servant.? He suffered being tempted; He had not where to lay His head.
He was misunderstood and reproached, doubted and disbelieved, provoked
and insulted, stricken, smitten, and afflicted. For His love He had
hatred, from His friends faithless desertion, from His foes relentless
malice. No sorrow was ever like His sorrow; He gave His back to the
smiters, and His cheeks to them that plucked off the hair, He hid not
His face from shame and spitting. Reproach broke His heart and filled
Him with bitterness, and when He voluntarily assumed all the guilt of
sinners and tasted death for every man, He had to endure the deepest
of all sufferings, the sense of being forsaken of God. The woman?s Seed
was beyond all question the great sufferer. And He Himself spoke of
His dying sufferings as inflicted by the great enemy of man; ?the prince
of this world cometh, ? He said on the last night of His life, ?and
hath nothing in Me.? ?Now is your hour and the power of darkness, ?
He said to His captors in Gethsemane. He recognized too that His own
death was the destruction of His foe, that the two bruisings synchronized.
?Now shall the prince of this world be cast out?; and again He said
in connection with His own death, ?the prince of this world is judged.?
{#Joh 12:31 Joh 16:11}
The intensity of suffering can be estimated
only in relation to the character of the sufferer; for that which is
acute suffering to one is none at all to others. We must not judge of
the sufferings of Christ by our own standard, but learn from Himself
what the experiences through which He passed when He became ?the woman?s
Seed? cost Him. The Gospels give us the story of His outward life and
of His teachings, but they say little of His feelings: it is from the
prophetic book of Psalms mainly that we learn something of them.
Who can study the 22nd, 40th, 69th, or similar psalms without feeling
that the depths of mental and spiritual anguish
were sounded by the Son of man. Sorely was He bruised by the serpent
and his seed scribes and Pharisees, Jews and Romans, traitors, executioners,
and revilers! Moreover, the hand of God was laid heavily on the willing
Substitute; as it is written, ?the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity
of us all.? If the advent of Christ answer to the first point of the
Adamic prediction, assuredly His experiences in life and in death answer
to the second. But it remains to consider
3. THE TRIUMPHS OF THE SEED. The work
of redemption being still in progress and avowedly incomplete, it is
impossible to indicate under this last point anything more than the incipient fulfillment of the prophecy as to the destruction of
the tempter of mankind by the woman?s seed. Four thousand years rolled
by before the great Deliverer appeared, eighteen hundred only have passed
since His advent. Sufficient time has not elapsed to show the full results
of His work. But the interval has been long enough for great effects
to have resulted already, and above all for the general tendency
of the results to have become apparent. Can we then point to any tangible,
unquestionable victories won for mankind over moral evil and its author
by ?the seed of the woman?? Its main results are spiritual ones, and
these are, of course, not cognizable by human sense intangible, invisible.
The cleansing of human consciences, the forgiveness of sins, reconciliation
between God and men, the justification of sinners, the bestowal of eternal
life, all these great and supremely important changes are not of a kind
to be adduced in evidence of the bruising of the serpent?s head, because
they are not evident, they cannot
be seen or heard or handled by men; and while they may serve as evidence
to those who are themselves conscious of being delivered from the kingdom
of Satan and translated into the kingdom of Christ, yet they cannot
be adduced in argument with unbelievers.
But if spiritual changes such as these
take place in considerable numbers and over any large sphere, they must
needs produce other changes in the world which will be of a visible, tangible nature, and which may consequently
be cited as evidence of the ever-increasing victories of Christianity.
For it must be borne in mind that just as it was through his ?seed,
? or human agents that the serpent bruised the heel of the Savior, so
it is through His people that Christ is at present triumphing over Satan.
The first fatal blow He Himself delivered by His spotless life, atoning
death, and glorious resurrection; and He will Himself give the last
blow also, at His coming again in glory. Indeed, as Scripture puts it,
He has a/ready in a sense destroyed, not only the works of the devil,
but their author. It is written, ? He hath destroyed him that had the
power of death, that is, the devil, ? as well as delivered many of his
captives. The crisis of the long conflict is past, the victory has been
won, though much of the fruits have yet to be reaped. So it may be said
the power of France was crushed at Sedan, though a long period elapsed
ere the full fruits of the conquest were enjoyed by Germany. Her hosts
could not all at once close the campaign and rest on their laurels.
Many a strong fortress still held out, many a weary siege had yet to
be laid, many a soldier had yet to fall, and many a million had yet
to be expended before France, disarmed and helpless, acknowledged her
defeat and submitted to the conqueror?s terms. No one questions that
Sedan practically settled the ultimate result of the war, sending the
discrowned monarch and his hosts into captivity, though it was some
time before the transferred imperial crown was placed on the victor?s
brow at Versailles, and before the treasures of France were poured into
the lap of Germany.
It is thus with the long conflict between
the serpent and the woman?s seed. The resurrection of the Lord Jesus
practically won the day, though the full fruits of victory are not reaped
yet. In Him, man, born of a woman, resisted Satan?s temptations, fulfilled
all righteousness, suffered the just for the unjust, tasted death fo;
every man, broke its. bonds and rose again from the dead, triumphant
alike over the wiles, the malice, and the power of Satan. There is ample
and unquestionable historic evidence of these facts, and this virtually
decided the struggle. The author of evil had met his match, and been
wounded in a vital point. One member of the human family had vanquished
him, and became thenceforth the champion and deliverer of His brethren.
It was all over with the Philistines when Goliath was slain, though
much remained to be done before they were finally driven from the land
of Israel.
Since the life, death, and resurrection
of Jesus Christ, the ultimate triumph of the seed of the woman has,
in spite of all appearances to the contrary, been a settled question;
and the final issue becomes continually clearer in the light of the
actual course of mundane events.
The victories of moral good over moral
evil which have resulted from the influence whether of Judaism or of
Christianity, whether direct or indirect, may all be fairly regarded
as the achievements and initial triumphs of ?the seed of the woman.?
In considering a few of the most notable of these, we must distinguish
between results that have been and are the proper outcome of the doctrines
and example of Christ the fruits of real
Christianity and the results of the existence in the world of the great
corrupt outward organization that bears His name the professing Christian
Church. This, alas! has too often completely misrepresented the religion
of Christ, and acted in opposition to His laws and to His Spirit. It
has cultivated bigotry and hatred, instigated religious wars and persecutions,
opposed liberty of thought and action, established bloody courts of
inquisition, upheld cruel and inhuman systems of slavery, sought for
itself earthly power and wealth, and by its enactments and practices
encouraged a host of terrible social evils and degrading popular superstitions
The mischief done by the so-called Christian Church must not be laid
at the door of true Christianity. Its
effects are to be traced by the changes which its doctrines have produced
in the world through the influence exerted by its true professors. In ~ll ages, even the darkest, there have been such
consistent disciples of Christ, filled with His spirit and followers
of His example, whose lives have been potent for good, and whose influence,
though they may have themselves been martyred, has been mighty enough
to shame men out of some of their evil deeds, and move them to a measure
of self-reformation, even when it did not make of them true converts.
A work was recently published by an American writer which carefully
traces The history of human progress under Christianity. ?Gesta
Christi.? By C. Luring Brace. (Hodder & Stoughton.) The author
is one who has had the opportunity of practically testing for thirty
years on a large scale its power in diminishing poverty, misery, and
crime; and of estimating the part Christian ideas had in the great effort
of the United States to remove the giant evil of slavery. There can
indeed be no question that they were the foundation of this greatest
of modern reforms, and that they stimulated and supported the country
through its long and costly struggle to deliver itself from this dread
incubus. This author had also studied for many years the laws and history
of the later Roman period and of the middle ages, and had been struck
by the ever-recurring traces of the silent yet profound working of ?the
great reforming power of the world.? He had also been engaged in examining
and presenting in public writings the influence of the Christian faith
in the more modern period on international law, arbitrations, and the
relations of nations. This experience fitted him to do what he has very
cautiously and candidly done in the work alluded to trace the progressive
influence of Christianity in the earth. He writes:
?There are certain practices, principles,
and ideas, now the richest inheritance of the race, that have been either
implanted or stimulated or supported by Christianity. They are such
as these: regard for the personality of the weakest and poorest; respect
for women; the absolute duty of each member of the fortunate classes
to raise up the unfortunate; humanity to the child, the prisoner, the
stranger, the needy, and even the brute; the duty of personal purity
and the sacredness of marriage; the necessity of temperance the obligation
of a more equitable division of the profits of labor, and of greater
co-operation between employers and employed; the right of every human
being to have the utmost opportunity of developing his faculties, and
of all persons to enjoy equal political and social privileges; the principle
that the injury of one nation is the injury of all, and the expediency
and duty of unrestricted trade and intercourse between all countries;
and, finally and principally, a profound opposition to war, a determination
to limit its evils when existing, and to prevent its arising by means
of international arbitration.?
Space forbids us to enlarge as we would
fain do on this theme, but we may say in a sentence the world little
knows how deeply it is indebted to Christianity and its parent Judaism!
Light, love, liberty, peace, preservation, progress, happiness, harmony,
hope have all flowed to mankind from the advent of the woman?s Seed.
Take away from the human family the nations and peoples who have more
or less fully come under the Redeemer?s influence, and what remains?
Nothing but polytheism and idolatry, paganism and fetishism, despotism,
slavery, degraded womanhood, female infanticide, intertribal wars, depopulated
countries, and dwarfed, stunted races who have retrograded through vice
almost to the level of the beasts. China is the only apparent exception;
and even there, alongside of an ancient and comparatively high civilization,
idolatry, superstition, female oppression, judicial cruelties, and social
miseries prevail. Mohammedan countries must be included among those
which have, though very slightly, come under the Redeemer?s influence,
for their monotheism was derived both from Judaism and Christianity.
The point we have to settle is, whether the Eden prediction of the triumph
of the seed of the woman seems likely, from what has already happened,
to be ultimately fulfilled? Or, to put the question in another form,
Are idolatries, cruelties, and degrading superstitions passing away
before the liberating, ennobling doctrines of Christ? Are the more corrupt
forms of the Christian faith itself giving place increasingly to purer
and more beneficial ones? Is a constantly increasing section of the
human race enjoying vast temporal and spiritual benefits traceable to
the advent of Christ? The answer to these questions must be an affirmative
one. In an ever-increasing ratio, the faith of Christ is spreading in
the earth; the most marked increase in our days is in the purer Protestant
forms of that faith; and everywhere civil, political, social, and religious
elevation follow as a consequence.
Contrast the moral and social condition
of Protestant England, Scotland, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, North America,
Australia, New Zealand, with the condition of India, Burmah, Siam, China,
Central Africa, Zululand, or with that of the American Indians. The
more thoroughly the two groups are studied, the more apparent will it
become that the contrast of condition between Christian and heathen
countries is like that between night and day. Roman Catholic countries,
which, though Christian in profession, have been molded by a worldly
and corrupt ecclesiastical system, rather than by the pure doctrine
of Christ and the open Bible, occupy an intermediate position; as witness Ireland,
Spain, Portugal, Italy, Mexico, Hayti, and the States of South America,
where, instead of wealth, might, prosperity, progress, and peace, we
see poverty, feebleness, disaster, retrogression, perpetual unrest,
and constant wars.
The following statements are taken from
a recently published pamphlet, entitled, ?Political Issues of the Nineteenth
Century, with Important Statistics drawn from the most Authentic Sources?
?The social progress of the last century
has been signal. That progress has been chiefly a Protestant progress.
The Catholic nations have been comparatively torpid, and exhibit little
movement, except when by tolerating a Protestant minority they have
admitted an infusion from the reform. ?The general decay or comparative
stagnation of Catholic countries is patent, but a prolonged insight
shows more. It is evident the Catholic nations advance more slowly in
proportion to their complete subjection to the religious influence of
Catholicism, while, on the contrary, strong religious sentiment among
Protestants seems favorable to rapid advance. Historians remark that
the Reformation has given extraordinary force to every nation which
embraced it, and that history cannot explain this force.
?Protestantism being founded on a book
reciting covenants between God and every man, it claims that every man
should read. Hence the necessity for education. Personal covenant implies
individual liberty and individual intelligence. With the exercise of
private judgment comes discovery. The conscience is reached by a higher
sense of moral contract than in the adherents of a system subordinated
to some fellow creature, who assumes solely to interpret obligation
and regulate duty. The enthusiasm of Protestants has remodeled the most
important States of Europe on a basis of deliberative assent and representative
government. Catholic communities, when they aspire to imitate this conception,
invariably fall into disorder, for Catholicism requires unthinking submission,
In the States founded by Protestantism America, liberty and industrial
energy are concomitant with order. Wherever Protestantism prevails,
there is more frankness, more affiance, more culture and morality.
?This is the secret of the strength
of Protestantism. It rends the cerements which have long enwrapped the
Church, and gives to every member the breath of life. M. Renan says:
?The formation of new sects which Catholics bring, as a mark of weakness,
against Protestants, proves, on the contrary, that the religious sentiment
lives among the latter because it is creative. There is nothing more
dead than that which is motionless.? Protestantism substitutes a Christian
republic of genial intelligence for a pharisaic cabalism of hierarchs.
The laity are no longer the proletaires of the clergy, and both escape
the deteriorating immorality of the confessional. The estates and judgments
of men are freed from the figment and the exactions of a vice-Christ
who conveyances the invisible world to others and the visible to himself
It seems incumbent on the nineteenth century to examine the extent and
nature of this evil before transferring the burden to the next. Let
us dispassionately ascertain how much of it is traceable to Christianity,
travestied with paganism, whether the intellectual nonage of nations
is not prolonged by it only in a less degree than by the vitiated theisms
of Asia. Judged by the gradual corruption of the Church from Lactantius
to Luther, but for the Reformation of the sixteenth century Christianity
should by this time have sunk so low as to he unrecognizable, and Europe
would know no more of the writings of Moses, Isaiah, Paul, or John,
than do the votaries of Buddha, Siva, and Mahomet. The condition of
the Jesuit-ruled portions of America and their painful history for three
hundred years would raise a further question, Does such Christianity sink populations lower
than it finds them??
Mr. Gladstone, referring to these, the
vital subjects of our day, writes ?There is a question which hitherto
can scarcely be said to have been presented to the public mind, and
which it seems high time to examine that question is, whether experience
has now supplied data sufficient for a trustworthy comparison of results
in the several spheres of political liberty, social advancement, mental
intelligence, and general morality between the Church of Rome on the
one hand, and the religious communities cut off or separated from her
on the other.? He proceeds then to reason that Scriptural faith will
prove efficient ?against the ultramontane conspiracy, ? and urges the
need of the purified form of Christianity. Macaulay, Ruskin, Dickens,
Hallam, Hepworth Dixon, and J. A. Froude have touched the question frequently;
but Continental writers, Romanist and Protestant, have dilated upon
it. Tame has recognized the Bible as ?the secret of England?s greatness.?
Agassiz says of the teaching of Romanist priests, that ?as long as the
people do not demand another sort of religious instruction they will
continue in their downward course or not be able to improve.? M. Geroult
writes in the palmy days of the second empire (1866) ?The nations in
which Papal religion prevails are doomed to IRREMEDIABLE DECAY, the
future of the world is all to the Reformed Church. What nations are
at the head of civilization, and exercise a sovereign influence? The
United States, Britain, and Prussia. Which, on the contrary, drag painfully
along in the routine of the past without strength or grandeur? Spain,
Rome, and Austria. As for France, she is indebted to a peculiar temperament
and to the free spirit of inquiry with which she is long animated, not
to have fallen to the rank of a fifth or sixth-rate power in Europe.
But let her take care, the Catholicism to which she obstinately remains
attached why, it is not easy to say will indubitably in the long run
paralyze her forces.? Professor Emile de Laveleye remarks ?The Catholic
nations seem stricken with barrenness; they cannot rest, because free
and representative government is the logical outcome of Protestantism
only. Catholic nations aspiring to this perpetually oscillate between
despotism and anarchy. Christianity is favorable to liberty. Catholicism
is its mortal enemy, so admits its infallible head the pope. If France
had not persecuted, strangled, and banished her children who bad become
Protestants, she might have developed the germs of liberty and self-government.
The fact being that the chief of a state, be he king or president, cannot
be a true constitutional sovereign if he is a devotee, and confesses
as an obedient penitent. He is governed by a confessor who is subject
to the pope, the real sovereign. The constitutional system becomes a
figment or a fraud, for it enslaves the country to the will of an unknown
priest or else when the land refuses to bear the humiliating yoke, it
produces a revolution. In Protestant lands the constitutional system
flourishes naturally, being in its native soil; while on Catholic soil,
being an heretical import, it is undermined by the priests.?
?Such is its fate in Ireland. The franchises
bestowed by an heretical empire to ascertain the individual will of
its subjects can effect that object in a Protestant population; in Ireland
it expresses naught but the collective will of Rome. Even the juryman
must submit to the Church?s interpretation of duty; he is influenced,
as M. de Laveleyc says the monarch or the minister is influenced, through
the confessional. He is abject before the priest, who is abject before
the pope. Thus Vaticanism wields imperial sway in Ireland, and no proof
can be given that demagoguism is not its puppet. The effort to govern
Ireland on constitutional principles becomes a farce and even a fraud....
Would ultramontane success make Ireland happy? It has had its way in
many lands, and shown that it perishes by its own corruption. Suppose
Ireland made into another Spain or Mexico. Let the history of those
countries be repeated. Let property so gravitate into the custody of
the Roman Catholic Church, that even the banks became monkeries, and
the trader and the property-owner must borrow through the prelacy. The
inquisition in Mexico became the discounter as well as the torturer.
The wealth of the insubordinate was, extracted by the rack. Money could
always be had through the prelates, and through them only. Did this
bring prosperity to Mexico? A new administration every nine months attests
the fearful unrest which Romanism brings to agonized nations.... The
traveller in Ireland is pained and surprised to find within twelve hours
of London a lawlessness, truculence, and degradation defying the philanthropy
and statutes of an empire which girdles the globe with its benignity.
On lands where the energy of Protestantism would by emigration disengage
itself from impracticable resources, the Catholic remains in chronic
inanity of mind and body, and priests enjoy munificent living among
the victims of superstition and sorrow... A moral map of Europe would
show in darkening circles our approach to the former States of the Church,
The remark of Edmund About on prosperity holds true of morality, that
?it is proportioned to the square of the distance
which separates it from Rome.?
?Niehuhr, speaking of the Papal capital
in 1830, says: ?They are a nation of walking dead men. When that which
is living disgusts, can the human heart find compensation from statues,
painting, and architecture? Intellect and knowledge, any idea which
makes the heart throb, all generous activity seems banished, all hope,
all aspiration, all effort, even all cheerfullness, for I have never
seen a more cheerless nation.? Macaulay says, ?Under the rule of Rome,
the loveliest provinces of Europe have been sunk in poverty, in political
servitude, in intellectual torpor, and reduced to the lowest depths
of degradation.? Mr. Gladstone (?Vaticanism?) says ?The education of
the religious orders in its influence is adverse to freedom in the mind
of the individual, freedom in the State, freedom in the family; all
that nurtures freedom, all that guarantees it, is harassed, denounced,
cabined, confined, attenuated, and starved. To secure these is the claim
of civilization; to destroy them, and to establish the resistless domineering
action of a central power, is the aim of Rome.? Sir Robert Kane, an
Irish Roman Catholic, says, in every country where education has been
in the hands 0f the religious orders of Catholicism, ?it had resulted
in social decay and the political debasement of the people.? In Spain
the adult illiteracy has attained the figure of seventy-five per cent.
The condition of Spain, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Sicily, rural France,
and indeed of Southern Europe as contrasted with Northern, is instructive.
In Northern we find education, municipal repose, rural sweetness, and
contentment. In the South with or without education, there is municipal
unrest, tumult, and licentiousness, in the rural districts, filth, ignorance,
coarseness. The virtues of content and industry come PALPABLY FROM SPIRITUAL
SOURCES. The manifestation of wisdom and goodness in a Divine Being,
as conveyed in the evangelic message of the New Testament, has proved
itself the firm support of authority and obligation. When Christianity
was pure it tamed the Goth, and Hun, and Scandinavian, who were never
tamed till the gospel reached them. The nations of the South who had
the advantage of starting with the developed civilization of pagan Rome
have retrograded.?
Statistical tables are then given to
show the demoralizing effect of the Papacy, and especially of the confessional,
in the countries subjected to Catholic influence. We have not space
to give these, but may mention that while, in 1853, in Protestant England
murders, for instance, occur in the proportion of four to a million
of the population, in Ireland there are nineteen to the million, in
Austria thirty-six, and in Italy seventy-eight. In 1869 the report of
the French police gives still more horrible figures for the Papal States
and Italy. In the former the murders were one hundred and eighty-seven
in the million, and in the latter one hundred and eleven.
And not only does Romanism fail to restrain
crime, but it fails equally to restrain vice. The official records of
the birth of illegitimate children in Protestant and Roman Catholic
countries present a fearful contrast. While in the great cities of England
such births vary from four to seven per cent., in Paris, Brussels, and
Milan they are thirty to thirty-five per cent; and in Prague, Munich,
Vienna, and Gratz they vary from forty-seven to sixty-five per cent.
In the Pontifical States, before their annexation to Italy, not only
was the death-rate from crimes of violence, as we have seen, enormous,
but the corruption of society was appalling to contemplate. Nowhere
else, probably, was the number of illegitimate births so great: it amounted
to seventy-two per cent. Or, to contrast the cities: in London, for
every hundred legitimate births there are four illegitimate, in Paris
there are forty-eight, and in Rome a hundred and forty-three though
it has between seven and eight thousand clergy, monks, and nuns
What has made these differences and
shades of difference? Divine revelation: first the law, and since the
gospel. The Lord Jesus said to His disciples, ?Ye shall know the truth,
and the truth shall make you free.? If mankind has been to any extent
liberated from the tyranny of Satan, if foolish and degrading idolatries
and ignorant superstitions have lost their hold on a considerable portion
of our race, it is a result of the redeeming work of the woman?s Seed.
It is true that many influences material, moral, and intellectual have
combined to effect the advance of the race in morality and humanity,
and that it is not always easy to estimate the separate influence of
the new moral power introduced into the world by the advent and death
of Christ; but all the most important ameliorations of the condition
of mankind will be seen on careful investigation to be gesta Christi, achievements of Christ.
To judge fairly of this fact, we must
compare the condition of the Roman earth before Christianity became
the religion of the empire with its condition subsequently and with
its condition now. The moral and social revolution connected with the
abolition of heathenism was immense and universal. It is difficult for
us at this date to realize the corruption which characterized the old
Roman civilization, the gigantic obstacles which Christianity had to
overthrow in the laws, customs, and habits of the people, as well as
in their religion. Satan?s power in the world has diminished indeed
since the days when parents could legally kill their children, and husbands
had the power of life and death over their wives when divorce was so
frequent that Seneca speaks of illustrious and noble women who reckoned
their years, not by the number of the consuls, but by that of their
husbands, and mentions one man, Moencenas, as having ?married a thousand
wives, ? and Tertullian says that divorce was the very purpose of the
Roman marriage. He who is a murderer from the beginning had full sway
in the days when Caesar forced three hundred and twenty pairs of gladiators
at once into the arena to destroy each other, or when Trajan kept up
such bloody sports for one hundred and twenty. three days together and
made 10, 000 unhappy prisoners contend for life in the amphitheatre;
when human sacrifices were offered on great occasions to the gods, and
noble and lovely children specially sought out as victims; when parents
exposed their female children without the slightest compunction if too
poor to rear them, or if they seemed weakly, leaving them to die or
be devoured, or rescued by others to be brought up as the lowest slaves;
when corruption of still worse and more unnatural kinds was so common
that Tacitus mourned over the utter decadence of his people, and, believing
no redemption possible, anticipated only final and general ruin. It
was in such a world as this that the triumphs of ? the Seed of the woman?
began.
?The influence of the great Friend of
humanity was especially seen in the Roman empire in checking licentious
and cruel sports, so common and so demoralizing among the classic races;
and in bringing on a new legislation of beneficence in favour of the
outcast woman, the mutilated, the prisoner, and the slave. For the first
time the stern and noble features of Roman law took on an unwonted expression
of gentle humanity and sweet compassion under the power of Him who was
the brother of the unfortunate and the sinful. The great followers of
the Teacher of Galilee became known as the ?brothers of the slave, ?
and the Christian religion began its struggles of many centuries with
those greatest of human evils, slavery and serfdom. It did not, indeed,
succeed in abolishing them; but the remarkable mitigations of the system
in Roman law, and the constant drift towards a condition of liberty,
and the increasing emancipation throughout the Roman empire, are plainly
fruits of its principles. All these and similar steps of humane progress
are the gesta Christi, and the direct effects of His personal influence
on the world.?
Dr. Cunningham Geikie, in his ?Life
and Words of Christ, ? after tracing the new principles and the fresh
light brought into the world by the advent of Christ, says:
?It has already largely transformed
society, and is destined to affect it for good, in ever-increasing measure,
in all directions. The one grand doctrine of the brotherhood of man,
as man, is in itself the pledge of infinite results.... Such an idea
was unknown to antiquity, to the Jew, to the Greek, and to the Roman
alike.
?It was left to Christ to proclaim the
brotherhood of all nations by revealing God as their common Father in
heaven, filled towards them with a father?s love; by His commission
to preach the gospel to all by His inviting all, without distinction,
to come to Him. His equal sympathy with the slave, the beggar, and the
ruler; by the whole bearing and spirit of His life; and, above all,
by His picture of all nations gathered to judgment at the Great Day,
with no distinction of race or rank, but simply as men.
?In this great principle of the essential
equality of man and his responsibility to God, the germs lay hid of
grand truths imperfectly realized even yet..
?The slave, before Christ came, was
a piece of property of less worth than land or cattle. An old Roman
law enacted a penalty of death for him who killed a ploughing ox, but
the murderer of a slave was called to no account whatever. Crassus,
after the revolt of Spartacus, crucified 10, 000 slaves at one time.
Augustus, in violation of his word, delivered to their masters, for
execution, 30, 000 slaves who had fought for Sextus Pompeius. ?The great
truth of man?s universal brotherhood was the axe laid at the root of
this detestable crimethe sum of all villainies. By first infusing kindness
into the lot of the slave, then by slowly undermining slavery itself,
each century has seen some advance, till at last the man owner is unknown
in nearly every civilized country, and even Africa itself, the worst
victim of slavery in these later ages, is being aided by Christian England
to raise its slaves into freemen.
?Aggressive war is no less distinctly
denounced by Christianity, which, in teaching the brotherhood of man,
proclaims war a revolt, abhorrent to nature, of brothers against brothers.
The voice of Christ, commanding peace on earth, has echoed through all
the centuries since His day, and has been, at least, so far honored
that the horrors of war are greatly lessened, and that war itselfno
longer the rule, but the exception is much rarer in Christian nations
than in former times.?
The writer from whorn we have before
quoted says on this subject
?Peace among all men and all nations
is the ideal presented by Christ. And by one class of means or other,
when at length His teachings have thoroughly permeated mankind, this
ideal will be attained.
Outside of the nominally Christian nations
there is no international law. The Turks appear to have had little idea
of it till instructed by European nations. The Koran?s teachings tended
in the very opposite direction, and made war the natural condition towards
non-Mohammedan races, and treachery justifiable towards an ?infidel.?
The Mohammedan peoples in the North of Africa lived in a constant state
of hostility with all foreigners. The Chinese, with all their advancement
in arts and sciences, seem never to have thought of any code of humanity
and justice towards foreign nations.
?The Japanese have indeed recently made
efforts to introduce the international law known to the Christian nations
to their own people, and one proposed code at least has been translated.
?No Buddhist, so far as we are aware,
has written on this topic, nor does a Buddhistic code of laws and customs
between different peoples exist.
?Nor, as we have shown, does international
law owe much to Greek culture or to Roman law. The first general tinge
of humanity in the world?s relations, mercy to the wounded and helpless,
the softening the rugged face of war, the binding different nations
in a certain bond (feeble though it be) of brotherhood, the disposition
to refer injuries to arbitration rather than violence these are the
gesta Christi.?
But we must turn now to the second part
of the prophetic program given in Eden the announcements of the penal
consequences of sin.
Man having rebelled against the great
and good Creator, in whose image he was made, and under whose law he
was placed in paradise, the threatened penalty and the natural results of sin followed.
The announcement of these should be
read not merely as a judicial sentence inflicting penalties, but much
more as a sure and certain word of prophecy, foretelling what would
be the natural and inevitable consequences of sin.
DEATH was predicted as the wages of
sin: ?Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.? We need not pause
here to inquire what Adam?s destiny and that of his race would have
been if sin had not entered, nor to examine into the nature of that
death which is the wages of sin. What we have to do is to observe how
the prediction has been fulfilled how, notwithstanding the redemption
promised, Adam and all his seed have experienced the truth of the prophetic
announcement, ?Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.? How
simple the words, but how awfully sad and solemn their fulfillment!
The echo of that sentence uttered ages ago in Eden rolls back upon us
in ever-multiplying funereal dirges from all lands and ages. Death,
death, death, universal, all-devouring death! Enthroned king in paradise,
death reigned from Adam to
Moses, and has reigned ever since. Every biography ends like the patriarchal
genealogies in Genesis v., with their ever-recurring strain, ?and he
died.? Our globe is one great cemetery. Successive generations of men
have passed away to the grave, as the successive crops of grass fall
in turn beneath the mower?s scythe. ?We cannot hold mortality?s strong
hand; men must endure their going hence e?en as their coming hither.?
Two hundred generations of men have succeeded each other on earth since
their Creator put into the hands of our first parents this program of
the experiences of their race. What these generations averaged it would
be impossible to say; the one now living is computed at 1, 400 millions.
Average them at even a quarter of that number; then seventy thousand
millions of times over has this prediction been accomplished! Each day
sees it fulfilled afresh in more than eighty thousand cases, for such
is the present daily death-rate of the world?s inhabitants.
With two interruptions only the raptures
of Enoch and Elijah death held unbroken sway from the fall of the first
Adam to the resurrection of the second. And though the resurrection
of Christ has robbed death of its sting and the grave of its victory,
yet even as to believers who already have eternal life in Him, ?the
body is nevertheless still subject to death because of sin.? {#Ro
8:10} Christians are no exception to the universal law, ?it
is appointed unto men once to die.? The last
enemy to be destroyed is death.
Nor must we, in considering the fulfillment
of this prediction, leave out of sight the universality of sickness
and suffering, of disease and decay, that form no inconsiderable part
of this curse of death. ?We that are in this body do groan being burdened,
? and each groan is an evidence of sin and death! From the cradle to
the grave we carry in ourselves the seeds of death. Men are born dying
as well as to die, and the sole hope of our race lies in the promise
and prediction, that God will yet ?swallow up death in victory.?
A second point in this Eden prophecy
was that while awaiting death, man should suffer from the curse of excessive
labor. All labor is not a curse. Adam in Eden while still unfallen had
his appointed task to dress the garden and to keep it, and for fallen
man with all his evil propensities and incessant exposure to Satanic
temptation, the necessity of labor is a mercy. Without it earth would
speedily become a pandemonium. But still it was as a punishment for
human sin that the ground was cursed, and it was foretold that the earth
ceasing to yield spontaneously suitable human food would bring forth
thorns and thistles, and would in order to make it productive demand
human labor, amounting to painful
incessant, wearisome toil. ?In the sweat of thy brow shalt thou
eat bread.?
To note the fulfillment of this prediction,
we must not confine our attention to agricultural labor merely. Glance
over the world again, look back over intervening centuries and abroad
throughout all races of men! Has it not ever been so? Have not multitudes,
yea, the masses of mankind, even now to endure weary, wasting toil,
that they may live? Is not life to the great majority a hard battle
for existence? We must not think of the few who form the exception,
but of the many who fall under the rule. We must note how the races
who refuse thus to toil (like the Red Indians, who prefer to live by
the chase, or the Bushmen of the Kalihari, who depend on the natural
produce of their country) die out by degrees and cease to be. We must
note how even, with all their toil, millions of industrious Chinese,
Hindus, and others are periodically carried off by famine. Millions
of our fellow subjects in India do not know what it is to have more
than one meal a day, and are rarely free from a painful feeling of hunger.
We must consider the overwhelming labors imposed on millions more by
slavery; the arduous, exhausting, and dangerous toil involved to still
other millions in such operations as underground mining for coal and
other minerals, navigating stormy seas as fishermen, or in pursuit of
commerce. We must think of the life of drudgery and weariness led by
multitudes of women and young children in factories of various kinds,
of multitudes of poor sempstresses toiling all their lives for the barest
subsistence; think of the thousands of men employed in the great cities
of the world, as drivers of cabs, trains, omnibuses, and other public
vehicles men whose hands must grasp the reins for twelve or fourteen
and even sixteen hours a day, and that for seven days a week I And even
if we rise above the classes condemned to the lowest forms of labor,
oh, how full of toil is this our world! Rest and leisure for enjoyment
are the rare exceptions, the stern, rarely relaxed rule is toil, labor
in the sweat of the brow!
IF little labor little are our gains,
Man?s fortunes are according to his
pains.?
So do men realize this, that multitudes
die of over-work, over-wrought brains, or worn-out bodies. Some of this
is doubtless self-inflicted and needless, but for all that, the curse
of labor presses heavily on the race, and always has done so everywhere.
There may be some lovely islet of the southern sea where no more of
labor than is healthful and pleasant is needed to secure sustenance.
But such spots are as much exceptions in the earth as men rich enough
to afford idleness are exceptions in the race. It is a fact proved by
carefully compiled statistics, that in the State of Massachusetts alone
72, 700 lives were lost in
their prime, in the manufacturing towns, in the course of
the five years, 18651871, the vast majority from excessive labor, which
soon destroys women and young girls especially. What hundreds of thousands
of such perish annually in England, and die premature deaths from the
same cause! Is not this a heavy penalty? Does it not press painfully
on the human family the world over to this day as predicted? Was not
the foreview of human history given to Adam correct in this particular?
Let the great mass of mankind straightening their weary backs and wiping
the sweat from their brows with stiffened, aching hands reply.
But the heaviest burden of this Eden
prophecy fell not on the man. It fell where the sin was greatest, on
the first transgressor woman. Hers was a double guilt, for she not only
yielded to temptation, but became in her turn a tempter. She fell not
alone, but drew her husband down with her. The natural, inevitable consequences
were foretold, and themselves constituted to a large extent woman?s
peculiar curse, though there is superadded a Divine infliction of punishment.
Given to be man?s helpmeet and companion, woman became first his tempter
and then his slave; for man, in becoming a sinner, became of course selfish.
Might took the place of right, and the weaker vessel, instead of being
honored and cherished, was oppressed and degraded. ?Thy desire will
be to thy husband, ? or, as it is better rendered, ?thou wilt be in
subjection to thy husband, and he will rule (or tyrannise) over thee.?
Has this prediction been verified in
the history of the sex? Alas! alas! almost too terribly for description.
The shameless, brutal, cruel degradation of woman by the stronger sex
has been perhaps one of the very darkest results of the fall, and one
of the plainest proofs of the ruin which sin has wrought in the nature
of man. Save where Divine revelation has shed its beams of healing light,
woman is to this day a slave, or a captive, or a victim. The Indian
loads his wife like a beast of burden, with all his goods and chattels,
drives her before him with her infant on her back as he would drive
a brute, and walking unburdened by her side, flogs her when her strength
fails. The Bantu chief in Central Africa dies; straightway a dozen of
his living wives are forced into the great square pit which is to be
his grave, to make a couch for the corpse, and be buried alive to keep
the dead man company. How often, when the Hindu husband has died, has
the wife been burned on his funeral pile as a compliment to his memory!
One hundred millions of women and young girls fellow-subjects of our
ownare immured as prisoners to this day in the dark and loathsome zenanas
of India, doomed to a wretched, cruel, dreary lifelong captivity, and
to an ignorance which degrades them into mere talking animals; and this
by the laws and customs invented and established by
men. They may never eat with their own husbands, or share any of
his pleasures or pursuits, never walk abroad for exercise, or travel
for health, instruction, or amusement. They are simply slaves, lifelong
prisoners, defrauded of the first right of a human being, and worse
off than any negro in the West Indies in days gone by. Such is the portion
of woman in heathendom, and it is not much better among the hundred
and twenty millions of Mohammedans. Woman is denied her just rights
by the degrading custom of polygamy, denied education and culture, denied
even the possession of a soul! Even the Jews in their daily ritual thank
God that He has not made them women, and do not permit wives and mothers
to worship God with their husbands and sons in the synagogues, but assign
to them a separate gallery. Everywhere and in all ages, savage or civilized,
man black, white, red, yellow, or brown has tyrannized
over and oppressed his weaker companion, degraded her into his servant, regarded her as property to be bought and sold, and imposing
on her his share of the curse excessive toil in addition to her own
of excessive suffering in child-bearing and fatigue in child-rearing,
has inflicted on her, in wanton wickedness, multitudes of other sufferings,
both physical and mental.
Christianity, as we have seen, makes
men new creatures in Christ, and does away with all this; and even where
it is a mere profession instead of a reality, it still makes men ashamed
of this undisguised brutality and selfishness, so that some forms of the degradation and oppression of the weaker sex have disappeared
in Christendom. But we must not think they have ceased to be because
we see them not! By very far the largest part of the sex are still after
six thousand years victims to these terrible sufferings, so awfully
wide and long continued has been the fulfillment of this part of the
Adamic program.
Even in professing Christian countries there exist still many cruel and
oppressive laws and customs, indicating that the original Divine ideal
of the equality of the sexes is not even yet, after eighteen hundred
years of Christianity, fully recognized. Only a year ago were the abominable
laws which sanctioned the vilest form of female slavery abolished, and
the same personal liberty secured to women as to men. And these laws
are still in full operation in India, in our colonies, and in most of
the countries of Europe laws that condemn the young and feeble of one
sex to assault and infamy, to degradation and imprisonment for the sake
of securing to the other immunity from the natural penalties of vice
It is only a year or two since the law of our land shielded tender,
helpless female children from the worst form of brutal assault by men,
and even now it gives no protection to girls after sixteen. Thus too
wife-heating and wife-murder are lightly esteemed if men can plead intoxication
as an excuse ; and the judges in cases of divorce
may give the custody of children to a bad father, and refuse recognition
to the mother?s rights, knowledge, it is safe to conclude that the whole
is an inspired prediction.
As to the remaining portion of the prediction,
the more direct infliction of penal suffering, ?in sorrow shalt thou
bring forth children, ? it is needless to dwell on its mournful worldwide
and still-continued fulfillment. The sufferings of childbirth are the
severest known. They are used throughout Scripture as a similitude for
the extremest and most distressing pain and danger. The fact that in
all lands and ages large numbers of mothers actually die in them, and
the fact that this process is merely a climax preceded and followed
by a vast variety of related sufferings, so that the greater part of
every woman?s life is chequered at intervals by sickness and pain unknown
to the other sex, leave no room to doubt the long-continued and universal
realization in human experience of this part of the prediction.
It may of course be argued by unbelievers
that phenomena so conspicuous as death and toil and female suffering
could not but have been noted and pondered by Moses, and that their
existence and universality in his day accounts for the ?legend, ? or
?myth, ? of the predictions in Genesis in. To this we reply that it
is vain to contend that the second part of the Adamic foreview of the
future may have had a natural origin in the days of Moses, when it is perfectly
clear, as we have shown, that the first part cannot be similarly accounted for. If a portion of the prophecy evinces
supernatural fore-knowledge, it is safe to conclude that the whole is
an inspired prediction.
To conclude. This first section of the
Divine program of the world?s history is, as befits its early and primitive
character, fundamental and moral. It has no ethnographic nor political
features; it does not distinguish between one part of the human race
and another; it alludes to no special occurrences of history, gives
no order of events, and no indications of chronology. Later predictions
do all this, but not so the grand primitive Genesis outline. The general
course of providence under the government of a righteous and holy but
merciful God, the consequences of Satanic temptation and human sin,
and the existence of a Divine plan for the ultimate destruction of moral
evil and for the redemption of the fallen race by means of a suffering
yet triumphant member of it these were the broad, fundamental, all-important
particulars contained in it. It was not a detailed foreview of any one
section, but a general program of the whole. It covered all lands and
all ages, stretching in its geographical sweep to the uttermost ends
of the earth, and in its chronological range from the days of Eden to
a still future time. The experience of every single descendant of Adam
has harmonized with it, and the great central event of all history the
first advent of Christ has already to a large extent fulfilled its promise,
and many infallible signs indicate its perfect accomplishment in days
to come.
Nothing of a similar character can be
found in all the range of literature; it arches over the guilty and
suffering human race like the grand vault of heaven, simple, abiding,
all-embracing, vast, unutterably lofty, and illuminated by a glorious
central sun the promise of the Redeemer. Whence came it? Is this the
manner of man?
Index Intro 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Conclusion
