his generation, and verified his warnings by preparing before their eyes the ark which was to preserve all flesh that did not perish in the coming deluge, he made not a single convert to his doctrine; and the angel of the bottomless pit swept off the whole generation of men into his own abode, one family only being reserved. Scarcely was that reserved family re-established on earth's surface, when he beguiled the godly patriarch into an act of intemperance; and this transgression the enemy also turned to such advantage, that it laid a third part of his progeny under a malediction, of which Satan well knew how to avail himself for further mischief. He fastened on the posterity of Canaan with peculiar tenacity; and plunged them into every abomination. So far as the Bible traces their history, we find it one of perpetual crime and suffering; and at this day, their condition, physical, moral, and spiritual, is a blot on the name and nature of What prodigious activity has he shown, and how extensively, how unremittingly have the rulers of the darkness of this world debased and afflicted the children of Canaan! inan. 1 Shem had a blessing, and Japheth also, which Satan could not hope to reverse; but against each of their races he has prevailed in a signal manner, and to this day he glories in the triumph achieved. From Shem, a single family was chosen, to be blessed above all the nations of the earth, and to be a universal blessing. To them were committed the laws and the oracles of God; through them alone was He revealed, and his will made known to the world; and above all, of them was to come that seed of the woman, promised even in the hour of man's transgression, who should bruise the serpent's head, and finally destroy him and his works. The history of Israel is a continued history of Satanic diligence: he led Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, into acts of most sinful dissimulation; Sarah, into tyranny and injustice; Rebecca and Leah into most gross deceit. In them he indeed exhibited himself as the father of lies; and in the sons of Jacob, proved himself the "murderer from the beginning." He stirred up the King of Egypt to destroy their progeny, by oppression, and by bloodshed; and to resist the delivering hand of the Lord, until the waters of the Red Sea swept the whole mighty host of Egypt at once into hell. He then followed the rescued people through the wilderness, exciting them to every species of provocation that might compel the Lord to destroy them; and succeeded even in drawing them to forsake the worship of their own God, the Lord of heaven and earth, for that of devils. While Moses was absent, receiving from Jehovah the law which had been promulgated with such fearful majesty but a few days before from Mount Sinai, and while the mountain yet smoked with fire from heaven, Satan drew them into idolatry the most gross; even surpassing that of the Egyptians; for what they worshiped was the mysterious, though irrational creation of God, while the Israelites paid divine homage to what, but the day before, had dangled from their own ears. The terrible example made did not reclaim them; they went on to transgress, and were soon drawn into an active participation of the idolatrous sin of the Canaanites, whom they had been commanded for that very sin to destroy. Balaam had no power to curse Israel, but he prevailed by Satan's subtlety, to make them curse themselves. After many generations had passed away, each exceeding the former in iniquity, the revolt became so grievous, that ten out of the twelve tribes were cast off; delivered up to themselves and to Satan, and whither he has conducted them, or where they now abide, no man knoweth. The two that were left, instead of taking warning by their dreadful fate, went on to provoke the Lord to jealousy, until they too, in righteous though reluctant judgment, were delivered into the hands of their enemies for severe chastisement: and this had such an effect on them, that, as a body, all the wiles of the devil have not prevailed again to involve them in the guilt of idolatry. This, which had been the powerful engine of Satan for so many ages, now failed; and did he therefore abandon the hopeless task of inviting them to rebellion? No: his craft-which may the Lord speedily and for ever confound!-discovered another mode of rendering void the gracious purposes of God toward them: and he gradually substituted for the immutable, perfect law of Jehovah, the commandments of vain, foolish men: he first encumbered, then superseded the written word, by means of traditions, which, being reduced to writing, usurped the place of Holy Scripture; and by that means so completely blinded the eyes, and hardened the heart of the chosen people, that when, at the appointed time, the Deliverer, the Messiah, the Lord whom they looked for, suddenly came, they despised, rejected, hated, and crucified him! For this, destruction, terrible destruction, came up. on them: and alas! not to the pages of the Bible, but to the streets of our own cities, the hovels of our own villages must we turn, to know what, through the hateful devices of the devil, has befallen Israel—to see how the Lord hath dealt with the dearly-beloved of his soul. The contemplation is enough to weigh down the most rejoicing spirit, in bitter grief and despondency: but, blessed be the Lord! this dispensation of wrath is well nigh passed away. “Thou shalt arise, and have mercy upon Zion; for the time to favour her, yea the set time is come. For thy servants take pleasure in her stones, and favour the dust thereof." Psalm cii. 13, 14. When the Lord Jesus appeared among the people, who for many centuries had eagerly looked for his advent, he chose out twelve men to be the witnesses of his mighty works, the companions of his laborious path, the privileged intimates of his merciful bosom. Of these, Satan fixed on one, took up his abode in him, transformed him into his own image, and wrought in him to become the betrayer and murderer of his Master. The reading through any one of the four Gospels with a continual reference to the part that Satan was acting all along, will give an awful idea of his indefat igable diligence. We now come to Japheth; his posterity, reckoned among Gentiles, as having no part in the very peculiar advantages belonging to this branch of Shem, were : received into participation of their rich privileges, and indeed into their place altogether, until the indignation against them should be accomplished. Grafted nto the good olive, (Rom. xi. 17,) they became living branches: and though Satan might exult in the total ruin of Israel, the destruction of the holy city, and desolation of the goodly land, he had the mortification of seeing that Christ had yet a church, though Israel was not gathered; (Isaiah xlix. ;) and that his word would run and be glorified throughout the world; to the ends of the earth, and in the isles of the sea. He therefore set himself to defile and destroy the Gentile, even as he had done the Jewish Church and two of his stale devices were found effectual here. By means of oral traditions, abundantly falsified, he set aside the Scriptures and so having made the commandments of men more valid than the commands of God, he contrived by their means to bring in idolatry; not under its real title of idol-worship, or devil-worship, but on the principle of the golden calf, proclaiming a feast to Jehovah, while eating and drinking, dancing and rejoicing, in honour of the manufactured abomination of their own device. To such an extent did he succeed, that out of the whole mass of the Gentile Church, occupying the place of the Jew, and with pious horror trampling him under foot, only a very small, unknown, or where known, persecuted and butchered remnant, could be found, who did not far outdo the Jew in the worst of his iniquities. : But the Bible remained; and some were found to read it: and through the obstinate fidelity of the scorn |