Immediately after this Revelation by action there is a Revelation by speech, establishing an order of things based on the relation of master and servant :-" And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." (16, 17.) In token of his dependence on God, and gratitude to his Benefactor, he was required to do homage, by abstaining from the fruit of a certain tree. This would show that God was his Sovereign, and that he held the domain as vassal under Him. The penalty was expulsion from the domain of supernatural privilege, involving exclusion from the sacrament of immortality, and relapse to the condition of unaided nature. This relapse is what is commonly called the fall of man. It was a fall from the supernatural to the natural. "Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." This penalty is entailed on Adam's posterity; that is to say, although placed under a new system of grace, with glorious promises and prospects, they have never been restored to the former system of grace, never been reinstated into that same condition of privilege which their father forfeited. It is evident that since, according to the Bible, the consequences of Adam's transgression have been so fearful, his guilt is regarded as great. Yet the action of eating the fruit appears in itself most insignificant. It derives all its significance from the prohibition. And Adam's obligation to respect that prohibition depended on his knowledge of the Speaker. It was that knowledge which rendered an act, in itself insignificant, rebellion against God his Sovereign. As the action was so insignificant in itself, it is evident that Adam could not have been led by any natural principles to invest it with importance, that there must have been imparted to him an indubitable perception that the prohibition was spoken by God. The constituted order of Lord and servant, and the homage required, both belong wholly to Revelation. Such, then, is the record of the first Revelation. The next to be noticed is the Revelation to Noah, which is recorded in Gen. vi. 13, 14, 17, 18, 22. "And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and behold I will destroy them with the earth. Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch. .. And behold I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven; and everything that is in the earth shall die. But with thee will I establish my covenant; and thou shalt come into the ark, thou, and thy sons, and thy wife, and thy sons' wives with thee. Thus did Noah; according to all that God commanded him, so did he." 66 It would be a monstrous notion that Noah was enabled, by observation of meteorological or other phenomena, to calculate and predict the coming of the Flood. Yet he prepares for the event, and that in spite of certain ridicule, and the risk, if he be deceived, of lost time and fruitless labour. His conduct was justified by the event; and in the New Testament, Heb. xi. 7, he is commended for obedience, and set forth as a bright example of faith. By faith, Noah, being warned of God (xpnμatioOeis), of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark for the saving of his house; by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith." Nothing can be plainer than that, according to the Bible, there was made known to him, not only the prediction, but that the prediction was from God. The outward form or mode of the prediction is of little consequence. If there was "a Voice in the air," there must have been also a knowledge that this Voice was the vehicle of Revelation, and that knowledge is the only essential point. The narrative of Abraham offering up his son (Gen. xxii.) is exceeding instructive, and is decisive of the nature of Revelation. In the first and second verses the command is said to have been given by God, and there seems no good reason for taking the words otherwise than as they stand. The action which is said to have been commanded was one which, instead of being suggested by any thing in human nature, was a direct violation of it. In itself, apart from the command, it was the crime of murder, and that the murder of a son, a son especially beloved, the child of old age. It is impossible to conceive that Abraham could have been led on to the action but by an overpowering conviction that it was commanded by God. Only the command of Him who was the Lord of life could render this action justifiable. Shakspeare illustrates this point when he describes Hamlet, in hesitation, requiring something more satisfactory than the testimony of the ghost ere proceeding to action (act ii. scene 2): "The spirit that I have seen May be the devil: and the devil hath power In Abraham's case, there was no room for doubt. He knew that what he had heard was no fancy, a mere "voice in the air," that it did not arise from an evil spirit, but was an intimation of the will of God. We are confirmed in this belief by the approval and reward of his obedience as a proof of his fear of God. "And he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou anything unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me...... By myself have I sworn, saith the LORD, for because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son: that in blessing I will bless 66 thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies; and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice." (Gen. xxii. 12, 16-18.) The New Testament also, in the most unequivocal manner, approves of Abraham's conduct, holding it up as a splendid example of faith: Heb. xi. 17-19, By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac: and he that had received the promises offered up his only-begotten son, of whom it was said, That in Isaac shall thy seed be called: accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead; from whence also he received him in a figure." James ii. 21,"Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered up Isaac his son upon the altar? Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect? And the Scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness: and he was called the friend of God." It is true that in 2 Sam. xxiv. 1, David's temptation to number the people is attributed to God, and that in the parallel passage in 1 Chron. xxi. 1, this is interpreted of the permitted agency of Satan. Elsewhere, God is spoken of as proving His people by false prophecy, attended by miracle. Deut. xiii. 1-3, "If there arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and giveth thee a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder come to pass, |