was to have had the excellency, or honor of the Messiah's coming in his line, had he done well, by continuing in the belief of the promise, and the continuance of the types and sacrifices, which signified the coming of the redeemer.

These words, also, evidently infer that Cain had had the excellency, or had been accepted in this sense, by the question, if thou dost well, shalt thou not be accepted? that is, thou hast heretofore done well, and hast been accepted, and if thou dost well, thou shalt be accepted again. Otherwise, the question would have been unnecessary, unless it had had reference to his having been once considered the head of the line, in which the Messiah would have made his appearance.

Respecting the doctrines of this most ancient church, we cannot doubt that the first grand essentials were: love to God; charity to man, and faith in the fulfilment of the promise that the seed of the woman should bruise the head of the serpent; that man should regain by the redeemer, what was lost by the transgression of the first man; because these essentials of true religion are comprehended in the commands, which God had given to Adam.

It is not necessary here to enter into a discussion concerning the longevity of the Antediluvians: much remains to be said on that subject; but it is proper

to remark that the Patriarchs from Adam to Noah, who were supreme heads both in ecclesiastical and civil affairs, gave names to the church for the term of their natural life, during the whole of which term they governed: names signifying its declining state, aud which names were changed at the accession of the hereditary successor in the order of primogeniture.

It perhaps may afford pleasure and information to the reader if I show with what wisdom and effect the venerable patriarchs applied this most significant nomenclature to the different states of the church. I do not know that it has been made known by any author, therefore it may be the more acceptable. It adds a great beauty to the original scriptures, because it shows us how the church gradually fell away to the time of Noah, when no true church existed. And as no nation can possibly have the form of a regular government, to keep man in a state of civil society, unless there be a visible religion, and God be worshipped in sincerity; it also informs us how necessary it was for God to give a new dispensation, which he did to Noah, the second visible father of all mankind.

THE FIRST PATRIARCHAL

CHURCHES.

Adam, at the birth of Seth, named him according to the state of the church. Seth means to settle, dispose, place, constitute, or reduce to order: which it is natural to suppose was necessary, as much confusion must have taken place during the time of Cain and Abel.

At the birth of ENOS, the patriarch Seth gave him a name consistent with the state of the church, over which he was to preside, directed no doubt by Adam who had all knowledge intuitively in himself, and called him ENOS, which signifies a mortal state by sin; significant of the fall of Adam, by which the church was reduced to a state of misery.

A similar state of the church was meant at the birth of Cainan the son of Enos. Cainan means to lament, to mourn, to be in a depressed state of mind; and so was significant of that state, in which it is natural to suppose the mind would experience sorrow by the loss of the blissful, paradisaical state of Eden.

Mahalaleel succeeded, who was so called in conformity to the custom at that day. Mahalaleel

signifies a departure from the praise or worship of the true God. The literal sense of which is, that the state of the church at this period was worse, as to doctrines and life, than it was at the beginning of the reign of Cainan, or any of the former churches, and that they departed more and more from the true worship of God universally.

This departure continued when Jarad, the next successor, presided over the church and state. Jarad means to decline, to descend, and so was descriptive of that order of things in their progress towards the last state of that church.

But Enoch the son of Jarad, who next succeeded to the supreme government, appears to have attempted to restore the worship of God by setting an example himself.

Enoch has the following signification, to dedicate, to train up, and the word, which is rendered walked, is in the hithpael conjugation, which means he walked himself training up with God, or worshipped God, and instructed or trained up those who were willing to worship the true God. From this expression it appears, that the great mass of the people did not walk with, or worship, God; but were worshippers of idols. Therefore all the attempts of Enoch to establish the true worship of God, seem to have been altogether ineffectual. Methuselah,

his son, succeeded him, when a more ruinous state of things commenced, agreeably to the meaning of the word Methuselah, viz. and he sent forth death, which indicates a state of universal idolatry, in scripture termed a spiritual death.

This appears to be confirmed by the next successor, his son Lamech, the import of which is, a total decay or falling away, so complete in its kind as not to leave a single vestige of what this church was in its origin. Love to God and charity to man, which were the actuating principles that constituted this church, appear to have been banished, and the love of self and the world, guided and directed every motion in the heart and soul of the whole human race. This is sufficiently evident from what is said in the 5th verse of the next chapter, concerning the state of the world at this time, viz. And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of the heart was only evil continually. A more complete picture of the universal departure from every principle and act of virtue and moral rectitude, was never drawn by any pen. The whole man was a lump of evil, for it is emphatically said, only evil, not in word only, but the imagination of the thoughts of his heart was evil-not for a time only, but the