NOAH-HIS AGE AND OURS by Cumming

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 28, 1861

NOAH—HIS AGE AND OURS.

By Cumming

WE enter here on one of the great parallelisms of time. The coincidences we discover between the age of Noah and the nineteenth century are significant signs. They are proofs of the earth's old age, and yet foretokens of its predicted youth. Our Lord says, "As it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man. They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; but the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all." Luke xvii, 26-29.

History, whether sacred or profane, seems always to repeat itself. One great era in the world appears, when narrowly examined, to be simply the reflection of another; and a deed done in the day that now is, to be the echo of a deed done hundreds or thousands of years ago. Time seems to move in circles, history constantly to repeat itself, and so far to illustrate the maxim of the wise man, "There is nothing new under the sun." When we examine great and startling epochs in the history of the world, we find points of contact, analogies, and coincidences most suggestive.

The deluge, the destruction of Jerusalem, the end of this age, all seem to have coincident points running, like sea and land, into each other.

The age of Noah is a prefiguration of the age that now is,—the last great epoch of this world's life. History is never obsolete. He that knows best the history of the past, humanity speaking, will be the truest prophet of the character of the future. Some one made the remark in scorn, "History is an old almanac." He stated a great truth, though he did not intend it. How does the almanac of this year differ from the almanac of the last? The dates differ slightly, but the acts are the same, the tides the same, the rising and setting of the sun, summer and winter, spring and autumn. History is an old almanac; it is the same great drama, only with different actors, and slight changes in the parts that they play. If you take the events of the last two thousand years and compare them with the events of the four thousand that preceded, you will be struck by the number of beautiful and interesting coincidences. The study of Genesis is a preparation for the study of the Apocalypse. Acquaintance with Leviticus is a ground-work for acquaintance with the gospel according to St. John. The history of humanity in the desert is a type and prefiguration of humanity in the age in which our lot is now cast.

Human nature as far as disconnected with the gospel, and uninfluenced by its elements, is the same in the days of Napoleon that it was in the days of Noah. The nineteenth century from creation, and the nineteenth century from the Christian era, in which we live, are very much facsimiles the one of the other; and where the difference is visible, that difference is the result of the touch of transforming grace, not the inherent attainment or development of original excellence in human nature.

Jesus, in his assertion of parallelism, recognizes Genesis as scripture. It is worth while to notice these points; because, admit the New Testament to be divine, and you cannot escape the conclusion that the Old is equally so; because the writers and speakers in the New quote the sentiments of the writers of the Old. Jesus quotes Genesis as true history. You are aware the Rationalists in Germany—called Rationalists, as they think themselves, from excess of reason, just as lucus, from lux, light, is the Latin for a grove, from its non lucendo, from its having no light; so these men are called Rationalists, because they have no reason—say that the tower of Babel, and Abraham leaving Ur of the Chaldees, and the flood, are myths—that is, fables. They say it was not a real history, but a fable, just as the parable of the prodigal son, or the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. But here our blessed Lord refers to Noah as a real person, to the flood as a fact, to the characteristics of that generation as types and prefigurations of the characteristics of ours; and in all respects he attests the authenticity of Genesis, the reality of its history; and that if Rationalists proclaim it to be a myth, the Way, the Truth, and the Life has anticipated them, by pronouncing it sacred and instructive history.

The prophecy, however, that we are now to consider is, that men shall be at the close of this age just as they were at the close of the antediluvian age. But what was the character of the people at the time of the flood? and by finding the sketch of them as given by the inspired pencil, we shall be able to ascertain what shall be the character of those who shall live immediately before our Lord's coming. The condition and character of the world in the days of Noah are thus described: "And it came to pass, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose. And the Lord said, My Spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh. There were giants in the earth in those days. And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. And God looked upon the earth, and behold it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth." Here is the portrait; not drawn by an inaccurate pen, but by the faithful historian, who was inspired by the Spirit of God to sketch it truly, and to set down nothing that was false. We may expect, then, that the next generation will be something like a reflection of this first. We are told that in the days of Noah the heart of man was deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. And is the natural heart improved now? There is no evidence that it is. Sins as grievous, crimes as flagrant, emanate from the unsanctified and unregenerate heart now as ever emanated from it in the days of Noah. We may be more civilized than they were in Noah's days, but not more sanctified; we may have more science, but we may not have more grace. If God's word speaks intelligibly it speaks pointedly, that out of the heart proceed all evil thoughts, appetites and desires, until that heart is sanctified by the Holy Spirit of God. It is a great mistake to think that education without religion makes man's heart one whit holier. We do not fear education in science; we only contend that it is not sufficient to make man holy, or to make him happy hereafter. In fact, education without religion does man so far good—that it tends to civilize him, but it does not one whit sanctify him; it needs the element of religion to accomplish that; and because we say mere secular education is not sufficient, we do not say it is not in itself good; however, all it can do is to improve man as an inhabitant of this world; it cannot fit man for being an inhabitant of a higher. If I carry filings of steel from a muddy street to a beautiful walk, or to a lovely garden, I make an improvement in their condition; but if I take a magnet and apply it to them I give them another motion altogether, and lift them not horizontally, but vertically from the earth. Secular education lifts man from degradation unto social civilization; but it is only a change of locality on the earth; it is a horizontal change; but grace touches him with its magnetic attraction, and draws him, not from one part of the earth to another;

but from the earth to heaven, from grace to glory, closer and nearer to God.

The heart of man is not one whit changed in its inherent nature from what it was in the days of Noah and immediately before the flood. David said it was the same in his days that it was in those of Noah; and faithful history records the crimes that have found their origin in the heart, and stained the annals of the fairest realms of Europe.

It is also written, that in the days of Noah the earth was filled with violence, that is, war, conflict, revolt, dispute. And are we very much wiser now? It was predicted by the great advocates, not of peace, but of the peace society, some years ago, that now war had become an obsolete thing, that all our shot should at once be made into rails, that our cannon should be turned into locomotives, our muskets sold as old iron, and our ships as fire-wood, and in fact that a mere pretence of a guard was all that we wanted on the shores of England, and that Europe had learned enough of war up to 1814 to shrink from it forever. Had these men recollected that as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be when the Son of man cometh, they would have paused before they prophesied so badly. What better testimony can we have to what man is capable of, than that the very people who shed torrents of blood, and committed the awful deeds of 1793, all things, if possible, more awful in 1848? And at this present moment all Europe is one vast volcano, waiting for the match to be applied to explode into a thousand fragments. *

Notwithstanding all prophecies of peace, the nations are at this moment as ready for war as ever. This seems very strange; it only shows that men are not yet tired of war, and that until the Prince of peace shall sway his scepter over a transformed world there may be "peace, peace,"—the calm, the quiet—but not the permanent peace that keeps the heart and mind continually.

In the days of Noah, not only was the earth filled with violence, so that we may expect the same violence to be exhibited again; but out of all that vast population there were only eight persons that obeyed God's word, that worshiped the true God, and honored him. Far be it from me to pronounce where to pray is duty; but is it not fact at this moment, that if you take Christendom at large, you cannot say that the majority are Christians; you cannot say that the majority of the professing church are true, spiritually-minded Christians? It is still true that "broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there be that go in thereat;" and "narrow is the way that leadeth to life, and few there be that find it." As "it was in the days of Noah"—that the overwhelming majority were opposed to the truth, and enamored of a lie—so previous to Christ's second advent in the bursting cloud that reveals the lightning in its splendor, and ushers in the Lord of glory, the great multitude will be without God, and without Christ, and without hope in the world.

Another feature of the men in the days of Noah was their intense worldliness. They were eating, drinking, marrying wives, and giving in marriage. Now there was no sin in any of these. It was not sinful, but dutiful to eat and drink, if they did so in moderation; it was lawful to marry then as it is lawful and dutiful to marry now, ever remembering the grand modifying law that gives it all its consistency and its beauty: "Let them that marry be as though they married not; and they that weep as though they wept not; and they that rejoice as though they rejoiced not; and they that use the world as not abusing it, knowing that the fashion of it speedily passeth away." What was the sin of the antediluvians in eating, drinking, marrying and giving in marriage? It was the excessive love of the lawful which corrupted them, as truly as their constant indulgence in the sinful. Never forget the danger we are in, in loving to excess what is lawful as well as in practicing that which is forbidden; and there is probably more peril in the excessive love of the lawful than there is in the forbidden practice of the sinful.

More men lose their souls by being absorbed in practices that are in themselves unexceptionable, than in practices that are positively sinful and forbidden. The world then was their temple; indulgences of the appetites was their delight; the gratification of the flesh was their enjoyment. They were the slaves of appetite, the servants of the world. This world was their all; they made the most of it—"Eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow we die." But on the supposition that there is a world beyond it where the deeds of the present have their echo in the retributions of the future, their conduct was disobedient in the extreme. Now it will be so at the end of this dispensation. Men will eat and drink, and marry and give in marriage, and they will think nothing of the future. While it is their privilege and their duty to trade, they will not simply be in the world—where God has placed them—but they will be of the world, where Christians ought not to be. And the reason of this was that they were in those days atheists, or they lived without God. Now an atheist we shrink from in horror, and very justly. I cannot conceive a rational being with one ounce of common sense to come to the conclusion that there is not a God who made and governs this present world. The thing seems so absurd, that the man who could arrive at such a conclusion seems only fit to be the inmate of a lunatic asylum. The Psalmist's statement, "men that say, No God," does not mean that in David's days they were so foolish, as to conclude logically, "no God." If it were written not in the Hebrew, but in Greek, it would have been in the optative mood. "The fool hath said in his heart," not "There is no God;" but, "I wish there was no God." He cannot avoid the logical conclusion that there is a God; but he wishes that he could continue in his sins, and feel that there were no God to see him or to call him to account. The spirit of atheism may be where there is a perfect horror of the idea of an atheist. The man who explains every phenomenon without God, who sees nature's laws, but cannot see beyond them nature's Lawgiver, who accounts for every occurrence, prosperous or adverse, painful or pleasant, retribution or blessing without God, may theoretically be no atheist, but practically he is so. He is an atheist who looks on everything, and thinks of everything practically on the hypothesis that there is no God. He enters on to-morrow's duties not feeling, "If the Lord will, or if the Lord will not;" he goes to to-morrow's business calculating upon all he can do, and all he will do, not recognizing the possibly disturbing element, there is a God; such a man is not theoretically an atheist, but practically he is one. He is, as the Apostle describes him, "without God." For "atheist" does not mean a person opposed to God, but a person without God. An antitheist is one opposed to God. Voltaire was an antitheist, that is, one who deliberately and avowedly opposed and hated God; who swore in his blasphemy that he would dethrone him; whose letters closed with the execration that he would erase Christ's name from the earth. He was not an atheist but an antitheist—one full of conscious enmity to God, opposed to him, and determined at all hazards, and whatever might be the issue, to resist him. But many that profess to be Christians, in their practical life, are without God, by omitting him and his will and sovereignty in their calculations. At the same time we must be very careful not to see God in judgments only, but in mercies and blessings also. Many persons are atheists when mercies are showered upon them, and recognize God only when judgments overtake them. I see God in sunshine, if possible, more emphatically than in cloud. I see him in the golden harvest, in its plentiful abundance, more clearly than I see him in the waves and waters of misfortune. I would wish more to see God in prosperity, and more to see myself, and my sins, and my unworthiness in adversity. But man's tendency is to see God when trouble comes, forgetting that his sin alone is to blame; and to see himself when prosperity comes, and to praise his own ingenuity and cleverness. It is the Christian's joy to see God in all that is beneficent, and beautiful, and happy; and to see his own sins, and wickedness, and guilt in the evils and the judgments that occasionally overtake him.—Cumming.

(To be continued.)