First Things, Volume 2

Lsr the history of our first parents, the first birth must have been an event of deep interest. What mother, from the days of Eve to the present hour, ever realized such an event without those commingled emotions of solicitude, tenderness, responsibility, and joy, which none but the heart of a parent knows? Cain and Abel, it has been generally believed, were twin brothers. Two flowers there were that thus early bloomed on this barren earth, though the flowers of Eden were thus blighted. The “mother of all living” looked upon her first-born, and exclaimed in transports of gladness, “I have gotten a man from the Lord!” There was nature in all this; and was there not faith in it also? God had said,” I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed: it shall bruise thy head, (J THE FIRST DEIST.

and thou shalt bruise his heel.” This promise of the Messiah was not given to a reprobate. Our first parents were to be the founders of true religion in the very world upon which they had brought the curse of their apostasy; and this simple and childlike exclamation of Eve, while it evinces her gratitude and a sweet sense of her dependence, shows that she was no castaway. Nor is it at all improbable, that these few words contained the germ of a stronger faith, and that she had the secret hope that her first-born son was the promised “seed of the woman.”

It is an interesting fact, that God was not pleased to give our first parents posterity, until he had revealed this gracious promise; and it is a delightful truth, in its relations to those who die in infancy, that no child of Adam was ever born, except under the mediatorial reign of the promised Saviour. Cain and Abel began their existence under tho announced reign of this Prince of Peace; yet, as they commenced it under a broken covenant, they inherited the character, not of their unfallen, nor of their restored parents, but the character which they possessed as fallen and depraved creatures.

We know little of the early history of these two first-born of the human family; the brief hints furnished by the sacred historian, show that they were very different men. It is obvious from the whole narrative that they were religiously educated, and that they employed their religious training to very different ends. Their parents were acquainted with God, and had cultivated the most delightful intimacy with him before they fell. They were unhappily too well acquainted with the snares of the tempter; and God had graciously made them acquainted with the way of salvation by his Son, and with the only way of worshipping him acceptably and with godly fear. These great truths they could not but have instilled into the minds of their children, by example, instruction, and prayer.

Religious instruction, even where most faithfully imparted, exerts a widely different influence upon different minds. This difference was strongly marked in the character of Cain and Abel. Abel was a pious young man; Cain was ungodly. Abel was a believer in God’s truth; Cain was an unbeliever. Abel was a Christian; Cain a Deist. Abel died an unnatural, yet a happy death; Cain lived to wander a vagabond in the earth, and died none can tell where, with this only epitaph upon his grave, “That wicked one, who slew his brother.” Nor was this first-born of the human family the last one of the race whose entrance into the world was greeted with exultation, but whose subsequent character and conduct overwhelmed his parents with the bitterness, the very anguish of grief.

We have said that Cain was a Deist, and that Abel was a Christian. Truth and error, Deism and Christianity, have essentially their own peculiar characteristics in all ages of the world. The Christianity of Abel was essentially the Christianity of Paul; while the Deism of Cain was essentially the Deism of Herbert, Blount, Shaftesbury, Tindal, Morgan, Chubb, and Bolingbroke. Christianity is the system of doctrines and precepts taught in the Holy Scriptures; and the Christian is one who believes and loves these doctrines, and obeys these precepts. Deism is the system which, while it acknowledges the existence of one God, denies a supernatural revelation. It is the belief in natural religion only, or in those truths which are discovered only. by the lights of reason and nature. The Deist is one who professes to follow these lights as his only guides. A cursory view of the character of Cain and Abel will justify the assertion, that while the former presents to us the first example of Deism, the latter furnishes us the first, among Adam’s descendants, who was an exemplification of Christianity.

We rest these positions on a brief narrative which we extract from the fourth chapter of the book of Genesis. “Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the ground an offering unto the Lord. And Abel he also brought of the firstlings of his flock, and of the fat thereof. And the Lord had respect unto Abel and his offering; but unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell. And the Lord said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen? If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire; and thou shalt rule over him. And Cain talked with Abel his brother: and it came to pass when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against his brother Abel and slew him. And the Lord said unto Cain, Where is Abel, thy brother? And he said, I know not; am I my brother’s keeper? And he said, What hast thou done? The voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto me from the ground.”

There is no such test of character as the revealed truth and will of God. They were revealed in order to influence the characters of men; while facts show that their characters are developed by nothing so certainly. Men are religious or irreligious, Christian or infidel, as they fall in, or fall out with God’s truth and God’s commands.

If we look into the Bible, we shall find that theions services of men are there regarded as unfailing indices of what they themselves are; and the reason of this is, that their religious services are so intimately connected with their views of divine truth, and their affections toward it. That the offerings of Cain and Abel were widely different, and indicated a widely different character in the offerers, is obvious from the fact, that the one was an accepted, while the other was a disapproved and rejected service. We are not informed what these tokens of the divine approbation and disapprobation were; it is not improbable that the offering of Cain was regarded with mortifying and stinging neglect; while fire descended from heaven to consume the offering of Abel, and the smoke of it went up as a “sweet-smelling savor.” Whence this difference in the divine conduct toward these early worshippers? A true answer to this inquiry will set the characters of these two men in their true light.

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