lived in sin that grace might abound; did evil that good might come; or made void the law through faith; let us put to silence the ignorance of foolish men, by adorning the doctrine we profess with a blameless conduct. Let us not merely rebut such insinuations with a-God forbid but evince, how shall we that are dead to sin, live any longer therein.

May he that hath the key of David, who openeth and no man shutteth, and shutteth and none can open, open your hearts to receive the truth in the love of it, and ineline you to walk in the light of it, and then ye shall know that the ways thereof are pleasantness, and all the paths thereof are peace! AMEN.

NOTE.-The foregoing sermon on the Law given to the Jews at Mount Sinai, we are informed, laid the foundation of that earnest and searching investigation of the Oracles of God, which has been in progress in the United States for the past twenty-five or thirty years. It has been in our possession for the last seven or eight years. We have often been solicited to give it a place in the Messenger, but a favourable opportunity for so doing never occurred till now. We recommend it to the study and examination of all our readers, especially of those who have invited its re-publication in this country. J. W.

FAMILY CULTURE.

CONVERSATIONS AT THE CARLTON HOUSE. No. XX.

OLYMPAS having commanded the household to read the eighteenth and nineteenth chapters of Genesis, resumed the close of the eighteenth as follows:- "We have found one of the three guests of Abraham, under a very high title, communing with him on the immediate fate of Sodom. How is this revelation introduced ?"

This

Reuben. "And the Lord said, Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous, I will go down now and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it which is come unto me; and if not, I will know.' certainly would indicate that the Lord did not know all things, if we understand it literally as it reads. But I presume it is an accommodation of things supernatural to our usual modes of ascertaining facts.

Olympas. No more than when it is said, "Grieve not the Spirit""God repented that he had made man"-the Lord sees the Lord remembers-the Lord hears, walks, rises, stands, &c. &c. These are all accommodations, and this is an eastern periphrasis-a beautiful eircumlocution, intimating that the Lord will impartially examine and adjudicate all the actions of men according to truth before he pronounces sentence. "The men then turned their faces from thence towards Sodom, and went on before the Lord."

Thomas. This would intimate to me that the Lord's saying, "I will go down and see," means not a descent from heaven, but from the place that he then occupied in communing with Abraham. Am I right?

Olympas. I almost fear to say you are right, and yet I dare not say that you are wrong; for all the rabbies, Hebrew, Greek, and English, down to Tillotson the Archbishop, Adam Clarke, and all the moderns, speak of the Lord as descending from heaven. But this is one instance, that to follow the connexion and common sense is generally more natural and safe than to look afar off to hypothesis, analogy, or theory, for light on difficult passages. The case is simply this: The Lord on earth was talking to Abraham on an eminence above the plain in which these four cities stood. To Abraham he says, "I will go down and examine the fame of Sodom, and ascertain its truth." The accompanying two angels left him and Abraham in converse, and departed as the Lord's messengers to examine the character of the inhabitants, as we shall see in the sequel. Meanwhile, Abraham stands in solemn attention to what Jehovah says; and waxing bold in his confidence, and full of compassion " he drew near to the Lord and began his intercessions--the Lord and he standing upon the same piece of earth. He begins his intercession on the plea of fifty righteous being found in the city. And what numbers next, James ?

James. Forty-five, forty, thirty, twenty, ten.

Olympas. Why did he not descend to five ?

Susan. He was ashamed, I think, to go below ten.

Henry. Abraham asked six times, and I think he ought to have been ashained sooner, rather than to have asked any more.

Olympas. What seems to be the point, the main point in the intercessions of Abraham, Eliza ?

Eliza. The confounding of the righteous with the wicked. His plea was, "Wilt thou slay the righteous with the wicked?" This, Abraham thought, would be wrong; for he said," Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right ?"

Olympas. So we still think; and the Lord thinks so too, and therefore he will "make a difference between him that serveth him and him that serveth him not." Observe, that the Lord to whom Abraham spoke, is here regarded by Abraham as "the Judge of all the earth." After this long and wonderful intercession on the part of Abraham, in which it appears that Abraham became ashamed to ask, before the Lord refused to listen, we are told "the Lord went his way, and Abraham returned to his place." This intercession, then, not only took place on earth, both the Lord and Abraham standing upon the soil; but the Lord walked on the earth in visible form as a man, and as the sequel shows, directed his course towards Sodom, whither the two other men-like celestials had gone before him. Do we again hear, Edward, of the formex two angels ?

Edward. I presume it is of these we read in the next chapter: "And there came two angels to Sodom at even; and Lot sat in the gate of Sodom, and seeing them rose up to meet them, and he bowed himself with his face to the ground."

Olympas. Doubtless you are right, Edward. These are the two; and a faithful day's journey it was, as it seems to me, to reach Sodom by sun-down from the vicinity of Abrahain's dwelling. How did Lot view these two angels, Henry?

Henry. He seems to have viewed them as men, just as Abraham had viewed them. He invited them to his house, and prepared for them a repast, as he would have done for his uncle Abraham had he visited him. But what could have induced Lot to go and sit at the gate of Sodom?

Olympas. How do you answer, Thomas ?

Thomas. There were no taverns in Sodom in those days, as all ancient tradition intimates. And towards evening sometimes the more hospitable and benevolent use to go to the gate of the city to invite the more respectable strangers home with them. Generally strangers pitched their tents in the streets, and lived in the city as they were wont to do while on their journey. In those mild climates there were no taverns. Travellers carried their tents and their provisions, and lived as at home. So some ancient history, which I read at school, represents the custom.

Olympas. Very good. This does honour to Lot as much as the actual fact of his inviting them home with them. They were respectable looking strangers, without any travelling apparatus: and who can tell but the Omnipresent Spirit so moved the mind of Lot as to direct his steps to the gate of the city just at the moment that he might have the honour of entertaining angels unawares, and that the Lord's angels might be carried home to the Lord's people.

Edward. It seems that the wicked men of Sodom assaulted the house, and desired to have the angels whom they regarded as men. For what purpose did they want them ?

Olympas. These were the vilest of the vile, who envied Lot of these distinguished, and, no doubt, beautiful looking angel-men; and who were addicted to a crime which yet bears the name of the accursed city, and which, as you advance in the study of Leviticus eighteenth and twentieth chapters, you may some day more fully understand. You will observe that the two angelic men proposed staying in the street all night; but Lot, probably anticipating such an affray, more perseveringly invited them to share the protection of his house. Reuben. Lot ought not to have lived in such a wicked place. Eliza. So one of the Apostles intimates when he says, righteous man, while dwelling among the Sodomites, had his soul vexed from day to day by their unrighteous deeds."

"That

Olympas. Cupidity or inordinate selfishness had led him astray for for when Abraham gave him the choice of pasturage, instead of saying "Uncle Abraham, you have been my protector and my superior, and I would rather you would choose first. Take the hill or the plains, as seems good in your sight." But no; he accepted the preference, and "chose all the plain of Jordan," for its pastures were rich and well watered and so Abraham returned to the high grounds and pitched his tent from oak to oak, and from hill to hill, as the exigencies of his flocks and herds required. But, observe, Lot suffers for his inordinate self-love, as the event fully and awfully demonstrates. So.

good men are not ever or very long perfect! After this rude assault of these vile wretches, what next occupies the historian's attention?

Edward. The men, (angels, I presume,) commanded Lot to assemble his sons-in-law, sons and daughters, and whatever he had, and to depart for, said they, "We will destroy this place; for the Lord has sent us to destroy it."

Olympas. Did the sons-in-law of Lot obey their father?

Edward. No: he seemed to them as one that mocked.
Olympas. What family had Lot at this time?

Thomas. He seems to have had only a wife and two daughters; for his daughters seem to have been betrothed rather than married.

Olympas. So it might seem. But does Lot promptly obey the command of the two angels?

Edward. No: he lingered till "the men took hold of him and of the hands of his wife and daughters, the Lord being merciful to him, and they brought him forth and set him without the city."

Olympas. What a lesson! How stupid and lingering is man-the best of men! How merciful and longsuffering is God! Who would have thought that so good a man as Lot could have been so attached to so wicked a society, as that angels must lay hands on him and drag him out of the city of destruction! And even when he is out of the walls and gates the angel adds, "Escape for thy life, look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the plain; escape to the mountain lest thou be consumed!" Yet listen to Lot: "Oh! not so, my Lord "Oh, let me escape to Zoar. Is it not a little city! I cannot escape to the mountain!" It was well for Lot that Abraham had interceded for the righteous in Sodom! The Lord in mercy for the affrighted and unnerved Lot, said, "See, I have accepted thee in this thing: I will not overthrow this city for which thou hast spoken! Haste, haste, thee; escape thither; for I cannot do any thing till thou be come thither." The Lord it seems by this time appeared to Lot, and it was to him that Lot prayed. What time of the morning was this,

Eliza ?

Eliza. The sun was just risen upon the earth when Lot entered Zoar.

Olympas. Why, William, was it called Zoar?

William. Zoar, you said, means little; and, I suppose, as this was a very small city, it was called Zoar.

Olympas. What was its former name?

William. Thomas says it was first called Bela; but I do not know how he knows that.

Olympas. Explain, Thomas.

Thomas. Gen. xiv. 2. The king of Bela is mentioned as last of the five kings of the five Cities of the Plain; and here we are told by anticipation that Bela is the same as Zoar!

Olympas. Read again the next verse, William. William. "Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven."

Olympas. This verse is peculiarly important. Here are two Lord's spoken of. Who are they, Reuben?

Reuben. The former is the Lord on earth-" the Judge of all the earth"-the visible Lord, who communed with Abraham, Lot, and a 11

the patriarchs. The other is the Lord in heaven-the invisible God, "whom no man has seen or can see." I presume the former is God the Father, and the second is the Lord afterwards incarnate.

Olympas. They are both called Yehovah. The Yehovah rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from Yehovah. It is certain that it is so written; but your inferences from these words may not be so certain. It is indeed plain that the Lord to whom Abraham and Lot spake rained vengeance down from the Lord in heaven; and it is probable very probable the Lord the Judge of all the earth, who spoke to Abraham, was indeed the Word that was in the beginning with God and that was God, who became incarnate and dwelt with men in a human body, whose similitude he so often seems to have assumed when he communed with the ancients. This is the more probable also from the declaration that the Divinity is invisible -that God the Father is the invisible God, of whom the Lord, who punished Sodom, is the express image; and who, therefore, of right, both as respects nature and image, wears his name Jehovah. Still I would have you clearly draw the line between what is inferential merely, and what is expressly affirmed in so many precise words. What next ensued, William, in the narrative?

William. The Lord rained fire and brimstone on those cities, and overthrew them, and all the plains with them, with all the inhabitants, and every thing standing or growing upon the ground. I read the other day that the plain about seventy miles long, and eighteen broad, abounding in asphaltes, or bitumen, of which there were many pits, highly inflammable, was ignited by the lightning, and that the ground was burned out like a large saucer, into which the Jordan poured its sluggish waters, and that became a sea, now called the Salt Sea, or the Dead Sea, anciently Asphaltites. Also, that the water is so thick that a stone will swim in it; that it emits an effluvia fatal to the fowls of heaven; and that its waters are mortal even to the fish that swim in them; that the winds cannot ruffle its dark and pitchy waters; and that the very fruit that grows upon the surrounding trees, though so beautiful to the eye, are filled with ashes.

Olympas. So the love of the marvellous embraces every opportunity of developing itself. It adds fictitious items-exaggerates the true, and new colours all. It is, indeed, true that the Jordan has made a sea, called the Dead Sea, of nearly such dimensions, on the ground once deluged with fire; and it is probable that much of that bituminous earth was consumed. Even in the ordinary processes of nature sometimes not only nitrous particles exhaled from the earth, but sulphurous also; and these in large volumes coming into contact with the electric spark, are instantly ignited; and by an accumulation of such materials the most terrific scenes sometimes transpire. It is therefore certain that fire and brimstone were rained down on these cities, and that, with all their inhabitants, they were consumed. Jude says, "They are set forth an example of the doom of ungodly men, suffering the vengeance of an eternal fire." What came of Lot's wife, Susan?

Susan. She was converted into a pillar of salt.

Reuben. Struck dead with lightning and petrified into salt rock, as some traveller, Mr. Shaw or Mr. Pecocke, says.