unless he first understands the pith and marrow of the Old. No man
will understand the Psalms and the Prophets unless he first
understands the first ten chapters of Genesis; and, lastly, no one
will ever understand any thing about the Bible at all, who, instead
of taking it simply as it is written, is always trying to twist it
into proofs of his own favourite doctrines, and make Abraham a high
Calvinist, or Noah a member of the Church of England. Why do I say
this? To make you all think seriously that this covenant on which I
have been preaching is your covenant; that as sure as the rainbow
stands in heaven, as sure as you and I are sprung out of the loins
of Noah, so surely this covenant which binds us is part of our
Christian covenant, and woe to us if we break it!

This covenant tells us that we are made in God's likeness, and,
therefore, that all sin is unworthy of us and unnatural to us. It
tells us that God means us bravely and industriously to subdue the
earth and the living things upon it; that we are to be the masters
of the pleasant things about us, and not their slaves, as sots and
idlers are; that we are stewards and tenants of this world for the
great God who made it, to whom we are to look up in confidence for
help and protection. It tells us that our family relationships, the
blessed duties of a husband and a father, are sacred things; that
God has created them, that the great God of heaven Himself respects
them, that the covenant which He makes with the father He makes with
the children; that He commands marriage, and that He blesses it with
fruitfulness; that it is He who has told us "Be fruitful and
multiply, and replenish the earth;" that the tie of brotherhood is
His making also; that HE will require the blood of the murdered man
AT HIS BROTHER'S HAND; that a man's brothers, his nearest relations,
are bound to protect and right him if he is injured; so that we all