---

There may not be much that is positively instructive in these genealogies; yet there may be found that which is suggestive in them. They invite us to think of -

I. THE ADAMIC, OR NATURAL, FATHERHOOD. (Ver. 1.) It is a high distinction to be the progenitor of an illustrious "family" or of a powerful tribe; still more so of a whole nation; and the highest of its kind to be the father of the human race. But the honour is not without its serious qualifications.

1. It is of an inferior order. It is "after the flesh;" it pertains to the lower kingdom; it does not stand in the first rank in the sight of Divine wisdom.

2. It involves shame as well as honour. If in his later days Adam could boast of the happiness and triumphs which his descendants enjoyed, he must have been covered with confusion as he witnessed the sorrow and the humiliation which they endured. By his fatherhood of our race be became the parent of guilt and shame as well as of virtue and honour. They who sigh for the honour and joy of parentage may well reflect that, if our first father could have foreseen the misery and degradation to which his sons and daughters would sink, he would (or might well) have shrunk from the high distinction he enjoyed.

II. THE ABRAHAMIC, OR SPIRITUAL, FATHERHOOD. (Ver. 28.) It is true that Abraham, as his name suggests, was the father of a multitude, and that it was of him, as concerning the flesh, the Messiah came. But it is also true that our Master taught us to think of the Hebrew patriarch as the father of all faithful souls rather than as the mere progenitor of a people. The true children of Abraham are those who "do his works" (John 8:39) - those who hear and heed the Word of God. Not they who are "the seed of Abraham" are the children of the promise (Romans 9:8), but they who have the spirit of the believing and obedient patriarch; they who are Jews, "not outwardly, but inwardly,... whose praise is not of men, but of God" (Romans 2:28, 29). This is the paternity to which we should aspire, and to which we may attain. By

(1) cultivating a Christian character and spirit;

(2) living a blameless and beautiful life;

(3) speaking, in love and wisdom, enlightening and redeeming truth; -

we may become parents of faithful souls: we may be the means of quickening to newness of life those who, in their turn, will lead others also into the way of life. We may thus generate sources of holy influence through which, in distant times, the erring shall be restored and the dead shall live. - C.

---

---

KJV: Adam, Sheth, Enosh,

WEB: Adam, Seth, Enosh,