In some sense this is principally shocking. This exceeds. But is not this the "course of the world"? Was it not man that slew Jesus? Does not the guilt of that deed lie at every man’s door? And what is the course of the world but the ease and indifference of Cain in this highest state of guilt? The earth has borne the cross of Christ; and yet man can busy himself with garnishing and furnishing it, and making life in it convenient and pleasurable without God. This is shocking when we look at it in full divine light. A respectable citizen of the world Cain was, but all the while a heartless forgetter of the sorrows of Abel! His ease and respectability are the blackest features of his history. He went away as soon as he got a promise of security; and that promise he uses, not to soften his heart, and overwhelm him with convictions of all that had happened, but as giving him full occasion to indulge and magnify himself. We read in the New Testament of "the way of Cain." It may be, nay, it is, run by others. Jude 11. And what a way does this chapter show it to be! He was an infidel, or a man of his own religion; not obedient in faith to God’s revelation. He practised the works of the liar and the murderer; he hated the light; he was proof against God’s word in mercy and in warning; he cares nothing for the presence of God which his sin had forfeited, or for the sorrow of his brother which his hand had inflicted. And, as such an one, he can take pains to make himself happy and honourable in the very place which thus witnessed against him. Is this the "way of Cain"? Is this man still? Yes; and nature outlives a thousand restraints and improvements. For at the end of Christendom’s career it will even then be said of a generation, "They have gone in the way of Cain." This is deeply solemn, beloved, had we but hearts to feel it. There is, however, a rescued, separated people. Seth’s family are after another order altogether. They are not seen in cities, furnished with accommodations and pleasures, apart, like Cain, "from the presence of the Lord;" but as the household of God, separated from that world that lay in the wicked one, to the faith and worship of His name. It is the sight of this elect family that has principally at this time drawn me to this portion of the precious oracles of God. There is much, I believe, in their standing and testimony which has instruction for our souls. Like all else in these chapters, it is but short notices we get; but great things are to be found in them. This family of Seth may generally be thus spoken of: _They are strikingly opposed to the way of Cain, and remarkably apprehensive of the way of God_.