The history of Noah's times is a subject of great importance to us.

The sixth chapter of Genesis contains an account of the days of Noah, a description of momentous interest to us: for our Lord has declared that a similar epoch of worldliness will at length exhaust the forbearance of God towards the present dwellers upon earth, and cause Him to come with fire, and with His chariots like a whirlwind, to render His anger with fury, and His rebuke with flames of fire; to plead with all flesh by fire and by His sword.

It becomes, therefore, an obvious duty to consider the progress of wickedness and corruption among the antediluvians, so far as it has pleased God to inform us of it: to acquaint ourselves, not merely with the sowing, but also with the watering, the growth, and the ripening, of that hideous crop against which the gleaming sickle of the Almighty at length flashed forth from heaven; to note the various incentives to evil as they successively appeared, and to observe the particular influence of each upon the rapidly decomposing masses of society. For by so doing we shall arm ourselves against the errors and temptations which are daily multiplying around us, and be enabled to discern the threatening signs of our own times.

The characteristics of those times. Increase of population.

Now the first mentioned characteristic of those former days of wickedness and peril is the rapid increase of population; a circumstance which in itself has ever tended, not merely to diffuse, but at the same time to intensify sin. For every form of evil which exists in thinly populated countries, will also be found where men have multiplied; while there are countless vices peculiar to crowded districts. And, if they are numerous, men support each other in rebellion, and are prone to become far more daring and defiant of God. Among ourselves, the strongholds of rationalism and atheism are always to be found in large cities.

Rapid advance in civilisation, art, and science.

But while the families of the earth were thus increasing in number, they were at the same time making vast progress in civilisation and knowledge. Cain had taught them to settle in communities and build cities; and the sons of Lamech - speedily followed, no doubt, by many others - had introduced the mechanical and fine arts, and devised unlawful means of evading the labour imposed by the curse. And in the that age, when, instead of being cut off at three score and ten or four score, men lived on for nearly a thousand years, their immense accumulation of knowledge, experience, and skill, must have advanced science, art, and the invention and manufacture of all the appliances of a luxurious civilisation, with a rapidly to us almost inconceivable.

The one recorded specimen of antediluvian industry, the ark, was built by a Sethite; and yet it equalled in size the Great Eastern, the ship which but a few years ago afforded such marvel to ourselves, and which has not since been surpassed.

And doubtless many of the mighty labours accomplished by the earlier descendants of Noah may be considered to have sprung from reminiscences of pristine grandeur, and fragments of lore, handed down by forefathers who had passed a portion of their existence in the previous age of human glory and depravity. Such may have been the daring conception of a literally cloud-capped tower; the stupendous and splendidly decorated edifices of Babylon and Nineveh; and the wondrous structure of the first pyramid, involving, as it apparently does, an accurate knowledge of astronomical truth which would seem to have been at least on a level with the vaunted advances of modern science. For all these great efforts, be it remembered, were in progress during the lifetime of Shem, and probably in that of his brothers also.

Nor must we forget recent discoveries in regard to the primeval civilisation of the Accadians, "the stunted and oblique-eyed people of ancient Babylonia," whose very existence was unknown to us fifty years ago. Their language was dying out, and had become a learned dialect, like the Latin of the Middle Ages, in the seventeenth century before Christ. And yet so great had been their intellectual power that the famous library of Agan�, founded at that time by Sargon I., was stocked with books "which were either translated from Accadian originals, or else based on Accadian texts, and filled with technical words which belonged to the old language." A catalogue of the astronomical department, which has been preserved, contains a direction to the reader to write down the number of the tablet or book which he requires, and apply for it to the librarian. "The arrangement," says Sayce, "adopted by Sargon's librarians must have been the product of generations of former experience." Could we have a stronger proof "of the development of literature and education, and of the existence of a considerable number of reading people in this remote antiquity"?

According to Berosus there was an antediluvian "Town of Books" in Babylonia; and Sisuthrus, the Chaldean Noah, "is made to bury his books at Sippara before the Deluge, and to disentomb them after the descent from the Ark." But, apart from tradition, we have evidence that in very early times there were well-known libraries at Erech, Ur Cutha, and Larsa, to which observatories and universities were attached.

If, then, we give but their fair weight to these considerations, we seem compelled to admit that the antediluvians may have attained to a perfection in civilisation and high culture which has scarcely yet been recovered, much as we pride ourselves upon our own times.

Union of the families of Cain and Seth.

Since we have no further mention of the Cainites as a separate tribe, and since of the Sethites - who must also have increased in numbers - but one person was translated to God from the evil to come, and only eight were saved through that evil, it is clear that the two families had at length mingled and intermarried. Seduced, probably, by the intellectual pursuits, the gay society, and the easy life, of the wicked, the Sethites first found a pleasure in their company, their luxuries, and their many skilful and ingenious inventions; were them enticed to yoke themselves unequally with unbelievers; and, so, being drawn into the vortex of sin, disappeared as a separate people.

Sad and instructive was the result of this amalgamation: for when the time of dividing came, no true worshippers of Jehovah were to be found save in the single family of Noah. Men seem to have so prized their own wisdom, to have thought so little of God, that their religion had dwindled to a mere hero-worship of their own famous leaders, those who, Prometheus-like, brought to them by their inventions the necessaries and comforts of life, and so enabled them for the time to foil the purposes of the Supreme Power.

Irruption of fallen angels into the world of men.

Then a new and startling event burst upon the world, and fearful accelerated the already rapid progress of evil. "The sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose." These words are often explained to signify nothing more than the intermarriage of the descendants of Cain and Seth; but a careful examination of the passage will elicit a far deeper meaning.

When men, we are told, began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters of men. Now by "men" in each case the whole human race is evidently signified, the descendants of Cain and Seth alike. Hence the "sons of God" are plainly distinguished from the generation of Adam.

The "sons of God" are angelic beings.

Again; the expression "sons of God (Elohim)" occurs but four times in other parts of the Old Testament, and is in each of these cases indisputably used of angelic beings.

Twice in the beginning of the Book of Job we read of the sons of God presenting themselves before Him at stated times, and Satan also comes with them as being himself a son of God, though a fallen and rebellious one.

For the term sons of Elohim, the mighty Creator, seems to be confined to those who directly created by the Divine hand, and not born of other beings of their own order. Hence, in Luke's genealogy of our Lord, Adam is called a son of God. And so also Christ is said to give to them that receive Him power to become the sons of God. For these are born again of the Spirit of God as to their inner man even in the present life. And at the resurrection they will be clothed with a spiritual body, a building of God; so that they will then be in every respect equal to the angels, being altogether a new creation.

The third repetition of the phrase occurs in a later chapter of Job, where the morning stars are represented as singing together, and the sons of God as shouting for joy, over the creation of our earth.

And lastly; the same expression is found in the Book of Daniel; but in the singular number, and with the necessary difference that bar is the word used for son instead of ben, the singular of the latter being unknown in Chaldee. Nebuchadnezzar exclaims that he sees four men walking in the midst of the fire, and that the form of the fourth is like a son of God, by which he evidently means a supernatural or angelic being, distinct as such from the others.

It appears, therefore, that in the Old Testament the title "sons of God" is restricted to angels.

This is the view taken by Josephus, Philio Judaeus, and the author of "The Book of Enoch" and "The Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs"; indeed, it was generally accepted by learned Jews in the early centuries of the Christian era. In regard to the Septuagint, all MSS. Render the Hebrew "sons of God" by "angels of God" in Job i. 6, and ii. 1, and by "My angels" in Job xxxiii,7 - passages in which there was no dogmatic reason for tampering with the text. In Gen. vi. 2,4, the Codex Alexandrinus and three late MSS. Exhibit the same rendering, while others have "sons of God". Augustine however admits that in his time the greater number of copies read "angels of God" in the latter passage also (De Civit. Dei, xv. 23). It seems, extremely probable that this was the original reading; and certainly the interpretation which it involves was adapted by the majority of the earlier Christian writers. Those who would pursue this subject further can do so in a recent and exhaustive treatise by the Rev. John Fleming, entitled, "The Fallen Angels and the Heroes of Mythology.

Several passages are indeed adduced to prove its application to men: but upon examination they will all be found wide of the mark, the words of the original being in every case different, and sometimes signifying sons of Jehovah. This last, as we have already seen, is a very different expression, and would probably have been used by the inspired historian in the verse under our consideration if he had wished to distinguish the godly descendants of Seth from the Cainites. For, while it forms a true description of all saints upon earth, it would have been in this place peculiarly appropriate to the Sethites just after the mention of the fact that they had been wont from the birth of Enos to call upon the name of Jehovah.

They are identical with the sinning angels mentioned Peter and Jude.

It thus appears that the sons of God are angelic beings: and the mysterious statement respecting them in the sixth chapter of Genesis seems to refer to a second and deeper apostasy on the part of some of the High Ones on high. But these more daring rebels are not found among the spirits of darkness which now haunt the air. They no longer retain their position as principalities and powers of the world, or even their liberty; but may be identified with the imprisoned criminals of whom Peter tells us that, after they had si nned, God spared them not, "but cast them down to Hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment."

Peter ii,4. We have given the words of the Authorized Version, but the following would be a more literal rendering of the original. "For if God spared not angels when they had sinned, but cast them down to Tartarus, and committed them to pits of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment." Tartarus appears to be a place of imprisonment more terrible than Hades, but it cannot be the Lake of Fire and Brimstone, the flames of which are to be kindled specially for the Beast and False Prophet, the first who will be cast into it. Compare Isa. Xxx.33, with Rev. xix. 20. In the Greek mythology, Tartarus was a dark abode of woe, as far beneath Hades as Earth is below Heaven (Hom. II. Viii. 16)-a description which fairly corresponds to Peter�s "pits of darkness." Very significant, too, is the fact that it was thought to be the prison of Cronos and the rebel Titana.

Jude also mentions their present condition in similar terms, and the clearness the nature of their sin. They chose to leave their own world, and, having broken through God's limits into another, to go after strange flesh; therefore He dashed them down at once to His lowest dungeons as an instant punishment of their impious outrage, and to deprive them for ever of the power of producing further confusion.

The Lord looks down upon the world.

The verse following the announcement of the angels' sin is a parenthesis of solemn import: the scene is for a moment shifted from the fearfully increasing wickedness of earth, and transferred to the Heaven of heavens. There the invisible God sits enthroned, and, looking down upon the rebellion and sin beneath Him, pronounces sentence of doom upon the unconscious world. The end must come: His spirit shall not always strive with men, seeing that they are irrecoverably overpowered by the desires of the flesh: yet they shall have a further respite of one hundred and twenty years.

Meaning of the word Nephilim.

Then the history is resumed with a brief hint at the cause which led to intermarriages between the sons of God and the daughters of men, both before and after the flood. Our translators have again omitted a definite article in the beginning of this verse, which should be rendered, "The Nephilim - or fallen ones - were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men."

Through a misapprehension of the Septuagint, which we will presently explain, the English version renders Nephilim by "giants." But the form of the Hebrew word indicates a verbal adjective or noun, of passive or neuter signification, from Naphal, to fall: hence it must mean "the fallen ones," that is, probably, the fallen angels. Afterwards, however, the term seems to have been transferred to their offspring, as we may gather from the only other passage in which it occurs. In the evil report which the ten spies give of the land of Canaan, we find them saying; - "All the people which we saw in it were men of great stature. And there we saw the Nephilim, the sons of Anak, descended from the Nephilim: and we seemed to ourselves as grasshoppers, and so we did to them."

It was doubtless the mention of the great stature of these men, together with the Septuagint rendering gigantev, that suggested our translation "giants." The roots of the Greek gigav have, however, no reference to great stature, but point to something very different. The word is merely another form of ghgenhv: it signifies "earth-born," and was used of the Titans, or sons of Heaven and Earth - C�lus and Terra - because, though superior to the human race, they were, nevertheless, of partly terrestrial origin. The meaning of "giants," in our sense of the term, is altogether secondary, and arose from the fact that these beings of mixed birth were said to have displayed a monstrous growth and strength of body. It will, therefore, be apparent that the rendering of the Septuagint correctly expresses the idea which was in the mind of the translator, since he appears to have taken Nephilim in each case to signify the offspring of the sons of God and the daughters of men. We, however, as we have explained above, prefer understanding the word primarily of the fallen angels themselves.

The residence of the fallen angels upon earth was the immediate cause of their alliances with the daughters of men.

Now, in speaking of the sin of some of these, Jude tells us that, despising the position of dignity and responsibility in which God had placed them, they voluntarily left their own home in the Kingdom of the Air, prompted it would seem by earthward desires, and began to exercise an unlawful influence over the human race. And, perhaps, as punishment, their return was prohibited; they were banished altogether from heaven, and confined to the limits of earth; just as Satan and the remainder of his angels will be hereafter, a short time before the appearing of Christ to cast them into the still lower abyss.

But, however this may be, they were from some cause dwelling upon earth at the time, and the fact is apparently mentioned to account for their intermarriages with the daughters of men. If, them, their continued residence below was voluntary, they soon passed on to a far more frightful sin: if, on the contrary, it was penal, instead of humbling themselves under the mighty hand of God, and patiently enduring until He remitted His just punishment, they did not hesitate to defy Him still more daringly, and to violate the law of their being.

This they did, not merely by consorting with beings of a different order, but also by the very act of marriage itself; since our Lord tells us that, in their normal condition, angels "neither marry, nor are given in marriage" (Matt. XXII. 30)

The assertion of a similar occurrence after the Deluge agrees with the passage in Numbers where the sons of Anak are said to have been Nephilim, or of the Nephilim; and seems also to account for God's command that the whole race of the Canaanites should be extirpated. For immediately after the commission of the antediluvian sin, the doom of the world was pronounced: and prophecy intimates that the future confinement of the angels of darkness to earth will be the proximate cause of the great rebellion which will call forth the Lord Jesus in flaming fire to take vengeance.

The children of these unlawful connections before the flood were the renowned heroes of old: the subsequent repetition of the crime doubtless gave rise to the countless legends of the loves of the gods, and explains the numerous passages in the Classics, as well as in the ancient literature of other languages, in which human families are traced to a half Divine origin.

Before passing on, we should, perhaps notice the most common objection to our interpretation, which is, that angels, as spiritual beings, could not take wives of the daughters of men. We are, however, unable to recognise the cogency of such an argument, because those who advance it lay claim to a more intimate acquaintance with angelic nature than we will merely quote a passage from Augustine - An opponent of the angel-theory - containing an admission which has been made by many other writers of various ages and climes, and which, absurd as it may have seemed to ourselves some years ago, is now rendered more probable by the disclosures of modern Spiritualism.

After citing the hundred and fourteenth Psalm to prove that angels are spirits, the great theologian proceeds as follows:-

"However, that angels have appeared to men in bodies of such a nature that they could not only be seen but even touched, the same most true Scripture declares. Moreover, there is a very general rumour that Silvans and Fauns, who are commonly termed incubi, improbos s�pe exstitisse mulierbus, et earum appetisse ac peregisse concubitum. Many trustworthy persons assert that they have had personal experience of this, or that they have been informed by those who have experienced it. And that certain demons, whom the Gauls call Dusii, are continually attempting and effecting the crime is so generally affirmed that it would seem impudent to deny it."

To the prevalence of this idea we have no slight testimony in the fact that the name of the demons is one of the Celtic words which have survived in our language. It is the origin of the English Deuse, or Deuce, which is still used in exclamatory or interjectional phases.

So Augustine. And that Paul had some such thought in his mind when he bade the woman to worship with covered head "on account of the angels," is, to say the least, within the limits of possibility.

The earth becomes corrupt and filled with violence. Simultaneous progress of luxury and refinement. Historical parallels.

The foundations of established order being thus destroyed by the irruption of the fallen angels, the whole world became corrupt, and its morals were inverted. Men no longer recognised a God to Whom personally all obedience and worship is first due, and Whose equal relation to all men s their Creator imperatively demands from each a love for his neighbour as great as that which he bears to himself. But they judged that whatsoever was pleasant to any man was also right for him; and after thus bursting the bands of God asunder and casting His cords from them, it was not long before they went on to believe that the attainment of a desired end justified every means, that the coveted possession must be secured even if it were necessary to use deceit or violence. Blinded by the selfishness of the flesh, which can see nothing beyond itself, they pursued their several objects without consideration or even thought of their fellows, except when any either stood in the way or might be made subservient. And hence there sprang up a thick crop of frauds and assassinations, of open quarrels and violence, till the whole earth was filled with corruption and bloodshed.

And yet all this seems to have existed side by side with luxury, a refined culture, and a love of art and music. Such mingling of things apparently incongruous have not been infrequent in postdiluvial times. The profligacy, immorality, and sensuous intellectuality of Athens is an example.

A parallel might also be sought in the descriptions given by Tacitus, Juvenal, and others, of the times of the C�sars. For then the whole body of society was corrupted, and even the streets of Rome were accustomed to violence. And yet the worst of vices, the most absolute immorality, the most profligate gluttony, the most wanton cruelty, prevailed in company with a splendid magnificence, a high appreciation of music, sculpture, and art generally, and a taste for literature, and especially for poetry, so great that recitations and readings were a common amusement. A very characteristic production of this age was the philosopher Seneca, who has been lately termed a seeker after God, on account of his books on morals, but who did not find the writing of beautiful sentiments any hindrance to a life of shocking depravity, and who presented to the world, as the fruit of his combined teaching and example, the proverbial monster Nero.

Nor were the times of Leo the Tenth without resemblance to the days of Noah; when that famous Pontiff, seated amid every possible sensuous and intellectual refinement, and surrounded by the most brilliant cluster of stars that has ever adorned the firmament of art, exclaimed; - "This Christianity! How profitable a farce it has proved to us!" When, in a time which produced paintings, sculpture, and architecture, still marvels to the world, the sun as it rose day by day would expose the floating corpses of the assassinated in the Tiber; and infidelity and lawlessness kept such rapid pace with the culture of the beautiful that even Machiavelli, who will not be accused of too tender a conscience, declared that Italy had lost all principles of piety, and all religious feeling; that the Italians had become a nation of impious cut throats.

God looks down a second and a third time, and then reveals to Noah His purpose to destroy all flesh.

Such, though on a far greater scale, was the wickedness of the antediluvian world. But the end was approaching. God looked down a second time upon the spreading demoralisation beneath Him, and saw that it would be necessary, at the close of the years of respite, to sweep man and beast, creeping thing and fowl, from the face of the earth.

Yet a third time the Creator beheld, and lo! Evil had made such fearful progress that all flesh had corrupted its way upon earth. Then He foretold the impending ruin to Noah, who alone found grace in His sight, and instructed him how he might avoid the universal doom. The commands laid upon the patriarch were a strong trial of his faith. He was to proclaim the speedy coming of a catastrophe which to unbelievers would appear simply irrational, of an overwhelming flood which should sweep away all life from the face of the whole earth.

Unavailing preaching of Noah.

It may be that men felt a momentary uneasiness at the first utterance of this prophecy of woe. Discussions may have taken place similar to those among ourselves, when the conjectured possibility of a collision between the earth and Donati's comet caused a brief anxiety to those who believed in it. But, this qualm over, we can readily picture to ourselves the contempt and derision which must have been poured upon the prophet. Our own times will teach us how the men of science soon proved that such a thing as a universal flood was an absolute impossibility, contrary to all the known laws of nature. And since Noah persisted, the world doubtless settled down into a belief that he was a weak-minded fanatic, void of intellect, and altogether unworthy of notice.

Noah builds the ark, and is commanded to enter into it. God closes the door behind him.

But Noah was not only directed to foretell the approaching doom: he was also bidden to make open preparations for avoiding it, preparations, too, of vast magnitude, and such as must have attracted general attention. And a grievous burden it undoubtedly was to endure the scoffs and deriding with which he must have been continually assailed while building his immense ship on the dry land, far, it may be, from any water; but by faith he persevered, and at last the days of his trial drew on their close.

None had listened to his warnings: not one beyond the inner circle of his own family was accounted worthy to be saved. But the ark was now completed, and he was instructed to enter it with his wife, his sons and their wives, and all the creatures which were impelled by God to go with him. He was at no loss to understand the significance of the command; he knew well that the wrath of God was being restrained only till those which should be saved had been taken out of the way; and we can imagine his feelings as he watched the long procession slowly filing in to th e ark, and at length followed in its rear, leaving the unconscious world, friends and foes alike, in the inexorable grasp of destruction.

It may be that after entering he returned to the door, appalled at the thought of what was about to happen, and moved to make one more effort, one last impassioned appeal, if perchance he might constrain some few, at least, to flee to the shelter. But, if he did, he found the entrance to the ark closed: God had shut out for judgement: the acceptable year had passed by, the days of vengeance were come.

The world continues unconscious to the last.

And yet, as our Lord Himself tells us, the doomed multitudes knew it not. They had often heard, but had refused to listen: the voice of the prophet had seemed to them as the voice of the prophet had seemed to them as the voice of one that mocked. Even on the morning of the fatal day, earth resounded with the noise of revelry and merriment: men were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage: they were absorbed in the pleasures of the moment, and discerned not the slowly rising spectre of Death amid the gathering clouds, the destroyer, with uplifted scythe, about to mow down all flesh at one fell stroke.

God withdraws His restraints from the element of water, and the flood ensues.

But their dream of security was at length rudely dispelled: the shouts of riotous joy and laughter were first softened into whispers of breathless anxiety, and then exchanged for shrieks of despair. On the day in which Noah entered into the ark the windows of heaven were opened, and the waters that were above the firmament began to descend. The world wondered; and then, remembering the words of Noah, trembled at the fast falling raindrops, the first they had even beheld.

In Gen. II. 5,6, we are told that the Lord God had not caused it to rain, but that a mist went up from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground. Probably this state of things continued until the flood, when the windows of heaven were for the first time opened. The rainbow must have been a new phenomenon when it was given as a token to Noah; the words of God imply as much. Besides which, had the bow been seen before the flood, its subsequent reappearance could never have suggested security. But if there was no rainbow, there could scarcely have been rain.

Nor was this all. A fearful roaring from the sea announced that some mighty convulsion, equally beyond the calculation of the scientific men of the day, had commenced in the great deep. All its sealed fountains were bursting up: God had removed the bounds of ocean; its proud waves were no longer stayed, but were rising with prodigious tumult, and beginning to advance again upon the dry land.

What scenes of horror must have been presented beneath the dismal rainfall at this awful time! What affrighted groups! What countenances of dismay! What shrieks of terror! What faintings for fear! What headlong flights to any place which appeared to offer safety for the moment!

Mercy mingled with judgement.

Yet the mercy of God seems even then to have been mingled with his judgement. Ordinary means had failed with these sinners. They had received warning after warning; but their eyes were so immovably fixed upon the world and its amusements that they could not be induced to look off to God. Therefore he was compelled to destroy the life which they were abusing: He was constrained to overwhelm before their eyes all their palaces and fair gardens and places of delight, and to hurry the rebels themselves into the prison of disembodied spirits. Yet His mercy devised a doom which, though inexorable and complete, was, nevertheless, not instantaneous, but gave time for repentance before death, that by the destruction of the flesh the spirits of many might be saved.

Earth is again covered with the waters of destruction.

The waters continued to increase: the ark was upborne upon them: and it may be that for a time its inmates ever and anon heard, mingling with the roar of the elements, the cries and prayers of some still surviving crowd of miserable ones who had taken refuge upon a height near to which they were floating. But this was soon over, and earth was again almost as it had been before the six days of restoration, covered above its highest mountain tops with a shoreless ocean, on the surface of which were drifting the dead bodies of the men who had transgressed against God, and the carcases of the beasts and creeping things and fowls which had been involved in their ruin.

Woeful was the proof that man, if unrestrained, if left to his own devices, is not merely incapable of recovering his innocence, but will rush madly down the steep of sensuousness and impious self-will until he finds himself engulfed in the abyss of perdition. The trial of freedom had failed: the second of the ages was ended.