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THE DEATH OF ABEL: CAIN A FUGITIVE AND VAGABOND

Gen 4:7-15

The Cainitish sect in the Adamic Church had gone on increasing in wickedness; for it is as true of a false and heretical sect, of a declining church, as it is of an individual, that unless it repents of its evils and abandons its false teaching, it will continue to sink lower and lower in the moral scale.

This was the case with the Cainites. At first they were not wholly bad. They had, it is true, adopted a false doctrine, but in the beginning they retained something of charity. But the faith-alone doctrine for which they stood involved the deadly falsity that religion was merely for the intellect. And this involved falsity gradually led them to less and less regard for charity, until it culminated in the utter rejection and death of charity in their hearts and lives.

This is clearly pointed out in the allegory: "And Cain talked with Abel, his brother; and it came to pass when they were in the field that Cain rose up against Abel, his brother, and slew him."

The idea expressed here is that of an angry dispute. Cain was the aggressor. He talked or disputed with Abel. He rose up and s!ew him. We must think of two distinct branches of the Adamic Church, one of which was called Cain and stood for the doctrine that faith is the essential and first thing of the church, and the other called Abel, which stood for the doctrine that charity was the essential of the church. These two branches of the Adamic Church were involved in a theological controversy, and each was seeking an ascendency over the other.

It was not unlike the controversies that have arisen in the Christian Church. The original catholic church of Jesus Christ was one. St. Paul gloried in the fact that it had one Lord, one faith, and one baptism. Rome grew to be the most important Episcopal See in the church, and the Bishop of Rome saw the way clear to establish himself in the chair of St. Peter as the universal bishop of Christendom, and he did it. But his claim was denied by the Eastern Church; and after several centuries of bitter controversy, the Eastern Church broke off communion with the church in the west and installed a Patriarch at Constantinople as the spiritual head of the Eastern Church. These two branches of the original Catholic Church, which died as Adam is said to have died, have been in one sense the Cain and Abel of the Catholic Church. Rome, as Cain, has been arrogant and intolerant. It has destroyed the principle of charity and has had no mercy for those who dared to differ in opinion from its edicts and bulls.

The same thing has been realized in Protestant Christianity. The long and angry disputes that took place between the Lutheran, Calvinistic and Arminian sects in the Protestant Church come readily to mind. Like Cain and Abel, these sects have talked together in the field; but it has been vehement and invective talk.

Think of the strife-the battle that was fought between Luther and Erasmus. Luther rose up like Cain. He said: "That exasperated viper Erasmus has again attacked me." Servetus dared to controvert one of John Calvin's pet theories; and, like Cain, Calvin rose up, caused him to be apprehended, accused him of blasphemy, had him condemned as a heretic and consigned to the flames.

These facts of church history help us to an understanding of the story we are considering. The Cainites were faith-alone people. They had no regard for charity. The Abelites were of a sweet and affirmative disposition. They had no quarrel with faith as such; but they did see that standing alone, it was a worthless, dead thing. They would have nothing to do with faith alone. They saw where it would lead those who adopted it. The Cainites would have nothing to do with charity. Religion, with them, was a matter of faith apart from the life. This was the dispute in the field.

This division having entered into the Most Ancient Church, doctrinal controversies arose in many forms, and those who ranged themselves on the side of faith alone drew to themselves great numbers who saw in the Cainitish doctrine that which favored their lusts and pride of intelligence; and as a consequence the Abelites, who loved peace and were actuated by an affirmative spirit, suffered at the hands of the larger and more powerful sect of Cainites. They submitted to persecution and sought in all their trials to exhibit the true spirit of religion. Still Cain rose up. Think of that expression: "Cain rose up." You see in it the idea of exaltation-of superiority. This is precisely the state that faith alone produces in the mind. It exalts creeds above life-forms above the genuine spirit of religion. And those who believe that faith, mere doctrine, is the essential of the church are exalted in their own esteem. They rise up in their regard for doctrine and form and claim to be superior to those who differ from them.

Our own beloved church is not entirely free from this spirit. We are often tempted to place more importance upon a correct knowledge of doctrine than upon a correct life. It is very difficult for some of us to acknowledge that one may be in the life of the internal sense of the Word without an intelligent understanding of the internal sense of the Word as given in the church writings. We have had many disputes along these lines. We must guard against this dreadful state; for whoever is in good, from the Lord, comes into the spirit of the Word when he reads it. We must entertain no unkindly sentiments against those who may differ from us in doctrine.

This is what the Cainites failed to do. They tried to establish the pre-eminence of faith, and they finally did it, but it was done at a dreadful cost. "Cain rose up and slew Abel, his brother." The story of the natural murder is introduced into the allegory to represent the spiritual murder that had been committed in the hearts of the Cainites. Abel is murdered in all who destroy the life of charity in themselves by exalting faith above it. So when the Cainites had slain Abel in their hearts-when they made faith the essential of the church, they rested not until they had exterminated the Abelites from the church. Abel was slain. We hear nothing more of him. Faith alone ruled men's hearts.

What could come upon the people who perpetrated so dreadful a spiritual crime but the evils that are represented by the curses upon Cain?

The Lord is represented as asking Cain, "Where is thy brother Abel?" This question conveys the idea of an internal dictate to the conscience of those who had slain charity, as to what had become of it. It means this: "There was once peace and tranquillity in the church; now there is discord and division; what has become of charity? These things could not exist if charity were alive and active. Where is charity?

But the faith-alone people of the long ago, while they stood convicted by this dictate, instead of repenting of their crime, made an effort to justify it. Cain said: "Am I my brother's keeper?" This expressed the utterly fallen state of these Cainites. They had no regard for charity. "What have we to do with charity? Our business is to defend and establish faith."

Then came the curses. The ground would not yield its strength; and Cain would become a fugitive and a vagabond. It was so. The external mind of the Cainites produced heresy after heresy, each one more dreadful than the former, until this branch of the Adamic Church perished in its own evils.

Cain became a fugitive. The spiritual idea is that of one who shirks his duty. This is what the Cainites did. They ran away from every demand of duty. Their wills were turned away from the Lord-they ran away from the practice of goodness. Cain also became a vagabond, a wanderer. It was so with the Cainites. They had no settled spiritual habitation. Their understandings had no settled conceptions of right. These are curses, but they were not Divine inflictions. They came as the result of the rejecting and slaying of the principle of charity. "Evil shall slay the wicked."