can but draw attention to the great age-time covenant, that throughout all dispensations

has continued in unaltered order.

The first great dispensational fact that is made known in the new world that opened

out to Noah and his descendants was that judgment is deferred. God will not again visit

in the same way the sins of man as He did at the Flood; the wicked now may prosper as a

green bay tree, the righteous now may be plagued all the day long; `the end', as seen in

`the sanctuary of God', reveals the fact of a future day of individual judgment. So it is

that, even though man continues in his sin, seed time and harvest, and day and night, do

not cease.

In Gen. 9:, the Lord lays the foundation of human government. We must go back

further into history than the days of Nebuchadnezzar, for the divine institution of `the

powers that be'.  We must retrace our steps to Noah.  "Whoso sheddeth man's blood,

by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God made He man" (Gen. 9: 6).

When Cain shed his brother's blood, God made a special protection for him against the

hand of his fellow-man. Here, however, in the covenant with Noah, man is appointed

judge and executioner. A change also in the food of man is made. To Adam God gave

every herb bearing seed, and every tree in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed;

now, "every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you, even as the green herb have I

given you every thing". To this divine change in human diet the Apostle Paul alludes in

I Tim. 4: 4, 5 "For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, being

received with thanksgiving: for it is sanctified by the Word of God and prayer". The

false teaching of the apostasy, the doctrine of demons, included the forbidding of

marriage and the abstinence from foods which God created to be received with

thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth.

To progress in what is called Spiritism, abstinence from flesh foods and from marriage

is essential; the seducing spirits with their doctrines of demons seem to be characteristic

of the `latter times'. The days of Noah are to be repeated, and the spirit activities that

brought about the corruption of the earth ending in the Flood are to be expected again. If

the abstinence from flesh food and from marriage makes intercourse with the spirit world

easier, we can perceive the wise provision in the change of human food as given to Noah,

and the reason why such an institution should be discontinued as a prelude to demon

activities in the latter times.

After blessing Noah, and saying, `Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth',

God speaks of man's new relationship to the animal world; this is exactly in the same

order in Gen. 1: 28. There are one or two modifications, however, that indicate a change

from Gen. 1: 28; man is told not only to replenish the earth, but to subdue it, a type of

Him who will yet subdue all things beneath His feet; further, he was to `have dominion',

another type of the Lord from heaven. This appears to be directly connected with the fact

that man was created in the image of God. That the image remained after the Fall and

after the Flood is abundantly testified by Gen. 9: 6 and James 3: 9.  Instead of the

word `dominion', we have, in the re-institutions of Noah, `the fear of you and the dread