This therefore should teach us not to count of our election, and of our effectual calling but by the word of God. Seth by nature was a sinful man, and yet the chosen servant of God; the first that took up God's quarrel after the death of blessed Abel.
This should also help us to hold up the bucklers against the kingdom of the devil and hell. Seth was subject to like infirmities with us, and yet he got ground of the children of iniquity. I know a sense of our own infirmities is apt to weaken our hand in so mighty an undertaking, but it should not: Although we be like old Adam by nature, yet God is able to make us stand.
Ver. 4. "And the days of Adam, after he had begotten Seth, were eight hundred years: and he begat sons and daughters."
Adam therefore, as a type of Christ, reigned in the church almost a thousand years. The world therefore beginning thus, doth shew us how it will end; namely, by the reign of the second Adam, as it began with the reign of the first.
These long-lived men therefore shew us the glory that the church shall have in the latter day, even in the seventh thousand years of the world, that sabbath when Christ shall set up his kingdom on earth, according to that which is written, "They lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years" (Rev 20:1-4). They:—Who? The church of God, according also as it was with Adam. Therefore they are said by John to be holy, as well as blessed: "Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God, and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years" (v 6). In all which time the wicked in the world shall forbear to persecute, as did also the brood of wicked Cain in the days of Adam, Seth, &c. Hence therefore we find in the first place the dragon chained for these thousand years.
Ver. 5. "And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died."
Adam therefore lived to see the translation of Enoch: In whose translation a conquest was got over all the enemies of his soul and body: So Christ shall reign in and among his saints till all his enemies be destroyed. "The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death" (1 Cor 15:26); which shall be swallowed up when the members of that glorious head have put on incorruption, and their "mortal shall have put on immortality." Adam's reigning therefore until Enoch's translation, looks like a prophecy of the perfection of Christ's kingdom: For he shall reign till he hath "delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father" (v 24): As Adam, till his Enoch was translated and took up to God.
Ver. 6. "And Seth lived an hundred and five years, and begat Enos."
Seth therefore stood by the truth of God, a long time, without much help or encouragement from man; which was a great trial to his spirit, and proof of the truth of his faith, and tended much to the perfection of his patience. Somewhat like this was that of Paul, who had no man stood with him when he stood before Nero.
Seth was set in the stead of Abel, to keep the gap against the children of hell; which, by the grace of God, he faithfully did, even till Enos was sent to his aid and assistance.