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the ideas, he inspired the emotions these pages contain, and they are written that you may believe, and go and do likewise; that you may be enabled to say, "Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth I desire beside thee!"

IN

CHAPTER II.

PROPHECY.

N Eden was the germ of all prophecy. "I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy SEED and her SEED. He shall bruise thy head; thou shalt bruise his heel."

Various considerations have induced the belief that our first parents were instructed to regard this mystic SEED as no less a personage than Jehovah. Hence Eve's exclamation on the birth of her first child, "I have gotten a man, THE JEHOVAH !" Hence the rivalry between Cain and Abel. Hence the death of the

latter, and expulsion of the former. Hence the unhappy mother's name for her next child, Seth, 66 THE APPOINTED.” Hence, a thousand years. after, Enoch, the seventh from Adam, exclaimed, "Behold, Jehovah cometh with his holy myriads." Hence other incidents of the antediluvian period.

Seven hundred years after Enoch's translation, the family of Shem was elected to produce the expected SEED.

Three hundred and fifty years later, a single

man was chosen, Abraham, out of a world gone into idolatry.

Next the promise was individualized to Isaac, then to Jacob, in language still significant of the Eden oracle: "In thee and thy SEED shall all nations of the earth be blessed."

Jacob, at his death, designated Judah as the chosen tribe. "The scepter shall not depart from JUDAH, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come, and Him shall the nations obey."

Two and a half centuries afterward, Balaam saw afar the STAR that should come out of Jacob. Moses spake of a PROPHET whom the Lord God should raise up.

Thus the annunciation, which begun with the idea of deity-Jehovah, was in the course of ages developing successive features of humanity.

Job hereabouts declares, "I know that my Redeemer liveth, and in the latter day he shall stand upon the earth."

Here came in likewise the mute but impressive testimony of the paschal Lamb, and the blood of bulls and goats. Here the Levitical brocade was woven stiff with golden threads of Messianic promise.

Four hundred years more, and David's royal

line is constituted the order of succession: "Thy house and thy kingdom shall be established for ever before thee." And when the king went into the temple to give thanks, his language, as rendered by some, seems to refer to the old Eden legend, as if full well he knew its import. "And is this the ORACLE Concerning the MANJEHOVAH?" Hence from the writings of this inspired bard alone may be gleaned a most significant series of intimations.

"The assembly of the wicked enclosed me. They pierced my hands and my feet. They parted my garments among them. They cast lots upon my vesture. Thou wilt not leave my soul in Sheol, nor suffer thine Holy One to see corruption. Thou hast ascended up on high, thou hast led captivity captive. Sit on my right hand till I make thy foes thy footstool. Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedek. Let all the angels of God worship him. Let the heavens rejoice, and the earth be glad before Jehovah, for He cometh to judge the earth."

Two and a half centuries later, Jonah, Amos, ISAIAH, Hosea, and Joel began to weave together the mystic woof.

In accepting the first-mentioned of these as his type, our Savior may perhaps be regarded

as assuming his language, at least in one impressive particular: "I went down to the bottoms of the mountains: the earth with her bars was about me for ever, yet hast thou brought up my soul from the pit, O Lord."

Isaiah declares his birth of a virgin, names him Emanuel, depicts his sad fate, calls him a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and reveals the circumstances of his death and burial. He declares, also, his resurrection and triumph: "He shall swallow up death in victory."

Micah names his birth-place, Bethlehem Ephratah.

These oracles of the Esaian period, extending through about threescore years, were succeeded by those of the captivity. In this latter constellation, Daniel is the star of first magnitude, as Isaiah in the former. He chronicles the rise and fall of four empires, the perpetuity of a fifth. He introduces chronological admeasurements; gives the seventy sevens; the time, times, and dividing of a time; the celebrated twelve hundred and sixty, twelve hundred and ninety, and thirteen hundred and thirty-five days, all closely related to Messianic eras.

Haggai, as the close of prophetic time draws on, cries, "Yet once it is a little while, and I

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