combines with history to assure us.

The buried world

of Noah's day will probably yet be found; and give its convincing testimony to the verity of that Book, which misguided men now venture to speak of with levity alike unphilosophical and impious. "All flesh is grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass; but the word of our God shall stand for ever."

Christians have undoubtedly of late years settled on their lees. Amid much religious excitement, there has been but little religious study. Stereotyped forms of expression, which an enlightened examination of Scripture ought long since to have silenced, are still with the multitude the recognized currency of pious thought. But for some disturbing element, some religious bodies would apparently have been satisfied with such crude utterances to the end of time. A storm frees the atmosphere from pestilential exhalations: and the present tempest in the religious world will doubtless be productive of similar benefit. By compelling us to search the Scriptures, it will prepare the way for a more intelligent and a firmer faith than the world has ever known. So shall Chillingworth's noble sentence become as true in fact, as it is sound in theory, "The Bible, the Bible only is the religion of Protestants."

CHAPTER V.

ON PROPHECY.

SECTION 1.

The necessity of discrimination in the use of the prophecies, shewn by examples.

The prophets were often inspired to use words which perplexed them; and when they "inquired and searched diligently" after the meaning, they were taught that future times would render luminous what was then dimly revealed. Such predictions were animating, because, like Christian predictions of things which in our present state we cannot conceive of, they foretold good things to come: but what those good things were could not be understood till the days of fulfilment. We are to expect therefore to find in the Old Testament many passages relating to our Saviour, which the New Testament alone can teach us how to apply: prophetical words which the believer can use to his own edification; but with which it may be vain to ply the Jew, or the infidel.

"The Lord God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life. And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel."

E

Thus does the excellent Scott comment on this passage; "The person, sufferings, glory, and triumphs of the Redeemer; the character, tribulations, and felicity of the redeemed; the temporary success and final ruin of all the enemies of Christ and his people; and indeed almost the whole history of the church, and of the world, through time and to eternity, are compendiously delineated in this singular verse; which stands, and will stand, to the end of time, an internal demonstration that the Scripture was given by inspiration from God." Is not this the language of dangerous exaggeration? The writers of the New Testament do not seem to have attached such importance to this primeval promise, for they nowhere quote it. A Jew might say "The promise is very plain. The serpent, the instrument of the temptation, was originally not only beautiful, but endued with a power of erecting itself which it does not now possess. It was doomed to crawl, and to be loathed of mankind: and in return, unable to attack the face of man, it bites his heel." Such he might urge is the sense of the prediction; which, so understood, exactly corresponds with the relation which the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman sustain to each other now.

Christians can see more than this in the passage; but only by an elaborate comparison of Scripture with Scripture: a comparison which an opponent, especially if he were a deist or a Jew, might tell them was questionable at every step. Christians say, and truly, that the serpent could not be the tempter, but was the mere instrument, the agent being the devil: and they support this conclusion, as by the reason of the case, so by the New Testament; which teaches us that Satan is the father of lies, and that Christ came to abolish his dominion. With evident reference to the

narrative in Genesis, we read "The God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet": and again, "That old serpent the devil." Rightly therefore do Christians discern in the primeval promise, a ray of light thrown athwart the gloom of the fall; a dim intimation of him that was to come five thousand years afterward. "Prophesying serveth for them which believe." The first prophecy is for men of spiritual discernment. It is "plain to him that understandeth, and right to them that find knowledge" but not to be presented to unbelievers as a demonstration of the inspiration of Scripture, and a compendium of all religious truth.

To Abraham God said "In thy seed shall all nations of the earth be blessed" of which promise an Apostle makes this use, "Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ."

The statement turns on the use of the word — seed-in the singular number: in which number the word is always employed, when the reference is to mankind. We cannot conceive one to be meant, and not many, in the promise "I will multiply thy seed as the stars of heaven." Indeed the common use of the word is not "as of one," but "as of many;" and Paul unquestionably gives to it a meaning of his own: for his object is not to argue but to teach authoritatively. View his words as an argument, and that argument appears far-fetched and feeble: but regard them as an inspired comment on an ancient prophecy, and, as will presently be shewn, they are words of

power.

To render plain this mode of interpretation, it is desirable to put the promise itself before the eye distinctly.

"In blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying

I will multiply thy seed** and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies."

"And in thy seed shall all nations of the earth be blessed."

It is indisputable that in the first two instances, the seed denotes a great multitude of persons. Why, a Jew might ask, do we interpret it otherwise in the third case; for it was certainly the purpose of God to bless the heathen by means of the Jews? We reply that if the word had been plural, it could not have been otherwise interpreted; but being singular, it may denote one or many and we have the Apostle's authority for asserting that, in the last sentence, there was in the divine mind a reference to the Messiah. The grammatical construction does not prove the Apostle's point, but only shews it to be admissible. The proof is to be found in the inspiration of Paul.

Let us imagine an unbelieving Jew, named Trypho, discussing with him this very passage from the Epistle to the Galatians:

Trypho. Paul, you are giving to the Abrahamic promise, often referred to in our prophets and psalmody, a sense which it does not there possess. The seed there means not one, but very many; for example, we are taught to sing 'O give thanks unto the Lord ye seed of Abraham his servant, ye children of Jacob his chosen :' but you apply the word not to many as the prophets do, but to one.

Paul. The word denoting the progeny in whom all are to be blessed is singular, and therefore may mean one. Christ Jesus my Lord who has given to me grace and Apostleship, has also imparted to me the spirit of wisdom and revelation, and instructed me to make known to you things hidden throughout ages, and from many generations; and this is one of the things