reign as the "prince of this world." The woman who was in the transgression, was to have a seed likewise, specially distinguished by this, that it should ultimately destroy, cast down, overcome, the seed of the serpent, now to be known as "that old serpent called the devil." The history which traces and which unfolds the fruits of this antagonism, has very many points in it suggestive of the relation between man and the beasts formed in Eden.

To conclude: how remarkable the influence which this association of man with the serpent has had upon the world! Traditionally it seems to have gone with the human race wherever they wandered, and into what circumstances. soever their lot was cast. All the great branches of the human family appear to have come more or less under its influence. In China and India, in Egypt and Persia, in Greece and in Rome, it has been the object of the worship of fear. By a natural law, that which is dreaded comes to be propitiated, and, according to well-known principles, objects long propitiated come to be regarded with something like esteem. Thus the twofold worship of the serpent. Thus, too, the explanation of its place as a type of blessing, of healing, of health.

ARTICLE VI.

CONFIDENCE, THE YOUNGEST DAUGHTER OF CAUTION.

BY REV. LEONARD WITHINGTON, D.D., NEWBURYPORT, MASS.

Evitando vivit anima, quae adpetendo moritur.

AUGUS. CONF. Lib. XIII. § 21.

ONE of the proofs of the Bible's being the word of God is, that it everywhere gives tokens of its coming from an omniscient mind. The test of omniscience is foresight. None can see into the future but God. The prophecies, therefore, as they roll on to their accomplishment, speak the wisdom of him who gave them. But it is not in the direct prophecies alone that the foresight of God is seen. We often find in human writings, and sometimes in authors of eminence, remarks that are sparkling and ingenious, but their truth can by no means endure the test of time. The ink is hardly dry on the paper before the teaching has lost its application and the author's reputation has gone to ruin. As the hill that arises highest into the air is apt to stand upon the strongest granite foundation, so the permanency of a doctrine is the signal of the strength of its origination. The editorials of a partisan newspaper, the speech of a pleader in a private trial, a funeral sermon, and often a political oration, are calculated only for the hour. Their best beauties are like the hues on a cloud after a vernal sunset, dependent not only on a fading ray, but the directionof that fading ray, and soon to be followed by a darkness. which obliterates their form and memorial, until they return, on another day, to an existence as transient and as soon to be forgotten.

It is one of the proofs of the divinity of the Bible, that all its principles rest on a permanent foundation. Even when the transient appears, it is only a vesture to wrap up an inmortal form. Generally speaking, we everywhere find the

vestiges of far-reaching foresight. It is the professed object of the prophecies to foresee and foretell; and every coming age, until the coming of the millennial kingdom, is to magnify the wisdom which prepared its foundation and predicted its accomplishment. But it is not in professed prophecy alone that this permanent wisdom is seen: The Bible never outlives its principles. The oldest book in the world is never out of date. "Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled." How many instances of this divine permanency may be brought from the sacred record! It seems to us that most of the popular objections to the high truths of revelation have been anticipated, showing the foresight that secures their future existence. When Paul says "I speak as a man," he projects himself into the popular sentiment, and takes away the sword of the adversary before he has drawn it from its sheath. In Rom. ix. 19 we have a remarkable passage: "Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will?" How natural is this question on the preaching of the doctrines of Paul, and how many millions of times has this objection been made! So the saying of Peter (2d Ep. iii. 4): "Where is the promise of his coming? For since the fathers fell asleep all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation." These simple words contain the first postulate of all the objections of Hume and others to the miracles; the doctrine of La Place and most of the French infidels, the German objections, and the whole tendency of infidel geology and what the pious geologists are attempting to meet. All is anticipated in its simplest form, and traced to its origin through all its Protean variations. Perhaps there is not a single heresy that has ever infested the church, that has not been "prevented," in the double sense of that old, pregnant word. I can imagine the shades of the old heresiarchs rising from their sepulchres

and saying, each one, to Paul, Οὐκ ἂν φθάνοις, λέγων, εἰ τὶ ἤσθησαί με φίλτρον ἐπιστάμενον, ὅ ἐγὼ εἴδως λέληθα ἐμαυτόν ; "If you knew me to possess some filtre which I was unconscious of, would you not tell me of its power before I asked you?" An historical commentary might be written on the New Testament, illustrating those wonderful provisions against heretical error, such as the Gnostic, the Manichean, the Arian, the Pelagian, the Universalist, which the light of truth was sure to generate in that mingled darkness which it modified, but did not remove.

The Bible has vast foresight in another direction. We would not refine; nor would we for a moment pretend that it assumes any other province than to afford men religious instruction. It leaves the bowels of the earth and the stars of heaven to offer their own evidence to the interrogation of mankind. But religion is involved in many other modes of improvement. Now one of the evils of a growing civilization is the vast inequality it introduces in property, multiplying riches while it diminishes the numbers that hold them, and increasing poverty while it multiplies the number of the poor. This inequality alone is the prime cause of many a revolution. Now the laws of Moses provided for this evil the year of jubilee, the returning of the possessions to the original holders; and moreover, the assuming their conquered lands on this condition, enacted an agrarian law with justice, and made the whole thing popular and feasible. Rome perished for the want of something similar, and the opposite evil produced the French Revolution. Here then is wisdom, incidental wisdom, which marks the foresight of a divine provision. So polygamy was indirectly prevented by the division of the territory of the promised land into small tenements; probably a more practical provision than a prohibitory law would have been. And what a beautiful provision is that recorded in Deut. xx. 8: "And the officers shall speak further unto the people, and they shall say, What man is there that is fearful and faint-hearted? let him go and return unto his house, lest his brethren's heart faint as

well as his heart." This is said of their soldiers going to war: what a deep knowledge of human nature and political wisdom does it imply! We are acting on this system in the present war. We are calling for volunteers. Courage generally is conscious power founded on activity and strength; and there will always be men enough in every great nation of such a temperament to excuse their weaker brethren, who may still serve their country in a laborious and retired life. Let the brave defend the timid, and let the timid support the brave. Each man finds his place, reaps his reward, and the harmony of the social system is supported by its diversity.

Many other proofs of the telegrams which revelation has sent into futurity might be adduced. But there is one line of invention on which the human researches have moved, in which we feel great solicitude to ask: What foresight has revelation shown? What provision was made for those objections and difficulties which were sure to arise? We allude to those discoveries of science which seem most to conflict with the facts and principles of revelation, particularly in the departments of astronomy and geology. Has the same permanent wisdom been shown in respect to these sciences as has anticipated all other improvements? Do we see here the unambiguous footsteps of a God?

The views which the Bible takes of the material creation are the most infantine possible. The material creation is assumed to be Kar' ow, according to the first impressions on primitive observers: The sun rises and sets; the earth is a plain extended over the waters; there is a solid expanse which supports the upper flood; the windows of heaven are opened when it rains copiously; there are an upper and under and a middle world; there is an absolute up and down; heaven is always above us and the nether floods beneath; and the plurality of worlds in the stars is utterly ignored. Even the slender attainments of the Greek and Latin poets and philosophers in natural science are not reached. The sublimity of the Bible does not lie in the line of discovery of the secrets of creation.