We have not combated the theories of other expositors to a great extent, because it was foreign to good manners, in some cases, to do so, and useless in others. In every instance where we differ from others, we do so because they do not strictly conform to past facts, and by consequence must err, proportionally, with reference to the future. In some cases, very exalted human authorities will be consulted against us; but we appeal, for support, to inspiration and to history, and refuse to yield to any sanctified human opinion that is not punctiliously in accordance with known truth. We claim to have discovered, that all old interpretations of one great era are either erroneous in whole or in part. Unknown to fame or to the famous, we appeal to common sense people, to read and decide our correctness, for on account of such we have written; we crave not the attention of chiefs and princes, but seek an humble place of consideration among the great Christian democratic PEOPLE throughout the world. Misfortune is the fate of discoverers and inventors generally, and we expect no exception will be made in our favor; yet, from a better sphere than this, we hope in triumph to descend at the appearing of the victory of God, and advent of that kingdom for which from infancy, each Christian child is daily taught to pray. If, then, some humble place be ours among the glorified, we shall be more than recompensed for all our years of bitter toil.

PART FIRST.

PROPHETIC HISTORY OF THE WHOLE WORLD.

CHAPTER I.

THE FIRST SPIRITUAL AND POLITICAL PROPHECY.

(This prophecy is found in the third chapter of Genesis.)

At the fall of the world, or rebellion of mankind against God, he determined upon their reduction to allegiance, and immediately declared war against his foes. From the nature of things, this war was of a double character, or spiritual and political. Man originally possessed, and still possesses, a spiritual nature, which makes him a religious creature, and also a social nature, which constitutes him a political being. From these two constitutional qualities has resulted the universality of some kind of religion and civil government. In a state of perfection, these two principles would have ultimated in true religion and true civil government. At the fall of man, the rejection of the true God as monarch in both of these departments, led to the wildest disorder and universal misery.. It is also a truth, established by universal experience, that all civil governments among mankind have conformed in principle and practice to the genius of the prevailing religion of the people;

religion has controlled the politics of the world in all ages. If the religion has been mild, so has been the civil government; if it has been bloody and despotic, so has been the civil government; if it has been liberal and enlightened, so has been the civil policy. This has resulted from a law of nature, by which inferior things are controlled by superior; and as the spiritual nature of man exercises supreme power over his conduct in his individual capacity, so does it in his aggregated state. To subdue man, it was therefore necessary to subjugate his spiritual nature first; to regenerate him as a religious race, and then his political regeneration would follow inevitably.

A physical victory might have resulted in a moment from the weight of Omnipotence, but a moral victory could not thus speedily be obtained, from the eternal, and immutable, and self existent principles of moral agency. To the principles here stated, the great declaration of war by Jehovah is strictly conformed.

SECTION I.

DECLARATION OF WAR.

"I will put enmity between thee and the woman; and between thy seed and her seed; HE* shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel."

This declaration is a generic history of the whole contest for dominion of the world, from the fall to the final victory of God. The serpent and the woman, though real persons, are nevertheless, in this passage, used as

*Clark's Comm.

passage

metaphoric terms. Were this not so, the whole would be ridiculous. Six parties are embraced in the text. First, the serpent and the woman are placed antithetic to each other; second, the seed of the serpent, and seed of the woman, are also counterparts of each other; third, HE and the serpent's HEAD are also placed in antagonism to each other.

Between each of these antithetic pairs, direct hostility was to rage, and it is evident that the serpent, his head, and his seed, are all confederate; and that the woman, her seed, and HE, the Messiah, are also confederates. It is evident, also, that the head of the serpent controlled the powers represented by the serpent and his seed, and that HE, who stood opposed to the serpent's head, held also a similar supreme control over the powers represented by the woman and her seed. It will be granted, without any argument on our part, that the head of the serpent represented the great enemy of God, and seducer of man, called, in the New Testament, the Prince of the power of the air, and the Devil, and Satan. It will also be granted, that HE who was antithetic to Satan, was the second person of the Trinity, also called Immanuel, or Messiah. The serpent represents the false religion introduced by the Devil, and his seed represents the false system of civil government growing out of it. The woman represents the true religion introduced by Jehovah, and her seed represents the true system of civil government growing out of it. Our reasons for these positions are many, but chiefly the following:

First. The terms, "serpent and his seed," and "woman and her seed," can not be understood literally. For this would make the serpent to be a generator of

snakes, and bring Eve into a war with the serpent personally, and then her children and snakes would have a perpetual war, till Messiah should crush the head of the Father of Snakes. Such a view of the text would be the quintessence of absurdity. Again, the literal serpent who seduced Eve died long ago, but the text represents the serpent of which God spoke as existing at the final victory of Messiah.

Second. As the head of the serpent was symbolic of something besides the symbolic serpent, this serpent differs from the Devil literally, and yet is called such from its paternal name, it being the creation of the real seducer of man. Now, as false religion is the first great scheme of the Devil, the serpent being next to its head is properly represented by it. And as the "seed" of the serpent is something different from the serpent itself, it must represent the civil polity generated from a false religion. No two things in the whole history of the world can be found to coincide with the serpent and his seed, but false religion, and false civil polity. Again, as the woman and her seed are antithetic counterparts of the serpent and his seed, they must coincide with the true church of God, and the true system of government arising from it. The utter impossibility of any other things being found to coincide with the woman and her seed, than those here stated, in consistency with the whole text, inevitably fastens the symbolic meaning of the text to them.

Third. That the woman and her seed, and the serpent and his seed, severally represent the two departments of false and true government, is further evident from the consideration of the nature of all moral govern