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existed between any double correlated parties besides them; so that no significations can be assigned to the woman and her seed and the serpent and his seed other than those we ascribe to them. It has been supposed that the descent of Messiah from Eve was intended by the term "seed of the woman;" but this must be a mistake, for the term is antithetic to "seed of the serpent," and if the term implies but one person in the one case, it must imply the same in the other, which would make us look for a person descended from the serpent as an antipode to Messiah. The term HE, unquestionably refers to Messiah, and from its nature it indicates a connection with the human race, but no special promise of a Redeemer or atonement is found in the text, nor any injunction to offer sacrifices with prospective faith in a Redeemer to come. It therefore follows, in view of the sacrificial rites of Abel and his faith, that Adam's family received clear information of its duty, not recorded in the Bible, and the promise of God incarnate must also have been given, yet no record is made of it by Moses.

SECTION II.

MODE OF THE WORLD'S REDUCTION FIRST CURSE.

To reduce the world to allegiance, God determined upon a fourfold mode of warfare. The first was to afflict the material and animal creation. He therefore laid a curse upon the ground, and upon beasts, and upon woman, and the curse of severe labor upon man, and death upon all the human race. This curse or evil

condition of the world must be carefully distinguished from the penalty annexed to transgression. A penalty can righteously be inflicted upon actual transgressors only, but the curse falls upon animals, and infants, and idiots who are incapable of actual transgression. The pains of the penalty of spiritual death are suspended during man's probationary state. These temporal evils inflicted upon man's habitation were intended to produce the effect of repentance and return to God, just as want, woe, starvation, and humiliation led the prodigal son to return penitent to his father's house. This first curse not producing the desired effect sufficiently, a flood of waters destroyed the heavens and earth that remained, and man's days were greatly diminished. The second mode of warfare was the universal operation of God's spirit upon the minds of men, persuading them to obedience. St. Paul says of the universal world: "that which may be known. of God is manifest in them, for God hath showed it unto them," and "the Gentiles which have not the (written) law do by nature the things contained in the law * * shew the work of the law written in their hearts." The third mode of warfare was by the preaching of the gospel, or by living oratory, persuading men to repent and unite themselves to God's cause. This last was added to the plan of war as soon as men were prepared by the experience of ages to profit by it. The fourth mode was to break down all barriers which might lie in the way of the preaching of the gospel. Here the agency of special providence is brought in, and the work of superintending nations, and confirming or breaking them to pieces, as the progress of God's cause might demand. A determination certainly was

made to break down all civil governments not based upon the great laws of righteousness, and to supersede them by upright governments. This breaking down of unrighteous domination at the close of the war is a constant theme of the prophets, and is termed a day of judgment, or political doom, or the battle of the great day of God Almighty. It is an earlier period than the spiritual judgment, which succeeds it several centuries later.

SECTION III.

THE PRINCIPLES OF GOD'S GOVERNMENT.

God's government is essentially a theocratic democracy. Its principles necessitate in democracy among men, when disseminated and embraced. The great law of "love to neighbors as to self" is a law conferring equal rights among all citizens of the same government; it is diametrically opposed to human legitimacy, papacy, and absolutism; it is not conformable to hereditary aristocracy, nor can it be. It is democratic purely, and places all citizens of the same country upon a dead level as to right to rule, and confers exclusive favors upon none. God is, according to it, the only one that has a divine right to exercise kingship, and he is by consequence opposed to all human monarchy, and hates it as a feature of hell and the devil. In the first book of Samuel, we have the opinion of God and Israel about kings, and it is one of great repugnance on God's part and repentance on Israel's. Israel asked Samuel to make them a king, but he was displeased with the proposition, and prayed to God about it; and God replied to him, "they have

not rejected thee but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them. Now, therefore, hearken unto their voice; yet protest solemnly, and shew them the manner of the king that shall reign over them." After a king was chosen, God signified his displeasure by a terrible thunder storm in wheat harvest, and the people were greatly terrified. For Samuel said "I will call unto the Lord and he shall send thunder and rain, that ye may perceive and see that your wickedness is great, which ye have done in the sight of the Lord in asking you a king. * * And the people said unto Samuel, Pray for thy servants unto the Lord thy God that we die not; for we have added unto all our sins, this evil, to ask us a king."

By this choice of a king the Hebrew republic was changed into a hereditary monarchy, and God ceased to be their only king. From the passages of scripture just quoted, it is certain that God considers a human monarchy as exceedingly sinful, and as standing in direct hostility to himself, and he has but little patience with it. It is also obvious that in the recovery of the world to good government, in the progress of Christianity, that human monarchy will share no part or lot in the new organization. God is therefore hostile to human monarchy because the system is iniquitous in principle ; and he will destroy it because of its wicked nature.

If it be replied, "the powers that be are ordained of God," we answer that this does not prove monarchy correct in principle, for God uses monarchy as he does other curses, for the sake of chastising evil people. Thus the king of Babylon punished the Tyrians, and Cyrus punished Babylon at God's instigation: and wicked

nations need tyrants to punish them for their vice. Grod said "O, Israel, I will be thy king. I gave thee a king in mine anger and took him away in my wrath."-Joel 13. Monarchy is therefore a curse added to a vicious people, who are unworthy of freedom. In the spiritual and political redemption of the world, it therefore follows, that monarchy must be overthrown.

SECTION IV.

THE LAST CONTEST.

The text states that Messiah shall finally crush the head of the false system of worship and authority, or despotism, in church and state. This, of course, would end in the overthrow of the existing monarchies, and empire or state church establishments every where. In the progress of the war toward completion, it is reasonable to suppose that some one portion of the globe would be subdued to God before any other. The consequence of the prevalence of the gospel practically would be a government in such region, conformable to a bible democracy. As enmity was declared between false and true religion, and false and true government, such new organization would be hostile to all monarchy, and vice It would also be the representative of bible democracy generally, and would be looked upon as its organic leader in the world, and when it became strong enough, it would be the belligerent representative of all true liberalists in the world, and espouse their cause. Such actually has been the case in the history of the war. In the progress of Christianity, in America, it

versa.

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