for the most part occupied with it, as the proximate event; leaving to the New-to the prophecies given after the accomplishment of the Saviour's sufferings -to unfold that which was more remote, the prospect of His glorious appearing.

The contrary to this, however, we find to be the reality. For, not only are the sufferings and the glory of Christ not made the subject of two distinct classes of predictions, but, which is more remarkable, the latter is the great theme of Old Testament prophecy; there being no prophecy of the Saviour's sufferings that does not terminate in a promise of His glory, while the prophecies of His kingdom and glory are many in which no mention is made of His previous humiliation.

Nor is this fact without its explanation, viz., that the subject of prophecy is not detail, but ultimate results. Its burden and theme is CRISIS. And this, as best subserving to the two principal ends for which it is given; on the one hand, as PROMISE, to sustain the faith and cherish the hopes of the people of God in time of trial, by the assurance that "He is the Rewarder of them that diligently seek Him;" and, on the other, as WARNING, to advertise the world. of judgment impending, and, though long delayed, in the end certain of execution; but, in both instances, "declaring THE END from the beginning."

As it respects the Old Testament prophecies generally, and indeed the greater part of those of the New also, it would seem, however, that we have yet to learn this characteristic of prophecy; the disposi-.

tion being evident in its expositors to conclude that the former, with perhaps a few exceptions, must have received their accomplishment in the first coming of Christ and its immediate consequences, the diffusion of the Gospel and the foundation of the Christian Church. Whereas it would be much more in agreement with the truth to say (for the reason just stated), that of the prophecies of the Redemption the fulfilled constitute the exceptions; and even of these it will be found that, when we have read them once to trace in them the promise of "the grace that hath appeared" and the "salvation" already effected for us, we have to read them again to learn of "the grace that is to be brought unto us at the revelation [the next revelation] of Jesus Christ," and "the salvation ready to be revealed in the last time" (1 Pet. i.10, with 5, 13.)

To exemplify this statement in the instances of the earliest of the prophecies of a Redeemer on record, in the interval from the Fall to the establishing of Israel in the Land of Promise,-while as yet the Word of God was comprised in a few brief oracles, and prior to the commencement of the regular succession of Prophets which dates from Samuel and ends with Malachi,*-is the object proposed in the present course of Lectures: not only because, as the

* So the prophetic age is defined, Acts, iii. 24,-" All the Prophets, from Samuel, and those that follow after, as many as have spoken, . . ." and xiii. 20, "He gave them judges about the space of four hundred and fifty years until Samuel the Prophet." -See Davison's Discourses on Prophecy, V., sections I., II.

earliest, they afford the clearest illustration of the character of prophecy thus defined, but also because, being in each instance the single revelation to the ages in which they were respectively uttered, they will be found to be-not (as again reasoning à priori we would have concluded) fragments only, butcomprehensive summaries of the truth afterwards more fully developed; pregnant oracles, comprising in brief the more copious revelations of after-times; and so in their exposition furnishing a key to the interpretation of these last, as well as serving to show what deep interest many predictions, usually regarded as long since fulfilled, still possess for the Church even at this advanced period of the Christian Dispensation.

7

Beginning then with that which first presents itself -the promise of a Saviour recited in the text, given on the occasion of man's fall-here, if in any instance, we would expect to meet with a fulfilled prophecy; being not only an Old Testament prophecy, but the oldest-the first ever given. Yet here the evidence of non-fulfilment is, perhaps, most clear. For, that it was not fulfilled at the first Advent in the redemption then effected, complete though it was as regards the perfect atonement for sin then made by the death of Christ; nor yet by His Resurrection and the triumph over man's enemy in his strongest hold then achieved; nor even by His Ascension and "the preaching of the Gospel with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven," and the mighty results

that followed, that still the serpent's head was not bruised, and, after all this, the fulfilment of this promise was yet in expectation, we have the authority of an Apostle for asserting, when, writing to the Romans long after these events, St. Paul, encouraging them in their trials and their conflict with "manifold temptations" from within and from without, says, in the very terms of the promise, and with manifest allusion to it," The God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly" (ch. xvi. 20). While facts may be confidently appealed to in proof that, if not then, neither yet now, is this accomplished,-in the still continued and but too obvious ascendancy of that power of the Evil One in the world, the complete overthrow of which, in the lowest acceptation of the words, is the subject of this prediction. But this will appear more plainly on considering the prophecy as a whole with the circumstances under which it was given; in doing which our inquiry will be directed to two points,-to determine, first, its main scope and ultimate reference; and, secondly, in how far it has been, and yet remains to be, fulfilled.

I. First, then, it is particularly to be noted that it is to the serpent, and not to man, the prophecy is addressed, and that it is in fact, in its direct acceptation, a sentence of judgment: a threatened doom of the Evil One symbolized by the utter destruction of the creature whose form he had assumed for the better effecting of his purpose,-the crushing of the

head, the vulnerable part (as is well known) of the serpent, and thus a prophecy of man's redemption only as implied in the serpent's fate, and to be inferred from the subjugation of him by whom his fall had been effected. From the words addressed to themselves our first parents would derive no hope. They too were sentences of judgment, unqualified by any intimation of mercy:

"Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.

"And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; "Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field;

"In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return."

But not so in the case of the serpent's sentence. From it (and for this reason, perhaps, it was the first pronounced) man would conceive a hope of salvation; and this on two distinct grounds:

1. In the first place, because it is as his enemy and the cause of his trangression the serpent is doomed:-"Because thou hast done this thou art cursed above all cattle," &c. Man's fall is declared to be the serpent's degradation and death, and so, the emblem or assumed form apart, the curse and condemnation of Satan himself. There is, indeed, much ground for the conjecture that this was the