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Adam, but characteristic of an individual-emphatically expressive of that person, who, by the miraculous manner of his conception, was peculiarly and properly the son of Eve,--that the wound to be suffered by this person in the heel, denotes the sufferings with which the Devil and his emissaries were permitted to exercise the Captain of our Salvation? And will he not discern, in the accomplishment of man's redemption, and the successful propagation of the gospel, the mortal blow inflicted on the serpent's head ?—when the ignorance which he had spread over the world was dispelled by the light of revelation-when his secret influence on the hearts of men, to inflame their passions, to debauch their imaginations and mislead their thoughts, was counteracted by the graces of God's Holy Spirit, aiding the external administration of the word,—when, with much of its invisible power, his kingdom lost the whole of its external pomp and splendour. Silence being imposed on his oracles, and spells and enchantments being divested of their power, the idolatrous worship which by those engines of deceit he had universally established, and for ages supported, notwithstanding the antiquity of its institutions, and the bewitching gaiety and magnificence of its festivals, fell into neglect. Its cruel and lascivious rites, so long holden in superstitious veneration, on a sudden became the object of a just and general abhorrence; and the unfrequented temples, stripped, no doubt, of their rich ornaments and costly offerings, sunk in ruins. These were the early effects of the promulgation of the gospel,---effects of the power of Christ exalted to his throne, openly spoiling principalities and powers, and trampling the Dragon under foot. When these effects of Christianity began to be perceived, which was very soon after our Lord's ascension,—when magicians openly foreswore their ruined art, and burned their useless books, --when the fiend of divination, confessing the power by which he was subdued, ceased to actuate his rescued prophetess, when the worshippers of the Ephesian Diana avowed their apprehensions for the tottering reputation of their goddess, then it was that the seed of the woman was seen to strike and bruise the serpent's head.

Thus you see, that as the general purport of this prophecy was readily opened by an attention to the circumstances of the memorable transaction which gave occasion to it, so a comparison of it with later prophecies, and with events (which, to whatever cause they may be referred, have confessedly and notoriously taken place,) naturally leads to a particular and circumstantial explication.

It is remarkable that this, which is of all the most ancient prophecy of the general redemption, is perhaps, of any single prediction that can be produced, upon many accounts the most satisfactory and convincing. For, in the first place, although it be conveyed in the most highly figured language, the general meaning of it, though less obvious, is no less single and precise than the most plain and simple expressions might have made it. It was uttered by the voice of God himself; therefore two different and unequal intellects were not, as in every instance of prophecy uttered by a man, concerned in the delivery of it. The occasion upon which it was delivered was of such importance as necessarily to exclude all other business: its general meaning, therefore, must be connected, which is not the case of every prophecy, with the occasion upon which it was spoken; and with that occasion one meaning only can possibly connect it. The serpent accosted could be no other serpent than Eve's seducer,—the curse, no other curse than such as might be adapted to that deceiver's nature,—the enmity, no other enmity but what might be exercised between beings of such patures as man and his seducer, and the

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bruises in the heel and in the head, no other mischiefs to either party than that enmity might produce. So that the general meaning to which the occasion points, is no less certain than if our enemy had been accosted in some such plain terms as these: “Satan! thou art accursed beyond all the spirits of thy impious confederacy. Short date is granted to the farther workings of thy malice; and all the while thou shalt heavily drag the burden of an unblessed existence, -fettered in thy energies, cramped in thy enjoyments; and thy malevolent attempts on man, though for a time they may affect, and perchance, through his own folly endanger his condition, shall terminate in the total extinction of thine own power, and in the aggravation of thy misery and abasement; and, to gall thee more, he who shall undo thy deeds, restore the ruined world, and be thy conqueror and avenger, shall be a son, though in no natural way, of this deluded woman."

Again, no less certain than the general meaning derived from the occasion of this prophecy, is the particular exposition of it by the analogy of prophecy, and by the event. The images of this prediction, however dark they might be when it was first delivered, carry, we find, in the prophetic language, a fixed unvaried meaning. The image of the serpent answers to no being in uni. versal nature but the Devil. Prophecy knows no seed of the woman—it ascribes the miraculous conception to which this name alludes to none but the Emanuel; nor shall we find, in the whole progeny of Eve, a person to' whom the character may belong, but the child in the manger at Bethlehem, the holy fruit of Mary's unpol. luted womb.

Lastly, the event which answers to the image in the conclusion of this prophecy, the bruise upon the serpent's head, is in its nature single; for the universal extirpation of idolatry, and the general establishment of the pure worship of the true God, is a thing which must be done

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once for all, and being done, can never be repeated. A prophecy thus definite in its general purport, conveyed in images of a fixed and constant meaning, and corresponding to an event in its nature single-a sudden and universal revolution of the religious opinions and practices of all the civilized nations of the known world, such a prophecy, so accomplished, must be allowed to be a proof that the whole work and counsel was of God, if in any case it be allowed that the nature of the cause may be known by the effect.

I mean hereafter to apply the apostle's rules to instances of prophecy of another kind, in which we find neither the same settled signification in the imagery, nor the same singularity of completion.

SERMON XVII.

2 PETER i. 20.

Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the Scripture is

of any private interpretation.

I PROCEED in the task I have undertaken, to exemplify the use of those rules of interpretation which the maxim of my text contains; which are these two, to refer particular predictions to the system, and to compare prophecies with events. In my last discourse, I showed you with what certainty and facility they lead to the explication of the first prophecy that was ever given--that which was uttered by the voice of God himself, in the form of a curse upon the serpent, the adviser of Adam's disobedience. I shall now try them in an instance of a very different kind, where the occasion of the prediction does not so clearly ascertain its general purport,—where the images employed are less fixed to one constant meaning, -and where, among the events that have happened since the prophecy was given, a variety may be found to correspond with it, all in such exactness, that every one of the number may seem to have a right to pass for the intended completion.

The first prophecy uttered by the voice of God, fur. nished an example of a prediction in which the general

a meaning was from the first certain, and the imagery of the diction simple, and of which the accomplishment hath been single. The earliest prophecy recorded in the

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