The system virtually begins with a denial of the L.vine origin and authority of the Scriptures, and a degradation of them to the level of the works of heathen authors; and as a system, pursued under the influences above referred to, is no better calculated to lead the student to a right apprehension and knowledge of the great theme and connected chain of things revealed, than the study of insects, under the name of the science of entomology, is calculated to enable the student to conceive, understand, and comprehend the doctrines of the Newtonian philosophy.

Among the results of this course of things, it is obvious to notice the wide-spread, notorious, and effective sentiment of doubt and uncertainty as to the claims of the Scriptures in respect to the most important facts and doctrines, among the learned, scientific and professional men extensively on both sides of the Atlantic. Hence the origin, popularity, and influence of the geological doctrines concerning the antiquity of the earth, successive creations or developments, diversity of origin. of different families of the human race, and various kindred matters. The excited minds of scientific men, unsatisfied, unestablished, and misled by the results of Rabbinical and neological study and criticism, have appealed from the Scripture records to the fossil relics of what they fancy to have been a world of immeasurably higher antiquity than that of whose creation Moses is the historian. They seek there, and imagine that they discover, engraven on the rocks, an earlier revelation, a more correct chronology, a higher and more intelligible theory of the origin, progress, uses, and ends of the earth, its changes, and its families of rational and irrational inhabitants. And finally the better portion of this great school, as the only means left of guarding the

rising generation from blank atheism, recommend the institution of professorships of Natural Theology, that, by a due exhibition to them of the evidences of geological and other natural sciences, they may, if possible, be convinced that there is a God!

Another result is obvious in the still more extended influence among all classes, learned, religious, ignorant and skeptical, of the discovery-made, probably, or adopted, alike by the Talmudists and Origen, though not openly professed as a clue to their productions---. that language is a very inadequate, imperfect, indeterminate vehicle of thought; an uncertain, incompetent, unreliable means of expressing men's ideas. The incautious, half demented inheritors of this discovery, however, apprehending, in the present condition of things, no danger of injury to their intellectual, professional, literary or religious reputation, proclaim it as boldly and unreservedly as if it were universally admitted and confirmed by universal experience. Out of charity or out of hypocrisy towards their readers, indeed, or because they consider themselves exceptions to a general rule, applicable, in their view, even to the penmen of the sacred writings, they directly profess and apply this fancied discovery only in relation to the language of Scripture and to that of orthodox creeds and confessions. In this they feel secure of the acquiescence of the great majority of all descriptions, and, but for their heresies in other relations, and having other bearings, would feel in other respects, as well as in this, secure of the learned among the orthodox.

It is obvious how, by this device, the Arch-enemy wins and secures his prey among those who have the oracles of God; as of old among the heathen by his own oracles, the responses from which were ever capa

ble of several meanings, from among which the consulting party might adopt the one most agreeable to his wishes, feelings, and emotions.

CHAPTER XVII.

Relation of the antagonism between the Messiah and the great Adversary to the local, personal, and visible Manifestations of the formerModes of Visibility on the part of the latter, through human agents and various instrumentalities.

THE antagonism between the Messiah and the great Adversary, which, in the Scriptures, is conspicuous in all that relates to idolatry and other principal forms of impiety, and the means employed to counteract and punish them, strongly implies and confirms the reality and visibility of the local personal appearances and acts recorded of the delegated Person. The scene of that antagonism was on the earth. It involved an abiding enmity and active hostility between the followers of the respective leaders, separated the descendants of Adam into two hostile parties, and was carried on by means of their visible agency in all the forms in which they could express their inward sentiments, and in all the relations they sustained to the Divine Lawgiver, to the Archapostate, and to one another. In so far, then, as their acts and doings were visible in carrying on this warfare, it was requisite that the means of opposing, counteracting and condemning them should be visibly exhibited, that they might be observed, rightly judged of, and productive of appropriate moral effects.

But granting this to be apparent from the nature of the case, so far as concerns the agency of righteous men on one side, and that of wicked men on the other; it may at first be thought not to require any visible manifestations or acts of the Divine leader of the righteous, any more than of the apostate leader of the wicked. The sequel may show that such visibility in respect to both was exhibited; by the one, to whom it occasioned no difficult in any respect, in whatever mode, and to whatever extent he pleased; by the other, in whatever ways it was possible for him to render himself visible, by subjecting the bodies of men or of inferior animals to his possession and control, and through their physical organs acting and speaking, and thereby giving visibility to his acts and audible utterance to his words; or by counterfeit apparitions, and by such arts and jugglery as his followers, the magicians of Egypt and else. where, practised with such success as to render their apparent acts undistinguishable from real ones.

That he had the power of occupying and actuating the bodies of men and of inferior animals, is shown by what is recorded of him and of the demons under him, in the New Testament; and it is very evident from what was said by the Jews on various occasions, that such possessions were no matter of surprise or doubt; and that they well understood that it was Satan, Baal-Zebub, the prince of the demons, that was cast out by the power of Christ, is evident from his question when answering them on one occasion, "How can Satan cast out Satan?"

In that which, from the events in Eden to the day of Pentecost, was remarkable as a dispensation of visible agencies and results, visible teachings, rites, ordinances, institutions, mercies and judgments, manifestations and events, the Adversary carried on his system of hostility

and rivalry by visible agents and instruments, as will be illustrated with reference to the all but universal system of idolatry of which he was the head under the name of Baal, and in which he was represented by visi ble images without number, and had innumerable priests and counterfeits of all the visible accompaniments of the system prescribed for the worship of Jehovah.

In the progress of that dispensation it is observable, not only that the Divine Messenger appeared in the visible likeness, and, at its close, in the nature of man, but also that created spiritual beings, angels, appeared visibly from time to time, and at the advent, resurrec tion and ascension of Christ. The power of rendering themselves visible, if it resided in the unfallen angels, and was a condition of their nature, is likely to have been retained and exercised by the fallen. And if-as hypocrites, by their outward and visible acts, make themselves appear to be honest and true-Satan can deceive by assuming the appearance of an angel of light, he is likely to have exercised that power in every way possible to him and conducive to his ends. Possessing capacities little conceived of or comprehended by mortals; capacities indicated by the attitude of opposition and rivalship which he assumed towards his Creator and rightful Sovereign, the omnipotent and omniscient One; by the boldness and perseverance of his rebellion, the vastness of the results which he accomplished in the seduction of his celestial followers, and the ruin of this world; the indescribable audacity of his personal encounter in the wilderness with the incarnate Word, and the still more amazing desperateness of the conflicts predicted in the Apocalypse; who can doubt but that he had at all times ways and means of rendering his agency visible, directly and by instruments at his command?