Under the government of his successors, the declension of the Jewish state rapidly advances, and all things contribute to prepare the way for the accomplishment of God's long appointed sacrifice for the sins of mankind. The evil spirit of the Pharisees and Sadducees inducing them to support the princes who patronised their respective sects; the ambitious policy of Antipater prompting him to seek the aggrandisement of his own family, by humouring the corresponding factions of Pompey and Cæsar in the Roman state; means chosen by the unbiassed free-will of those who adopted them, not suggested by that POWER who required not such agency to fulfil His purposes. Ecclus, xv. "A man's heart deviseth his way, but the LORD directeth his steps." And now the world, immersed in sin and misery, had been proved incorrigibly addicted to evil, and even in the land of promise, under the immediate jurisdiction of the law of God, in the reign of Herod scarcely a form of godliness remained; yet unworthy as it was, "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him, should not perish, but have everlasting life."

EE

PROPHECY.

"Remember the former things of old: for I am GOD, and there is none else; I am GOD, and there is none like me. Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet. done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure.” Isa. xlvi. 9, 10.

In the perusal of Sacred History, the moral government

of God is marked in a manner so clear and decisive as to require no comment, and to admit of no appeal. The prophecies revealing his will, are interwoven with the events to which they bore an immediate reference: but in their extreme import, they extend to the remotest periods of futurity, and over every nation and people that has made any figure in history. The prophetic writings, therefore, must be our clue in the study of Profane History, the records of which, as they refer to the earliest ages, are so disguised by fiction and fable, as to set at defiance every effort of research that has not Scripture for its guide. "Known unto God are all his works, from the beginning of the world;" (Acts xv. 18.) and the revelations of His will, serve the double purpose of proving His omniscience, and of affording to His erring creatures a warning to escape by individual faith and obedience the judgments threatened to national

sin.

In the Tables of Prophecy accompanying this work, the reader will be presented in the first, with the principal revelations of God by his prophets, in the order in which they were promulged; and in the second, with the events, shewing the order of accomplishment of those contained in the Book of Daniel; and both will combine to point out

the periods of the history of the several nations of antiquity, in the order in which they were called into action by the determinate counsels of that Almighty Being, in whose hands they became instruments of His retributive justice. The following little treatise will be arranged with a refer[ ence to the divisions of time observed in the Ten Tables of History, forming the first part of this work, in order that the reader may be furnished with distinct views both of the historical matter, and of the revelations of God relating to each period.

FIRST PERIOD, A.

Gen. iii, 15.

To study History effectually, we must begin with the creation of the world, and consider the whole human race as contained in, and proceeding from, one man. That man having by disobedience introduced sin into the world, the world must have been given over to death as its sure penalty, had not the mercy of God suggested a remedy for it, which was announced in the promise that "the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head." This first prophecy (to which all future ones bore a reference) seems the only revelation of God to the Antediluvians during the first fifteen centuries of the world's age; but it was the all-sufficient message of pardon and peace. As such, it was addressed to the heart more than to the understanding of man; to the latter it has been amplified through every age of the world in a way to exercise the improved faculties of each succeeding generation, so that in -each, the believer might exclaim in the words of the - Psalmist, “bless the Lord, O my soul, and ALL THAT IS [WITHIN ME bless his holy name." (See the whole of the -103d Psalm.) a ne

. By the breach of the first covenant man became the servant of sin; know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righ

teousness." Rom. vi. 16. "This servitude to sin (or Satan) is in all respects complete." For, those who serve, are either born servants, or bought with a price, or made captives by force; and sin hath all these kinds of title to man. "He is conceived and born in sin.” Psalm li. 5. "He is sold under sin, Rom. vii. 14. and sells himself to do evil." 1 Kings xxi. 20. As that which is sold, passes into the possession of the buyer, so the sinner exchanging himself for the pleasures of sin, is under its power; original sin took possession of our nature, and actual sin of our lives. He is the servant of corruption, by yielding to it; "for of whom a man is overcome, of the same he is brought in bondage." 2 Pet. ii. 19. The condition of the most wretched bond-slave is more sweet, and less servile than that of a sinner. For the severest tyranny is exercised only upon the body, the soul remains free in the midst of chains; but the power of sin oppresses the soul, the most noble part, and defaces the bright character of the Deity that was stamped upon its visage. terminated with this present life. soners rest together: they hear not the voice of the oppressor. The small and great are there, and the servant is free from his master.” Job iii. 18, 19; but there is no exemption from this servitude by death; it extends itself to eternity." Bates's Harmony of the Divine Attributes, p.

158.

The worst slavery is "In the grave, the pri

By the covenant of grace, God, (who had made man and loved his work,) resumed his property in his creature. This covenant required from man faith and obedience. In testimony of his faith "Adam called his wife's name Eve, because she was the mother of all living;" thus, even from the beginning," as in Adam all die, so in Christ (the promised seed of the woman) shall all be made alive." 1 Cor. xv. 21, 22.; Ephes. iii. 15.; Rom. v. 18.; 1 Tim. ii. 5, 6. How much of God's mysterious plan was understood by the Antediluvians, it is impossible for us to discover; but they

had, doubtless, sufficient evidence to confirm them in a saving faith; and to us, upon whom the ends of the world are come, it belongs to trace back the mystery of redemption from the full grown tree of righteousness filling the whole world to the grain of mustard seed sown in the beginning, the whole of time being to mankind in general, what the period of each man's life is to himself in particular. It was the GOSPEL; and we see Gospel truths and doctrines pre-figured: 1st, in the ordinance of sacrifices, which, while they shewed the innocent dying for the guilty, (as "Christ also suffered for sin, the just for the unjust." 1 Pet. iii. 18.) and being accepted as a meritorious atonement and satisfaction for sin, (as God made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." 2 Cor. v. 21) also furnished the cloathing of the sacrificer. "Unto Adam also,

and to his wife, did the Lord God make coats of skins, and clothed them." Gen. iii. 21.

"Nor HE their outward only with the skins
Of beasts, but inward nakedness (much more
Opprobrious) with His robe of righteousness.
Arraying, covered from His father's sight."

Milton's Paradise Lost, Book X.

And we are exhorted to " put on the Lord Jesus Christ.” Rom. xiii. 14. Ephes. iv. 24.*

8

The pride with which man was inoculated by the serpent, and which made him aspire to be "as Gods, know, ing good and evil," Gen. iii. 5, 6, is subdued by the humility of CHRIST, "who being in the form of God made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men." Phil. ii. 6, 7, in which form (and in the very nature that had offended) he suffered the penalty of sin, "tasting death for every

* See also, Luke xv. 22, where the Prodigal son is clothed with “the best robe,” the imputed righteousness of CHRIST; see also, Rev. iii. 18, and vii. 14.