thus preserved, it was still necessary to give them such hopes as might make them capable of religion toward God. And these hopes they could not but conceive when they heard from the mouth of God that the serpent's victory was not a complete [final?] victory over even themselves: that they and their posterity should be enabled to contest his empire; and though they were to suffer much in the struggle, yet finally they should prevail and bruise the serpent's head, and deliver themselves from his power and dominion. And what now could they conceive this conquest over the serpent to mean? Is it not natural to expect that we shall recover that by victory which we lost by being defeated?... The certain knowledge they had of their loss when the serpent prevailed could not but lead them to a clear knowledge of what they should regain by prevailing against the serpent."

Yet after this he also says that the prophecy has been completely accomplished, so as to leave nothing to be looked

for:

"If you inquire whether this prophecy, in the obvious and most natural meaning of it—in that sense in which our first parents and their children after might easily understand it—has been verified by the coming of Christ, I conceive it may be made as clear as the sun at noon-day that all the expectations raised by this prophecy have been completely answered by the redemption wrought by Christ Jesus. And what have you to desire more than to see a prophecy fulfilled exactly?" And again," This prophecy we, on whom the latter days are come, have seen fully verified!"

Had it been said that in "the redemption wrought by Christ," and especially in His triumph over Satan in his stronghold, death, by His resurrection, believers have the earnest of the fulfilment of this promise, it were indeed true. But He Himself immediately before His death predicted a coming of "the Prince of this world" in a new and increased energy of His power-evidenced in the persecutions of His Church, and the succession of martyrdoms of which His

own death was the first: and, as observed in the Lecture, the New Testament prophecies following concur in representing the enemy's power at the highest on the eve of the Lord's second appearing, which is palpably irreconcilable with the supposition that the serpent's head was bruised at His first.

Mr. Davison (whose work is more than once referred to in these Lectures, the rather as it has been deservedly given a place in the present University Divinity Course) shows, as exemplified in the extracts given, that his conceptions of the scope of this remarkable prediction are much more adequate; and that, in so far as it falls within his object to notice it, he does so in a way commensurate with its importance. But as his Discourses only treat of prophecy as "one branch of the evidences of revelation," and of its "inspiration" in this connexion, they only speak of it in so far as it has been fulfilled: and he leaves it to be inferred, that in his judgment this first of prophecies is not fulfilled, and shall receive its accomplishment only with the fulfilment of the last.

LECTURE II.

(B.)-PAGE 29.

THOSE who have not access to the Archbishop's work will find a compendious notice of this apocryphal book in that useful repository of Biblical literature, "Horne's Introduction to the Critical Study of the Holy Scriptures," vol. i., Appendix, No. v., “On the Books termed Apocryphal," sect. i. ; where, also, several extracts from it are given, in which is asserted, in terms that admit of no ambiguity, the doctrine of the pre-existence of the Messiah, and also of three Persons in the Godhead; a testimony which (admitting its date to be proved) Mr. Horne, with the Archbishop, justly rates

as of great importance in a work antecedent to the rise and promulgation of Christianity. On this point, however, the reader should suspend his judgment until he has weighed the arguments of Mr. Greswell in the Appendix to his elaborate work on the Parables, vol. v., part ii., chapter vii., “ On the Date of the Book of Enoch;" who, on various grounds, and especially "the remarkable agreement between its phraseology and sentiments, and those sometimes of the Gospels, sometimes of the Epistles, sometimes of the book of Revelation," concludes that "it was the composition of a Hebrew Christian soon after the beginning of the second century;" and, consequently, that the author quoted from the Apostle, not the Apostle from him.

The following additional extracts are interesting on either supposition, as illustrative of the prophecy :

"CHAP. I.—The word of the blessing of Enoch, how he blessed the elect and the righteous, who were to exist in the time of trouble, rejecting the wicked and ungodly.

"Enoch, a righteous man, who [was] with God, answered and spake while his eyes were open, and while he saw a holy vision in the heavens. This the angels showed me.

"From them I heard all things, and understood what I saw; that which will not take place in this generation, which is to succeed at a distant period, on account of the elect.

Upon their account I spake and conversed with Him who will go forth from His habitation, the Holy and Mighty One, the God of the world; who will hereafter tread upon Mount Sinai; appear with His hosts, and be manifested in the strength of His power from heaven.

"All shall be afraid, and the watchers be terrified. Great fear and trembling shall seize them, even to the ends of the earth. The lofty mountains shall be troubled, and the exalted hills depressed, melting like a honeycomb in the flame. The earth shall be immerged, and all things which are in it shall perish; while judgment shall come upon all, even upon the righteous.

"But to them shall He give peace.

He shall preserve the elect, and towards them exercise clemency. These shall belong to God; be happy and blessed; and the splendour of the Godhead shall illuminate them.

"CHAP. II.-Behold, He comes with ten thousand of His saints to execute judgment upon them, and to reprove all the carnal for everything which the sinful and ungodly have done and committed against Him."*

Let every op

"CHAP. X.-To Michael the Lord said pressor perish from the face of the earth. Let every evil work be destroyed. The Plant of righteousness and rectitude shall appear, and its produce become a blessing."

"Purify the earth from all oppression, from all injustice, from all crime, from all impiety, and from all the pollution which is committed upon it. Exterminate them from the earth. Then shall the children of men be righteous, and all nations shall pay Me divine honours and bless Me; all shall adore Me.

"In those days I will open the treasures of blessing which are in heaven, that I may cause them to descend upon earth, and upon all the works and labour of man.

Peace and equity shall associate with the sons of men all the days of the world, in every generation of it.

"CHAP. XLV.-In that day shall the Elect One sit upon a throne of glory, and shall choose their conditions and countless habitations (while their spirits shall be strengthened when they behold My Elect One) for those who have fled for protection to My holy and glorious Name.

"In that day I will cause My Elect One to dwell in the midst of them; will change [the face of] heaven; will bless it and illuminate it for ever."

"I will also change [the face of] the earth; will bless it. But those who have committed sin and iniquity shall not inhabit it; for I have marked their proceedings. My righteous ones will I satisfy with peace, placing them before Me; but the condemnation of sinners shall draw near, that I may destroy them from the face of the earth."

"CHAP. L.—In those days shall the earth deliver up from her

* This is the passage supposed to be quoted by St. Jude.

womb, and hell deliver up from hers, that which it has received, and destruction shall restore that which it owes. He shall select the righteous and holy from among them; for the day of their salvation has approached. Their countenance shall be bright with joy; for in those days shall the Elect One be exalted. The earth shall rejoice. The righteous shall inhabit it, and the elect shall possess it."

(C.)-PAGE 41.

Lord Bacon's remark* has been often quoted, that "there is a latitude proper for the most part to the divine predictions, according to which they are not fulfilled at once and punctually [et continenter et punctualiter], but have springing and germinant accomplishments throughout several ages, though the height or fulness of them be appointed for one particular age and definite period:" ("licet plenitudo et fastigium complementi eorum plerumque alicui certæ ætati, vel etiam certo momento, destinetur; attamen habent interim gradus nonnullos et scalas complementi, per diversas mundi ætates;") the principle of which double fulfilment is well stated and defined by Mr. Davison (Discourse v., part ii.), where, speaking of the age of David and Solomon, he says:

"This age of prophecy, in particular, brings the doctrine of 'the double sense,' as it has been called, before us; for Scripture prophecy is so framed in some of its predictions as to bear a sense directed to two objects; of which structure the predictions concerning the kingdom of David furnish a conspicuous example, and, I should say, an unquestionable one, if the whole principle of that kind of interpretation had not been by some disputed and denied. But the principle has met with this ill-acceptance for no better reason, it should seem, than because it has been injudiciously applied in cases where it had no proper place; or has been suspected, if not mistaken, in its constituent character as to what it really is.

"The double sense of prophecy, however, is of all things the

* De Augmentis Scientiarum, lib. ii., c. 11.