we know of any prophecy, which must have come down to the patriarchs, to which this of the Cumæan Sybil can be likened? I think there is one, namely, that which relates to "the seed of the woman" when the serpent was cursed ; and which was the first prophecy that God ever delivered to man; and I think the similarity so great, that every reader will be struck with it, when a fair comparison is made between them. I shall therefore now put down what it has occurred to me to say on this subject.

We gather from the prophecy of the Cumaan Sybil, as it has been handed down to us by Virgil, that there was a time in the beginning of things, when men lived in a state of innocence and happiness, and this time was distinguished by men of after ages by the name of the golden age. We gather from it again, that after this, crime and violence found their way into the world and disordered it; and that this new age, so different from the former, was called the iron age. The prophecy goes on to state that a child should come into the world at a future day, who should have universal sway, the effect of which would be the doing away of all the vestiges of the guilt of sin, and the restoration of men to the state or condition, which they had enjoyed in the primitive or golden times.

We come now to the prophecy of God. We gather from Moses, that there was a time in the beginning of things, when God created Adam, and that he made him in his own image, which was that of holiness, and that he put him in a garden in which to live, and that he lived there in innocence and happiness. We gather from Moses again, that in a course of time Adam fell from his first estate, and that he introduced sin and all its attendant evils into the world, having been led astray by the seducing words of his wife, as she had been before, by the enticing words of Satan, in the form of a serpent. The prediction then stated that a child should be born into the world at some future time, from the seed of the woman, who had been thus deceived, who should bruise the head of this serpent, that is, destroy the power of Satan, and thus deliver men from the guilt of sin, and restore them to the condition, which Adam had once enjoyed in Paradise. These then are the two prophecies, and wherein do they differ in substance? It is true indeed that the serpent is not mentioned in the Sybilline (as in the other) prophecy as an agent in the destruction of the happiness of man, but only as a common reptile of the field. How this difference arose I cannot say, I cannot tell

for example how much the original prophecy might have been misconceived, or how much it might have gained or lost in words or meaning by passing from mouth to mouth through so many generations till it came into the hands of the Cumaan Sybil. One thing however is very remarkable and ought not to be forgotten, namely, that in both cases the serpent was to be destroyed.

CHAPTER VII.

The subject further considered-conjectures as to the way in which this prophecy was preserved-and how it found its way to the Cumaan Sybil and the Capitol at Rome.

Let us suppose then that it is true that the prophecy of the Cumaan Sybil was a tradition from the prophecy of God, when he cursed the serpent, a new question arises, namely, how or where did this Sybil obtain it, and how did it

Y

find its way into the temple of the Capitol at Rome?

It would be of some importance in the consideration of this subject if we could know, how this prophecy was understood by Adam and the first men and their children; but Moses has given us no information on this head, and we must make therefore our own conjectures upon it. My own conjecture is this. In the first place Adam would know, and this indeed to his sorrow, that he had broken the command of God, and that he had therefore sinned, and brought sin into the world, and that for this conduct he had been turned out of Paradise and degraded, and that he was then living under the sentence which God had pronounced against him for his disobedience. He would know also that this prophecy related to himself and to Eve and to their posterity, and to the deceiver also. He would know moreover that there would be constant enmity between the deceiver and the seed of the woman, and that in the conflicts which would arise between them the woman's seed would have the advantage (for the deceiver, being condemned from this time to creep on his belly on the ground, could only bite the heel of his adversary, while his adversary from his erect

posture and the position of his arms could bruise the head of the deceiver) and that ultimately the seed of the woman would triumph. But Adam could not know the contents of other prophecies, that is, of those which inspired men did not deliver till many hundred years after his death. He could not know for instance that when God, in cursing the serpent, confined himself to the seed of the woman saying nothing of the seed of the man, he meant the seed of one of Eve's descendants who should be a pure virgin. The prophecy however must have been very consoling, as far as it was understood, both to Adam and Eve in their very forlorn condition; for they would collect from it undoubtedly something like a deliverance of themselves or their descendants from the curse at some future time, that is from the power of him, who had been the cause of their ruin; and so far it would afford them a ground of hope; but they would be much in the dark about the particular application of the prophecy as to which of their posterity would be first delivered, and also as to the time when the deliverance would take place; and this darkness would keep them anxiously attentive to every event, which might seem to be connected with the completion of it.