PART FIRST.
PROPHETIC HISTORY OF THE WHOLE WORLD.
CHAPTER I.
The First Spiritual and Political Prophecy.
(This prophecy is found in the third chapter of Genesis.)
At the fall of the world, or rebellion of mankind against God, he determined upon their reduction to allegiance, and immediately declared war against his foes. From the nature of things, this war was of a double character, or spiritual and political. Man originally possessed, and still possesses, a spiritual nature, which makes him a religions creature, and also a social nature, which constitutes him a political being. From these two constitutional qualities has resulted the universality of some kind or religion and civil government. In a state of perfection, these two principles would have ultimated in true religion and true civil government. At the fall of man, the rejection of the true God as monarch in both of these departments, led to the wildest disorder and universal misery.
It is also a truth, established by universal experience, that all civil governments among mankind have conformed in principle and practice to the genius of the prevailing religion of the people; religion has controlled the politics of the world in all ages. If the religion has been mild, so has been the civil government; if it has been bloody and despotic, so has been the civil government; if it has been liberal and enlightened, so has been the civil policy. This has resulted from a law of nature, by which inferior things are controlled by superior; and as the spiritual nature of man exercises supreme power over his conduct in his individual capacity, so does it in his aggregated state.
To subdue man, it was therefore necessary to subjugate his spiritual nature first; to regenerate him as a religious race, and then his political regeneration would follow inevitably. A physical victory might have resulted in a moment from the weight of Omnipotence, but a moral victory could not thus speedily be obtained, from the eternal, and immutable, and self existent principles of moral agency. To the principles here stated, the great declaration of war by Jehovah is strictly conformed.
PROPHETIC HISTORY OF THE WHOLE WORLD.
CHAPTER I.
The First Spiritual and Political Prophecy.
(This prophecy is found in the third chapter of Genesis.)
At the fall of the world, or rebellion of mankind against God, he determined upon their reduction to allegiance, and immediately declared war against his foes. From the nature of things, this war was of a double character, or spiritual and political. Man originally possessed, and still possesses, a spiritual nature, which makes him a religions creature, and also a social nature, which constitutes him a political being. From these two constitutional qualities has resulted the universality of some kind or religion and civil government. In a state of perfection, these two principles would have ultimated in true religion and true civil government. At the fall of man, the rejection of the true God as monarch in both of these departments, led to the wildest disorder and universal misery.
It is also a truth, established by universal experience, that all civil governments among mankind have conformed in principle and practice to the genius of the prevailing religion of the people; religion has controlled the politics of the world in all ages. If the religion has been mild, so has been the civil government; if it has been bloody and despotic, so has been the civil government; if it has been liberal and enlightened, so has been the civil policy. This has resulted from a law of nature, by which inferior things are controlled by superior; and as the spiritual nature of man exercises supreme power over his conduct in his individual capacity, so does it in his aggregated state.
To subdue man, it was therefore necessary to subjugate his spiritual nature first; to regenerate him as a religious race, and then his political regeneration would follow inevitably. A physical victory might have resulted in a moment from the weight of Omnipotence, but a moral victory could not thus speedily be obtained, from the eternal, and immutable, and self existent principles of moral agency. To the principles here stated, the great declaration of war by Jehovah is strictly conformed.
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