CHAPTER II.
OF SEVERAL DIVINE MANIFESTATIONS AND JUDGMENTS, RECORDED IN THE OLD TESTAMENT; WITH THEIR CAUSES AND RESULTS.
The argument.—The senses in which He who is omnipresent can be said to come.—Instances of the coming of the Divine Being, with brief intimations of their results.—The principles involved.—The Lord's coming always accompanied by evidences of judgment and mercy.—Evil has boundaries beyond which it cannot pass.—Evil the cause of punishment.—The Bible arranges the religious history of the human race into four periods.—Each period the time of a Church.—The leading characteristics of each Church.—The decline and fall of the first three Churches.—The causes of those results briefly sketched.—Their judgment, and consequent coming of the Lord.— Last judgment implies that others had preceded it.—The Lord's coming to the Adamic Church, and the particular judgments which overtook it.—The flood its last judgment.—The Lord's coming to the Noetic Church, and the particular judgment which overtook it.—The dispersion at Babel, a judgment attended by a Divine coming.—The Israelitish Church.—The Old Testament mainly occupied with its history.—The Israelitish Church a purely representative economy.—The infestation which the people of this economy experienced from wicked spirits.—Illustrations.—The making of the golden calf.—The rebellion of Korah and his followers.—The trespass of Achan.—The lying spirit which induced Ahab to go up to the battle of Ramoth-Gilead.—The idolatrous disposition of the Israelites.—The judgments to which their lapses into this evil led.—All judgments proofs of the Divine coming.—The times when judgments take place.—Particular judgments, and Divine manifestetions contributed to prolong the existence of the Israelitish Church.—The persistence of the people to indulge perverted loves led to the condition which induced the Lord's advent in the flesh.—The last judgment and consequent end of the Israelitish Church.
