Page:The Last Judgement and Second Coming of the Lord Illustrated.djvu/359

 are completed that the Church can be considered as a finished structure, in which men may enjoy the spiritual blessings of intelligence and peace.

And here we arrive at a point necessary to be clearly seen before the true idea of a permanent Christian Church can be rightly understood. On this point the writings of the Old Testament contribute important information. From them we learn that there have existed three distinct dispensations before the coming of the Lord. These were severally connected with Adam, Noah, and the Israelites. Each dispensation, in its time, was a Church distinguished by the laws of faith and life, and having the advantages of divine communication; yet it seems plain that none of them constituted so complete a structure as that future Church of which the Lord said "the gates of hell should not prevail against it;" for each perished in consequence of its great iniquity. Nevertheless, it may be evident that there were some principles in them all, having relation to the Church which is to abide for ever. They all, for instance, had communicated to them the laws of obedience, and this duty is essential to the existence of every Church.

That the Adamic dispensation had some information which connected it with the Christian Church, may be evident from the circumstance that the people of those early times had a prediction delivered to them respecting the Lord's advent into the world. Immediately after the fall, the Lord said unto the serpent (that is, the sensual principle of man's fallen nature), "I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." It is admitted upon all hands that this refers to the Lord's coming, and consequently to the Christianity He would then estab-