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      This brings us back again to Gen. iii. 15, and closes up this first chapter of the First Book (VIRGO). It shows us the Person of the Promised Seed from the beginning to the end, from the first promise of the birth of the Child in Bethlehem, to the final coming of the great Judge and Harvester to reap the harvest of the earth. This was the vision which was afterwards shown to John (Rev. xiv. 15, 16), when he says, “I looked; and behold a white cloud, and upon the cloud one sat like unto the Son of Man, having on His head a golden crown, and in His hand a sharp sickle. And another angel came out of the temple, crying with a loud voice to Him that sat on the cloud, Thrust in thy sickle and reap; for the time is come for Thee to reap; for the harvest of the earth is ripe. And He that sat on the cloud thrust in His sickle on the earth; and the earth was reaped.”

      This is the conclusion of the first chapter of this First Book. Here we see the woman whose Seed is to bruise the serpent’s head, the Virgin-Born, the Branch of Jehovah, perfect man and perfect God, Immanuel, “God with us,” yet despised and rejected of men, and yielding up His life that others may have life for evermore. But we see Him coming afterwards in triumphant power to judge the earth.

      This is only one chapter of this First Book, but it contains the outline of the whole volume, complete in itself, so far as it regards the Person of the Coming One. Like the Book of Genesis, it is the seed-plot which contains the whole, all the rest being merely the development of the many grand details which are included and shut up within it. It is only one chapter out of twelve, but it distinctly foreshadows the end—even “the sufferings of Christ and the glory which should follow.”