The earliest Scriptural narrative presents to our view, with considerable distinctness, three main objects. These are, respectively, God, the Redeemer, and the Evil One. Nor do we pass even through the Book of Genesis without finding, that it shadows forth some mysterious combination of Unity with Trinity in the Divine Nature.

From the general expectation which prevailed in the East at the period of the Advent, and from the prophecies collected and carefully preserved in Rome under the name of the Sibylline books, we are at once led to presume, that the knowledge of the early promise of a Deliverer had not been confined to the Jewish nation. Their exclusive character, and that of their religion; their small significance in the political system and intellectual movement of the world; and the false as well as imperfect notions which seem to have prevailed elsewhere respecting them and their law; all make it highly improbable that these expectations and predictions should have been drawn from them and their sacred books exclusively. Further, Holy Scripture distinctly exhibits to us the existence of channels of traditional knowledge severed from theirs. Thus much we learn particularly from the cases of Job, who was a prophet and servant of God, though he lived in a country where idolatry was practised; and of Balaam, who, not being an Israelite, nor an upright man, was nevertheless a prophet also. Our Lord, in his answer respecting God as the God of Abraham, points to a great article of belief, not expressly propounded in the Mosaic books.