From all the splendid and glowing imagery, which is thus employed in Scripture, to shew forth the glory of Christ, and under which human language, though the gift of God, seems to labour and groan as under an insupportable burden, it is manifest that He, who is the brightness of his Father’s _glory_ and the express image of his person, hath, by symbolical representations of himself, both under the Old and the New Dispensations, declared the being and attributes of God from the beginning of the world. The Angel of Jehovah has, in fact, in all ages, made the heavens declare the _glory_ of God, and the firmament shew forth his handy work; in them, he hath set a tabernacle for the _Sun_, to demonstrate the wonders of his grace; and, he hath ordained the moon and the stars, not only to rule the night and direct the seasons, but to utter all his _praise_ in a universal language, which he has imparted to all nations under the whole heaven; Deut. iv. 19; Psalm viii. 3; and xix. 3. Thus it appears, that even among the heathen, the remembrance of the true God and his Son the Redeemer, was kept up by tradition and by symbol; and that traces of the grand truth first announced in the primeval prophecy, and afterwards gradually developed to God’s chosen people at sundry times and in divers manners, are to be found in the history of the religious worship of mankind in all ages, and from the remotest times. Before the flood these traces are no doubt very obscure, but they are not altogether obliterated. Soon after the deluge, however, was the light of the _Sun of Righteousness_ bedimmed in their gross minds by that of the natural emblems of his glory; and soon was _“the truth of God” changed into “the lie” of the devil_; for they began to worship and serve the _creature_ more than the _Creator_, who is God over all, and blessed for ever. Hence, arose the earliest and the most extensive system of idolatry ever known in the world, the worship of the _Sun_, and the _Moon_, and all the _Host of Heaven_; with this also was connected the worship of _Fire_, _Light_, and _Ether_, and of all those symbolical representations of these natural phenomena, which are to be discovered in the ancient records of the Babylonians, Assyrians, Chaldeans, Egyptians, Phenicians, and Persians, as well as in the early histories or traditions of the Chinese and the Hindoos or Eastern Indians of the Old Continent, the Britons, and the Celts or Gauls who overspread Europe, and the Peruvians and Mexicans or Western Indians of the New World.