sented by the serpent's bruifing the heel of the woman's feed, did not the mischiefs brought upon the house of Ifrael by the idolatry of Dan well deserve to be painted in colours of the fame kind? And when Jacob saw that the venom of the old ferpent was not yet spent, but that it would work again in one of his own fons, to the utter ruin of his pofterity, could he help looking back upon God's promife of deliverance, and the hope given, that the Serpent's head fhould be bruised? Could this view, and this reflection together, be attended with any other fentiments than those which close this prophecy? I have waited for thy falvation, O Lord.

This prophecy, confidered in this light, affords a very ancient evidence of the expectation of deliverance from the curfe of the fall. The hope of falvation here manifeftly relates to the mischief wrought by a ferpent biting the heels. And though this image is used to foretel a mischief then to come, and though the falvation itself was still to come, yet the hope was older than Jacob, had been his comfort all along, and was his comfort under the fad prospect he had of his children's iniquity.

Lay these circumftances together, and it is impoffible to imagine any falvation that can answer to these ideas, but that only which arose from the promife, that the feed of the woman should bruise the ferpent's head.

This expectation, so earnestly and fo warmly expreffed by the old patriarch, led fome interpreters to apply it to the hopes of falvation through the Meffias, as the only object of worth and dignity fufficient to engage his laft thoughts, and to be the comfort and

fupport of his last hour; though they did not confider the prophecy itself as leading to this hope, but referred it to a temporal deliverance, to be brought about by one of the fons of Dan b.

But that this prophecy was anciently understood to fix a mark of infamy upon Dan, and not to sing the triumph of the tribe, appears by an old tradition grounded on this prophecy, that Antichrift should proceed from the tribe of Dans. For which opinion, what other ground could there be but this, that the terms in which Dan is defcribed are the very fame made use of in defcribing the tempter, that first and great Antichrift, who was to have perpetual enmity with the feed of the woman, and to wage continual war with the faints, and often to prevail to the bruifing their heel.

Some intimation of this fort feems to be given in the Revelation of St. John, ch. vii. One would think that Dan was rejected, and accounted as the feed of the ferpent, by the leaving all of this tribe out of the number of those who were fealed with the feal of the living God. It feems to be the original purpose of Providence to fettle the house of Ifrael under twelve heads; and yet Levi had no fhare of the inheritance in the land of Canaan, as the other tribes had, God having provided another maintenance for him; Numb. xviii. 14. Jofh. xiv. 3. and xiii. 33:

Adeft huic expofitioni Thargum Hierofolymitanum-Dixit pater nofter Jacob Expecto redemptionem Meffia Filii DAVID, qui venturus eft ut adducat fibi Filios Ifrael, cujus redemptionem expectat et defiderat anima mea. Eademque habentur in paraphrafi Chaldaica editionis Complutenfis. Pererius in locum.

• See Calmet's Dictionary under the title Dan.

nor had Dan, in the Revelation of St. John, any share allotted him in the kingdom of the Meffias. In both cafes the two tribes of the houfe of Jofeph are admitted to complete the number: fo that in the temporal covenant made with Abraham, which gave him the inheritance of the land of Canaan, Levi had no fhare; in the promise, to be accomplished through him in whom all the nations of the earth were to be bleffed, Dan had no fhare. It is remarkable, that Jacob in bleffing the fons of Jofeph adopts them to be his own fons, and conftitutes them heads of dif tinct tribes, Gen. xlviii. 16; by which means the tribes of Ifrael fhould have been thirteen: but, as the cafe happened, this fubftitution did only keep up the number to twelve. These things did not happen by chance; but I pretend not to account for this difpofition of Providence.

That the language of the firft prophecy, reprefenting the victory of the woman's feed by bruifing the ferpent's head, has been continued in later prophecies, has appeared already; hence we read of power given over ferpents and fcorpions, of treading upon the adder, and of trampling the dragon under feet. Now the known use of this language in Scripture, and the application of it to the promised feed, will help us to account for one of the arts made ufe of by the tempter, when he made his trial on our Saviour.

The tempter plainly wanted to know whether Jefus was the Son of God, that perfon expected to come, and with whom he well knew what concern he had. In order to know this, he tries whether our Lord would own the character, by affuming the

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power belonging to it: If thou be the Son of God, caft thyself down for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they fhall bear thee up, left at any time thou dash thy foot against a fone. The words are taken from the Pfalm, ver. 11. and 12. These words, confidered in themselves, contain, in figurative language, a promife of God's providence and care over that person to whom they are addreffed; and might be applied with great propriety to David himself, or to any other good perfon fpecially regarded by God. How came the tempter then to confider these words as belonging only to him, who was to be the Son of God? From the words themselves he could not collect this but there was another character in the very next verse, and belonging to the fame perfon, which he could not mistake; for this perfon, over whom the angels were to have charge, was to tread upon the lion and adder, and the young lion and the dragon to trample under feet. He knew by this mark to whom this whole prophecy belonged; he could not forget who was to bruise his head and though he avoided to afk our Lord directly, whether he was that person who was to bruise his head; yet he did the fame thing covertly, by trying whether another part of the fame prophecy would be owned by him, as belonging to himself. If trampling the lion, and the adder, and the dragon under feet, had meant no more than that the fons of Adam and Eve fhould now and then deftroy the ferpents of the field, the

d The word tranflated lion fignifies, in the opinion of Bochart, a kind of ferpent.

tempter would have had no reason to suppose that he, who was to trample on the dragon, was to be the Son of God.

If we look into the world, where fin and death seem to rule with abfolute dominion, and appear in all the forms of violence, fraud, and iniquity; in diftempers without number, and in miferies too many, too affecting to be described; we shall want no other proof of the completion of the first part of the prophecy of the fall. The heel of the feed of the woman has been, and will continue to be, fufficiently bruifed, till death, the laft enemy. fhall be deftroyed. On the other fide, the children of the kingdom have been redeemed by the blood of Christ, and are training up, under the many trials that furround them, by the affiftance of God's holy Spirit, to be heirs of glory and immortality. And the time will come, when the Son of man will come forth conquering and to conquer, and fhall appear in full power, and in the glory of the Father, to fubdue all his enemies. Then fhall the dragon, that old ferpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, be fast bound, and caft into the lake of fire and brimftone; and the judgments of God denounced against the wickedness of men having their completion, every curfe shall ceafe.

• Καὶ πᾶν κατανάθεμα οὐκ ἴσαι ἔτι. The rendering in our tranflation is, And there fhall be no more curfe; as if the words contained an affurance against any new curfe. But the true meaning is, that every curfe fhould ceafe; that the curfe of the fall, which had been working in all generations, and all others brought upon the earth, fhould be utterly extinguished, in confequence of the entire defeat of the old ferpent, and the victory of the Son of

man.