AN APPENDIX TO THE SECOND DISSERTATION: BEING A FARTHER INQUIRY INTO THE MOSAIC ACCOUNT OF THE FALL. ADVERTISEMENT. THE following additional Differtation was drawn up fome years fince, and was intended as an examination of the objections made to the hiftory of the fall by the Author of the Literal Scheme of Prophecy. That Author has been dead fome years, and I have now nothing to fay to him; and have therefore confidered the objections not as his, but as common to all, who call in question, or are offended with the hiftory of the fall, as it ftands recorded by Mofes. APPENDIX ΤΟ DISSERTATION II. THE main difficulty confifts in determining what we are to understand by the Serpent, who is reprefented by Mofes as the tempter and deceiver of our first parents. In order to this, we must confider distinctly what is afcribed to this ferpent. This ferpent, we are told, was more fubtil than any beaft of the field, which the Lord God had made, Gen. iii. I. The comparison here being made between this ferpent and the beaft of the field intimates to us, that this ferpent was really a beaft of the field; for between the beaft of the field and beings of an higher order no comparison properly lies in respect to their fubtilty and understanding. Again: the curfe denounced against this ferpent is adapted to the ftate and condition of a natural ferpent, and is literally applicable to no other kind of being: Because thou hast done this, thou art curfed above all cattle, and above every beaft of the field; upon thy belly fhalt thou go, and duft fhalt thou eat all the days of thy life: and I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy feed and her feed; it fhall bruife thy head, and thou shalt bruife his heel, Gen. iii. 14, 15. These are the circumftances in the hiftory which lead us to conclude, that a real ferpent had part in this tranfaction. On the other fide, This ferpent appears to have the use of language and of reason; nor is it faid, that these faculties were conveyed to him upon this occafion; (which is the case of Balaam's ass, it being exprefsly noted in the text, that the Lord opened the mouth of the ass, Numb. xxii. 28.) but these faculties are mentioned as natural to this ferpent. When he talks and reasons with Eve, Mofes relates this fact as an hiftorian. This ferpent talks and reasons, not upon fuch trivial things of which we may fuppofe the beafts of the field (if they have any reafon) to have fome notion: but he reasons upon the nature of God and of man; upon the knowledge of good and of evil; upon the nature and tendency of the law given to man he looks back and reflects upon the policy in which that law was founded, and the art of the Governor in keeping his fubjects in ignorance and blind obedience; he looks forward and foretels the happy confequences of throwing off this yoke, and perfuades the woman, that fhe and her husband should be as gods, if they could have the courage to break through the reftraint of this iniquitous law. What think you now? Are these the properties of a mere brute creature? Or is there any inftance of an author, who ever ferioufly introduced the beaft of the field thus reafoning and thus difcourfing? 'And yet there are, who fuppofe this ferpent to be a mere beast of the field, and no more; and reckon that Moses, recounting this ftory, intended to relate what paffed between a mere natural ferpent and Eve, as the most plain matter of fact. We are told too, that this interpretation is fuited to the notions of the ancients, who thought beafts had, in the firft ages of the world, the use of speech: in which remark the truly ancient are much abused. For these ancients, as they are called, were indeed moderns with respect to the times of which they give judgment; and there is not the leaft footstep of evidence that ever there was fuch an opinion in the world. Men of later ages, mifled by the ancient way of writing, may have imputed fuch an abfurdity to the times long before their own; but that ever any age, or any reasonable man in any age, had really fuch a perfuafion, there is not the leaft pretence to affirm. The story of Balaam's afs is pretended to be a proof that the ancients had fuch a notion; but confult the text, and you will fee this ftory is recorded, not as a moft plain, but as a MOST MIRACULOUS matter of fact: and wherever ancient hiftory reports, as matter of fact, that any brute creature spoke, the thing is always treated as a prodigy, and the effect of fome fupernatural power; and the story commonly ends in confultation of the Oracle among the Greeks, and the Sibylline Books among the Romans, to know how the omen was to be averted, and the gods appeased, who were ever thought concerned in fuch furprifing events. We read in Scripture, that the trees went forth on a time to anoint a king over them: and they said unto the olive-tree, Reign thou over us, &c. Judges ix. 8. This, I fuppofe, will not be taken for another most |