say, What unreasonable liberty of interpretation is this? Tell us, by what rules of language the feed of the woman is made to denote one particular person, and by what art you discover the mystery of Christ's miraculous conception and birth in this common expreffion? Tell us likewife, how bruifing the ferpent's head comes to fignify the destroying the power of fin, and the redemption of mankind by Chrift? It is no wonder to hear fuch questions from thofe who look no further than to the third chapter of Genefis, to see the ground of the Chriftian application. As the prophecy ftands there, nothing appears to point out this particular meaning; much less to confine the prophecy to it. But of this hereafter. Let us for the present lay afide all our own notions, and go back to that state and condition of things, which was at the time of the delivery of this prophecy, and fee (if haply we may discover it) what God intended to difcover at that time by this prophecy, and what we may reasonably suppose our firft parents understood it to mean.

They were now in a state of fin, ftanding before God to receive fentence for their disobedience, and had reason to expect a full execution of the penalty threatened, In the day thou eateft thereof, thou shalt furely die. But God came in mercy as well as judgment, purpofing not only to punish, but to reftore man. The judgment is awful and fevere: the woman is doomed to forrow in conception; the man to forrow and travail all the days of his life; the ground is cursed for his fake; and the end of the judgment is, Duft thou art, and unto duft thou shalt return. Had they been left thus, they might have continued in

their labour and forrow for their appointed time, and at last returned to duft, without any well-grounded hope or confidence in God: they must have looked upon themselves as rejected by their Maker, delivered up to trouble and forrow in this world, and as having no hope in any other. Upon this foot, I conceive there could have been no religion left in the world; for a sense of religion without hope is a ftate of frenzy and diftraction, void of all inducements to love and obedience, or any thing else that is praiseworthy. If therefore God intended to preferve them as objects of mercy, it was abfolutely neceffary to communicate fo much hope to them, as might be a rational foundation for their future endeavours to reconcile themselves to him by a better obedience. This feems to be the primary intention of this firft divine prophecy; and it was neceffary to the state of the world, and the condition of religion, which could not poffibly have been supported without the communication of fuch hopes. The prophecy is excellently adapted to this purpose, and manifeftly conveyed fuch hopes to our first parents. For let us confider in what fenfe we may fuppofe them to understand this prophecy. Now they must neceffarily understand the prophecy, either according to the literal meaning of the words, or according to fuch meaning as the whole circumftance of the tranfaction, of which they are a part, does require. If we fuppofe them to understand the words literally, and that God meant them fo to be understood, this paffage muft appear ridiculous. Do but imagine that you fee God coming to judge the offenders; Adam and Eve before him in the utmoft diftrefs;

that you hear God inflicting pains and forrows, and mifery and death, upon the firft of human race; and that, in the midst of all this scene of woe and great calamity, you hear God foretelling with great folemnity a very trivial accident that should fometimes happen in the world: that ferpents would be apt to bite men by the heels, and that men would be apt to revenge themselves by ftriking them on the head. What has this trifle to do with the lofs of mankind, with the corruption of the natural and moral world, and the ruin of all the glory and happiness of the creation Great comfort it was to Adam, doubtless, after telling him that his days fhould be fhort and full of misery, and his end without hope, to let him know, that he should now and then knock a fnake on the head, but not even that without paying dear for his poor victory, for the fnake fhould often bite him by the heel. Adam, furely, could not underftand the prophecy in this fenfe, though some of his fons have fo understood it; a plain indication how much more fome men are concerned to maintain a literal interpretation of Scripture, than they are to make it speak common fenfe. Leaving this therefore as abfolutely abfurd and ridiculous, let us confider what meaning the circumstances of the transaction do neceffarily fix to the words of this prophecy. Adam tempted by his wife, and fhe by the ferpent, had fallen from their obedience, and were now in the prefence of God expecting judgment. They knew full well at this juncture, that their fall was the victory of the serpent, whom by experience they found to be an enemy to God and to man: to man, whom he had ruined by seducing him to fin; to God, the

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nobleft work of whofe creation he had defaced. could not therefore but be fome comfort to them to hear the ferpent firft condemned, and to fee, that, however he had prevailed against them, he had gained no victory over their Maker, who was able to affert his own honour, and to punish this great author of iniquity. By this method of God's proceeding they were fecured from thinking that there was any evil being equal to the Creator in power and dominion: an opinion which gained ground in after-times, through the prevalency of evil; and is, where it does prevail, deftructive of all true religion. The condemnation therefore of the ferpent was the maintenance of God's fupremacy; and that it was fo understood, we have, if I mistake not, a very ancient teftimony in the book of Job: With God is ftrength and wifdom; the deceived and the deceiver are his : i. e. equally fubjected to his command, Job xii. 16. The belief of God's fupreme dominion, which is the foundation of all religion, being thus preferved, it was ftill neceffary to give them fuch hopes as might make them capable of religion toward God. These hopes they could not but conceive, when they heard from the mouth of God that the ferpent's victory was not a complete victory over even themselves; that they and their pofterity should be enabled to conteft his empire; and though they were to fuffer much in the struggle, yet finally they fhould prevail and bruise the serpent's head, and deliver themselves from his power and dominion over them. What now could they conceive this conqueft over the ferpent to mean? Is it not natural to expect, that we shall recover that by victory, which we loft by being

defeated? They knew that the enemy had fubdued them by fin; could they then conceive hopes of victory otherwise than by righteousness? They loft through fin the happiness of their creation; could they expect lefs from the return of righteousness than the recovery of the bleffings forfeited? What elfe but this could they expect? for the certain knowledge they had of their lofs when the serpent prevailed, could not but lead them to a clear knowledge of what they fhould regain by prevailing against the serpent. The language of this prophecy is indeed in part metaphorical, but it is a great miftake to think that all metaphors are of uncertain fignification; for the defign and fcope of the fpeaker, with the circumftances attending, create a fixed and determinate fenfe. Were it otherwise, there would be no certainty in any language; all languages, the eaftern more especially, abounding in metaphors.

Let us now look back to our subject, and see what application we are to make of this instance.

This prophecy was to our first parents but very obfcure; it was, in the phrafe of St. Peter, but a light fhining in a dark place: all that they could certainly conclude from it was, that their cafe was not desperate; that fome remedy, that fome deliverance from the evil they were under, would in time appear; but when, or where, or by what means, they could not understand: their own fentence, which returned them back again to the duft of the earth, made it difficult to apprehend what this victory over the ferpent fhould fignify, or how they, who were fhortly to be duft and ashes, should be the better for it. But, after all that can be urged upon this head