said unto the serpent, because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life. And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." All this was said to the serpent, but there was nothing said to that abominable wicked Angel that sinned in heaven, and who was banished to hell for his sin, and from hell came to this earth and tempted Eve!

By this time the hearer will ask if the speaker really supposes that a literal serpent did actually talk to the woman and influence her to eat of a forbidden fruit? No, he does not. He humbly conceives that this account is given in a scriptural allegory, which may all be explained by a little attention to the scriptures. In scripture, the serpent is a hieroglyphic of wisdom.-Jesus commanded his disciples to be wise as serpents. As there are two sorts of wisdom mentioned in scripture, so they are represented by two kinds of serpents. The Apostle James speaks of wisdom as follows; "Who is a wise man, and endued with knowledge among you? Let him shew, out of a good conversation, his works with meekness and wisdom. But if ye have bitter envy and strife in your hearts, glory not, and be not against the truth. This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish. For where envying and strife is, there is confusion, and every evil work. But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy.'

The wisdom of God is represented by the rod of Moses which became a serpent; and the wisdom of this world which cometh to naught, is represented

by the rods of the wise men and sorcerers of Egypt, which likewise became serpents. The superiority of the wisdom of God over the wisdom of the flesh is represented by Aaron's rod's swallowing up the magicians' rods. Another representation of these two wisdoms we have in the account given of the fiery serpents that bit and destroyed the Israelites in the wilderness, and that brazen serpent which Moses made by the special command of God, whose virtues were a sovereign cure for the deadly stings of the fiery serpents. These fiery serpents represent the wisdom of this world, and the evil effects of their bite are a very just representation of the evil effects of false religion. And our blessed Saviour has made use of the brazen serpent to represent himself. He says; "And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the son of man be lifted up; that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life." When the Israelites were bitten by the fiery serpents, and the deadly poison was diffused throughout their distressed bodies, only a look at the brazen serpent on the pole effected a radical cure of the deadly wound. So by looking unto Jesus, who is the wisdom of God, we are recovered from the dreadful contagion of our earthly, sensual wisdom. Thus the promised seed bruises the serpent's head. Let us look in the next place, and ascertain if possible, the source of this sensual wisdom which is enmity against the wisdom of God, and which tempts us to sin. St. James says; "Every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin; and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death."-To the Galatians St. Paul says; "I say then, walk in the spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh;

and these are contrary the one to the other; so that ye cannot do the things that ye would." Is not the account given by St. Paul and St. James a plain, reasonable representation of the power of the fleshly nature to strive against the spirit of divine wisdom in us, to tempt us and to lead us into sin which produces death? And if this be the way that we are tempted, have we any reason to believe that it is not the way in which Eve was tempted in the beginning? Yea, is not this contentious sensual wisdom of the flesh, the serpent which beguiled the woman? And is it not the same serpent which now beguiles both men and women and leads them into sin and death? Furthermore, St. Paul says; "Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulation, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envying, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like."

These

works are all the natural productions of our fleshly, earthly nature, and the wisdom which is earthly, sensual, devilish, is the serpent which beguiles us. Now if we have found the real source of our own. temptations, we have also found the source of the temptations of all mankind, not excepting the mother of our race. Flesh and blood was the same in the beginning as it is now, its powers were the same, its lusts were the same, its wisdom was the same, and it is to the powers and appetites of the flesh that every sin we commit may be traced.

St. Paul says; "The woman being deceived, was in the transgression." Could she have been deceived if she had been truly wise? No, but she was made subject to vanity. If she had been perfectly satisfied with her condition would she have disobeyed her Maker for the sake of being more wise? And was it not perfectly natural for her to wish to have her husband with her in this wisdom?

There appears nothing in this whole account that differs from our common experience and observation. There is no condition in which man can be placed, in the present state, that can bound his desires, or render him perfectly satisfied with what he possesses. There has been much said concerning the happy, the consummately happy state in which Adam and Eve were placed in the garden; long accounts have been dressed up in all the beauties of rhetoric concerning the felicity of the happy pair before transgression. But to describe the dreadful consequences of the first sin, the calamitous change which it effected in all nature here on earth, and the endless wo to which the whole posterity of Adam was exposed by it, has exhausted all the powers of human imagination. And yet, if we look for these things in the scriptures we find them not. What is said of the happy state of our first parents before they knew good and evil? Nothing. How does the word of divine revelation expatiate on the miserable state into which the first transgression brought man? It extends the subject no further than huinan experience in all ages of the world extends it. Sin was attended with guilt and fear according to the first account we have of it, and experience has taught us all, that guilt and fear are its natural consequences. But that the first transgression was attended with worse consequences than the sins which were committed afterward, we find no authority for believing. And what would be the fruits of our researches should we examine what the scriptures say concerning the state of endless wo to which the first sin exposed the whole human race? Why in fact we should search in vain to find any thing of the kind in the word of God. Even the serpent had no malediction pronounced on him, that either deprived him of his natural food or extended beyond his natural life; much less, if

possible, was there any suggestion, either to the man or the woman, that the consequences of their sin would extend into a future state.

All the vain notions which the earthly, sensual wisdom of this world has framed on this subject are evidences in support of what we have endeavoured to make evident, namely, that imperfection and sin manifest themselves in our strife to be wise by violating the word of God; and that vanity to which man is the most inclined, is seen in his inventions by which he renders truth, which is perfectly simple in itself, obscure and mysterious.

But shall it be said, because God has made the creature subject to all this vanity, that he is therefore unfriendly to his offspring? No, my brethren, this is not the case. Blessed be God, though in his infinite wisdom he saw best to subject his creatures to vanity in this mortal state, he has made extensive and ample provisions in his providence to render this vain state convenient in an infinite variety of ways, and has so bountifully scattered down his blessings that we have constant reason to rejoice in his goodness. He did not forsake man in the beginning of his career in sin, but though he manifested his holy disapprobation of the defection of his children, he made them sensible likewise of his fatherly kindness and unchangeable goodness. How affecting is the account we have of the voice of the Lord God in the cool of the day calling after Adam. How tender are the words; "Adam, Adam, where art thou?" Who can hear the language of divine mercy expressed in the promises of the seed of the woman who should bruise the serpent's head, without emotions of lively gratitude? That all gracious, merciful Creator, who made the creature subject to vanity, subjected him in hope.

The reason assigned by the Apostle, why the creature was subjected to vanity in hope, he ex