to confider the declared will of God, as the moft folid foundation of moral virtue; for if, in his original state of innocence and perfection, man was not trufted to the dictates or deductions of his reafon, it furely looks like extreme folly to build in this our fallen ftate upon the weak, uncertain ground of general expediency. And when we are affured, that God manifefted himfelf as God to the first of the human race, before guilt had corrupted his nature, and perverted his reafon: we may affert, that this original Revelation of God to man, of his own exiftence, and of the relation, in which man stands to God, is alfo the foundation of all religion.-By thus deriving our knowledge of the Deity immediately from the Deity himself not only through the medium of his works, of which men know fo little, and judge fo ill-and tracing our knowledge of the divine will through a series of confiftent prophecies, and inftructions, and records; Faith, Reafon, and Hiftory will unite to form that "triple cord, which fhall never be broken" from the anchor of our Chriftian hope. But I proceed to obferve, that Adam confeffed both his knowledge of the voice of God, when the confcioufnefs of guilt made him try to avoid his prefence, and his fear of the punishment, which had been previously threat threatened, when he faid, "I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid." The intercourse therefore, which God had vouchfafed to hold with Adam in his ftate of innocence, and the change, which he experienced in himfelf on tranfgreffing the command, enabled him to judge perfectly of the Divine authority of that gracious promise of final Redemption, which began the wonderful scheme of Prophecy, and founded the hope of immortality upon the bafis of Revelation. And the Lord God faid unto the ferpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art curfed above all cattle, and above every beaft of the field. And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy feed and her feed: it shall bruife thy head, and thou shalt bruife his heel. The language of this Prophecy is metaphorical; but the metaphors used in it are by no means of uncertain fignification *. Taking the whole account of the fall, as it stands recorded in Scripture, it is clear that Satan, or the Evil Spirit, who affumed the Gen. iii. 14, 15. • Sherlock on the Prophecies, Dis. III. 8 form B. C. 4004. form of a ferpent, was the original caufe of a St. Paul declares it was the purpose of the Gospel of Chrift" to open their eyes, and to turn them from darknefs to light, and from the power of Satan unto God." Acts xxvi. 18. and in his Epiftle to the Romans xvi. 20. he refers to the promise made to Adam, "And the God "of peace fhall bruife Satan' under your feet fhortly." The fame Apoftle, 2 Cor. xi. 14. favours the interpretation of Patrick (fee his Commentary on the third chapter of Genefis, proving the word faraph to mean both a Serpent and an angel), " And no marvel, for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light"Eve might be thus beguiled" by him, who was "a liar from the beginning." parents, parents, in the fentence pronounced upon their enemy, fuch a promise as would mitigate the impending horrors of their own. -- When they heard that the fuccefs of their adversary was not a complete victory over themselves, or their pofterity; but that although there was to be a contest for fuperiority, their posterity fhould finally prevail, fome hope of reftoration to the loft favour of their Creator must have penetrated the gloom of despair.— They had exchanged happiness, innocence, and life, for pain and forrow, fin and death. But this Prophecy, while it opened the profpect of deliverance from "the power of Satan, and of fin," encouraged them to place their truft and confidence in God, who could alone effect it-it was at once an earnest of pardon, and a motive for exertion in their appointed warfare-it was the foundation of hope and gratitude-the incentive to penitence and obedience. Thus the light of Prophecy was proportioned to the wants of our first parents, and was transmitted by them to their children, as a facred treasure of confolation amidst the miferies, which their fin had entailed upon them, and as a fecurity for the maintenance of religion, on which their future happiness de depended. By what methods God intended to effect this wonderful restoration to his favour, he did not at that time reveal. This was * Eve feems to have expected her firft-born fon would be the promised feed the Redeemer from death, and the Reftorer of happiness - the Meffiah. She called him Cain -fignifying acquifition, faying, " I have gotten a man from the Lord," according to his promife. No reafon is given for the name of Abel, because his parents did not place in him their hope of the promised feed, as they did in their firft-born Cain; but to the fon born after the death of Abel, and the rejection and banishment of Cain, Eve gave the name of Seth, fignifying appointed; as she confidered this fon as fubftituted by God, to be the feed himself, or the feed from whom the promised Saviour of the world, fhould come; for, whether the promise was to be fulfilled immediately, or at a remote distance of time, they were not informed by the Prophecy, nor was this declared for many fucceeding generations. Lamech called the name of his fon Noah, which fignifies reft, or refreshment after toil, or comfort; " Becaufe," faid he, "this fame shall comfort us concerning our work and toil of our hands." It is to be obferved, that there was a general curfe upon the earth for the fin of Adam, and some have thought a particular curfe upon fome part of it for the fin of Cain. Lamech foretells, that in the time of this fon God would in great measure take them both off-that he fhould be the reftorer of the world, after the flood predicted by Enoch (Enoch had named his fon Methu- be dies-felah-the fending forth of water, fignifying, when he dies the flood fhall come. See Bochart, 1. ii. c. 13.)that he should give reft from confufion and defolation, and that the earth should be bleffed to his pofterity. Lamech therefore, with the profpect of thefe mighty changes be -- fore |