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elevation, that is the ground to which he descends. This was the ground from whence Adam had risen into the distinction he attained: he fell, and so passed into it again: but he was not then forgotten; he was taught a duty-he was "to till the ground from whence he was taken." In other words, he was to cultivate the ground from which he had risen, and to which he had descended, by inseminating into it the seeds of truth, to watch over their growth with solicitude and care, to be attentive to the fruits they were intended to produce, and thus strive to regain the eminence he had lost. The capacity to do these things was still preserved to him, and perpetuated to his whole posterity.

CHAPTER XII.

THE CURSE UPON THE SERPENT THE SORROWS OF THE WOMANAND THE CURSE UPON THE GROUND FOR MAN'S SAKE.

"God made not death: neither hath he pleasure in the destruction of the living. For he created all things that they might have their being and the generations of the world were healthful; and there was no poison of destruction in them, nor the kingdom of death upon them. But ungodly men with their works and words called it to them." — Wisdom of Solomon. Chap. i. 13-16.

THE circumstances of the fall of Adam and his expulsion from Eden, were attended by other calamities, to which it is requisite to refer. A curse was pronounced upon the serpent, the sorrows of the woman, in conception and parturition, were to be multiplied, and the ground was cursed that man might eat of it, in toil and sorrow all the days of his life. These subjects are thus set forth in the sacred narrative::

"And the Lord God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field: and 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. Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception: in sorrow shalt thou bring forth children: and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee. And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life. Thorns and thistles shall it

bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return unto the ground." (Gen. iii. 14–19.)

In

The leading idea presented in this narrative, is the curse. what sense is this to be understood? That disastrous consequences followed the transgression, cannot be doubted: but were they the natural result of disobedience, or the specific infliction of the Almighty? The latter is the common idea, though the history does not say so. To the serpent God said, "Thou art cursed above all cattle," and to the man he said, "Cursed is the ground for thy sake:" thus it simply represents God as declaring its existence, and not as producing it. He mercifully revealed the state, but did not inflict it. Calamity follows sin, as death does poison, but as God does not originate the sin, or administer the poison, he cannot be chargeable with the calamity or the death. And although he is described as saying to the woman, "I will greatly multiply thy sorrows," under certain events; yet, it was not the sorrow, considered in itself, but the multiplication of it, which was the evil announced. Sorrow, it would appear, attended these events under the best condition of humanity, but it was now to be increased; and God is represented as its author: but, under the circumstances, may not this have been a blessing? We can easily conceive a wise Providence placing difficulties in the way of attaining, what a degenerate mind thinks to be desirable, in order to promote some genuine good. Pains and trials are no proofs of God's displeasure; we know that they tend to soften and humiliate, and so to bless; and, therefore, the multiplying of the woman's sorrows may come within the scope of mercy rather than malediction.

An idea that God became angry with the human race, when the first man transgressed, very extensively prevails. The above passages are considered to declare it. But this cannot be correct. Anger is no attribute of God; it must be as foreign to the Divine Nature as sin itself; and therefore, those passages of Scripture in which it is predicated of him, are designed, rather to express the aspect, under which he appears to perverted minds, than to declare a genuine truth. To the jaundiced eye, all things are yellow; but they are not really so, it is only an appearance, arising from the action of physical disease. The moral disorders of men cause them to view the character and providences of God, under an air contrary to their reality. We never read of God being angry, or declaring a curse, but in connection with something disobedient on

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the part of man. Under such circumstances, it is true, that he appears angry, but it cannot be true that he is so. If we desire sensible information concerning the felicities of heaven, the reasonable course is, to consult those who have experienced some antepast of its happiness, through an obedience to its laws. How unwise then is it to seek, in those passages of the Word, which are addressed to the wicked, only in accommodation to their perverted views, real truths concerning the Divine character. The fire by which Sodom was destroyed, is said to have come down from heaven; (Gen. xix. 24;) but heaven is not really the reservoir of that fire, which punishes and destroys the wicked; nevertheless it is so said, because it so appeared to that abandoned people. In him there is no fury: (Isaiah xxvii. 4:) and the Psalmist says of him, "With the upright man, thou wilt show thyself upright; with the pure, thou wilt show thyself pure; and with the froward, thou wilt show thyself froward." (Psalm xviii. 25, 26.)

If God were angry at any time, he would be imperfect, for anger is an infirmity in man. If he were once angry, he must be always angry, because he is unchangeable. If he be at all angry, he must be infinitely so, because all in him is infinite. How are the ideas that he is infinitely angry and infinitely loving to be reconciled? It cannot be done so long as both are considered to be realities.

To imagine that God can become angry, is to suppose him liable to disappointment, and consequently, that man can do something which He had not foreseen. But how impossible is this! The whole Scripture is constructed on the principle that "God is love:" this attribute is infinite in him, and so necessarily excludes every opposite sentiment. He has declared that he loveth man with an "everlasting love." (Jerem. xxxi. 3.) How, then, can he be angry, and curse both him, and the circumstances in which he is placed? He has told us to "love our enemies, to bless them that curse us, and do good to them that hate us." (Matt. v. 44.) Can we doubt that he will do to us, that which he has commanded us to do to one another? If he only loved those who loved him, he would resemble “sinners, for they also love those that love them.” (Luke vi. 32.)

The excellence and beauty of the human character consists in its resemblance of the divine perfections. "Be ye perfect as your father in heaven is perfect;" (Matt. v. 48.) "Be ye merciful as your father in heaven is merciful." (Luke vi. 36.) Still, man's

highest attainments in these imperishable virtues, are but faint shadows and images of the divine purity. In him, every excellence is infinite nor are their sweetness and placidity to be disturbed; their immutability are not to be changed by human disobedience. God "knoweth our frame and remembereth that we are dust," (Psalm ciii. 14;) and, with this knowledge and remembrance, “his mercy endureth forever." The good man realizes the evidences of this fact in his own experience; the bad man does not, because of his perverted nature. All the displays of divine love are to induce men to become wise and happy. The wicked are made to feel the influence of this love, in the restraints which it mercifully imposes upon their vicious pursuits, and so the very goodness which God would promote, is felt by them, in those restraints, as if he were unfolding his anger.

An enlightened survey of nature presents no intimation of the anger of God: the reason is, because there is no such principle in his character.* The universe furnishes no analogy suggestive of such a thought. The sun is acknowledged to be the nearest emblem of his Deity: hence he is called "a sun." (Psalm lxxxiv. 11.) But there is nothing observable in that glorious luminary, which can be said to answer to the notion of the divine anger. Lowering and darkness are not in him: such phenomena are occasioned by the interposition of clouds, and the diurnal motion of the earth. The sun forever shines in brightness and in beauty. He never frowns, even upon the wicked: he shines upon the evil and the good: and so it is with the divine character: anger is opposed to all that is divine, but it is predicated of God, because man, in an inverted state, sees him so. The wicked man thinks that God must be angry with the transgressors of his law, because he believes that if he were in God's place, he should be so; and so, as an evil being, he certainly would, but this is not the character of God. In a perverted state, spiritual and holy things appear contrary to their reality, as the sun seems red and fiery, when beheld through a murky atmosphere.

This is a principle which should not be overlooked, in considering those passages of revelation, in which God is spoken of as being angry, sending forth his wrath, and executing vengeance.

*It is sometimes said,

"A God all mercy, is a God unjust; "

but this is an unreasonable and perverse assertion: the truth is, that if he were not all mercy, he would be unjust.

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THE CONDEMNATION OF THE SERPENT, ETC. God is the author of the laws of order; if man transgress them, disastrous consequences follow, but of these, man, and not God, is the author. The serpent was told that it was cursed, because it had transgressed. The ground was pronounced to be cursed for man's sake, because the man, now fallen, may be presumed to have withheld from it those orderly labors which are necessary to maintain its fertility. The sorrows of the woman were, under certain circumstances, to be multiplied, because, by a withdrawing of the mind from the divine guidance, some natural law of the body might have been infringed. There is, then, no necessity for fixing the authorship of such calamities on God, in any other way, than as an appearance, even if the statements of them were to be regarded in a literal sense: so far as they are evils, they are fairly and rationally chargeable on transgressors only. But let us examine some of the particulars, in which these curses are said to have consisted.

Of the serpent it is written, "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 is true, that some serpents of natural history may be said to go upon their belly; and, also that all civilized society, usually associate with the idea of them a sentiment of disgust. But it is not true, that any eat dust all the days of their life; or indeed, eat dust at all: the food of serpents consists of young birds, mice, frogs, and fruit. Nor is there any evidence to show that the form, habits, and instinct, by which they are now distinguished, were not those with which they were originally endowed.* No condition, into which an animal is created, really comes within the idea of an almighty curse. All are as happy as their organization will admit of, nor are any of them sensible of any deficiency, arising from an inelegance of form or filthiness of habit. Serpents which crawl without legs, have no sense of inferiority to the saurians which have them; and commentators are not agreed as to which kind it was, which received the curse: nor can they ever be so there is no data for determining the problem. The diffi

* Many things have been related to set forth the subtlety of the serpent (see Cruden, Art. Ser.), but some are mere puerilities, and others are evidently false, nor is there any fact established to show that they possess any remarkable sagacity. Their character for cunning and deceit, has been derived from its description in the temptation, and not from natural history. It was the serpent that was subtle, not the whole species so denominated,