bruise his heel." To judge of the illustration that this prophecy may receive from the apostle's rules, it will be proper previously to settle what may be the full meaning of the words, taken by themselves. For this purpose, let us suppose that the passage were recited to some uninstructed heathen, who should be totally unacquainted with the Bible, and with every part of its contents: suppose him quite ignorant of the story of the fall-ignorant upon what occasion the words were spoken, or by whom: suppose that he were only told, that once upon a time these words were spoken to a serpent;-think ye he would discern in them any thing prophetic?—He must have more than the serpent's cunning, if he did. He would tell you they contain a few obvious remarks upon the condition of the serpent kind, upon the antipathy which nature has established between men and serpents, and upon the natural advantages of man over the venomed reptile, "The serpent," says he, " is told, that, for the extent of his natural powers and enjoyments, he holds his rank with the lowest of the brute creation,that serpents, by the make of their bodies, are necessitated to crawl upon the ground,—that, although they have a poison in their mouths, the greatest mischief they can do to men is to bite them by the heels; whereas men, by the foresight of their danger, and by their erect posture, have greatly the advantage, and knock serpents on the head wherever they chance to find them." This would be our heathen's exposition; nor could the most subtle criticism draw any farther meaning from the terms of this denunciation.

But, now, let our heathen be made acquainted with the particulars of the story of the fall; and let him understand that these words were addressed to the individual serpent which had tempted Eve, by the Omnipotent Creator, when he came in person to pronounce the dreadful doom upon deluded ruined man;-our heathen will

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immediately perceive that this was no season for pursuing a useless speculation on the natural history of the serpent; nor was so obvious a remark upon the comparative powers of the serpent kind and man better fitted to the majesty of the great Being to whom it is ascribed, than to the solemnity of the occasion upon which it was introduced: and he could not but suspect that more must be meant than meets the ear. He would observe, that the words were addressed to the serpent, in the character of the seducer of our first parents, that the denunciation made a part of a judicial procedure, in which a striking regularity appears in the distribution of the several branches of the business - Three delinquents stand before the Maker of the world, to answer for a crime in which each had borne a part. Adam, as first in rank, is first questioned. He acknowledges his crime, but imputes the blame to Eve's persuasions. Eve is next examined. She confesses the truth of her husband's accusation, but she taxes the serpent as her seducer. The Creator proceeds to judgment. And in this part it is remarkable, that the person who had been first interrogated is the last condemned: for the first words spoken by the Judge, after he has received the confession of the human pair, are thosc in which he accosts the serpent; then he addresses himself to Eve, to Adam last. The words addressed to Eve are the sentence of the Judge, denouncing the penalties to be sustained by her, for having listened to the serpent, and made herself the instrument of the man's seduction. The words addressed to Adam are the sentence of the Judge on him, for having yielded to Eve's solicitation. ---From the plain order of the business, our heathen. would conclude that these words, addressed to the serpent, are a sentence upon him as the first seducer.. He would observe, that as, in the narrative of the temptation, contrivance, design, and speech, are ascribed to

the serpent, so, in these words, he is accosted as the object of animadversion and punishment. He would say, “ This was no common serpent of the field, but some intelligent and responsible agent, in the serpent form; and, in the evils decreed to the life and condition of the serpent, this individual serpent solely is concerned. The enmity which is mentioned, between the serpent and mankind, must express some farther insidious designs on the part of this deceiver, with resistance on the part of man; and in the declaration, that, while serpents should have no power but to wound the lieels of men, men should bruise the heads of serpents, it is certainly intimated, by metaphors taken from the condition and powers of the natural serpent, that the calamities which the stratagems of this enemy in disguise should bring on man, would prove light, in comparison of the greater mischiefs which man shall inflict on him. It is intimated, that man's wound, although, like the serpent's bite, it might be fatal in its consequences if it were neglected, was however curable. The reptile's tooth had lodged its malignant poison in the heel. Considerable time must pass, before the blood and juices could be mortally infected;—in the interval, remedies might be applied to prevent the threatened mischief. Again, the declaration that God himself puts this enmity between the serpent and mankind, implies, that the merciful though offended God will yet take an interest in the fortunes of man, and will support him in his conflict with the adversary.”

You see, that, by considering this denunciation of the serpent's doom in connection only with that particular story of which it is a part, without any knowledge of later prophecies and revelations, our heathen has been able to dive into the prophetic meaning of words, which, taken by themselves, he did not know to be at all prophetic. The particular events, indeed, which may correspond to the images of the prediction, he hath not yet

been able to assign; but of the general purport of the prophecy he has formed a very just notion. He is besides aware, that mysteries are contained in it, more than he can yet unravel. He is sensible that it cannot be without some important meaning, that either the whole or some remarkable part of Adam's posterity, contrary to the general notions of mankind, and the common forms of all languages, is expressed under the image of the woman's seed rather than the man's. I must here observe, that Adam, with respect to the insight he may be supposed to have had into the sense of this curse upon the serpent, was probably for some time much in the situation of our supposed heathen,-aware that it contained a general intimation of an intended deliverance, but much in the dark about the particular explication of it. This prophecy was therefore, to Adam, when it was first delivered, so far intelligible as to be a ground of hope,-at the same time that the darkness of the terms in which it was conceived must have kept him anxiously attentive to every event that might seem connected with the completion of it, and to any new light that might be given him by succeeding predictions or promises. And, by the way, this points out one important secondary use of the original obscurity and gradual elucidation of prophecy, by succeeding prophecies and by events, this method of prediction awakens the curiosity of mankind.

But let us give our heathen, whose curiosity is keen upon the subject, farther lights. Let us carry him, by proper steps, through the whole volume of the sacred oracles; and let us instruct him in that great mystery of godliness, which from the beginning of the world was hidden with God, but in these later ages hath been made manifest by the preaching of the blessed apostles and evangelists; and, when his heart is touched with a sense of the mercies conferred on him through Christ--when he has taken a view of the whole of the prophetic word,

and has seen its correspondence with the history of Jesus, and the beginnings of his gospel, let him then return to the curse upon the serpent. Will he now find in it any thing ambiguous or obscure? Will he hesitate a moment to pronounce, that the serpent who received this dreadful doom could be no other than an animated emblem of that malignant spirit, who, in the latest prophecies, is called the Old Dragon? Or rather, will he not pronounce, that this serpent was that very spirit, in his proper person, dragged, by some unseen power, into the presence of Jehovah, to receive his doom in the same reptile form which he had assumed to wreck his spite on unsuspecting man; for which exploit of wicked and dishonourable cunning, the opprobrious names of the Serpent and the Dragon have ever since been fixed upon him in derision and reproach? Will not our enlightened and converted heathen understand the circumstances which are mentioned of the serpent's natural condition, as intimations of something analogous in the degraded state of the rebellious angel? By the days of the serpent's life, will he not understand a certain limited period, during which, for the exercise of man's virtue, and the fuller manifestation of God's power and good. ness, the infernal Dragon is to be permitted to live his life of malice, to exercise his art of delusion on the sons of men ?--while, in the adjuncts of that life, the grovelling posture and the gritty meal, will he not read the condition of a vile and despicable being, to whom all indulgence but that of malice is denied-to whom little freedom of action is entrusted? Will he have a doubt that the seed of this serpent are the same that in other places are called the Devil's angels? Will he not correct his former surmises about the seed of the woman, and the wound to be inflicted by the serpent in the heel? Will he not perceive, that the seed of the woman is an image, not generally descriptive of the descendants of