draws the bleffing upon man from the curfe upon the ferpent.

To clear this, let it be confidered,

1. Though a sentence formed upon the rigour of the law contains no mercy, yet every sentence which exacts less than the law demands is to fome degree an act of grace. A fentence of fine and imprisonment against a man guilty of death, though it be directly a judicial proceeding against an offender, and in itself a sentence of punishment,yet is it virtually a pardon for life. There have been inftances (perhaps too many) where a verdict against a criminal for manflaughter has been in effect a pardon for murder.

Now in the principal cafe the law was, In the day thou eateft thereof thou shalt furely die. By this fentence on Adam his death was respited, and he was to live to eat (though to eat in forrow) of the fruits of the ground. By the fentence on Eve, she was to live to bring forth children, though the forrows of conception were multiplied. By the fentence on the ferpent, a perpetual enmity was declared between his and the woman's feed; and the event on each fide foretold: It shall bruife thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.

Could Adam, comparing his present case upon the foot of these sentences with the penalty of the law against which he had offended, poffibly doubt whether God had dealt graciously with him? No more, furely, than a criminal doomed to live in imprisonment, when he might have been hanged by the law, can doubt of his prince's goodness to him.

2. As to our fuppofing a bleffing upon the man to

be contained in the curfe on the ferpent, this is to be faid that the paffage we refer to has undeniably a relation both to the woman and the ferpent, and might have been declared (for aught that appears from the subject-matter) as well to one as the other. Now had it been said to the woman, instead of the ferpent, I will put enmity, &c. it shall bruife thy heel, and thou shalt bruife his head; there had been no ground for this objection: and I cannot conceive that the words carry any other fenfe by being spoken to the serpent, than they would have had, fuppofing them to have been spoken to the wo

man.

There is a like inftance in the fentence on the woman. It is the prerogative of the man, that he is head of the woman; but this fuperiority is not conveyed to him by exprefs grant or conceffion, but the fubjection is laid on the woman as a penalty.

And indeed, whenever a punishment affects a man in the relation he bears to others, the cafe must ever be as it is here supposed to be. When Canaan was curfed with fervitude, in confequence of that curse his brethren became lords over him. When Reuben for his iniquity loft his birthright, the advantage neceffarily went to fome other of the fons of Jacob. And fince the woman and the ferpent were declared to be enemies, the deftruction of the ferpent must neceffarily be the exaltation of the woman. And fince these words, declaring a perpetual enmity and conteft between the woman and the ferpent, are made part of the fentence on the ferpent, it is a clear indication that the ferpent was to fuffer moft in the ftruggle, otherwife they could not ftand as part of

his curfe. For the fame reason the man's fuperiority over the woman is left to be collected from the penalty on the woman. A grant of this fuperiority would have come very improperly in as part of the sentence against the man; but the subjection on the other fide came properly as part of the sentence against the woman. Thus then the case stands: the enmity between the ferpent and the woman was a curse on the serpent, and not on the woman; and therefore the advantage of the conteft was neceffarily to be on the woman's fide. So that this circumftance, duly confidered, is a great confirmation of the hopes we ground from the curfe laid on the ferpent.

If we confider that the tempter has no power over man but by drawing him into evil, bruifing the heel feems plainly to intimate to us the progress of idolatry and wickedness in the world; which are the engines of the wicked one to keep mankind in subjection, flavery, and mifery. And as his chief and main ftrength confifts in these, the bruifing his head intimates to us, that these fhall be destroyed, and the power of the devil over mankind together with them, by the feed of the woman.

There is another prophecy of ancient date, fo like to this in language and idea, and into which the hope of falvation has fo plain relation, that comparing the two together may perhaps reflect a new light upon each. The prophecy intended is to be found in the 49th of Genefis, among the bleffings and predictions of Jacob given to his fons juft before his death, and relates to the tribe of Dan: Dan Shall be a ferpent by the way, an adder in the path,

that biteth the horse's heels, fo that his rider fhall fall backward. I have waited for thy falvation, O Lord! The difficulty here, at least the main difficulty, is to give any tolerable account of the propriety of this paffionate wish for falvation. It has evidently relation to the prophecy concerning Dan, and the expofition ought to fhew and preserve the relation; and yet, according to the common interpretations, this paffage might as well stand after the bleffing of Gad, Afher, Naphtali, or any other of the tribes, as after this prophecy concerning the tribe of Dan. They who refer the falvation here mentioned to the deliverance wrought by Samfon, defcended from the houfe of Dan, do alfo expound the prophecy to relate to him, and his victory; fo far judging right, that the prophecy and the epiphonema ought to terminate in the fame point of view. But how comes Samfon to be thus diftinguished? Ifrael had many other judges and deliverers defcended from other tribes, many of them in all refpects (bodily ftrength only excepted) preferable to this ftrong Danite: of them there is no notice taken in the prophecy of Jacob, nor of the falvation which God by their means wrought in Ifrael. Befides, in what fenfe had Jacob waited for this falvation? And how for this, rather than for twenty others of the fame kind which happened to his pofterity? The words plainly imply him to speak of fomething which had been long the object of his heart's defire; the thought of which came ftrong upon him when he prophetically beheld the fortune of this tribe. Further; the images here used, of ferpent and adder, are odious, and very improper to defcribe a brave or gallant man in any circum

pro

ftance of life; nor are they, as I remember, ever fo ufed in the facred writers. It cannot be reasonable therefore to look for the accomplishment of this phecy among the actions of the tribe of Dan deferving honour and praise: for the ideas by which the prediction is conveyed point out actions of another kind; and lead us to expect, in the hiftory of this tribe, an account of fome very dishonourable and perfidious transaction. The hiftory will justify this expectation for though the houfe of Ifrael ftands recorded for a wilful and difobedient people, whose heart was not right with their God, yet it is the peculiar infamy of the house of Dan, to be the ringleaders in idolatry, the firft who erected publicly a molten image in the land of promife, and by their example and perfeverance in this iniquity infected all the tribes of Ifrael. This idolatry began foon after the days of Joshua, and continued until the day of the captivity of the land, Judges xviii. 30, 31.a

Suppofing this to be the view before the prophet's eyes, in what terms more proper could he defcribe this new tempter and feducer, than by thofe which were commonly used to defcribe the firft? If the firft tempter deferved the name of a ferpent, for drawing Adam and Eve from their obedience to the original law, in virtue of which they held the poffeffion of Paradise, did Dan deserve it lefs for drawing the people of Ifrael from obedience to the divine law, in virtue of which they had but even then taken poffeffion of the land of promife? If the mischiefs brought upon the race of Adam were juftly repre

Compare with Bishop Ufher's Annals.