But if the subject is to be understood as Universalists say it should be, namely, that there was no devil in the case except Eve's passions, animal desires and appetites, then that account may read as follows "I will put enmity between thee (the devil, Eve's passions) and the woman, (to whom these passions belong) and between thy seed and her seed." By which we perceive the woman is set at variance with herself, even by her creator, by causing a war to be excited between her passions, appetites and mind, and herself as if her body, mind and passions were distinct beings, when we know they were united in one. "It (her seed, Christ) shall bruise, (the serpent's head, which is also hers) thy head, and thou (the woman's seed) shalt bruise his heel ;" by which mode of reading we perceive the whole matter is worse than nonsense on the ground that the serpent which misled and beguiled the woman, was the woman herself. If this is so, then indeed the Divine Being entered into judgment on that occasion with but two beings, Adam and Eve alone. But four beings were judged, and the fourth was judged more severely than all the others; which was that Christ should in the fullness of time come into the world to destroy both the works of this fourth being and the being himself in hell. The view which Universalists take of this subject, namely, to deny there was any supernatural being engaged in deceiving Eve, deny of necessity that this seed of the woman, Jesus Christ, which was to bruise the serpent's head, was ever to come into the world at all; as the thing for which it is said he should come to accomplish, namely, to bruise and destroy, never existed; except we say that thing was the human nature of Eve and of her posterity. And what does this amount to? why, that Christ, the seed of the woman, was coming into the world to bruise his own works, (the human nature of Eve and her children,) on which account she was doomed to become her own destroyer as well as that of her offspring. This, were it the true state of the case, were as bad as the fiction of Milton, who relates that death which came into being in hell and was born there of sin, brought forth every hour a race of beings which he calls hell hounds, which howled as they came forth, tearing the bowels of their mother death without pity or remorse, and without end.

But when it is believed that a fourth being, known in Christian theology as Satan, who beguiled the woman and was to be the object of this seed's vengeance, then there is a consistency, a propriety and wisdom manifest which is worthy the eternal God, and not otherwise. (See the Plate.)

The plate shows the Divine Being in the attitude of judging the culprits who had been engaged in the breach of his law given to Adam and Eve in Paradise; also the grape-tree or vine which we believe to have been the forbidden fruit.

In this place we will venture a few remarks on the manner of

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Adam and Eve's transgression, and of the forbidden tree; as some have doubted whether it was literally a tree and its fruit which was forbidden; but rather that it was connubial enjoyment. But the folly of this notion appears from the manner in which the transgression proceeded. Eve it appears, first and alone, approached, plucked off and eat of the fruit of that tree, without the concurrence or knowledge of Adam at all.

Is it good sense to suppose God would have forbidden the very and only means which himself had ordained in the creation of nature, by which the earth was to be replenished by inhabitants, making his own work the occasion of sin and death? Surely not. This would be to set God at variance with himself, his providence at war with his wisdom and holiness; one kind of life, that of animal existence, at war with another kind of life, that of moral rectitude; both of which were entirely essential to human beings and human happiness. There is no better way than to receive that account as it reads, as that is the most simple and natural; obscurity or mystical meaning is then out of the question. The account is, that it was a tree, and the fruit of that tree which was forbidden, without similitude, allegory, or hieroglyphic; and so the Jews, in their traditions and commentaries, have always understood it. As to the kind of tree, their traditions state that it was the grape, which grew to an immense size, but winding round other trees, ascended to a great height, overshadowing the earth with its broad leaves and pendant clusters. This vine, or tree, was as proper to be the prohibited object or test of their obedience to God, as any other thing within the range of the creation: and as the grape is that kind of fruit from which wine is produced, which by a short process of fermentation becomes inebriating; who is prepared to object that Adam and Eve when they had eat their fill of it were not intoxicated? as their pure and unhackneyed stomachs had never before received any inebriating qualities. But as some may imagine this too wild a conjecture, and not possible, we will state that the camels of the Arabs get intoxicated on green dates, which in some parts of that country grow abundantly. This is done when they eat them in great quantities, and then drink plentifully of water, a fermentation takes place in the stomach of the animals, by which they are intoxicated, as if they had drank of spirit. If therefore, such is the effect on a camel, how much more so on human beings, whose stomachs had been unused to other food than the soft and delicate fruits of paradise, but not of inebriating qualities like the grape. And more than this, as a kind of evidence that the grape tree was that tree of knowledge, we notice the fact that the produce of this very tree, which is wine, has, in the administration of God's kingdom among men, been ordained to represent the very blood of that seed which was to come into

the world, and to bruise by the atonement the serpent's head, and by salvation to man made possible. In this circumstance, God has taken the very instrument-the fruit of the vine, of which Satan persuaded the woman to taste-by which to perpetuate a remembrance of the blood of the cross; and to Satan cannot but be the everlasting token of his guilt and defeat. Any other mode of explaining about the tree of knowledge, than to hold it as having been literal, and exactly as it reads, is met at all points with difficulties and absurdities insurmountable and innumerable.

But as to the particular mode of Satan's operations on the mind of Eve, when he misled and deceived her, we shall now venture some ideas, and if possible, ascertain how he could approach a mind which was so pure and innocent as was hers, and induce it to sin against that one and only law of God that was known to her; or in other words-so as to accommodate the Universalist's opinion-enquire how she could have so seduced and deceived herself; there being, as they say in that case, no other devil but herself. But to pursue our own way on this subject-Satan, the serpent, knew well, that such was the purity of Eve's mind, that she never would turn aside of her own free will, and knowingly break the command respecting the tree of knowledge. On which account he found it necessary to lead her, if possible, in pursuit of a seeming good. A desire of knowledge, and especially a knowledge of God, of his will and his works, is a principle essential to the nature of angels, and all unsinning and unfallen intelligences, Adam and Eve not excepted in their first condition. That this desire was implanted in the mind of Eve, was perceived by Satan, who had studied the make of her mind before he attacked her with his wiles. That this desire of increasing moral knowledge was embraced in the powers of her mind, we learn from Moses, who says that when she saw the tree was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit and did eat. Here the fact is plainly stated, that the innocent and commendable, nay, indispensable desire, to increase in knowledge, was an ingredient in the pure and primeval nature of unfallen Eve. Upon this disposition Satan was resolved to operate; and if by any means he could succeed to lead her, ignorantly, beyond the prescribed limits of the law, he should then, by so doing, place her beneath the blazing arrows of eternal justice; which as a principle knows no mercy; and by whose power, Satan with his angels, had been driven out from their first habitation in heaven. Wherefore, in the glowing colors of Satanic eloquence, he told her to what a height she would in a moment be exalted, in additional excellence and knowledge, and would become as the gods, or as the angels of God, were she but to taste the pur-ple clusters of that extraordinary tree. There is no doubt but