But the Creator would not, at the very time he was about to show his holy hatred of sin, convey such an intimation of his approval of it, as a union with fallen, guilty man must, in all reason, be understood to be. This would involve a contradiction destructive of his own character. The cunning and malignity of the enemy would soon suggest the incongruity to mankind, and through it persuade them to disbelieve the promise and to hold hard thoughts of its gracious giver. Besides, as the tempter would exercise some influence over the fallen nature of his opponent, the victory of the latter could not be complete, nor the terms of the prediction satisfactorily met. The prediction states, that over the mind of the seed the serpent should have no power, but that he would be permitted to exercise his enmity against his body. In this respect a material difference between Adam's case and his is predicted. The tempter obtained power to influence Adam's mind, but over his body he had no dominion. To kill Adam on the instant of his disobedience, even if he could have done so, would rather defeat his own object in the temptation; nor is it to be supposed that, when God was pronouncing his sentence, he knew its import

further than that a plan was communicated for the subversion of his influence over the mind of man. On the natural body of the promised seed, it is here intimated, he would have so much power as to deprive it of life; but the very act whereby the seed should effect his ruin, demonstrates the purity of his mind. It displays the holy fearlessness with which he would enter on the combat, and his holy horror of sin. The conclusion is, therefore, inevitable, that his human nature would be "holy, harmless, undefiled."

The twofold nature of the promised seed is thus fully established. We arrive at this result by the considerations that subserve to the elucidation of any difficult subject. No other agrees with the narrative; none other can solve the difficulties of the case. Man is, by sin and the immutable law of God, devoted to death-the everlasting alienation of body and soul from God. He is himself too weak to attempt his own recovery; and, what is infinitely worse, too much enslaved to sin even to desire it. The Creator promises deliverance through the seed of the woman, and is it irrational to suppose he would himself descend to accomplish his own gracious promise, freely given, unasked, unsought for,

and, alas, undesired? Nay, is it not most rational, because it is consonant to the character for infinite truth delineated of him by his own law?

It has been already observed, that the paradisaical commandment was designed to call into existence the various mental emotions which subserve to our intellectual happiness. With the commandment the mental improvement of our first parents was closely connected. But now that man is fallen, his improvement, whatever of mental pleasure he enjoys in reality, or by anticipation, is connected with the promise. The commandment, though it still marks our dependance on God, does not-indeed cannot, awaken in us the emotions of love, and gratitude, and joy. If we love the law, it is not for itself, but because we look at it through the promise. Our nature repels the hand that injures it; the criminal loves not the judge who condemns him to death; no more can man love the law which delivers him to perdition. The law proclaims now no kindness, no blessings, from God to man. It is awful to behold him through the law. There he sits, infinitely holy, infinitely just; but not now infinitely good. In the days of man's innocence the last was felt, and the others not feared; but now the last is not felt, and for the

others, he is the object of our envy, and hatred, and fear. What have infinite holiness and justice to do with guilty man, unless to thrust him out from the divine presence, and consign him to the blackness of despair? But the promise brings, again, rather more prominently forward his infinite goodness now yoked with infinite mercy. Hence the emotions lost by the fall, have been, in part, restored. Gratitude is again awakened in the human mind; joy is not less sensibly felt, that it arises from the prospect of peace with God; and love, displacing envy, asserts her right to the heart of man. Truly may it be said, that in the midst of judgment he remembered mercy, the sentence on the enemy of mankind providing for the restoration of the mental pleasurable emotions lost by the fall.

LECTURE III.

THE NECESSITY OF ORDINANCES FOR WORSHIP, AND COMMANDMENTS TO GUIDE THE CONDUCT OF MEN BEING GIVEN, DEMONSTRATED-WHAT THESE COM. MANDMENTS WERE-WHAT THE RELIGIOUS ORDINANCE AND THE INSTITUTION OF SACRIFICE THE NECESSITY FOR ADAM'S EXPULSION FROM THE GARDEN, AND ITS RETENTION, AND THE CURSE OF BARRENNESS ON THE EARTH-THE CONVERSION OF ADAM.

"Unto Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins and clothed them. And the Lord God said, behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever. Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden to till the ground from whence he was taken. So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden cherubims and a flaming sword which turned every way to keep the way of the tree of life."—GENESIS iii., 21—24.

THE history would have been defective if it informed us of no other means whereby God instructed Adam as to the meaning of the promise. Enough had been said for the confusion of the enemy; but not enough for the consolation of his victim. The then infantine and fallen state of his intellectual powers required some instruction as to what kind of worship it would be proper for him to offer unto God, and new commandments for the regulation of his conduct. The benevolence of the Creator would incline us to conjecture this, even if Moses had failed to intimate it; besides, some such proceeding was