perfect law of righteousness, revealed to incarnate man his utter inability, to act up to that knowledge; to fulfil the requirements of that law; it shewed him, how impossible it was, for him to attain to that righteousness, without which he could not be an inmate of that heaven, which was prefigured to him by that "garden" in which he had been placed, It shewed him, that, by the deeds of the law, there shall no flesh be justified in the sight of GOD; it convinced him of sin ;

Rom. iii. law is the knowledge of sin."h

20.

iRev.

17.

for, by the It shewed

him, that he was "naked." And, had not man been made, thoroughly, to see his utter incapacity to work out his own righteousness; he could not have perceived the necessity of that mighty, and most mysterious, feature in the scheme of Christianity, the sacrifice of Christ the universal Ransomer; he would have remained blind to his own impotency and nakedness; so as to have said, "I am rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing;" not knowing that he was

66

wretched, and miserable, and poor, and iii. blind, and naked." Whereas, the knowledge of the law of righteousness, and the nakedness which it disclosed, spoke to his spirit in those words of the Son of GOD: "I

counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich, and white raiment that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear."

66

k Rev. iii.

18.

"And they heard the voice of Jehovah Aleim moving onward in the garden on (or at) the wind (or breeze) of the day;" (rendered walking in the garden in the cool of the day.") It is, nowhere, said that they saw the Deity; they had not any powers of perceiving him; they "saw no similitude," only they "heard a voice." "And Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of Johovah Aleim amongst the trees of the garden. And Jehovah Aleim called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou? And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I (am) naked, and I hid myself. And He said, Who told thee that thou (art) naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat? And the man said, the woman whom thou gavest (to be) with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat. And Jehovah Aleim said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, the serpent beguiled me, and I did eat." Gen. iii. Throughout this narration, the figures of

8-13.

eating of the fruit of a tree, and of nakedness, are still employed, in accordance with the figurative character of the whole of the narrative.

"And Jehovah Aleim said unto the serpent, because thou hast done this, thou (art) cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy m Gen. iii. life."

14.

Here, again, the same figurative style is employed. The tempter is again called "the serpent;" and, consistent with that figurative appellation, are the terms of the curse denounced against him: "upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life." These words express the lowest degree of humiliation and subjugation; which are elsewhere pourtrayed under the figure of "See Psalm going on the belly, and licking up the dust." xliv: 25; The words are expressive of the annihilation cxix 25. of the power of sin and Satan, through the 23. Mic. incarnation and passion of Christ, who suffered, “ that, through death, He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the Heb.ii. 14. devil.°

lxxii. 9;

Is. xlix.

vii. 17.

"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." P

Under this figurative expression, is conveyed an intimation, of the means prepared, in the eternal purpose of God, for securing man's justification through an incarnate Redeemer. This 66 seed" of the woman was that Son of GOD, whom, "when the fulness of the time was come, GoD sent forth-made of a woman (as regarded the wax with which He was clothed), "made under the law" (that "law" which, by enforcing what man cannot perform for himself, makes man unrighteous, and dependent entirely upon Christ for justification)" to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption. of sons.

"Unto the woman He said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrows and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children, and thy desire (shall be) to thy husband and he shall rule over thee.""

Where the whole narration is carried on in figurative language, all the expressions contained in it must be regarded as being, more or less, figurative. The relation of husband and wife has a spiritual reference to the relation in which Christ stands to his universal

P Gen. iii.

15.

9 Gal. iv. 4,

5.

r Gen. iii.

16.

S

* Rev. xix. church, which is called His wife, and is com

7. See

10. Matt.

t

xxi. 2, 9, pared to Eve. * The sorrows connected with xxv. 1, 6, gestation and labour are necessarily connected 10; ix. 15, with the œconomy of the μax, and they 2 Cor. xi. form a part of the sufferings which naturally belong to the incarnate state of humanity.

&c.

2,3. See

Eph.v.23,

24, 25, 27, 29, 32.

u Gen. iii.

17-19.

"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 also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat of the herb of the ground; in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken; for dust thou (art), and unto dust thou shalt (or wilt) return."

Here is a description of the condition of incarnate man. With a body, taken from the ground, formed of dust, and destined, originally destined, to return to the ground from which it was taken (for God's purposes are fixed and pre-determined in His eternal counsels; no after-thought can be imputed to His all-seeing wisdom, no departure from His original and eternal purpose can be caused by any