THE main difficulty consists in determining what we are to understand by the serpent, who is represented by Moses as the tempter and deceiver of our first parents. In order to this, we must consider distinctly what is ascribed to this serpent.

This serpent, we are told, was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made :' Gen. iii. 1. The comparison here being made between this serpent and the beast of the field, intimates to us that this serpent was really a beast of the field; for between the beast of the field and beings of a higher order no comparison properly lies in respect to their subtlety and understanding.

Again; the curse denounced against this serpent is adapted to the state and condition of a natural serpent, and is literally applicable to no other kind of being: Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field on thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life: 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:' Gen. iii. 14. 15.

These are the circumstances in the history which lead us to conclude that a real serpent had part in this transaction. On the other side,

This serpent appears to have the use of language and of reason nor is it said that these faculties were conveyed to him on this occasion, (which is the case of Balaam's ass, it being expressly noted in the text, that the Lord opened the mouth of the ass :') Numb. xxii. 28. but these faculties are mentioned as natural to this serpent. When he talks and reasons with Eve, Moses relates this fact as an historian.

This serpent talks and reasons, not on such trivial things of which we may suppose the beast of the field (if they have any reason) to have some notion; but he reasons on the nature of God and of man; on the knowlege of good and of evil; on the nature and tendency of the law given to man: he looks back and reflects on the policy in which that law was founded, and the art of the governor in keeping his subjects in ignorance and blind obedience: he looks forward and foretels the happy consequences of throwing off this yoke, and persuades the woman that she and her husband 'should be as gods,' if they could have the courage to break through the restraint of this iniquitous law.

What think you now? Are these the properties of a mere brute creature? Or is there any instance of an author who ever seriously introduced the beast of the field thus reasoning and thus discoursing?

And yet there are who suppose this serpent to be a mere beast of the field and no more, and reckon that Moses recounting this story, intended to relate what passed between a mere natural serpent and Eve as the most plain matter of fact. We are told too that this interpretation is suited to the notions of the ancients, who thought beasts had, in the first ages of the world, the use of speech; in which remark the truly ancient are much abused. For these ancients, as they are called, were indeed moderns with respect to the times of which they give judgment; and there is not the least footstep of evidence that ever there was such an opinion in the world. Men of later ages, misled by the ancient way of writing, may have imputed such an absurdity to the times long before their own; but that ever any age, or any reasonable man in any age, had really such a persuasion, there is not the least pretence to affirm. The story of Balaam's ass is pretended to be a proof that the ancients had such a notion ; but consult the text, and you will see this story is recorded not as a most plain, but as a most miraculous matter of fact: and wherever ancient history reports as matter of fact that any brute creature spoke, the thing is always treated as a prodigy, and the effect of some supernatural power; and the story commonly ends in consultation of the oracle among the Greeks, and he Sibylline books among the Romans, to know how the

omen was to be averted and the Gods appeased, who were ever thought concerned in such surprising events.

We read in Scripture that the trees went forth at a time to anoint a king over them: and they said unto the olive-tree, Reign thou over us :' &c. Judges ix. 8. This, I suppose, will not be taken for another most plain matter of fact, and construed as if the ancients had a notion that trees also could speak in the first ages of the world. But if we must depart from the literal meaning in this case, what are the rules of criticism that oblige us to maintain it in the principal case before us? Surely it is not more unnatural for trees to hold a council for the choice of a king, than for a mere serpent to treat with Eve on the subject of her obedience to God, and the nature and tendency of the law of paradise.

But we are so used to fables, and this of the trees is so evidently such, that we may perhaps imagine that we see a difference in these two cases, without troubling ourselves to examine the grounds of such judgment. Let us see then whether this way of literal interpretation will suit other places better. We read in Numbers, that a star shall come out of Jacob,' &c. Numb. xxiv. 17. Jacob' literally means the patriarch so called; but he had been long dead before this saying was heard; and had he been living, the same difficulty would occur in ascertaining the literal sense of the word 'star.' It is said of God, in the book of Psalms, Thou breakest the heads of the dragons in the waters :' Ps. lxxiv. 13.; and the prophet Isaiah threatens Leviathan the piercing serpent,' with judgments from God: Is. xxvii. 1. Must we suppose that the Psalmist is singing the triumphs of God's victory over a dragon, and that the prophet is foretelling the destruction of a mere serpent? Or shall we resign this literal meaning to the dictates of common sense, the evidence of history, and God's own exposition in the prophet Ezekiel ? The word of the Lord came unto me saying, Son of man, set thy face against Pharaoh king of Egypt, ---speak and say, Thus saith the Lord God, Behold I am against thee, Pharaoh king of Egypt, the great dragon that lieth in the midst of his rivers :' Ezek. xxix. 1. 2. 3. If it shall be said that the psalms and prophets are of too late a date to determine

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the use of language in the time of Moses, the author of the book of Genesis; why then let the author of the book of Genesis speak for himself, and tell us whether by the term 'serpent' he always means a natural serpent. Dan (they are the words of Genesis) shall be a serpent in the way, an adder in the path; that biteth the horse's heels, so that his rider shall fall backward:' Gen. xlix. 17. Here is a serpent described by that very character which is urged as determining the serpent of the fall to be a natural serpent. "The very words of the curse," we are told, "imply or foretel a perpetual war between man and that beast of the field the serpent: and that such a war, wherein men by walking with naked feet and heels, as they do in the eastern countries, were very liable to the attacks of serpents, that were very venomous and numerous there."

Let this observation be carried to the forty-ninth chapter of Genesis, and the passage from thence quoted. There you will find a serpent that bites horses by the heels, so that the rider falls backward. What wants there more to prove this a natural serpent? And yet the author of this passage tells us that he meant Dan or the tribe of Dan, by the serpent and the adder; and consequently, by biting of the horse's heels, he did not mean that Dan would in the literal sense bite horses by the heels, but he intended by this metaphorical expression to describe the subtle and mischievous practices of that tribe. There will be occasion to mention this passage again: the use now made of it is only to show that the circumstance of the serpent's bruising the heel of the woman's seed in the history of the fall, does by no means determine the serpent there mentioned to be a mere natural serpent.

But respect, perhaps more than enough, has been paid to this opinion, of which the learned Pirerius has left this censure: qua nihil profecto dici cogitarive potest incredibilius et absurdius. In Genes. p. 192.

Let us come then to the true import and meaning of the prophecy, and examine whether any real difficulty lies in the way of a reasonable inquirer.

1. If there be any truth at all in this history, we must necessarily suppose the tempter to be a rational agent; for if reason

ing will not be allowed to be a certain characteristic of a rational being, there must be an end of all reasoning on the point.

2. If on the foot of natural religion it must be maintained that the Author of all things is a good being, it necessarily follows that the tempter was an evil being; for he acts in direct opposition to the Creator; he charges him with malice and envy towards his creatures; he attempts, and succeeds in his attempt, to draw his subjects into disobedience; and for this no reason can be assigned but the mere pleasure of affronting God and making man miserable.

3. This tempter being mentioned under the name and character of a serpent, there have been various opinions in accounting for this circumstance of the history. Among these the most considerable, as they appear to me, are the two following:

First, that which supposes a real serpent to have appeared, under the management of the evil being, and as his instrument in the fraud.

Secondly, that which supposes the evil being to have transacted the whole himself, (under what form or appearance this opinion pretends not to determine,) and that the term serpent is used metaphorically to denote immediately this wicked being. I will state the reasons of these opinions as clearly as I can.

Both of them have some support from the text, and both have difficulties from the text, which lie in their way; but then it is to be observed that neither the substance of history nor any one conclusion that can be drawn from it, is in the least affected by this difference in opinion as to this circumstance. For it being agreed on both sides that an evil being was the tempter, it signifies little in this respect whether he was only called a serpent, or whether he made use of a serpent as the instrument of his deceit. Let any man try what objections he can raise from one opinion or from the other, against any known conclusion from this history. If he can raise none, it is evident this point of difference does not affect any thing in which religion can be concerned.

If a real serpent was concerned in this case, then the expressions of Moses are literal, and represent historically all that passed visibly. But these literal expressions necessarily lead

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