prove from the nature of God, that he must delight in and reward virtue; you must go one step further, and prove from the nature of man too, that he is excellently qualified to obey this law, and cannot well fail of attaining all the happiness under it that ever nature defigned for him. If you ftop short at this confideration, what do you gain? What imports it that the law is good, if the fubjects are fo bad, that either they will not or cannot obey it? When you prove to finners the excellency of natural religion, you only fhew them how juftly they may expect to be punished for their iniquity: a fad truth, which wants no confirmation! All the poffible hope left in fuch a cafe is, that God may freely pardon and reftore them; but whether he will or no, the offenders can never certainly learn from natural religion.

Should God think fit to be reconciled to finners, natural religion would again become the rule of their future trial and obedience; but their hopes must flow from another fpring, their confidence in God muft, and can arise only from the promise of God; that is, from the word of prophecy; for which reafon prophecy must for ever be an effential part of fuch a finner's religion.

This reasoning agrees exactly with the ancienteft and most authentic account we have of the beginning of prophecy in the world. When God had finished all his works, and man the chief of them, he viewed them all, and behold they were very good. How long this goodness lafted we know not; that it did not laft very long is certain. During the time of man's innocence there were frequent communications between God and him, but not the least hint

of any word of prophecy delivered to him. The hopes of nature were then alive and vigorous, and man had before him the profpect of all that happinefs to which he was created, to encourage and fupport his obedience. In this ftate natural religion wanted no other affiftance, and therefore it had no other.

But when the cafe was altered by the tranfgreffion of our first parents; when natural religion had no longer any fure hopes or comforts in referve, but left them to the fearful expectation of judgment near at hand; when God came down to judge the offenders, and yet with intention finally to rescue and preferve them from the ruin brought on themselves; then came in the word of prophecy, not in oppofition to natural religion, but in fupport of it, and to convey new hopes to man, fince his own were irrecoverably loft and extinguished in the fall.

The prophecy then given being the first, and indeed (as I conceive) the ground-work and foundation of all that have been fince, it well deferves our particular confideration.

It may be expected, perhaps, that the way should be cleared to this inquiry, by removing first the difficulties which arife from the hiftorical narration of the fall; and could any thing material be added in fupport of what is commonly faid upon this fubject, the time and pains would be well placed: but the more and the oftener this cafe is confidered in all its circumftances, the more will the commonly received interpretation prevail; which is evidently the true ancient interpretation of the Jewish church, as appears by the allufions to the history of the fall,

to be met with in the books of the Old Teftament.

To fome unbelievers, if I mistake not their principles, the hiftory of the fall would have been altogether as incredible, though perhaps not quite fo diverting, had it been told in the fimpleft and plainest language.

It is to little purpose therefore to trouble them with an account of the genius of the eastern people, and their language; for you may as foon perfuade them that a ferpent tempted Eve, as that any evil fpirit did. If you ask, why the devil might not as well speak to Eve under the form of a ferpent, as give out oracles to the old Heathen world under that and many other forms? you gain nothing by the queftion; for oracles, whether Heathen or Jewish, are to them alike; they difpute not their authority, but their reality. This is a degree of unbelief which has no right to be admitted to debate the queftion now under confideration.

As to others, who are not infidels with regard to religion in general, yet are fhocked with the circumftances of this hiftory, I defire them to confider, that the speculations arifing from the history of the fall, and the introduction of natural and moral evil into the world, are of all others the moft abftruse and furtheft removed out of our reach: that this difficulty led men in the earliest time to imagine two independent principles of good and evil, a notion deftructive of the fovereignty of God, the maintenance of which is the principal end and defign of the Mofaic hiftory. Had the hiftory of man's fall plainly introduced an invifible evil being to con

found the works of God, and to be the author of iniquity, it might have given great countenance to this error, of two principles: or, to prevent it, Mofes must haye writ an history of the angels' fall likewise; a point, I fuppofe, to which his commiffion did not extend, and of which perhaps we are not capable judges; and fince this difficulty might in a great measure be avoided, by having recourse to the common ufage of the eastern countries, which was, to clothe history in parables and fimilitudes, it seems not improbable that for this reason the history of the fall was put into the dress in which we now find it.

The serpent was remarkable for an infidious cunning, and therefore ftood as a proper emblem of a deceiver; and yet, being one of the loweft of the creatures, the emblem gave no fufpicion of any power concerned that might pretend to rival the Creator.

This method has not fo obfcured this hiftory, but that we may with great certainty come to the knowledge of all that is neceffary for us to know. Let us confider the hiftory of Mofes, as we should do any other ancient eastern hiftory of like antiquity: fuppofe, for inftance, that this account of the fall had been preserved to us out of Sanchoniatho's Phoenician History: we should in that case be at a lofs perhaps to account for every manner of representation, for every figure and expreffion in the ftory; but we should foon agree, that all these difficulties were imputable to the manner and customs of his age and country; and should shew more respect to fo venerable a piece of antiquity, than to charge it with want of fenfe, because we did not understand

every minute circumstance: we should likewise agree, that there were evidently four perfons concerned in the story; the man, the woman, the perfon represented by the ferpent, and God. Difagree we could not about their feveral parts. The ferpent is evidently the tempter; the man and the woman the offenders; God the judge of all three: the punishments inflicted on the man and woman have no obfcurity in them; and as to the ferpent's fentence, we should think it reasonable to give it fuch a fenfe as the whole series of the story requires.

It is no unreasonable thing furely to demand the fame equity of you in interpreting the fenfe of Mofes, as you would certainly use towards any other ancient writer. And if the fame equity be allowed, this plain fact undeniably arifes from the hiftory: "that man was tempted to disobedience, and did "difobey, and forfeited all title to happiness, and "to life itself; that God judged him, and the de"ceiver likewise under the form of a ferpent." We require no more; and will proceed upon this fact to confider the prophecy before us.

The prophecy is part of the sentence paffed upon the deceiver: the words are thefe; I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy feed and her feed: it shall bruife thy head, and thou fhalt bruife his heel: Gen. iii. 15. Christian writers apply this to our bleffed Saviour, emphatically styled here the feed of the woman, and who came in the fulness of time to bruife the ferpent's head, by deftroying the works of the devil, and restoring those to the liberty of the fons of God, who were held under the bondage and captivity of fin. You will