proud and cruel indifference for the sufferings of the creature, and the origin of these sufferings. He condescends to regard them with a look of benign compassion, even while dilating on the sublime theme of the Christian's hope : "For the earnest expectation of the creature" he says, "waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God, (for the creature was made subject unto vanity, not willingly, but by reason of Him that hath subjected the same,) in hope that the creature itself shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth together in pain until now." Isaiah does not recognize, in the present state of the inferior creatures, their original constitution; for, in a prophecy, in which he casts a distant glance at those better times when the Messiah's reign shall repair the disorders of sin, he expresses a noble longing for the restoration of all things to their original state, and for the deliverance of the creature from its present bondage: "The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the bullock, and dust shall be the serpent's meat; (the special malediction

denounced in our text;) they shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, saith the Lord." Hence the sentence uttered against the serpent is not an exception in nature; it merely implies that this animal should bear a distinctive mark of the curse. We shall not here inquire whether these words, "Upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life," authorize us to infer, that the form of the serpent was originally different from what it is at present, or whether that animal lived on a different kind of food. This question is of so little practical importance, that it may suffice for us to know, from the Word of God, that this reptile has been reduced to its present condition in consequence of a malediction of the Lord. We hasten to pass on to more important considerations suggested by our text.

We have already shown from the Scriptures, that the serpent was but an instrument in the temptation, and that the real author of evil was the devil, "the old serpent," who was "a murderer from the beginning." Now, though Moses in our text mentions only the serpent, yet we must not confine the curse exclusively to that animal, no more than the

temptation. No, it is on the real author of evil, that the first punishment of sin shall fall in all its rigour. It is from his murderous hand, and by inflicting a curse upon him, that God will rescue the prey which he imagines he has secured, and the empire which he has usurped over the creature. He shall not be allowed to continue in peaceable possession of those whom he has reduced to his subjection: "I will put enmity between thee and the woman, between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." What we are to understand by the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent, how the enmity which separates them for ever from one another manifests itself, and what shall be the issue of that struggle to which this enmity has given rise, are three questions, on which we must make some observations.

The old serpent has carried off a fatal victory over the happy creature of God. The powers of hell rejoice at it. A despotic kingdom of darkness has been erected upon earth. Shall all the children of Adam become its subjects, and continue its miserable vassals? The devil, at least, will endeavour to retain

them in his power, to inspire them with that pride which goeth before a fall, to keep them from the sanctifying influence of the Spirit of God. For this purpose, the same means of seduction which he employed in Eden, shall be put in requisition; namely, doubt, unbelief, ambition, contempt of God and of His word. It is under the influence of these hateful principles that the earth has been overspread with darkness, sin has multiplied its ravages, and that idolatry, the worship of the devil, has been substituted in place of the adoration of the true God. Mankind, instead of continuing united to their Creator, who is the source of life, instead of obeying Him and acknowledging no other law than that of His love, have forgotten even His very name, or remembered it only to dishonour it. "When they knew not God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in their imagination, and their foolish heart was darkened." Now, as man, in a spiritual sense, is the child of him who engenders and governs his moral life, to whom he submits himself, and whose inspirations he obeys, they who live under the influence of Satan are his children, his seed.

"Ye are of your father the devil," saith Jesus, to all those who resist the Spirit of God, “and the works of your father ye will do."* "O generation of vipers, (seed of the serpent) how can ye, being evil, speak good things?" "O full of all subtlety and all mischief," exclaimed St. Paul, on seeing one do the works of his father, "thou child of the devil, thou enemy of all righteousness, wilt thou not cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord?”+ "In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil; whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother." Here, then, we see, in the very language of Scripture, who are the seed of the "old serpent."

The whole human race, however, shall not be the prey of the devil. To the seed of the serpent the Lord opposes the seed of the woman, which includes not only all the redeemed, but more especially the great representative of fallen and delivered humanity, the second Adam, the Redeemer of the world himself. Promised in Eden, announced to the patriarchs, predicted by the prophets, He

*John viii. 44.

† Acts xiii. 10.