The greater part of interpreters regard these words as ironical, and suppose that God, in saying that Adam had become like one of the divine persons of the Holy Trinity, designed to humble him, by reminding him that such had been his foolish ambition in listening to the lying promise of the tempter: "Ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil." As an ironical turn of phrase expresses exactly the contrary of what its terms naturally imply, the Lord, according to this interpretation, would give fallen man to understand the folly and guilt of his proud pretensions. What divinity is thine! What prerogatives thou hast acquired by disobeying thy God and obeying the devil! Thou pretendest to divinity, thou desiredst to know good and evil by a fatal experience, and behold, O unhappy creature! behold, now thou art stripped of thy innocence and thy glory, behold, thou art polluted, separated from thy God, condemned, and plunged into the depths of misery, darkness, and ignorance! Behold, how man is become like one of us! He knows indeed good and evil! Though God, whose character and perfections are sometimes represented to us after the manner of men, might, as the Scripture saith," mock"

those who had the pride and folly to rebel against Him; though we are told that Eternal Wisdom will "laugh at the calamity" of such; and though men of God have frequently made use of the bitterest irony, as Elisha towards the prophets of Baal, and Isaiah towards the idolatrous Israelites;-though for these reasons there is nothing unworthy in supposing God to employ this form of human language, so proper to humble the proud, yet, in the present instance, we cannot adopt the interpretation proposed. There is here too great a depth of misery to be revealed to Adam and to his pos terity, to suppose that God would have chosen to instruct them in it, in the language of irony. No, no! He who made all things, He who in the days of His flesh shed tears over the fall of the guilty Jerusalem, would rather have wept over His creature in Eden, had he already been clothed with the nature of man and known the tears of compassion!

Another very ingenious interpretation has been suggested, according to which these words, "Man is become as one of us," have reference to the gospel promise given by God in the 15th verse of our chapter, and to the views of redemption, which the Divine Being,

entertained in favour of mankind. Man, chosen in Christ from the foundation of the world, redeemed by a Saviour promised in Eden, becomes one with Him, is made partaker of a Divine nature, and acquires a perfect knowledge of good and evil, In this sense, it would be quite correct to say, that man had become as one of the persons of the Divine essence, as God; and thus the lying promise of the devil, contrary to his expectation, would be literally fulfilled. O the depth of the wisdom and love of God! How unsearchable are His judg ments, and His ways past finding out! But notwithstanding all the plausibility and attractiveness of this interpretation, (which we submit to your consideration,) we rather prefer to try a third, which appears to us more simple.

It consists in translating the passage thus; "Behold man who was as one of us, that is to say, who had been created in our image, after our likeness, to know good and evil." This version of the passage, which, far from being forced or contrary to the Hebrew, is decidedly more conformable to it, gives an exclamation of tender compassion and regret on the part of God at the sight of His fallen creature. Behold then, this man, created as one of us, formed in

our likeness, this man lately so happy, so innocent, so pure, to whom I had given an existence worthy the envy of angels; behold what sin has made him! Behold him rebellious, fallen, polluted! Behold him covered with shame, miserable, flying at the approach of his God whom he loved above all things! Behold him loaded with the weight of a just malediction! Behold him miserable, and doomed to bequeath to all his descendants a wretched existence like his own! O frightful consequences of sin! O foolish and guilty creature!

My brethren, remember that you also, sinners like Adam, condemned like Adam, are like him objects of this tender compassion of your God, who willeth not the death of a sinner," and with whom "chastisement is a strange work," your God, who even when He condemns, remembers to have mercy; of your Saviour, who wept over the guiltiest of cities even while he denounced against it the terrible chastisements, with which God was about to punish its crimes. Ah! we conjure you then, let not God compassionate you in vain! Delay not to turn to Him, that His compassion may no longer be ineffectual; delay not until, delivered over to judgment, condemned in the

hardness of your heart and in your sins, ready to be consigned to outer darkness, where there is no hope; you hear the Sovereign Judge saying unto you, not as He will to the redeemed of Christ: "Enter into the joy of thy Lord," but as He did to Adam: Behold this man, who might have been as one of us, this being for whom I provided a Saviour and with Him all things, this being whom I have entreated to be reconciled to Me, to receive My spirit, to become a partaker of my divine nature, an inheritor of my eternal kingdom, behold him as sin has made him; behold him with all the pollutions of his life; behold him without ta Saviour; behold him lost beyond the hope of recovery! Ah! remember, that if a holy and just God shows mercy, even when He condemns, He condemns even in showing mercy.

"Now then," adds our text, "lest be put forth his hand and take of the tree of life, and eat and live for ever. The Lord God

sent him forth from the garden of Eden."

Before explaining the last part of our text, let us say a few words in explanation of the tree of life. And not to enumerate here the various opinions of men on this subject, we would merely state, that it appears evident to