Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field
The first great temptation
I.
THAT THE HUMAN SOUL IS FREQUENTLY TEMPTED BY A DIRE FOE OF UNUSUAL SUBTLETY.
1. The tempter of human souls is subtle.
2. Malignant.
3. Courageous.
II. THAT THE TEMPTER SEERS TO ENGAGE THE HUMAN SOUL IN CONVERSATION AND CONTROVERSY.
1. He seeks to hold controversy with human souls, that he may render them impatient of the moral restrictions of life.
2. That he may insidiously awaken within them thoughts derogatory to the character of God.
3. That he may lead them to yield to the lust of the eye.
III. THAT THE TEMPTER SEEKS TO MAKE ONE SOUL HIS ALLY IN THE SEDUCTION OF ANOTHER.
IV. THAT THE HUMAN SOUL SOON AWAKENS FROM THE SUBTLE VISION OF TEMPTATION TO FIND THAT IT HAS BEEN DELUDED AND RUINED (see Gen_3:7).
1. That the human soul soon awakes from the charming vision of temptation. Temptation is a charming vision to the soul. The tree looks gigantic. The fruit looks rich and ripe, and its colour begins to glow more and yet more, then it is plucked and eaten. Then comes the bitter taste. The sad recollection. The moment of despair. To Adam and Eve sin was a new experience. No man is the better for the woeful experience of evil.
2. That the human soul, awakening from the vision of temptation, is conscious of moral nakedness. Sin always brings shame, a shame it deeply feels but cannot hide. How sad the destitution of a soul that has fallen from God.
3. That the human soul awakening from the vision of temptation, conscious of its moral nakedness, seeks to provide a clothing of its own device. Adam and Eve sewed fig leaves together to make them aprons. Sin must have a covering. It is often ingenious in making and sewing it together. But its covering is always unworthy and futile. Man cannot of himself clothe his soul. Only the righteousness of Christ can effectually hide his moral nakedness. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)
How could God justly permit satanic temptation?
We see in this permission not injustice but benevolence.
1. Since Satan fell without external temptation, it is probable that man’s trial would have been substantially the same, even though there had been no Satan to tempt him.
2. In this case, however, man’s fall would perhaps have been without what now constitutes its single mitigating circumstance. Self-originated sin would have made man himself a Satan.
3. As, in the conflict with temptation, it is an advantage to objectify evil under the image of corruptible flesh, so it is an advantage to meet it as embodied in a personal and seducing spirit.
4. Such temptation has in itself no tendency to lead the soul astray. If the soul be holy, temptation may only confirm it in virtue. Only the evil will, self determined against God, can turn temptation into an occasion of ruin. As the sun’s heat has no tendency to wither the plant rooted in deep and moist soil, but only causes it to send down its roots the deeper and to fasten itself the more strongly, so temptation has in itself no tendency to pervert the soul. The same temptation which occasions the ruin of the false disciple stimulates to sturdy growth the virtue of the true Christian. Contrast with the temptation of Adam the temptation of Christ. Adam had everything to plead for God, the garden and its delights, while Christ had everything to plead against Him, the wilderness and its privations. But Adam had confidence in Satan, while Christ had confidence in God; and the result was in the former case defeat, in the latter victory. How could a penalty so great be justly connected with disobedience to so slight a command.
To this question we may reply:
1. So slight a command presented the best test of the spirit of obedience.
2. The external command was not arbitrary or insignificant in its substance. It was a concrete presentation to the human will of God’s claim to eminent domain or absolute ownership.
3. The sanction attached to the command shows that man was not left ignorant of its meaning or importance.
4. The act of disobedience was therefore the revelation of a will thoroughly corrupted and alienated from God--a will given over to ingratitude, unbelief, ambition, and rebellion. The motive to disobedience was not appetite, but the ambition to be as God. The outward act of eating the forbidden fruit was only the thin edge of the wedge, behind which lay the whole mass--the fundamental determination to isolate self and to seek personal pleasure regardless of God and His law. So the man under conviction for sin commonly clings to some single passion or plan, only half-conscious of the fact that opposition to God in one thing is opposition in all.
Consequences of the fall, so far as respects Adam
1. Death. This death was two fold. It was partly--
(1) Physical death, or the separation of the soul from the body. The seeds of death, naturally implanted in man’s constitution, began to develop themselves the moment that access to the tree of life was denied him. Man from that moment was a dying creature. But this death was also, and chiefly--
(2) Spiritual death, or the separation of the soul from God. In this are included--
(a) Negatively, the loss of man’s moral likeness to God, or that underlying tendency of his whole nature toward God which constituted his original righteousness.
(b) Positively, the depraving of all those powers which, in their united action with reference to moral and religious truth, we call man’s moral and religious nature; or, in other words, the blinding of his intellect, the corruption of his affections, and the enslavement of his will. Seeking to be a god, man became a slave; seeking independence, he ceased to be master of himself. In fine, man no longer made God the end of his life, but chose self instead. While he retained the power of self-determination in subordinate things, he lost that freedom which consisted in the power of choosing God as his ultimate aim, and became fettered by a fundamental inclination of his will toward evil. The intuitions of the reason were abnormally obscured, since these intuitions, so far as they are concerned with moral and religious truth, are conditioned upon a right state of the affections; and--as a necessary result of this obscuring of reason--conscience, which, as the moral judiciary of the soul, decides upon the basis of the law given to it by reason, became perverse in its deliverances. Yet this inability to judge or act aright, since it was a moral inability springing ultimately from will, was itself hateful and condemnable.
2. Positive and formal exclusion from God’s presence. This included--
(1) The cessation of man’s former familiar intercourse with God, and the setting up of outward barriers between man and his Maker (cherubim and sacrifice).
(2) Banishment from the garden, where God had specially manifested His presence. Eden was perhaps a spot reserved, as Adam’s body bad been, to show what a sinless world would be. This positive exclusion from God’s presence, with the sorrow and pain which it involved, may have been intended to illustrate to man the nature of that eternal death from which he now needed to seek deliverance. (A. H. Strong, D. D.)
The temptation
Observe, in general, its nature and subtlety
1. He concealed his true character as the enemy of God. He appears to pay a deference to the Creator, not presuming to insinuate any question about His right to give laws, such laws as seemed good in His sight, to His intelligent creatures. He does not begin to tell of his own fall, and to speak boastfully of his own rebellion. He pretends great regard and friendly wishes for them, and at the same time carefully conceals his enmity against God.
2. He assails Eve, as would appear, when alone; in the absence of Adam. He thus took her at the greatest disadvantage, knowing well that in such a case “two are better than one”; that what was yielded by one might have been resisted by them both.
3. There is a probability, amounting as nearly as possible to certainty, that he assaulted her at a moment when she was near the tree, so that there might be no length of time allowed her for reflection and deliberation.
4. Mark the ingredients included in the temptation itself. There is, first, an insinuation of unkindness of an unnecessary and capricious restriction, put in the form of a question of surprise, as if it were a thing be found difficult to believe, and for which he could imagine no reason. There was, secondly, a direct contradiction of the assurance she gave him of the consequence of eating, as having been intimated to them by Jehovah. (R. Wardlaw, D. D.)
The nature of the test to which Adam’s allegiance was put
1. So far as we are capable of judging, it was a thing in itself indifferent, having nothing in it of an intrinsically moral character. Now, in this view of it, it was peculiarly appropriate. It was a test of subjection to the Divine will; a test, simply considered, of obedience to God.
2. It has been remarked that the circumstances in which Adam was, at his creation, were such as to remove him from all temptations to, and, in some instances, from all possibility of, committing those sins which now most frequently abound amongst his posterity; “which is one thought of considerable importance to vindicate the Divine wisdom in that constitution under which he was placed.”
3. We further observe that it was specially appropriate in this, that, from the comparatively little and trivial character of the action prohibited, it taught the important lesson that the real guilt of sin lay in its principle, the principle of rebellion against God’s will; not in the extent of the mischief done, or of the consequences arising out of it.
4. I might notice also its precision. The language of Dr. Dwight on another part of this subject may be fairly applied here. “It brought the duty which he (Adam) was called to perform up to his view in the most distinct manner possible, and rendered it too intelligible to be mistaken. No room was left for doubt or debate. The object in question was a sensible object, perfectly defined, and perfectly understood.” No metaphysical or philosophical discussion was demanded or admitted.
5. A test of this particular kind being once admitted to be suitable, the one actually selected was one which, from its obvious connection with the condition in which our first parents were placed, was, in the highest degree, natural. “Considering they were placed in a garden, what so natural, what so suitable to their situation, as forbidding them to eat of the fruit of a certain tree in that garden?” “The liberal grant of food was the extent of their liberty; this single limitation the test of their obedience.”
6. It was, besides, an easy test. It was neither any mighty thing they were to do, nor any mighty indulgence they were to deny themselves, that was made the criterion of their subjection to God. (R. Wardlaw, D. D.)
Observations
I. IT IS THE USUAL CUSTOM OF SATAN TO ATTEMPT MEN BEFORE THEY BE CONFIRMED, AND SETTLED IN A COURSE OF GODLINESS.
II. SATAN CONTRIVES MISCHIEF, EVEN AGAINST SUCH AS NEVER PROVOKED HIM. Hope not for peace with wicked men, who being Satan’s seed, must needs resemble his nature, as our Saviour testifies they do Joh_8:44), seeing a good man’s peace with them is--
1. Impossible, because of the contrariety between good and evil men every way. As,--
(1) In their very disposition a good and wicked man are an abomination one to another (Pro_29:27).
(2) And are employed in the service of contrary masters, Christ and Belial 2Co_6:15).
(3) They follow, and are guided by contrary rules, the law of sin (as the apostle terms it, Rom_7:23), and the law of righteousness, as God’s law is termed (Psa_119:172).
(4) And are carried in all their ways and actions to contrary ends: whence it necessarily follows that they must continually cross one another in all the course of their conversation.
III. NO PLACE NOR EMPLOYMENT CAN FREE US FROM SATAN’S ASSAULTS.
IV. THOUGH SATAN BE THE AUTHOR AND PERSUADER TO EVERY SINFUL MOTION, YET HE LOVES NOT TO BE SEEN IN IT. In casting of evil thoughts into the heart, he makes use of inward and indiscernible suggestions; that though we find the motion in our hearts, yet we cannot discover how they entered into our minds. Thus he stirred up David to number the people 1Ch_21:1), entered into Judas (Luk_22:3), was a lying spirit in the mouth of Zedekiah, though he knew not which way he entered into him (1Ki_22:23-24). But oftentimes he makes use of some outward instruments by which he conveys his counsels, sometimes taking on him the shape of unreasonable creatures, as he always doth in dealing with witches and conjurers, and as we see he dealt with Eve in this place, although more usually he makes use of men to beguile men by, as he did in tempting Ahab by Jezebel his wife (1Ki_21:25), and by his false prophet.
V. SATAN USUALLY MAKES CHOICE OF THOSE INSTRUMENTS WHICH HE FINDS FITTEST FOR THE COMPASSING OF HIS OWN WICKED ENDS. Thus he makes use of the wise and learned to persuade, of men of power and authority to command, and to compel men to evil practices, of beautiful women to allure to lust, of great men to countenance, and of men of strength and power to exercise violence and oppression. And this he doth upon a double reason.
1. That whereas God hath therefore given great abilities to some above others, to enable them the better for His service, that He might have the more honour thereby, Satan, as it were, to despite God the more, turns his own weapons against himself to dishonour him all he can in that wherein he seeks, and out of which he ought to receive his greatest glory.
2. Necessity enforceth him to make the best choice he can of able instruments, because carrying men in sinful courses, he must needs have the help of strong means, the work being difficult in itself, as crossing all God’s ways.
VI. CUNNING AND SUBTLE PERSONS ARE DANGEROUS INSTRUMENTS TO DECEIVE AND THEREBY TO DO MISCHIEF. Such a one was Jonadab, to show Amnon the way to defile his own sister (2Sa_13:1-39). Ahitophel to further Absalom’s treason against his own father (2Sa_15:1-37; 2Sa_16:23). Such were the scribes and Pharisees, our Saviour’s enemies, and murderers at last, whom He everywhere taxeth for their pride, covetousness, and subtle dissimulation: with whom we may join Elymas the sorcerer, fall of all subtilty, whom the devil made use of, to turn away the people’s hearts from receiving Paul’s ministry. But what are those to Satan himself, that sets them all on work, called the old serpent, more subtle, and consequently more dangerously mischievous than all his agents?
VII. NO ADVANTAGE CAN ASSURE A CHILD OF GOD FROM THE ASSAULTS AND TEMPTATIONS OF SATAN.
VIII. OUR WEAKNESS IS SATAN’S ADVANTAGE.
IX. SOLITARINESS IS OFTEN A SNARE.
1. It yields advantage to temptations (as appears in David’s entangling himself with lust after Bath-sheba when he was alone); whence it was, that our Saviour, to give Satan all the advantage that might be, that thereby He might make His victory over him the more glorious, went out to encounter with him in the solitary wilderness.
2. Solitariness gives the greater opportunity to commit sin unespied of men; an advantage upon which Joseph’s mistress attempts him to commit adultery with her (Gen_39:11-12).
3. It deprives men of help, by advice and counsel to withstand the temptation. So, Ecc_4:10; Ecc_4:12.
4. Man was ordained for society, and fitted with abilities for that purpose, and as he is most serviceable that way, so he is most safe, as being secured by God’s protection in that way and employment, to which the Lord hath assigned him.
X. SATAN’S MAIN END IS MAN’S DESTRUCTION, BY TURNING AWAY HIS HEART FROM GOD.
XI. IT IS USUAL WITH SATAN AND HIS INSTRUMENTS TO PRETEND THE GOOD OF THOSE WHOM THEY INTEND WHOLLY TO DESTROY.
XII. SATAN AND HIS AGENTS IN TEMPTING MEN TO SIN, ARE VERY WARY IN DISCOVERING THEIR FULL INTENTIONS AT FIRST, TILL THEY SEE HOW THEY WILL BE ENTERTAINED.
XIII. DISCRETION AND WARINESS IN MEN’S ACTIONS OUGHT NOT TO HINDER THE EFFECTUAL PROSECUTION OF THAT WHICH THEY INTEND.
XIV. THE FORGETTING OF GOD’S MERCIES IS A GREAT MEANS TO TAKE OFF A MAN’S HEART FROM CLEAVING TO HIM.
XV. IT IS A DANGEROUS SNARE TO A MAN TO HAVE HIS EYES TOO MUCH FIXED UPON HIS WANTS.
XVI. THE NATURE OF MAN, BY THE ART AND POLICY OF SATAN, IS APT TO BE CARRIED AGAINST ALL RESTRAINT AND SUBJECTION.
XVII. AMBIGUOUS AND DOUBTFUL EXPRESSIONS MAY BE AND MANY TIMES ARE DANGEROUS SNARES. If they be purposely used. As--
1. Betraying an ill mind and affection in him that proposeth them, seeing men that think well and sincerely have no cause to cover their intentions with the darkness of doubtful terms.
2. And being dangerous means to lead men into error, if they be not wisely and heedfully observed. (J. White, M. A.)
But why did God give Adam this law, seeing God did foresee that Adam would transgress it?
I. It was Adam’s fault that he did not keep the law; God gave him a stock of grace to trade with, but he of himself broke.
II. Though God foresaw Adam would transgress, yet that was not a sufficient reason that Adam should have no law given him; for, by the same reason, God should not have given His written word to men, to be a rule of faith and manners, because He foresaw that some would not believe, and others would be profane. Shall not laws be made in the land, because some break them?
III. God, though He foresaw Adam would break the law, He knew how to turn it to a greater good, in sending Christ. The first covenant being broken, He knew how to establish a second, and a better. (T. Watson.)
The woman and the serpent
I. THE WISDOM OF THE WORLD. Among the maxims of this wisdom are these--
1. That happiness is the end of human existence.
2. That nature is a sufficient source of happiness.
3. That man’s chief happiness lies in forbidden objects.
4. That God is what we fancy or desire Him to be.
II. THE QUALITIES OF SIN.
1. The elements of all sin are here--sensuality, covetousness, ambition.
2. Sin originates in unbelief.
3. It wears a specious appearance of goodness.
III. THE RESULTS OF SIN. It--
1. Transforms its victims into Satanic incarnations.
2. Reveals its own deceptiveness.
3. Covers its victims with confusion. (J. A. Macdonald.)
Little sins, if not prevented, bring on greater, to the ruin of the soul
Thieves, when they go to rob a house, if they cannot force the doors, or that the wall is so strong that they cannot break through, then they bring little boys along with them, and these they put in at the windows, who are no sooner in, but they unbolt the doors and let in the whole company of thieves. And thus Satan, when by greater sins he cannot tell how to enter the soul, then he puts on and makes way by lesser, which, insensibly having got entrance, set open the doors of the eyes and the doors of the ears, and then comes in the whole rabble: there they take up their quarters, there, like unruly soldiers, they rule, domineer, and do what they list, to the ruin of the soul so possessed. (J. Spencer.)
The great danger of not keeping close to God’s Word
It is a thing very well known in the great and populous city of London, that when children, or some of bigger growth newly come out of the country, and so not well acquainted with the streets, are either lost or found straying from their home, there is a sort of lewd, wicked people (commonly called “spirits”) that presently fasten upon them, and, by falsehood and fair language, draw them further out of their way, then sell them to foreign plantations, to the great grief of their parents and friends, who, in all likelihood, never afterwards hear what is become of them. Thus it is that, when men and women are found straggling from God their Father, the Church their mother, and refuse to be led by the good guidance of the blessed Spirit--when they keep not to the Law and to the Testimony, nor stick close to the Word of God, which is in itself a lantern to their feet and a light unto their paths--then no marvel if they meet with wicked spirits, seducers and false teachers, that lead them captive at their will, and that, not receiving the truth in the love of the truth, God gives them over to strong delusions, to believe a lie. (J. Spencer.)
The serpent
Here is the devil--that apostate spirit--that accursed being--that arch rebel--that daring adversary of God--that merciless foe of man. Eden’s serpent truly is the devil. His work declares him. God’s Word denounces him.
1. The devil is a real person. This relation is no myth--no dream--no vision--no fable--no allegory. It narrates the real conduct of a real person. Works prove a workman. Acts show an agent. So real performances stamp a real devil. Watch then, and pray. He is always personally near; for he “walketh about seeking whom he may devour” 1Pe_5:8). Bar the portals of your heart. He seeks to make that heart his personal home. He is the “spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience” (Eph_2:2).
2. The devil is a hater of God. Who hates God most? Surely he who most contravenes His will. Of the devil’s antecedent rebellion nothing should be said, for nothing can be proved. But here a patent fact evidences his enmity. He aims directly to upset God’s plans. He arms himself in the panoply of bold opposition. Thus he schemes; thus he uplifts his arm boldly to fight against God. See, then, how he hates God. Reader, you profess to love God. Where is your evidence? Do you abhor the fiend, who from the beginning has strained his every power to subvert God’s kingdom?
3. The devil is a hater of man. Who hates man most? Surely he who most contrives his misery. In Eden there was sweet bliss. Every faculty was the inlet of God. Every thought--full of Him--was only joy. Satan beholds and writhes. What I shall man share the peace which he has lost: and joy in joys, which never can be his again? Such bliss is torture to him. He will not rest till he uproot it. Sad that the sons of men should ]end their ears so gladly to their deadliest foe, and drink so readily this viper’s poison! What madness to court the embrace of such an enemy--to admit the sure murderer to our abode--to open the door to the known robber!
4. The devil is most daring. Truly nothing daunts him. His case is hopeless, therefore he is reckless.
5. The devil is consummate in skill. He watches for the fit opportunity; and then applies the fit snare.
6. The devil shrinks not from the blackest sin. His first appearance shows that there is no iniquity so foul, but he will handle it; no depth of evil so profound, but he will fathom it. He commences with trampling down all truth. “Ye shall not surely die.” He rises upon earth the meridian orb of crime. He blushes not--nor trembles--nor pauses--nor scruples. His earliest words are the lie of lies. So now he allures each victim to the extremest extremity of evil.
7. The devil has awful power. Weak agents fail. Difficulties baffle them. But he is not baffled. His first victory was hard to win. But he quickly won it. Reader, beware. All his mighty arts plot your destruction. (Dean Law.)
Original state of man
Now, in respect of this I cannot but believe that we often impose upon ourselves, and cherish a picture which is not consonant with the reality, and foster an illusion which is not a little heightened and strengthened by the strong language commonly used in speaking or writing of man’s condition paradise as one of absolute perfection. From such language we are apt to carry away the notion that Adam was a being not only physically complete and perfect, but also a being whose intellectual and moral nature was in its highest degree developed,--a being, in short, to whom nothing needed to be added to render him perfect in all his parts. Along with this, we are apt to fancy that his condition in paradise was one of the most perfect felicity which the human nature is capable of enjoying. Now, that this is an illusive view of man’s primitive condition, will, I think, appear from the following considerations:
1. On a mere general survey, and looking at man simply in his physical and intellectual aspect, it must strike one that the highest state of man is not and cannot be that of a naked animal, with nothing to do but to keep a garden, already richly furnished with all that is “pleasant to the eye and good for food.” It is inconceivable that with capacities for thought and work, such as man even in the lowest state of civilization is seen to possess, the perfection of his nature and his supreme felicity can have been realized in a state of such simplicity and in a sphere so limited as that which paradise afforded to our first parents.
2. It must also, I think, strike one that if Adam was the perfect being intellectually and morally he is often represented as having been, it is inconceivable that he should have fallen before so slight a temptation, or yielded to so trifling an impulse as that by which he was led to transgress the Divine prohibition.
3. The law of man’s nature is that he reaches perfection only by a slow process of growth and gradual development, secured through the due exercise of his faculties. This is inseparable from his constitution as a free intelligent agent. That God could create an intelligent being from the first absolutely perfect, so that he neither needed to become nor could become more complete either intellectually or morally than he was at the moment of his creation, is not to be denied, for with God all things are possible. But such a being would not be like any of those whom God has formed. It was not so that God made man. Man, as he came from the hand of his Maker, was a free, intelligent, self-governing agent, capable of development, and needing experience, trial, and use in order to attain both the proper growth of his physical and mental faculties, and the strengthening, maturing, and perfecting of his moral nature. Of every such being it is in a very important sense true that he is his own maker. From God he receives the faculties and capacities by which he is to be enabled to fulfil the functions of his position; but he must himself use these, and use them wisely and well, if he is really to advance in culture and rise towards the perfection of his being. Now, we have no reason to believe that it was otherwise with our first parents. Their nature was the same as ours, and it is to be presumed that the same law applied to them in this respect as to us. They could reach perfection only by the continuous use of the faculties they possessed. It would seem even that their moral perceptions needed the discipline of evil before it could be fully developed; for it was after they had sinned that God said, “Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil,” i.e., to make moral distinctions, to discern between good and evil Gen_3:22). Not that they needed personally to sin in order to attain to this, but that it was only by experience that they could arrive at an apprehension of the distinction between good and evil. And as it was only by experience that their moral nature could be fully matured, so we may safely affirm of their whole nature that it could reach perfection only by the free and intelligent use of those faculties, physical, intellectual, and moral, with which God had endowed them. “Mere animal natures are finished from the first; God took everything that concerned them upon Himself, and left them nothing to do. But it was His will that man should be His fellow worker in the great feat of his own creation, and thereby in the completion of all creation; the Father left the mighty work unfinished, so to speak, until the child should set his seal on it.” We must think of man, then, in his first estate, as he came from the hand of his Creator, not as a perfect, fully matured being, but rather as a man-child,--a man with noble capacities, but these as yet undeveloped, and with everything to learn--an innocent, pure, guileless being, with no bias to evil, without any knowledge of evil, with affections tending naturally to good, and with a soul capable of rising to a freedom like that of God, who is of purer eyes than to behold sin, and who cannot be tempted of evil. Adam was placed in paradise as in a school, a training place suited to a beginner, and where the lessons and the discipline were such as his almost infantile condition required. (W. L. Alexander, D. D.)
Probation, temptation, and fall of man
1. The probation.
(1) This assumed the form of a restriction upon their absolute right to do as they would with the place in which God had placed them.
(2) To some it has appeared as if there was something in this arrangement unworthy of the dignity of the parties involved in it, or unbecoming the wisdom and beneficence of Him to whom it is ascribed; and hence doubts have been cast on the historical integrity of this part of the Mosaic narrative.
1. And, first, there are some who seem to stumble at the littleness of the trial to which man was thus exposed, and on which such mighty results were made to depend. If so, they must be prepared to object to one of the most manifest of those laws under which this world is administered; for nothing can be more obvious and certain than that the mightiest and most permanent effects are constantly resulting from the most apparently trivial and transient causes. Or do they object to so feeble a test of man’s obedience being imposed? If this be their meaning, it is obvious to reply that so much the more was the arrangement favourable to man, and therefore beneficent and gracious. The more insignificant the self-denial required in order to obedience, the easier the obedience and the more probable the success of the probationer. Never, we may say, was a moral experiment conducted under circumstances more favourable to the subject of it.
2. As others advance this objection, it assumes the shape of a protest against the dishonour which it is alleged is done to God by the representation of Him as a being who would make a condition of spiritual advantage dependent on an external act. A mere physical act as such has no moral character at all; and though it may be the index of a man’s moral state or tendencies, it is not, nor ever can be, an adequate test of them. The test to which Adam and Eve were subjected was not so much whether they would eat or not eat this particular fruit, but whether they would respect and obey or neglect and transgress God’s prohibition. It was not, therefore, on any mere external act that man’s fate depended; it was on such an act as connected with, flowing from, and giving evidence of a particular state of mind. The hinge in Adam’s testing turned really not so much on his eating or abstaining from this fruit or that, but on his obeying or transgressing
God’s commandment. Was such a test unfair to man? Was it unworthy of God?
3. Another form in which the objection to the Mosaic account of the trial of our first parents is presented is that in which stress is laid on the purely positive and apparently arbitrary character of the test by which their obedience was to be tried. This was the only arrangement possible; for how is the virtue of a sinless being to be tested but by means of some positive precept? In such a being moral truth is so perfectly a part of the inner life, that it is only when a positive duty is enjoined that the mind comes to a consciousness of objective law and extrinsic government so as to render obedience. But even supposing a moral test could have been proposed, was it not much more in Adam’s favour that his obedience should have been tested by a positive enactment? What God required of him was thus clearly and unmistakably brought before him.
4. Some profound thinkers have started the doubt whether it be possible for a limited intelligence, left to the freedom of its own will, to avoid transgressing the boundaries of duty, and so falling into sin. Without entering at present into so difficult a speculation, we may admit that a limited intelligence is, from the very fact of its limitation, very likely to be exposed to a strong inducement from mere curiosity, not to speak of other motives, to pass beyond the limits within which it may be confined. What lies on the other side of this barrier which I am forbidden to pass? Why am I forbidden to pass it? What will be the result to me if I do pass it? These and such like questionings, working in the mind, are very likely to result in a daring attempt to remove the barrier, or to overleap it, and thereby, if it be a moral barrier, to plunge into sin. Obviously, therefore, the kindest and best arrangement for man in his state of primeval probation was one which should reduce the action of such provocative curiosity to the lowest possible form, which should hem him in by no vague, mystic, uncertain prohibition, but by one perfectly single and intelligible, and which should leave him in no doubt as to the certain misery into which he would bring himself if he suffered any motive to carry him beyond the limits which that prohibition prescribed. Such an arrangement the wisdom and the goodness of God instituted for our first parents in their probationary state; their continuance in happiness was made to depend on their submission to one simple and most intelligible restriction; they had but to refrain from the fruit of one tree, while of all the others they might freely eat; and they knew beforehand what the consequences would be of their violating this restriction. (W. L. Alexander, D. D.)
Eastern ideas regarding the serpent
1. Almost throughout the East, the serpent was used as an emblem of the evil principle, of the spirit of disobedience and contumacy. A few exceptions only can be discovered. The Phoenicians adored that animal as a beneficent genius; and the Chinese consider it as a symbol of superior wisdom and power, and ascribe to the kings of heaven (tien-hoangs)
bodies of serpents. Some other nations fluctuated in their conceptions regarding the serpent. The Egyptians represented the eternal spirit Kneph, the author of all good, under the mythic form of that reptile; they understood the art of taming it, and embalmed it after death; but they applied the same symbol for the god of revenge and punishment (Tithrambo), and for Typhon, the author of all moral and physical evil; and in the Egyptian symbolical alphabet the serpent represents subtlety and cunning, lust and sensual pleasure. In Greek mythology, it is certainly, on the one hand, the attribute of Ceres, of Mercury, and of AEsculapius, in their most beneficent qualities; but it forms, on the other hand, a part of the terrible Furies or Eumenides: it appears, in the form of Python, as a fearful monster, which the arrows of a god only were able to destroy; and it is the most hideous and most formidable part of the impious giants who despise and blaspheme the power of heaven. The Indians, like the savage tribes of Africa and America, suffer and nourish, indeed, serpents in their temples, and even in their houses; they believe that they bring happiness to the places which they inhabit; they worship them as the symbols of eternity; but they regard them also as evil genii, or as the inimical powers of nature which is gradually depraved by them, as the enemies of the gods, who either tear them to pieces, or tread their venomous head under their all-conquering feet. So contradictory is all animal worship. Its principle is, in some instances, gratitude, and in others fear; but if a noxious animal is very dangerous, the fear may manifest itself in two ways, either by the resolute desire of extirpating the beast, or by the wish of averting the conflict with its superior power: thus the same fear may, on the one hand, cause fierce enmity, and, on the other, submission and worship. Further, the animals may be considered either as the creatures of the powers of nature, or as a production of the Divine will; and those religious systems, therefore, which acknowledge a dualism, either in nature or in the Deity, or which admit the antagonism between God and nature, must almost unavoidably regard the same animals now as objects of horror, and now of veneration. From all these aberrations, Mosaism was preserved by its fundamental principle of the one and indivisible God, in whose hands is nature with all its hosts, and to whose wise and good purposes all creatures are subservient. (M. M.Kalisch, Ph. D.)
Yea, hath God said
The devil’s questions
I. IT IS DANGEROUS TO LAY OPEN OURSELVES FREELY TO PERSONS UNKNOWN, OR SUCH OF WHOM WE HAVE NO ASSURANCE.
II. IT IS A DANGEROUS THING TO QUESTION OR DEBATE EVIDENT AND KNOWN TRUTHS. Principles in all sciences are exempted from dispute, much more should they be in divinity. Amongst which we may account--
1. The dictates of nature, written by the finger of God in all men’s hearts, as, that there is a God (Rom_1:19-20); that He judgeth the world Psa_58:11), and that in righteousness, which is a principle that Jeremy will not dispute (Jer_12:1); and that consequently it shall be well with the good, and ill with the wicked at last (Ecc_12:13), as being truths, which every man’s conscience within his own breast gives testimony unto.
2. Such truths as are delivered by God Himself, either recorded in His Word (as the creation of the world and that great mystery of man’s redemption by Jesus Christ, etc.), or made known unto us by any special message from God. And by this assenting unto the truths of God, without questioning or admitting them into debate,
(1) We seal unto His truth (Joh_3:33), and give him the honour of a God, to be believed upon His own testimony; whereas we believe not men upon their word without some further evidence.
(2) And by the same means we provide for our safety, who having our minds full of ignorance, and by their corrupt disposition, more inclinable to embrace lies rather than truth, might be endangered by admitting known truth to debate, to be mislead by the mists of human reasonings into error, to the endangering or overthrowing of our faith. These were Eve’s gross oversights in entertaining conference with Satan, a person unknown, and that about such a manifest and evident truth.
III. BLASPHEMOUS AND FOUL SUGGESTIONS OUGHT NOT TO BE HEARD WITHOUT INDIGNATION AND DETESTATION.
1. To manifest our zeal for God’s honour and for His truth.
2. By it we secure ourselves from a farther assault, which we easily invite when we bear such blasphemies with too much softness of spirit and patience.
3. And harden our own hearts against such wicked suggestions by abhorring the very mention of them.
4. And oftentimes terrify the suggesters themselves, or at least put them to shame.
IV. WHEN GOD’S MERCIES ARE MENTIONED WE MUST WITHAL BE CAREFUL TO REMEMBER HIS NAME THAT BESTOWS THEM.
1. That by entitling God unto, and prefixing His own name before His works of mercy, wherewith men’s hearts are most affected, He may be highly advanced above all things, and held out and proclaimed to the world as the fountain of all goodness, when all the good things which we enjoy, and in which we rejoice, are still laid down at His foot.
2. There is an evil disposition in men’s hearts to forget God in His mercies Deu_32:18; Psa_106:21), and to ascribe them to themselves (Dan_4:25).
V. GOD’S MERCIES OUGHT NOT, WHEN THEY ARE SPOKEN OF, TO BE REPRESENTED IN COLD AND WEAK EXPRESSIONS.
1. Because they, having their hearts enlarged in the apprehension of them inwardly, cannot but speak as they think of them.
2. It is our duty to advance the Lord by all the means we can, that His name alone may be excellent (Psa_148:13), and great (Mal_1:11). Now, nothing advanceth His name more than His mercies, which therefore must be set out as the mercies of God, high, and without comparison.
3. When all is done, and we have made use of all our art and abilities, to set out God’s mercies in the largest manner that we can devise, all our words come infinitely short of the full extent of those things which we desire to represent.
4. In the meantime, while we strive to set out things in the fullest measure, we warm our own hearts, and quicken our affections the more, and fill our hearts with the greater admiration of those things which exceed all our expressions. (J. White, M. A.)
Satan’s question
I. SATAN’S TEMPTATIONS BEGIN BY LAYING A DOUBT AT THE ROOT. He does not assert error; he does not contradict truth; but he confounds both. He makes his first entries, not by violent attack, but by secret sapping; he endeavours to confuse and cloud the mind which he is afterwards going to kill.
II. THE PARTICULAR CHARACTER OF THESE TROUBLESOME AND WICKED QUESTIONINGS OF THE MIND VARIES ACCORDING TO THE STATE AND TEMPERAMENT AND CHARACTER OF EACH INDIVIDUAL.
1. In order to combat them, everyone should have his mind stored and fortified with some of the evidences of the Christian religion. To these he should recur whenever he feels disquieted; he should be able to give “a reason for the hope that is in him,” and an answer to that miserable shadow that flits across his mind, “Yea, hath God said?”
2. A man must be careful that his course of life is not one giving advantage to the tempter. He must not be dallying under the shadow of the forbidden tree, lest the tempter meet him and he die.
III. THE FAR END OF SATAN IS TO DIMINISH FROM THE GLORY OF GOD. To mar God’s designs he insinuated his wily coil into the garden of Eden; to mar God’s designs he met Jesus Christ in the wilderness, on the mountain top, and on the pinnacle of the temple; to mar God’s design he is always leading us to take unworthy views of God’s nature and God’s work. (J. Vaughan, M. A.)
The temptation, the fall, and the promise
I. THE PARTIES TO BE TESTED.
II. THE TEMPTER.
1. The instrument was a serpent.
2. The real agent was Satan.
III. THE TEMPTATION. Literally the tempter says, “Then it is so that God hath said, ‘Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden.’” As if so incredible a report could be believed only on the positive assertion of Eve herself. He then insinuates that God had issued this prohibition from other motives than love. He hints at something strange, if not unjust or unkind, on the part of God. Like other trees, Eve perceives that the forbidden one is “good for food and pleasant to the sight.” Unlike other trees, she is now informed that it is capable of affording wisdom; that eating from it gives knowledge of good and evil; that while other trees minister to the sense, this ministers also to the reason. Thus all parts of Eve’s sensitive nature are wrought upon; her fancy is aroused, curiosity awakened, desire for knowledge excited.
IV. THE SIN. Eve sought knowledge in a way foreign to God’s will. He would have her know good by adopting it, and evil by resisting it. By disobedience she came to know good as a forfeited possession, and evil as a purchased bane. She found that unlawful knowledge was dearly bought, and that a stolen likeness to God brought sorrow.
V. THE NATURAL CONSEQUENCES OF SIN. Conscious of their sin, they fancy that their guilty bosoms are open to every eye. But the accuser is in their own breasts. They have opened the door, and the sweet-songed bird of innocence has flown.
VI. THE SENTENCE. In God’s dealings with the human pair there was a mingling of justice and mercy. By their sin they had become spiritually dead--had died in the sense in which God declared they should. Their true life--that of holiness--was gone. Existence now was but partial andabnormal. For this altered moral state God made for them a change externally. The world which they and their sinful seed were to inhabit, must be adapted to a race of sinners. Hence God made it, not a place of punishment, but of discipline; the end being to restore to the race their lost holiness. Bodily fatigue, the thorn-infested ground, and the dread of dying (an event which, but for the Fall, would have had no terror), all these were designed as chastisements for man’s sins, and at the same time as agencies to reclaim him from it.
VII. THE PROMISE OF A DELIVERER. (P. B. Davis.)
Man’s enemy makes his appearance
The passage takes for granted that there was already an enemy in existence. There had been sin before, somewhere, though where is not said. There had been an enemy somewhere; but how he had become so, or where he had hitherto dwelt, or how he had found his way to this world, is not recorded. That he knew about our world, and that he had some connection with it, is evident; though whether as its original possessor, or a stranger coming from far in search of spoil, we cannot discover. All that is implied in the narrative is, that there did exist an enemy--one who hated God, and who now sought to get vent to that hatred by undoing His handiwork. This enemy now makes his appearance. He has not been bound; he has not been prohibited entrance: he gets free scope to work. He shall be bound hereafter, when the times of restitution of all things commence, but not yet. He shall not be permitted to enter the “new earth,” but he is allowed to enter and do his work of evil in the first earth. (H. Bonar, D. D.)
God not the author of sin
Thus we learn, even at the outset, that God is not the author of sin. It is the creature that introduces it. God, no doubt, could have hindered it, but for wise ends He allows it. We know also how sin spreads itself. It is always active. It multiplies and propagates itself. Every fallen being becomes a tempter, seeking to ruin others--to drag them down to the same death into which he has himself been driven. (H. Bonar, D. D.)
The process of temptation
1. We may consider that the fact is established that man was created with a nature capable of temptation, and placed in the highest possible probation for the discipline of that nature. Our first parents stood as a stately oak upon a plain, beat upon by an impetuous storm, but meeting it with all the vigour and power of original uprightness. The hurricane beneath which they sunk may have been more severe than ours, but the bias of their nature made their probation less difficult. What, then, is that nature in us to which temptation addresses itself?
2. Who is the being that applies that temptation? And what are the instruments and modes of his attacks, and of our self-defence? These are questions of no small moment. Temptation implies the existence of two natures to which adverse powers and influences appeal, and in Holy Scripture these two natures in us are called the “flesh and spirit”; that they exist in more or less activity in every one of us an examination of ourselves will prove. We all know it; but more than this, they are contrary one to the other. It is this very perverseness in our nature which shows more than anything the contradictoriness of sin, and the warfare between the flesh and the spirit.
3. The personality and individuality of the tempter are points which it is most important to establish. That tempter is our constant companion, he has gauged his word to bring his one victim a bound captive to the gate of hell. The only solace, if we may use such a term, to his miserable eternity will be the consciousness that by his side is one who shares forever the intensity of his agony, though not one throb of anguish will be alleviated in himself. It will be something that every throe is but a reflex of the torture of his companion; his delight is in suffering, his sympathy is in woe; he rejoices, if joy can be felt in hell, in iniquity and pain. That tempter, if he loses his one victim, has no other which he can effect, unless he can regain his entrance into the home from which he has been expelled.
4. But I pass on to the next point, the medium through which the tempter acts. That he has power to affect every portion of our being, and to cast the deepest shadow over it, as an evening cloud can obscure the radiance of the setting sun on the marble columns of some eastern temple, there is no doubt. The lustful thought, the disrelish for heaven, the positive dislike for goodness, the deep despondency, are, with a thousand other infirmities and sins, traceable to the connection of the spirit with the body; and in proportion as that body is subjugated by discipline, the power of those sins will be weakened, and when the spirit will be freed from the present corruptible body, it will be wholly liberated. But all this is widely different from the doctrine which would teach that the bodies of men or matter generally are materially and actually wicked. They are instruments, and that is all. We have the same kind of power over them as we have over the staff we lean on, or the glass we use to aid the eyesight. Let us conceive the case of some instrument which has the greatest possible degree of connection with ourselves, and the greatest possible power to influence us, yet over which we have perfect control: such a case will be a very fair analogy for our relation with the body. Our bodies are temples; we may neither worship them nor despise them. They are instruments, as we use them, for good or evil. They are given for the discipline of the soul; for its aid, or for its hindrance. They are its school house, in which it is taught to spell the syllables of heaven. But more, it is manifest that Satan affects the spirit independently of the body. There are dreams when the soul realizes that awful state of separation from its physical condition, and ranges unfettered up and down the universe. Then sometimes Satan pursues it in its flight, and suggests awful thoughts. There are sudden unaccountable bursts of passion; injuries long since forgotten; exciting feelings for vengeance; dislikes for holiness, for good men; unaccountable desires to swear; without a cause to curse; for its own sake to steal, though the next instant the object for which honesty was bartered is thrown unvalued aside to rot and decay; there are strange wanderings when we would pray, in the church, in the chancel, at the altar, the spirit yet wings her flight to every region of the imagined universe, the corners furthest removed from God: all these are influences of Satan. Satan does tempt the spirit independently of the body; for these temptations, many of them, show no trace of physical cause. But that spirit, too, is in our power to bear us heavenward, or to the gate of hell, as we would have it. It may be the wing of the archangel soaring to the gate of paradise, or, it may be as the waxen wing of Icarus bringing us down to destruction. It is as we would have it. Has Satan ever power to tempt body or spirit in such a manner as we have no power to resist? It seems that he has. There are faint foreshadowings of that power in the cases of Pharaoh and Judas. There are cases in the experience of most of us, where the drunkard, after years of resisted conscience, has so entirely become the victim of the tempter, that the resolution formed daily with the bitter weeping of remorse, pales off each evening before the fire of the tempter, until at last, he passes from the hell on earth to the hell of eternity.
5. Satan binds us first with cords of silk; ere long they have become coils of rope; a little while and they are cables, scarcely to be bent; another interval, and the rope has become a chain, and the chain a bar of iron which no human power can resist. He creeps upon us.
6. Another favourite mode of his attack will be, as Jeremy Taylor quaintly illustrates, through the outward circumstances of a man. Adam, says he, so fascinated by the beauty and meekness of his new wife, was easily ensnared by her solicitations, and Satan consequently made use of her as the instrument of the fall of man. Over the stumbling stones of their partial affection for their younger born, even Rebecca and Jacob successively fell; and the same overweening love which the mother bore to her child was inherited and transmitted to its cost to Joseph and Benjamin. To us a favourite scheme, an idolized child, a friend on whom we lean, an honest calling, a noble aim, a brilliant yet well-directed talent, may, each one of them, from at first being planets clear and radiant in our sky, turn into baseless meteors and falling stars. They may be the fire damps of our ruin when they were the guiding stars of our salvation.
7. But I must mention a third mode through which the tempter will affect our spiritual nature independently alike of disposition or circumstance. He often acts, as was suggested above, in a sudden and unaccountable manner, and, as the Arab who kneels at the muezzin on the sand of the desert, over whose crimson sea the setting sun is shedding its ray without a cloud in the sky or an object on the earth, would be startled at the sight of a shadow fleeting over the bosom of the wilderness; so we are often startled by the sudden suggestion of lust, of doubt, of anger, of intense pride, of ruthless bitterness against another, of dislike to God, when within five minutes of the passing shade we thought we were kneeling in the cloudless sunshine of prayer, meditation, or communion. Nothing so shows the actual existence of the tempter as this. Against these unexpected attacks the habit of holiness and prayer can alone be a protection. We cannot tell where the weed will grow in the most highly cultivated garden; at any point may spring couch grass and the nettle; it is only by a state of general cultivation and purity that we can depend on the produce of our soil. The fever, the pestilence, may fall on the best ordered house and the most abstemious body, yet we know cleanliness and temperance are the best preservers. Apply the same rule to your spiritual life. One word of high encouragement and I have done. The eyes that watch us like lamps around our path; the watching eyes of the holy and the just, like starlight gleaming above us; the quiet gaze of the blessed in paradise, beaming like the moon that shines in softness with its borrowed lustre; the hosts of unfallen angels, like the sun that shines in its strength; the eye of Jesus and the Father from the great white throne, watch us daily. The page of man’s brief annals teems with instances of suffering, borne to its last throb without a sigh, and all because the world around or the generations to come would smile on or admire the deed. The eyes that gaze on us are more radiant and more holy; they are the eyes of eternity; let us not disappoint them, they watch us. Perhaps but another day and our strife may be ended! (E. Monro, M. A.)
Temptation of the first and of the second man
I invite you to notice how exactly parallel the temptation of the second Adam was to the temptation of the first. This cannot fail to concern us very greatly: for it is a clear intimation, afforded us by the person best qualified to make it, viz., by the devil, of our special liability, through certain avenues of choice, to fall away from God.
1. We are to note that the rebellion of the lower appetites against the powers of reason and the dictates of conscience, must be the prevailing form of human sin: for it was the seductiveness of the fruit of one particular tree which originally moved our first mother to disobey. And this is what the beloved disciple calls “the lust of the flesh.”
2. There is the illusion produced in our higher nature when outward things are seen otherwise than in the light of God. Eve was seduced by the prospect of enlarged views, and the promise that her eyes should be opened. And this is that “lust of the eyes” of which the same apostle speaks.
3. There is the spiritual snare of becoming to oneself the highest object, the standard to which all other things are to be referred. Man thus becomes a god to himself, and straightway directs his proceedings by reference to himself instead of to God. And to this, Eve’s desires tended when her pride (that special work of the devil) was called forth by the representation “ye shall be as gods.” St. John calls this the “pride of life.”. . .”God doth know” (said the tempter) “that in the day ye eat thereof”--here was the first seduction: “your eyes shall be opened”--there was the second: “and ye shall be as gods”--there was the third. Accordingly, it was “when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise,” that “she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat.” How exactly in our Lord’s case Satan addressed himself to the same three instincts, seeking first to inspire sensual distrust; next spiritual presumption; lastly worldly ambition; needs hardly to be pointed out. The order of the last two temptations was however inverted in the case of the second Adam. And why? I presume because the first of the three temptations had been resisted. Accordingly, from the seduction of sensuality the transition is made at once to the seduction of pride, these being the two extremes between which the fallen nature of man oscillates continually. Let us further note, in both cases (in paradise, I mean, and in the wilderness), that the instrument with which the reason is plied is still the same, namely, calumnious insinuation. A misrepresentation of the truth, and that couched in the modest form of an inquiry, was the tempter’s device. He at first asserted nothing. He asked, as if for information. He might have known, he did know, the truth . . . I am much mistaken if something very similar to this is not Satan’s method still. “It is most important to observe this first origin of evil. It is in the form of a question. It is not a direct denial of God’s truth or faithfulness, but a questioning of it. Because faith in God is the foundation of all good, it is to unsettle the foundation that this attempt is made. The poison is inserted in the way the question is stated. Thus also in dealing with our Divine Lord, Satan begins with a like questioning of what God had just declared. ‘If Thou be,’ which implies, ‘Art Thou then indeed the Son of God?’” And next, he insinuated what he dared not openly to proclaim: for by calumniously imputing to God a base motive for withholding the fruit of the one forbidden tree, he misrepresented God’s whole nature. But he did it by insinuation. And here, again, I recognize a favourite device of the enemy of souls in these last days. And then, the point to which his seductive speech tended, was, to make the creature desire to be as God: to be himself the standard, himself supreme, himself as God unto himself. It was a suggestion that the bondage of external law should be thrown aside, and that the conscience should henceforth become a law unto itself. Further--You are invited to note how the mischief began with an attempt to tamper with God’s Word. “Yea, hath God said?” But God had not said it! And then you will note that Satan beguiled Eve’s understanding by the seductive avenue of an increase of knowledge in prospect . . . Knowledge--that first appetite of man--and his last!. . .And is not “knowledge” good then? Yea, surely, most good: for indeed what were life without it? But like every other creature of God, it is good only when it subordinates to God’s revealed mind and will. Yet once more, and for the last time, death was the penalty of all; and yet, “Ye shall not surely die,” was the promise wherewith Satan sought to silence the fears of our first mother What but that, what but the assurance “Ye shall not surely die,” is Satan’s cry at this very hour to a willing world? (Dean Burgon.)
The temptation
There are in this question two things equally dangerous to the soul of Eve, a fatal doubt of the truth of the Word of God, and a perfidious exaggeration, calculated to insinuate distrust. I say, first, a doubt of the truth of the Word of God. “Hath God said?” Here is an insinuation calculated to sap the foundation of all faith, all obedience, all morality, all established order. Here is the most powerful weapon of the devil and of our own wicked heart; the weapon by which thousands and thousands are smitten and plunged into ruin. Hath God said that the “friendship of the world is enmity against God; and that whosoever will be the friend of the world is the enemy of God”? Hath God said that we must forsake all and follow Him, bearing our cross; that “if we love father or mother, or sister or brother, or house, or lands, more than Him, we are not worthy of Him”? Hath God said that “the whole world lieth in wickedness,” that we have within us an evil and corrupt heart, that “the carnal mind in us is not subject to the law of God,” that our life is polluted with sin? Hath God said that “He doth not hold the sinner guiltless, that He hateth sin, that the broad road le
