Sermons

SERMON I.

THE FIRST PROPHECY.

GENESIS, iii. 15.

"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."

SUCH is the first prophecy which occurs in scripture. Adam and Eve had transgressed the simple command of their Maker; they had hearkened to the suggestions of the tempter, and eaten of the forbidden fruit. Summoned into the presence of God, each of the three parties is successively addressed; but the serpent, as having originated evil, receives first his sentence.

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We have, of course, no power of ascertaining the external change which the curse brought upon the serpent. The terms, however, of the sentence, upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life," seem to imply that the serpent had not been created a reptile, but became classed with creeping things, as a consequence of the curse. It would seem probable that heretofore the serpent had been remarkable for beauty and splendour, and that on this

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account the tempter chose it as the vehicle of his approaches. Eve, in all likelihood, was attracted towards the creature by its loveliness: and when she found it endowed, like herself, with the power of speech, she possibly concluded that it had itself eaten of the fruit, and acquired thereby a gift which she thought confined to herself and her husband.

But we may be sure that although, to mark his hatred of sin, God pronounced a curse on the serpent, it was against the devil, who had actuated the serpent, that the curse was chiefly directed. It may be said that the serpent itself must have been innocent in the matter, and that the curse should have fallen on none but the tempter. But you are to remember that the serpent suffered not alone; every living thing had share in the consequences of disobedience. And although the effect of man's apostacy on the serpent may have been more signal and marked than on other creatures, we have no right to conclude that there was entailed so much greater suffering on this reptile as to distinguish it in misery from the rest of the animal creation.

But undoubtedly it was the devil, more emphatically than the serpent, that God cursed for the seduction of man. The words, indeed, of our text have a primary application to the serpent. It is most strictly true that, ever since the fall, there has been enmity between man and the serpent. Every man will instinctively recoil at the sight of

a serpent. We have a natural and unconquerable aversion from this tribe of living things, which we feel not in respect to others, even fiercer and more noxious. Men if they find a serpent will always strive to destroy it, bruising the head in which the poison lies; whilst the serpent will often avenge itself, wounding its assailant, if not mortally, yet so as to make it true that it bruises his heel.

But whilst the words have thus, undoubtedly, a fulfilment in respect of the serpent, we cannot question that their reference is chiefly to the devil. It was the devil, and not the serpent, which had beguiled the woman; and it is only in a very limited sense that it could be said to the serpent, "because thou hast done this." We are indeed so unacquainted with transactions in the world of spirits, that we cannot pretend to determine what, or whether any immediate change passed on the condition of Satan and his associates. If the curse upon the serpent was accomplished upon the devil, it would seem probable that, ever since the fall, the power of Satan has been specially limited to this earth and its inhabitants. We may gather from the denunciation, "upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life," that in place of being allowed, as he might beforetime have been, to range through the universe, machinating against the peace of many orders of intelligence, he was confined to the arena humanity, and forced to concentrate his energ

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