part, the serpent was permitted to bite: that is as far as he is able to go against the servants of God; and what he plots for their destruction tends to their eternal profit, and their crown of joy.

"When death and hell shall be destroyed, and cast into the lake of fire," where nothing but blackness and darkness reigns for ever, which is the second death, banishment from the presence of the Lord. For to dwell with and in Christ is life, but to be banished from him is death. to the text again.

But

Verse 16. Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception: in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee."

Thus was the punishment of sin appointed as the salutary means of stirring up the enmity of mankind against Satan their enemy.

Verse 17. "And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree," &c. "cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life. (18 v.) Thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.”

Thus was he doomed to wear out his body by manual labour; thus was the curse pronounced upon him, and his wife was cursed in him: she was to pine away with sorrow, with him. And soon was their cup made more bitter. When they who just before had only to take of the fruit of the

tree of life and live-could regale themselves at pleasure with the delicious fruits of the gardenwere now about to be expelled therefrom, to feed upon the herbs of the field: which the man was doomed with toil and anxious care to cultivate, or suffer scarcity and hunger. O, the curse of sin. Sin brought sorrow, sorrow brought care, and care brought death. But thanks be to God, who giveth us the victory, through our Lord Jesus Christ."

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Verse 20." And Adam called his wife's name Eve," (Hebrew chavah,) which signifies living.

There appears to be more contained in the sentence just quoted than generally strikes the common reader. Adam had just been listening to the sentence pronounced against himself and his wife; but, previous to that he had notice of the promised seed, therefore joy was kindled in his soul at the thought of her still living to bear that seed, which should eventually deliver them from that awful state into which they had fallen. But a sorry life has it proved, both to them and all their posterity for no sooner were they driven out of paradise than they found it a life of thorns and briars indeed.

Verse 21. "Unto Adam also, and to his wife, did the Lord God make coats of skins, and clothed them." Thus were they sent forth from Eden with badges of dishonour. But, although they were badges of dishonour, yet were they tokens of mercy, inasmuch as they were types of that perfect robe of righteousness, with which Christ, the promised seed, covereth every poor returning and penitent sinner: for, no doubt, the skins they

F

wore were taken from the bodies of those animals offered in the first sacrifice, and which sacrifices were appointed as perpetual symbols of Christ the great sacrifice, until he should appear. And they were tokens of mercy in another point of view for they were a confirmation of the Lord God's providential care over them, inasmuch as he would not drive them forth from the pleasant garden, where, before they transgressed, they needed no clothing-to suffer the inclemency of the weather, without supplying them with suitable raiment. Thus, with judgment did he mingle

mercy.

MAN'S EXPULSION FROM PARADISE.

Verse 22. "And the Lord God said, Behold the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil." Here is an evident sign of the plurality of persons in the Godhead, and in perfect unison with the passage I have before quoted, "Hear, O Israel, Jehovah our Gods is one Jehovah"

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Let us make man in our image, after our likeness." The Trinity in unity; Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; three Persons, but one God" the Second Person, the Word, which was made flesh, being the Seed of the woman promised to our first parents. And when John, in the beginning of his Gospel, wrote, “In the beginning was the Word," &c. he had reference to the "Angel of the Covenant"-the Word of the Lord which came to the prophets from olden times; even the same personage of whom David speaks. (Psalm xxxiii. 6.) "By the Word of the Lord were the heavens made," &c.; even Him

whose "delight was with the sons of men;" He with whom our first parents communed in Eden, and who, before the curse was pronounced for their disobedience, preached the gospel unto them.

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Thus was the covenant of salvation made known to the guilty pair before the foundation of this evil world, that is, before the curse was denounced, or ever they were driven forth out of Eden-as the Greek word kara ßoλns kataboles, translated foundation, Ephes. i. 4, signifies; seeing it is a compound word, composed of Kara kata, down, and Boλns boles, from ẞaλλo, to cast or throw, Chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world" signifying that man was chosen to salvation in Christ before the prostration or casting down of the human race to labour, under the conditions of the curse. Thus was mercy proclaimed before judgment, and thus awfully did man conclude his first sabbath, by entering into a life of cursed misery and woe: but yet he had a glimmering light to cheer him through his dreary pilgrimage. O, the hatefulness of sin! which marred the first sabbath which God gave to man, wherein he had nothing to do but rejoice in his Maker, and solace himself with the delicious fruits of the garden. But, alas, from that blessed state he fell.

THE CHERUBIM OF FLAMING SWORD.

Verse 22. "The Lord God said, and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take of the tree of life, and live for ever; therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. So he drove

out the man and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life." Thus was the way to the tree of life shut against apostate man. The cherubims probably were a company of the heavenly hosts. But I am aware that much has been written by learned men upon this subject, and after all, it remains veiled in mystery, and I cannot pretend to explain it; but this much we may gather concerning it, that, at the east of Eden, over the way to the tree of life, was placed some visible token of the presence of Jehovah, Elohim, which, like a flame of fire,

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turned every way. It might possibly be something similar to the fire which Moses witnessed when Jehovah appeared to him in the bush, Exod. iii. 2, or like unto the cloud (Exod. xix. 18) which rested upon Mount Sinai, in which "the Lord descended upon it in fire; and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace”and from which, in the sixteenth verse, it states, lightnings issued forth;" and I am the more inclined to think that it was some visible token of the presence of God, from the fact of Adam and his family circle fixing their abode east of Eden; and when Cain fled from his father's home, it states he "fled from the presence of the Lord— of which I shall speak more at large presently, but now shall go on with the account of Adam's expulsion from the garden, from which he was driven forth to seek his food by the sweat of his face. O, what a contrast to his Edenic condition? he now was doomed by hard labour to cultivate a cursed barren wilderness, full of briars and thorns-true emblems of the fruits of transgres