vailed upon the mind of our first mother, as though they had had all the force of absolute demonstration. "When she 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; she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat." The eye has often been the inlet to sin, and he who looks with pleasure on forbidden fruit, is not far from taking it. Let the fear of God be always to us for a covering of the eyes ; a desire of unnecessary knowledge, under the mistaken notion of wisdom, has proved ruinous to many. Eve "took it," it was her own act and deed. The tempter may allure, but he cannot force: he may (as he did to our incarnate Saviour, Matt. iv. 6.) persuade us to cast ourselves down, but he cannot cast us down.

"She did eat." "Perhaps, (observes Mr. Henry,) "when she looked, she did not intend to take; or when she took, not to eat; but it ended in that. The way of sin is downhill; a man cannot stop himself when he will;" the only safety is in leaving it off before it be meddled with.

No sooner was Eve a sinner, than she became a tempter. The original tempter needed not personally to interfere with Adam. She who had been given him as his helpmeet was ready to become his seducer; "she gave also unto her husband, and he did eat with her:" and now what was the consequence? their eyes were indeed opened, and they saw good and evil; not as the tempter had suggested, and they had understood,

to the advancement of their knowledge, power, and happiness, but to find themselves bereft of good and exposed to evil; their hearts were opened to evil impressions and inclinations, of which they had never before been susceptible; their consciences were opened to a sense of shame, remorse, and fear; and their understandings were opened to discern their own folly, and to perceive, if not fully to appreciate, the happiness they had fallen from, and the misery they had fallen into. They shrank from the presence of God, and were even ashamed of each other's presence: under their first convictions of sin, and first impression of fear and shame, they strove to hide themselves from the presence of their Maker among the trees of the garden; and to wrap themselves from each other's observation, in slight coverings of fig-leaves. Alas! to what a pitch of wretchedness must a creature have fallen, when he can think it possible or desirable to hide himself from his Creator! and how vain and frivolous are all attempts on the part of the sinner, to conceal his disgrace or to repair his damage!

In closing this section, it seems right, just to notice, in reply to the vain and carnal reasonings of men of corrupt minds, who would represent the sin of our first parents as a mere trifle-only the eating of an apple; only a small transgression; a small indulgence that this sin included in it the nature of all sin, and was itself a compound of the worst crimes a creature can be guilty of. It was base ingratitude

against the best of Benefactors, treason and rebellion against the greatest and most indulgent of Sovereigns; express disobedience against a plain and easy command; base selfishness and odious cruelty in securing a momentary self-indulgence, and at best an uncertain prospect of advantage, at the expense of inflicting certain injury on their posterity. There was preference of the creature to the Creator, ambition, pride, discontent, envy at the Divine perfections, disbelief of God's word, and confidence in the Devil. Let every mouth then be stopped, and all the world become guilty before God.

§ 5. The Consequences of Man's Transgression.

Gen. iii. 9-21.

We have here the offenders called forth from their hiding-place, and arraigned before the Majesty of heaven and earth. To the poor trembling delinquents, awful as must have been the question, "Adam, where are thou?" it was however the first intimation of a gracious pursuit after the rebel, in order to his recovery. The angels who forfeited their first estate were left, and their case is desperate and hopeless. No glimmering of light from heaven bursts upon the gloomy recesses of their prison; no Saviour took hold on their nature; but man was pursued after; his Maker called after him, in a voice of mingled wrath and compassion, "Adam, where art thou?"

How loth were the first transgressors to acknowledge their guilt Adam owns, not his guilt but his

fear and shame. "I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, and I hid myself." But whence this new discovery? how knowest thou evil? "Who told thee that thou wast naked?" If thou hadst not sinned, thou hadst known no pain, no disgrace, no inconvenience. Whenever we complain of pain, weariness, or distress of any kind, we confess ourselves sinners, and it becomes us to do so, not with rebellious murmurings and discontent on account of our sufferings, but with humble penitence for the sins that procured them.

"Hast thou eaten of the tree whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?" Though all our sins are naked and open before the eyes of Him with whom we have to do, yet he requires confession of them from ourselves, not that He may be informed, but that we may be humbled. Our first parents were brought to confession; but how reluctantly! with what frivolous excuses did they attempt to extenuate their sin, and to lay the blame on others. “The woman, whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat;" was the half-hearted confession, or the paltry subterfuge, of Adam; as though the persuasions of his companion deserved to stand in competition with the law of his Creator: indeed, as though God himself, in giving the woman to be a companion, who afterwards became a tempter, had been accessary to the transgression. Thus foolishly and wickedly do Adam's sons still attempt to justify their transgressions of

the law, by pleading that they do but enjoy the bounties which God has provided for them, or they do but follow the propensities he has implanted in them; but "let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted to evil, neither tempteth he any man."

Just like the defence of Adam was that of his wife. "The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat." Vain, however, as was the subterfuge, it shews us how soon she had discovered that his much fair speaking was but guile and deception; his arguments, fallacies; his promises, empty air. Oh let us be warned by the fatal example of our first parents, when the tempter speaks fair, to believe him not, but to take continual heed lest our hearts be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. But observe, though Satan was the tempter, man was the sinner; though his subtlety entices into sin, it does not justify in it.

The serpent, that is, the tempter, who had made the serpent his instrument, was not questioned; for no way of pardon and hope was to be opened to fallen angels; but sentence was immediately passed upon him. First, the brute creature, which had been made the instrument or vehicle of temptation, was laid under the curse of God, degraded from its original form and rank in creation, and placed under the continual reproach and enmity of man; but principally, the sentence was aimed at the real tempter, the enemy of God and man; and in his fearful doom