OF
SERPENTS
PART III.
Containing Six Dissertations.
| I. | Upon the Primæval Serpent. |
| II. | Fiery Serpent. |
| III. | The Brazen Serpent. |
| IV. | Adoration of Serpents. |
| V. | Reasons of that monstrous Worship; |
| VI. | And for the Adoration of different Animals. |
CHAPTER I.
Contents. Various Sentiments about the Primæval Serpent: Some say, ’twas a real Serpent; others say, the Passage is allegorical. Some make the Serpent to be Pleasure; others the Devil in the Natural Serpent. Reasons why Adam was not made beyond a Capacity of Sinning. Our first Parents arm’d with sufficient Power to stand: They knew no Enemy. Satan a compleat Orator. The Fatal Surrender. Satan’s triumphant Return from Eden. Serpent’s Head and Subtility. Intercourse between the Angelick and Human World. A Plea for our first Mother. Why Moses introduces a speaking Serpent. Method of Divine Government. Satan’s View. Reasons why Adam was created in a State of Trial. A strong Negative, sufficient to put the Tempter to flight. The Paradisaical Law guarded by the most powerful Sanction. The Opinion of Pagans and Mahometans about the Fall of Adam, &c. Why Satan punish’d under a visible Figure, viz. Serpent. Christ’s Death publish’d, before Sentence of Death past upon Adam. The Earth, a secondary Paradise. Moral Reflection.
The Manner of Sin’s first Entrance into our World, is inscrutable: The Subject is an Article of Lamentation, an Article that conducts us to Paradise indeed, but ’tis to Paradise lost; whence date the fatal Æra of all human Calamities. There, there in a blissful Field; Sin, the Plague of Hell, made its first Appearance on Earth: but as to the Mode of its Introduction, there is a Spread of impenetrable Darkness over the Face of that great Deep; after the most critical Disquisitions about it, the Difficulty remains unsolvable.