Thus furnish’d with divine Armour, and all the agreeable Entertainments of Life, ’tis most surprizing how they should indulge an irregular Turn in the animal Passions, and give way to such Inadvertency. One thing that might lead them to this Oversight, probably was, that they knew of no Enemy, therefore dreaded no Danger. But this Plea is of no force; for their Business was strictly to regard the Voice of their Creator (who said, Eat not) and not to give heed to any contrary Insinuations, tho’ proposed by a known Friend, much less by a Stranger, one of another Kingdom, and of another Species, without sufficient Attestation.
Here Lucifer play’d the Orator: He gave his Argument all the Rhetorick it would bear, by removing their fear of Death, and gratifying in them a certain Hope of being Gods. The Woman had the Threatning of Death in her Thoughts, and therefore durst not eat till she was made to believe, she should not die; (by which it appears, she had dreadful Ideas of dying.) And thus she was tempted to Unbelief. Then Satan proposes the glorious Advantages of Eating, viz. Ye shall be as Gods ... be independent Beings, not subject to the Controul of a superior Power; and thus they were tempted to Pride. Unbelief and Pride were the two fatal Rocks, on which their Innocence was wreck’d. Thus our first Parents fell, not for want of Light, but for extinguishing it; not for want of Power, but for not using it in the Hour of Danger.
The Enemy having made his Conquest, might probably continue for some time in Eden, to assist the Woman in seducing her Husband, and then confirm them in their Apostacy, directing them, upon the Approach of an Enemy, to hide themselves among the Trees of the Garden, where he left them; upon which he return’d to his Kingdom in the Air, to publish his successful Atchievements in Paradise, and was no more heard of, till he was summon’d to the Bar.
The Devil’s principal Residence is in the Air, where he keeps his Court, from whence he sends out his Angels to secure and enlarge his Conquests. Perhaps, he may think it not consistent with the Dignity of so great a Prince to traverse the Earth in Person, unless it be upon some extraordinary Occasions, as that of tempting the first and second Adam, &c.
The next Thing that offers itself, is an Attempt to illustrate the Case between the Woman and Serpent: It seems most apparent to me, that under the Name of the Serpent, we are to understand the Devil, who made use of a real Serpent in his Descent upon Paradise, where he decoy’d the first Woman into the fatal Snare.
In the Curse upon the Serpent, ’tis said, the Seed of the Woman should break the Serpent’s Head; intimating, the Serpent having its Heart under the Throat, and very near the Head, the readiest way to kill it, is to squeeze the Head. Some of the Fathers bring four Proofs of the Serpent’s Wisdom; trite and common.
1. When ’tis old, it has the Secret of growing young again, by stripping off its old Skin, which is succeeded by a new Coat; but if it parts with its outward Garments, it retains its Poison. Herein it is resembled by those, who leave the outward Acts of Sin, but not their secret Regards for it.
2. The Serpent assaults a Man if he sees him naked, but flies if it finds him cloathed. But there is a Fault in this Passage of Epiphanius, who intends to say the contrary; for ’tis generally affirm’d, that the Serpent is afraid of a naked Man, but attacks him if he has Clothes on.
3. When the Serpent is assaulted, its chief Care is to secure its Head: ’Tis attested by many Writers, that to save the Head, it will expose the whole Body to Danger[[342]].
[342]. Ὁ οφις φυλαττει κεφαλην. Isiodor. Pelusiot. lib. i. p. 126.