During the Woman’s Parley with the Serpent, Adam is supposed to be absent, perhaps thro’ Satan’s Management, and upon her representing to him at their next meeting, the Conversation she had with the Serpent, he must conclude that Serpent to be a grand Cheat, or a good Angel, that spoke to his Wife: and that he took it in the latter Sense, is plain from the Event; that is, his taking the forbidden Fruit, and eating thereof upon the Serpent’s Recommendation of it to his Wife, who found no ill Effect from her Compliance. Now, the Tempter having assur’d the Woman that her eating that Fruit would not bring Death, and Adam finding it to be true in Fact, that is, that she did eat and live after it, concluded he might eat with equal Safety.
Upon this Supposition, we may charitably infer, that since our first Mother might converse with Angels in that serpentine, or some other bright Form, she now converses with the Serpent without Scruple or Dread of Imposture. And as she apprehended the Serpent to be a good and kind Spirit, so Adam did, upon her Representation of the Matter, and took the forbidden Fruit, and eat it: And perhaps the Serpent was present, giving Attestation to the Report made by the Woman to her Husband.
This being granted, ’tis conceivable how the Woman might freely converse with a Creature that assum’d an Image so glorious, especially if we consider she was in her infantile State, and without any experimental Knowledge, or any Apprehension of Danger, from an Enemy, of which she had no Idea; being no Sinner, she was without Fear.
In the Sentence past upon Adam, there is one Clause that seems to corroborate this Hypothesis; for, upon the Expulsion of our first Parents ... the Gates of Eden were guarded by a Cherub (to prevent their re-entrance) which, by the Jews, was esteem’d a second Angel, and may be aptly imagin’d to be a Seraph, or an Angel in the Form of a flying Serpent, whose Body vibrated in the Air, with a peculiar Resplendency, and may be fitly describ’d by the Image of such a Sword. ’Tis said, God drove out the Man, and placed at the East-end of the Garden of Eden, Cherubims and a flaming Sword, which turned every way, to keep the Way of the Tree of Life, Gen. iii. ult. God made Angels Guardians of Paradise, and a sparkling Fire, like a flaming Sword; says the Arabick Version.
But why may not this Text bear an Interpretation pregnant with good Tidings, as an Explication of the Promise made to the Woman, that is, an Instruction to our first Parents how to worship God after the Fall, namely by Sacrifice, which was to be offer’d by them before the Cherubims (erected over the Gates of Paradise) as Sacrifices afterwards were before the Cherubims in the Tabernacle and Temple, or, as the Hebrew, before the Faces of Jehovah?
The flaming Sword and the Cherubims, might be Emblems or Figures of some things to be observed in the Form of Worship design’d for that new Dispensation. The fiery Sword being a killing Weapon, might represent irritated Justice; and Cherubims being the Inhabitation of the Deity in the Tabernacle and Temple, might be an Emblem of Mercy, to which the Sacrifices were offer’d: and may not Cherubims be so construed here? N. B. May we not date the first Institution of Sacrifice here, which soon appear’d in the History of Cain and Abel?
God might address our first Parents after this manner; View these wonderful Sights over the Gate, behold in them the Scheme of Salvation! The Text thus interpreted, gives the Tempter a fresh Mortification, to see his bloody Design defeated, and our first Parents restored to Favour at the Gate of Eden, in which he had triumph’d over them; and that which encreased his Vexation was, to see this done by Christ, the promised Seed, one of the human Race.
In the Tabernacle and Temple there were no Representations of God, but only emblematical Figures erected over the Mercy-Seat, called the Cherubims; in, or between them, the Deity is said to dwell; and the Law obliged the Jews to bring the Blood of the Sacrifice before the Face of God in the Cherubims, that is, within the Vail, on the Day of Expiation: and here God might direct our first Parents to bring their Sacrifices to him, who was in a special manner present in the Cherubims over the Gate.
But supposing Adam and Eve had, after their Expulsion, enter’d Paradise; I don’t see what valuable End it would have answered, for the special Promises made to the first Inhabitants of Paradise were now null and void. All the Blessings peculiar to that glorious Situation, were irrecoverably lost. It was not in the power of that once sacred Seat to reinstate them in their pristine Happiness.
Obj. Could not the Tree of Life restore their forfeited Comforts? I presume not; because the Tree of Life, in the Design of it, was to perpetuate the happy Life of innocent Man, and not to restore the Life and Comforts of Criminals under a Sentence of Death; a Sentence irrepealable, which even the Death of our Blessed Redeemer does not exempt us from.