Upon the whole, I can scarcely think that these strange and awful Sights or Figures, over the East Gate of Eden, were only to frighten our first Parents, whose distressed State stood in need of Divine Supports. To be cast out of Paradise was a Mortification that needed not a super-added Terror; therefore to make those Figures Spectacles of Horror, seems not so well suited to Persons under Circumstances so inexpressibly dolorous, tho’ restored to Favour; but might rather be design’d to conduct them to God by Christ, the Tree of Life.
III. IT’s very probable a Conversation had past between the Woman and Serpent before the Narrative publish’d by Moses. She might upon the first Approach of the Serpent ask, How a Beast acquired the Gift of Speaking, which is the Prerogative of Rationals? The Serpent might answer, That it was by Eating the Fruit of that Tree. Eve might urge, That God had forbid her to eat that Fruit upon pain of Death. The Serpent might make this Return, viz. What you say is true; ’tis allow’d to be the Law under the first Form of Government, but I am now come from the supreme Court, to give you Assurance of God’s kind Intentions to advance you to a higher and more noble Station: The Prohibition of this Fruit was only a probationary Restraint, and temporary.
Now the End of the first Institution being answered, ’tis the Will of our Great Sovereign to take off those Restraints, and make you a free People. Upon the Formation of your Being, he brighten’d your Mind with Rays of great Wisdom; but now the happy Moment is come, in which he purposes to inspire you with higher Degrees of Wisdom.... By eating this Fruit, your intellectual Powers will be infinitely enlarged; for, ye shall be as Gods, and then all the Endowments and Accomplishments of Nature will arrive at their full Perfection, which as yet are only in their Embryo. This being only a Supposition, I dismiss it.
The Serpent having ascrib’d its Reason, and Speech to the eating of that Fruit, the Woman might infer, If this Fruit did turn a Serpent into a rational Creature, why may it not transform a rational Creature into a God, and a Woman into a Goddess? The Serpent had no occasion to say more; fir’d with the Prospect of such Preferment, she took the Fruit and did eat. Gen. iii. 6. And when the Woman saw that the Tree was good for Food, pleasant to the Eye, and a Tree to be desired to make one wise, she did eat.
N. B. How divine and delightful a Thing is Knowledge, of which Innocency itself is ambitious! Eve thirsted after the highest Degrees of Knowledge, and made no doubt of obtaining it by the Serpent’s Instructions; not knowing of any Impostor, she believed what the Tempter said. Satan, by the Serpent, as a Bait proposed Improvement in Knowledge.
Thus the first Woman, Head of the human Race, fell a Sacrifice to her own Ambition, fell a Virgin, and in her Infant-State. Icarus, by flying too near the Sun, his waxen Wings melted, and he fell into the Sea, and was drowned. Justly was he punish’d, for not observing his Father’s Will. May I add, in favour of our Mother, that the Law forbidding that Fruit, was not immediately publish’d to Eve, but receiv’d at second-hand from Adam; and that it can’t be well supposed, that she knew the various Capacities and Qualities of Brutes, as her Husband did.
But, why does Moses introduce a Serpent speaking, when naturally it was a speechless Creature?
In answer to this, may we not observe, that the Almighty, who has no material Tongue, yet is often introduced, speaking with human Voice in the Scripture. The Egyptians made the Crocodile a Symbol of the Deity, giving this as a Reason why they worshipped God symbolically in that Creature, because it resembled God, in that it was the only Animal without a Tongue; for the Divine λογος stands in no need of Speech; he governs human Affairs without Words, and without Noise.
Again, this Dialogue with the Serpent, a known Beast, is very agreeable to a Custom among the Oriental Writers, who enchase their Histories with Ornaments taken from familiar Discourses between Beasts; by which they convey moral Instructions to their Readers: Thus, on a Subject of Craft, they made the Fox to speak.
With what View did the Devil tempt our first Parents to sin? I answer, ’twas out of despite to God; i. e. with a design to rob the Creator of the Glory he proposed to himself from the Erection of this new World: He could not attack the Almighty on his Throne, therefore he strikes at the Footstool. Since he could not reach the Person of the Almighty, he wreaks his Malice upon his Image, Man; Man, whose Happiness, and that of his Descendants, he envy’d; and whom, in particular he hated, as his intended Successors to the vacant Seats in the blissful Regions above.