The laws of nature appear to have possessed but little force, permanency, or reliability in the days of Moses, as they were often brought to a dead halt, and set aside on the most trivial occasions, according to Bible history; and nothing could be learned of the character, habits, or natural powers of animals by their form or physical conformation, if they possessed, as represented, minds and reasoning powers supposed to be peculiar to the human species. Hence the study of natural history must have been useless. When naturalists at the present day find animals without the organs of speech, they assume they do not possess the ability to talk and reason. But the absence of the vocal organs in the days of Moses appears to have furnished no criterion, and interposed no obstacle to becoming a fluent speaker and an able reasoner, as is illustrated in the case of a serpent and an ass talking and arguing like a lawyer. Hence natural history could have possessed no attraction, as nothing certain could have been learned by studying it.
1. It is a singular reflection that the Christian plan of salvation is based on a serpent, and with about as little show of sense as the Hottentot tradition of the earth resting on the heads of four turtles.
2. The idea of God creating a serpent to thwart and defeat his plans and designs, or permitting him to do it, is absolutely ridiculous.
3. If God knew, when he created the serpent, that his machinations would bring "death and sin and all our woe" into the world, the act would prove him to be an unprincipled being.
4. And, if he did not know it, he must have been ignorant and short-sighted, and not fit to be a God.
5. It would imply that he made a wonderful mistake in creating a being that "turned right round," and made war on his own kingdom, crippled it, and defeated its success.
6. To assume that God could be outwitted by a serpent is to place him lower in the scale of intelligence than a snake.
7. It would seem that the serpent was superior to Jehovah either in knowledge or veracity; for his statement relative to the effect of eating the fruit proved to be true, while that of Jehovah proved to be false (Gen. iii. 3).
8. And, as we have shown in chapter liii, he was a greater friend and benefactor to the human race than Jehovah, as a number of benefits and blessings were conferred upon Adam and Eve and their posterity by yielding to his advice instead of obeying the mandates of Jehovah.
9. It would doubtless be a source of gratification to naturalists of the present age to learn what species of snake that was which possessed such a remarkable intellect and reasoning faculties and powers of speech; and also whether Hebrew was its vernacular.