2. Men are tempters to one another. Satan so prevails with them, as to act his part one against another. Sometimes they set themselves to drive others into sin by force, Acts xxvi. 11. sometimes gently to draw them into it, Gen. xxxix. 7. And Satan gets

chap. i. 29.-Lest ye die. These words import no doubting, being the Lord's own words repeated by Eve.

Ver. 4. "And the serpent said unto the woman: Ye shall not dying, die, i. e. Ye shall not at all die." Satan flatly contradicts the divine threatening; and that with an air of great confidence, for the stop between these two words is emphatic. That this is the sense of the phrase, appears from Psal. xlix. 8-7ths, He cannot redeeming redeem, i. e. He cannot at all, or by any means, redeem. The negative here doth primarily and directly affect but one of the verbs, as Exod. v. 23. and xxxix. 7. In the phrase respecting the certainty of the thing, it affects them both in conjunction equally, as Jer. xxxviii. 15. Will ye not, putting me to death put me to death, i. e. surely put me to death.

Ver. 5. But God be knoweth, viz. very well. Compare the last clause of this verse. Satan pretends to open up the mystery of the restraint put upon man, as to the fruit of the forbidden tree. "That in the day of your eating of it; then they shall be opened, viz. your eyes, q. d. Your eyes are now shut to the shameful indecency of your nakedness;" but if once ye eat of that fruit, it will open your eyes, make you so sharp-sighted, that ye shall clearly see the truth of what I say. And therefore it is, ye are forbidden to meddle with it; that ye may still be kept in a mist. Thus Satan chains together the two temptations, ver. 1. and so makes an attack with both at once. And thus, from the beginning, he sported himself with his deceivings, the cheats put upon man, by him. "And ye shall be as God, as God himself, appears from verse 21; whereas now ye are in some respect worse than the wild beasts. Knowing, of good and evil;" singularly skilful and expert in the matter. Thus the tempter promiseth, from the opening of their eyes by eating of the fruit, a vast penetration as to good and ill, q. d. Not only shall ye know the particular, which I see you are now ignorant of, viz. the shameful indecency of your nakedness; but your knowledge will be universally improved, and that to a pitch.

Ver. 6." And the woman saw, that good was the tree for meat, and that lovely that [tree was] to the eyes: She saw it pleasant to the eyes, and her heart began to entertain a hankering after it. The demonstrative that is emphatic; and is here used to point out that fatal tree, to the minds of her posterity. An affection it put for a thing very much to be affected, the abstract for the concrete. The manner of expression, the course of words being precipitated, represents lively the infernal fire now flaming in the woman's breast. And [that] the tree [was] desirable, for to afford wit that is to make them knowing of good and evil, ver. 5. singularly skilful and expert in those matters. Thus the tempter was believed, and his lies received for truth. And she took [some] of its fruit, and ate [it."] Observe here the degrees of the woman's yielding to the temptation. (1.) Her mind and understanding went off by unbelief she saw and judged the tree to be good for meat, though it had no word of divine appointment for that end, but on the contrary was forbidden as deadly. [2] Her affection towards it riseth, and she hankers after it. (3.) She is inflamed with the desire of it. (4.) She pulls it with her hand, and eats it with her mouth. "And she gave also to her husband, with her, and he ate." Not, she gave to her husband with her, as if he had been present with her, in her encounter with the

not only wicked men, but many times godly men, yoked to this his tempting work, as in the case of Peter, Matth. xvi. 22, 23.

3. The lusts of the heart are temptations to all, Jam. i. 14. This is the most dangerous enemy, as being within. These are Satan's

serpent; no, Satan managed the matter more artfully: but, she gave to her hu-band, [to eat] with her, she plucked off so much of the fruit, as served her to eat, for the time while she was at the tree; and not only so, but she came eating unto her husband, and gave him also of it, to eat with her and he ate with her accordingly. The word also is bere emphatical; for in giving it to him, the deadly morsel was given to all mankind, the covenant being made with him, before the woman was in being, chap. ii. 16.

Ver. 7. Then were opened, the eyes of them both, viz. to see what they never saw, nor could have seen, before, namely, the shamefulness of their nakedness: and so were Satan's deceitful words, ver. 5. accomplished. And they knew, they knew, i. e. they knew, alas! they knew to sad experience. That nakedness, (i. e. stark naked) they were.] The abstract for the concrete in the superlative degree. They saw their nakedness most shameful and indecent, and that they were greatly in need of a covering. Ver. 8. "And they heard, even the voice of Jehovah God, walking in the garden, i. e. the voice walking for so the words are by the pointing constructed. This voice which they heard walking, was the Word, the eternal Son of God, now eatering upon the execution of the Mediatory office, and coming to discover the eternal counsel concerning the salvation of sinners.-At the wind of the day, i. e. in the cool of the day, when the sun declining, there was a breeze of wind, which would quickly let the guilty couple see the insufficiency of their fig-leaf coverings, for hiding their nakedness. The Hebrew text mentions three parts of the artificial day, one of which is called the blowing of the day, Cant. ii. 17; another the warm of the day, Gen. xviii. 1; a third, here, the wind of the day. The first is the morning, as appears from the text wherein it is mentioned: the second from morning to noon, and as long after it as before: the third from thence to the end of the day, otherwise called the space between the two evenings, Exod. xii. 6; i. e. between three and six of the clock in the afternoon.— And the man hid himself, and his wife [hid herself], for so the pointing shews the words to be constructed. The guilty couple, at hearing the sound of the VOICE walking in the garden, ran asunder, he one way, she another, and hid themselves in different places, not together. From the face of Jehovah God: i. e. from the Schechinah, the visible sign of the divine presence, the habitation of the divine majesty, from whence they were to have solemn communion with him.-In midst of tree of the garden. In some groves or other, some places where the trees were thick about them. The divine presence, which before was the joy of their hearts, was now become a terror to them, being guilty.

[Extracts from the notes on ver. 9.-14. must be omitted for want of room].

Ver. 15. And I will set enmity; between thee, and between this woman, viz. Eve, called the woman all along hitherto, and now standing as a criminal before the Judge, together with the serpent. And this looks to the friendship between that woman and the serpent, in their joining together to the dishonour of God, and the ruin of mankind. q. d. And whereas you and this woman did conspire to violate my law, and to ruin this man, I will settle an enmity, a lasting enmity, between you, for all time coming. And this is a promise of efficacious grace, to convert and bring the woman to repentance, so that she should mortally hate, and seek the destruction of, the power

trustees, which effectually lead us off the road, and rob us of our purity. They are deceitful lusts; and as the heart of man is furnished with them, it is deceitful above all things, Jer. xvii. 9.

Thirdly, The bait wherewith the hook of temptation is busked.

and works of the devil, in herself and others. And between thy seed, and between her seed: understand, I will set enmity: therefore these words are in a clause by themselves, as being equally constructed with the clause concerning the woman, and the clause concerning her seed: which shews even the gracious woman's utter inability to convey that enmity into her seed, and an equal necessity of efficacious grace for that end, to them, as well as to her. Hereby it was secured, that this enmity should not die with that woman, but that it should be propagated from generation to generation; the Lord himself still setting this enmity against the devil, into the heart of the woman's seed, to the end of the world. It is manifest that the serpent, the devil, can have no seed, but by imitation only: but the woman was capable of having a seed two ways, viz. (1.) By imitation. (2.) By generation of her body. Now, the woman's seed here mentioned is opposed to the serpent's seed and the serpent's seed is the devil's angels, and wicked men, called his seed in respect of their imitation of him. Therefore the woman's seed is believers in Christ, called her seed, not in respect of natural generation, for the holy enmity, the enmity against the serpent and his seed, goes not so wide as that; but in respect of imitation, as followers of her faith for the boly enmity is of equal latitude with that imitation; all and every one who become her seed, by believing as she did, being thereupon blessed with true (evangelical) repentance, according to the promise of the Lord's setting the enmity in the woman's seed. And in this respect Adam himself was one of her seed; in testimony whereof, he called her the mother of all living. Thus the believing Gentiles are Abraham's seed, to wit, by imitation, being followers of his faith. All this is agreeable to the scripture phraseology, in which one who is first in any thing, leading the way which others follow, is called the father of them, chap. iv. 20, 21.-That shall bruise away (to) thee the head; i. e. bruise away thy head, as a thing that is bruised into so very minute particles, that it flies away, to be seen no more. That shall do it, viz. the woman's seed: not, her seed by imitation, opposed to the serpent's seed; but her seed by generation of her body, opposed to the serpent himself. And that is the man Christ Jesus only. He is the seed of the woman in a proper sense, yea, in the strictest propriety: and he only is so; all other men being the seed of men. Believers only are the woman's seed, mentioned in the foregoing hemistich, and not Chirst: for they alone are the seed in which the enmity is set. Jesus Christ being the speaker, ver. 8. is the party who sets the enmity; not the serpent and his seed, for their enmity is not from God; but in the woman, and her seed there mentioned: but he is none of those in whom the enmity is set; for the setting of the enmity being an introducing of a hatred, which was not before in the subject, it cannot agree to him. But he is the woman's seed here meant, and he alone; for the bruising away of the serpent's head can agree to none other but him. The head of the serpent, is that which holds together the venom, in its deadly killing efficacy and as long as it is hale, the serpent can kill with his venom. Now, according to the apostle, 1 Cor xv. 56. the strength of sin is the law. Wherefore the bruising away of the serpent's head, is the abolishing of the law as a covenant of works, armed with the curse and threatening of eternal death, in respect of the woman and her seed by imitation; i. e. believers. This is a work competent to Christ only and he did it, by satisfying the law fully,

This is always some seeming good, if it were but the satisfying of a lust or a humour. In drawing or alluring temptations, the bait is some seeming good to be got. Thus was the present world to Demas, and the thirty pieces of silver to Judas. In driving tempta

in their room and stead. Hereby he disarmed it of its curse, and as it were grinded to powder the stones, on which the ministration of death was engraven, as to the woman and her believing seed: though as to others it still remains in its full force. Now, the serpent's head being bruised away, his venom is destroyed, and he can kill no more; as when a cup is bruised, the liquor in it perisheth. Sin is the serpentine verom, most deadly, therefore, metonymically called the head, Deut. xxxii. 33. Poison of dragons, [is] their wine and head of asps, cruel, i. e. venom of asps, (the contain ing being put for the contained), cruel venom, that is deadly and killing. So Jesus Christ bruising away the serpent's head, by his full satisfaction made to the law, sin is destroyed; and sin being destroyed, death is abolished; and death being abolished, the power of the devil is entirely ruined. The enemies mentioned in the first hemistich, are the serpent, and his seed, on the one side; the woman and her believing seed, on the other. An unequal match! How then shall the victory fall to the side of the latter! Why, an eminent One, the seed of the woman by generation of her body, as his brethren are by imitation of her faith, shall be more than match for the serpent, and all his power, and quite destroy it so shall the woman and her believing seed be more than conquerors through him. For he shall bruise away the serpent's head. Thus the woman's seed is taken collectively, in the first hemistich, but here individually: and this agreeable to the phraseology of the Holy Ghost elsewhere, chap. xxvi. 4. And I will make to increase even thy seed ; and they shall bless themselves in thy seed; all, nations of the earth.' The former is meant of the collective body of Isaac's seed, the latter of Christ alone. So chap. xxii. 17, 18, and xxviii. 14. Thus, 2 Sam. vii. 12. I will set up even thy seed after thee 13. That shall build a house, for my name. To wit, Solomon, the seed of David by way of eminency. And then shalt bruise away [to] him the heel, i. e. bruise away his heel, that is, his body in the likeness of sinful flesh, with which he trod on earth, liable to infirmities and death. Here is a vehement encounter, bruising on both sides. But that seed of the woman bruiseth the serpent's head, where the bruise is deadly; the serpent bruiseth not his head, but his heel, where the bruise is not deadly. This manner of expression looks to what goes before, touching the sin and punishment of the old serpent. And the heat of this battle was on the cross. Upon that tree that seed of the woman in an erect posture, and naked, (Heb. xii. 2), bruised the bead of the serpent, and bruised it away, fully satisfying the demands of the law, John xix. 30; destroying sin, Rom. vi. 6; and abolishing death, 2 Tim. i. 10; while the serpent, doomed to go upon the belly, and incapable to reach his head, bruised and bruised away his heel, bringing his mortal body to the dust of death, to the darkness of the grave, never to be seen more, liable to death or infirmity, Rom. vi. 9. Here ends a closed section. The woman believes the promise: the enmity, set in by efficacious grace, commenceth: and the serpent, in virtue of the curse pronounced upon him, is hurried away from the place of this judgment. But the judgment is not yet over, though the judgment of death is, which the serpent carries away upon him.

[Extracts from the notes on ver. 16-19. must also be omitted for want of room.] Ver. 20. And the man called the name of his wife, Eve.' The name given her at first, was taken from man, she being called woman; or manness, chap. ii. 23; for then

tions, the bait is some seeming good to be kept, by preventing evil, as those spoke of, Matth. xiii. 21. who, when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word, by and by are offended.' And it is no small advantage in temptation, to see through the bait,

Adam considered her chiefly as a wife, as one made after his own likeness. But the new name he gave her, after the awful solemnity before described, is taken from life; for then he eyed her chiefly as a mother, the mother of the living and life-giving seed. And by his naming her so, he declared his faith of the promise. And thus by the same method, that God reconciled man to himself, he reconciled the man and the wife, namely, through that promised seed.When, she was, mother of all living, namely of the life-giving seed and his brethren, who shall live for ever. She was mother of all these when she got this name; but of no other. She had been solemnly declared mother of the Messias, the seed that shall bruise away the serpent's head; and had actually commenced mother of all that should believe in him, by believing first herself. And no other seed of her's has been as yet mentioned, as her seed, but what should be at enmity with the serpent the devil. And what comfort could it have been

either to Adam or her, that she was to be the mother of others also: since to them she was to be the mother of death, rather than of life?

Ver. 21. "And Jehovah God made, to Adam and to his wife, coats of skin, and caused them to put [them] on." Coats of skin are skin-coats, or coats made of skin. These skin coats were a humbling memorial to our first parents, of the first spring of their ruin. Satan, by his subtilty, induced them to accuse God, of dealing better by the beasts of the field, than by them, in that these were covered, but they were left naked. Now they are covered like them; and instead of being like. God, are like beasts. Thus the backslider in heart shall be filled with his own ways. I make no question but this clothing of Adam and Eve, was a typical action. Sacrifices were offered by Abel, chap. iv. 4. And if by Abel, then by Adam too before him, from whom he learned it. And being an acceptable piece of service to God, they behoved to be of divine institution, which we can no where find, if not in this text. The skins of the sacrifices, by the law of Moses, were given to the priests, Lev. vii. 8: the great promise of Christ to come, which was all along confirmed by sacrifices, was now made: the curse was now laid on the beasts in man's stead; and so they were fitted to be made sacrifices, as God himself should be pleased to design the kinds of them, to be so used: God spake to Noah, before the flood, concerning clean and unclean beasts, as a distinction well known to him, chap. vii. 2. being handed down from Adam; in token whereof, it is marked, that Abel's sacrifice was of the flock, viz. sheep or goats, which were clean beasts: it was after this that access to the tree of life, a seal of the first covenant, was blocked up, ver. 24; it was at the wind of the day, ver. 8. that these things were transacted; the same time of the day, at which Christ in the fulness of time, died a real sacrifice for sin. From all which one may reasonably conclude, that the promise, the new covenant, being promulgated, and by our first parents believed and embraced, was instantly, by divine appointment, confirmed and sealed by sacritice; by which means the tree of life was superseded, as the passover, by the institution and administration of the Lord's supper; and the girdle of fig-leaves, by the skin-coats; and Christ was typically slain from the foundation of the world, (Rev. xiii. 8.), which is the date of the events of this open section, Gen. ii. 4; and that these beasts of whose skins the coats were made, were clean beasts, which, Adam and Eve having first laid their hands upon the heads of them, were offered in sacrifice, by Adam as the VOL. II.

2s