PART I. THE TEMPTATION TO FALL.

V. 1a. _Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which Jehovah God had made._

In the preceding chapter, we were taught the manner in which man was created on the sixth day; that he was created in the image and after the likeness of God, that his will was good and perfect, and that his reason or intellect was also perfect, so that whatsoever God willed or said, that man also willed, believed and understood. And this knowledge was necessarily accompanied by the knowledge of all other creatures, etc. For wherever the perfect knowledge of God is, there must also be, of necessity, the perfect knowledge of other things, which are inferior to God.

This original state of things shows how horrible the fall of Adam and Eve was, by which we have lost all that most beautifully and gloriously illumined reason, and all that will which was wholly conformed to the Word and will of God. For by the same sin and ruin we have lost also all the original dignity of our bodies, so that now, it is the extreme of baseness to be seen "naked," whereas originally that nudity was the especial and most beautiful and dignified privilege of the human race, with which they were endowed of God above all the beasts of the creation. And the greatest loss of all these losses is, that not only is the will lost, but there has followed in its place a certain absolute aversion to the will of God. So that man neither wills nor does any one of those things which God wills and commands. Nay, we know not what God is, what grace is, what righteousness is; nor in fact what sin itself is which has caused the loss of all.

These are indeed horrible defects in our fallen nature, to which they, who see not and understand not, are more blind than moles. Universal experience indeed shows us all these calamities; but we never feel the real magnitude of them until we look back to that unintelligible but real state of innocency, in which there existed the perfection of will, the perfection of reason and that glorious dignity of the nakedness of the human body. When we truly contemplate our loss of all these gifts and contrast that privation with the original possession of them, then do we, in some measure, estimate the mighty evil of original sin.

Great causes of gross error therefore are created by those who extenuate this mighty evil of original sin, who speak of our corrupt nature after the manner of philosophers, who would represent human nature as not thus corrupted. For such men maintain that there remain, not only in the nature of man, but in the nature of the devil also, certain natural qualities which are sound and whole. But this is utterly false. What and how little remains in us that is good and whole, we do indeed in some measure see and feel. But what and how much we have lost, they most certainly see not who dispute about certain remnants of good being still left in human nature. For most certainly a good and upright and perfect will, well-pleasing to God, obedient to God, confiding in the Creator, and righteously using all his creatures with thanksgiving, is wholly lost. So that our fallen will makes out of God a devil and dreads the very mention of his name; especially when hard pressed under his judgments. Are these things, I pray you, proofs that human nature is whole and uncorrupted?

But consider the state of those inferior things to these that pertain unto God himself. The marriage union of male and female is an institution appointed of God. How is that union polluted by the fall and by sin! With what fury of lust is the flesh inflamed! By means of sin therefore this divinely appointed union has lost all its beauty and glory as a work of God, and is defiled with pollutions, corruptions and sins innumerable. In like manner also we have a body; but how miserable, how variously deformed by sin. It no longer retains the dignity of nakedness, but requires careful and perpetual coverings of its shame.

So also we possess a will and a power of reason. But with what multiplied corruptions are they vitiated! For as our reason is beclouded with great and varied ignorance, so our will also is not only greatly warped by self-will, and not only averse to God, but the enemy of God! It rushes with pleasure into evil, when it ought to be doing quite the contrary.

This multiform corruption of nature therefore ought not only not to be extenuated, but to be as much as possible magnified. It ought to be shown that man is not only fallen from the image of God, from the knowledge of God, from the knowledge of all other creatures, and from all the dignity and glory of his nakedness, into ignorance of God, into blasphemies against God, and into hatred and contempt of God; but that he is fallen even into enmity against God; to say nothing at the present time of that tyranny of Satan to which our nature has by sin made itself the basest slave. These things, I say, are not to be extenuated, but to be magnified by every possible description of them; because if the magnitude of our disease be not fully known, we shall never know nor desire the remedy. Moreover the more you extenuate sin, the less you make grace to be valued.

And there is nothing which can tend to amplify and magnify the nature and extent of original sin more fully and appropriately than the words of Moses himself, when he says, that Adam and Eve were both naked, and were not ashamed. No polluted lust was excited by the sight of each other's nakedness. But the one looking on the other saw and acknowledged the goodness of God. They both rejoiced in God, and both felt secure in the goodness of God. Whereas now, we not only cannot feel ourselves free from sin; not only do not feel ourselves secure in the goodness of God, but labor under hatred of God and despair of his goodness and mercy. Such a horrible state of the fall as this clearly proves how far nature is from being in any degree sound and whole.

But with how much greater impudence still do our human reasoners make this their affirmation of there being still left something sound and whole, in the nature of the devil! For in the devil there is a greater enmity, hatred and rage against God than in man. But the devil was not created thus evil. He had a will conformed to the will of God. This will however he lost, and he lost also that most beautiful and most lucid intellect with which he was endowed, and he was converted into a horrible spirit, filled with rage against his Creator. Must not that have been then a most awful corruption, which transformed a friend of God into the most bitter and determined enemy of God?

But here human reasoners bring forward that sentence of Aristotle, "Reason prays for the best." And they attempt to confirm it by passages from the Scriptures and by the opinions of philosophers, who hold that right reason is the cause of all virtues. Now I deny not that these sentiments are true, when they are applied to things subject to reason; such as the management of cattle, the building of a house, and the sowing of a field. But in the higher and divine things, they are not true. For how can that reason be said to be right, which hates God? How can that will be said to be good, which resists the will of God and refuses to obey God?

When therefore men say with Aristotle, "Reason prays for the best," reply thou to them, Yes! Reason prays for the best, humanly; that is, in things in which reason has a judgment. In such things, reason dictates and leads to what is good and useful in a human, bodily or carnal sense. But since reason is filled with ignorance of God and aversion to the will of God, how can reason be called good in this sense? For it is a well known fact, that when the knowledge of God is preached with the intent that reason may be restored, then those who are the best men, if I may so speak, and men of the best kind of reason and will, are those who the most bitterly hate the gospel.

In the sacred matter of divinity therefore let our sentiments be, that reason in all men stands as the greatest enemy against God; and also that the best will in men is most adverse to the will of God; seeing that from this very source arise hatred of the Word and persecution of all godly ministers. Wherefore, as I said, let us never extenuate, but rather magnify that mighty evil, which human nature has derived from the sin of our first parents; then will the effect be that we shall deplore this our fallen state and cry and sigh unto Christ our great Physician, who was sent unto us by the Father for the very end that those evils, which Satan has inflicted on us through sin, might by him be healed, and that we might be restored unto that eternal glory, which by sin we had lost.

But with reference to the part of sacred history which Moses describes in this chapter, I have already expressed my mind; namely, that this temptation took place on the Sabbath day. For Adam and Eve were created on the sixth day; Adam earlier in the day and Eve in the evening. On the following day, the Sabbath day, Adam spoke to his wife Eve concerning the will of God; informing her that the most gracious Lord had created all paradise for the use and pleasure of men; that he had also created by his especial goodness the tree of life, by the use of which the powers of their bodies might be restored, and continued in perpetual youth; but that one tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, was prohibited; of which it was not lawful for them to eat; and that this obedience to their merciful Creator they were solemnly bound to render. After Adam had communicated this information to Eve, he perhaps led her about in paradise and showed her the prohibited tree. Thus did Adam and Eve in their original innocence and righteousness, full of safety and security through their confidence in their God so good and so merciful, walk about together in paradise; considering together the word and the command of God; and blessing their God on the Sabbath day as they ought to do. But in the midst of all this happiness, Oh! the grief! Satan enters, and within a few hours destroys all, as we shall in this chapter hear.

Here again is poured forth a whole sea of questions. For curious men inquire, why God permitted so much to Satan as to tempt Eve? They ask also, why Satan employed the serpent in his temptation of Eve, rather than any other beast of the creation. But who shall render a reason for those things, which he sees the Divine Majesty to have permitted to be done? Why do we not rather say with Job, that God cannot be called to an account, and that none can compel him to render unto us his own reasons for all those things which he does or permits to be done. Why do we not on the same ground expostulate with God, because the grass is not green and the trees are not in leaf all the year round now as in the beginning. For I fully believe, that in paradise, had the state of original innocency continued, there would have been a perpetual spring without any winter or frost or snow, as they now exist since the fall and its sin. All these things depend wholly on the will and power of God. This is enough for us to know. To inquire into these things farther than this is impious curiosity. Wherefore let us, the clay of his hands, cease to inquire into and dispute about such things as these, which belong alone to the will of our Potter! Let us not judge our God, but rather leave ourselves to be judged by him.

The answer therefore to all such questions and arguments ought to be this: It pleased God that Adam should be put under peril and trial, that he might exercise his powers. Just as now, when we are baptized and translated into the kingdom of Christ, God will not have us to be at ease. He will have his Word and his gifts to be exercised by us. Therefore he permits us, weak creatures, to be put into the sieve of Satan. Hence it is that we see the church, when made clean by the Word, to be put under perpetual peril and trial. The Sacramentarians, the Anabaptists and other fanatical teachers, who harass the church with various trials, are stirred up against her, to which great trials are also added internal vexations. All these things are permitted of God to take place, not however because it is his intention to forsake his church or to suffer her to perish. But as wisdom says, all these conflicts are brought upon the church and upon the godly, that they might overcome them; and thus learn by actual sight and experience that wisdom is more powerful than all things.

Another question is here raised, on which we may dispute perhaps with less peril and with greater profit: Why the Scripture speaks of this matter thus obscurely and does not openly say, that one of the fallen angels entered into the serpent and through the serpent spoke to Eve and deceived her? But to this I reply, that all these things were involved in obscurity, that they might be reserved for Christ and for his Spirit, whose glory it is to shine throughout the whole world, as the mid-day sun, and to open all the mysteries of the Scriptures. As this Spirit of Christ dwelt in the prophets, those holy prophets understood all such mysteries of the Word. We have said above however that as the beasts of the creation had each different gifts, so the serpent excelled all other creatures in the gift of guile, and therefore it was the best adapted for this stratagem of Satan.

Of this peculiarity in the serpent the present text of Moses is an evident proof; for he says at the opening of this chapter, "Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which Jehovah God had made." We marvel even now at the gift of insidious cunning in the fox, and also at its astonishing ingenuity in escaping danger. For sometimes when closely pursued by the dogs and quite worn out and ready to drop with exhaustion, it will hold up its tail; and while the dogs stop their course with the intent of rushing with all their force to seize it, the fox with marvelous celerity secures a little advantage ground and thus escapes their capture. There are also other beasts whose remarkable sagacity and industry surprise us; but subtilty was the peculiar natural property of the serpent, and therefore it seemed to Satan to be the instrument best adapted for his deception of Eve.

V. 1b. _And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of any tree of the garden?_

Human reasoners dispute also concerning the nature of this temptation, as to what it really was; whether our first parents sinned by idolatry or by pride or by self-security or simply by eating the fruit. But if we consider these things a little more carefully, as we ought to do, we shall find that this temptation was the most awful and the most bitter of all temptations. Because the serpent attacked the good will of God itself, and endeavored to prove by this very prohibition from the tree of life that the will of God toward man was not good. The serpent therefore attacks the image of God itself. He assails those highest and most perfect powers, which in the newly-created nature of Adam and Eve were as yet uncorrupted. He aims at overturning that highest worship of God, which God himself had just ordained. In vain therefore do we dispute about this sin or that. For Eve is enticed unto all sins at once, when she is thus enticed to act contrary to the Word and the will of God.

Moses therefore speaks here most considerately, when he uses the expression, "And the serpent said." Here, WORD attacks _word_. The WORD which the Lord had spoken to Adam was, "Of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat." This Word was to Adam the Gospel, and the law thus given was his worship. It was a service and an obedience which in this state of innocence Adam was able to render unto God. These are the Divine things Satan attacks. These are the things he aims at overturning. Nor does he merely intend, as those think who know nothing of the matter, to point out the tree to Eve and to invite her to pluck the fruit. He does indeed point to the tree, but he does something far worse than this. He adds another and a new word, as it is his practice to do at the present day in the Church.

For wherever the Gospel is purely preached, there men have a sure rule for their faith, and by that they are able to guard against idolatry. But there Satan plies temptations of every kind, and he tries by what means he can the most effectually to draw men away from the Word, or how he can most completely corrupt the Word itself. Thus in the Greek Church also, in the time of the apostles, heresies of every kind were stirred up. One heretic denies that Christ is the Son of God. Another denies that he is the Son of Mary, just as the anabaptists of our day impiously deny that Christ assumed anything of the flesh of Mary. So again in the times of Basil more particularly, men attempted to deny that the Holy Ghost is God.

Our own age in like manner has witnessed the same examples of heresies. For no sooner had a purer doctrine of the Gospel shone upon us, than assailants of the works and Word of God of every kind rose up on every side. Not however that temptations of other kinds cease. For Satan still tempts to whoredom, to adultery and to other like great sins. But this temptation, when Satan attacks the Word and the works of God, is by far the heaviest and most dangerous; and that temptation the most intimately concerns the Church and the saints.

It was in this manner therefore that Satan attacked Adam and Eve on this solemn occasion. His aim was to tear away from them the Word, in order that giving up the Word and their confidence in God, they might believe a lie. When this takes place what wonder is it if a man afterwards becomes proud, a despiser of God, an adulterer or anything else? This temptation therefore is the head and chief of all temptations. It brings with it the breach and the violation of the whole ten commandments. For unbelief is the fountain-source of all sins. When Satan has brought a man under this temptation and has wrested from him or corrupted in his heart the Word, he may do anything with him.

Thus when Eve had suffered the Word to be beaten out of her heart by a lie, she found no difficulty whatever in approaching the tree and plucking from it the fruit. It is foolish therefore to think of this temptation, as the sophists and the monks think of it; that Eve, when she had looked upon the tree, began to be inflamed by degrees with the desire of plucking the fruit; until at last, overcome with the longing for it, she plucked the fruit and put it to her mouth. The sum of the whole temptation and her fall by it was that she listened to another _word_ and departed from that WORD which God had spoken to her, which was that if she did eat of the tree she should surely die. But let us now contemplate the words of Moses in the order in which we find them.

In the first place Satan here imitates God. For as God had preached to Adam, so Satan now also preaches to Eve. For perfectly true is that saying of the proverb, "All evil begins in the name of God." Just therefore as salvation comes from the pure Word of God, so perdition comes from the corrupted Word of God. What I term the corrupted Word of God is not that only which is corrupted by the vocal ministry, but that which is corrupted by the internal persuasions of the heart or by opinions of the mind, disagreeing with the Word.

Moses implies all this in his expression, "He said." For the object of Satan was to draw away Eve by his word or saying, from that which God had said; and thus by taking the Word of God out of sight, he corrupted that perfection of will which man had before; so that man became a rebel. He corrupted also his understanding so that he doubted concerning the will of God. Upon this immediately followed a rebellious hand, stretched forth to pluck the fruit contrary to the command of God. Then followed a rebellious mouth and rebellious teeth; in a word all evils follow soon upon unbelief or doubt concerning the Word and God. For what can be worse than for a man to disobey God, and obey Satan!

This very same craft and malice all heretics imitate. Under the show of doing good, they wrest from men God and his Word. They take the Word away from before their eyes and set before them another, and a new word and a new god; a god which is nowhere, and no god at all. For if you examine the words of these men, nothing can be more holy, nothing more religious. They call God to witness that they seek with their whole heart the salvation of the Church. They express their utter detestation of all who teach wicked things. They profess their great desire to spread the name and the glory of God. But why should I enlarge? They wish to appear to be anything but the devil's teachers or heretics. And yet, their one whole aim is to suppress the true doctrine and to obscure the knowledge of God. And when they have done this, the fall of their listeners is easily enough effected.

For unwary men suffer themselves to be drawn away from the Word to dangerous disputations, Rom. 14:1. Not content with the Word, they begin to inquire why and for what reason these and those things were done. And just as Eve, when she listened to the devil, calling the command of God into doubt fell; so it continually happens that we, by listening to him, are brought to doubt whether God is willing that we, when heavily oppressed with sin and death, should be saved by Christ; and thus, being misled and deceived, we suffer ourselves to be induced to put on cowls and cloaks in order that we may be crowned of God with salvation on account of our works of perfection.

Thus before men are aware, another and a new god is set before them by Satan; for he also sets a word before us; but not that Word which is set before us of God, who declareth that repentance and remission of sins should be preached unto all men in the name of Christ, Luke 24:47. When the Word of God is in this manner altered and corrupted, then, as Moses says, in his song, "there are brought in among us new gods, newly come up whom our fathers knew not, and feared not," Deut. 32:17.

It is profitable to be well acquainted with these snares of Satan. For if he were to teach men that they might commit murder and fornication, and might resist their parents, etc., who is there who would not immediately see that he was persuading them to do things forbidden by the Lord? And thus it would be easy to guard against him. But in the case of which we are speaking, when he sets before us another word, when he disputes with us concerning the will and willingness of God, when he brings before our eyes the name of God, and of the church, and of the people of God, then we cannot so easily be on our guard against him. On the contrary there is need of the firmest judgment of the spirit to enable us to distinguish between the true God and the new god.

It is such judgment as this that Christ exercises, when Satan attempts to persuade him to command that the stones be made bread, and to cast himself down from the pinnacle of the Temple. For Satan's aim was to persuade Christ to attempt something without the Word. But the Tempter could not deceive Christ as he had deceived Eve. For Christ holds fast the Word and does not suffer himself to be drawn away from the true God to the new and false god. Hence unbelief and doubting, which follow a departure from the Word, are the fountain and source of all sin. And it is because the world is full of these that it remains in idolatry, denies the truth of God and forms to itself new gods.

The monk is an idolator. For his imaginations are that if he lives according to the rule of Francis or Dominic, he shall be in the way to the kingdom of God. But this is making a new god, and becoming an idolator. Because the true God declares that the way to the kingdom of heaven is believing in Christ. When this faith is lost therefore unbelief and idolatry immediately enter in, which transfer the glory of God to works. Thus the Anabaptists, the Sacramentarians and the Papists are all idolators! Not because they worship stocks and stones, but because, leaving the Word of God, they worship their own thoughts.

The portion of the Scripture therefore now before us is designed to teach us that the beginning of original sin was this effectual temptation of the devil, when he had drawn Eve away from the Word to idolatry, contrary to the first and second and third commandments. Therefore the words stand here, "Yea, hath God said?" It is horrible audacity for the devil to represent a new god and deny the former true and eternal God with the utmost self-confidence. It is as if the devil had said, "Ye must be fools indeed if ye believe that God really gave you such a commandment. For God is by no means such a God as to be so greatly concerned whether ye eat the fruit or eat it not. For as the tree is 'the tree of the knowledge of good and evil;' how, think ye, he can be so filled with envy as to be unwilling that ye should be wise!"

Moreover this inexpressible malice fully proves that, although Moses makes mention of the serpent only and not of Satan, Satan was the real contriver of the whole transaction. And although these things had been thus involved in obscurity in this sacred history of them, yet the holy fathers and prophets, under the illumination of the Holy Spirit, at once saw that this temptation was not the work of the serpent, but that there was in the serpent that spirit, which was the enemy of Adam's innocent nature; even the spirit, concerning whom Christ plainly declares in the Gospel, "that he abode not in the truth; and that he was a murderer and a liar from the beginning," Luke 8:44. It was left however, as we have said, for the Gospel to explain these things more clearly and to make manifest this enemy of God and of men. But the fathers saw all this by the following mode of reasoning: It is certain that at the time of the temptation all creatures stood in perfect obedience, according to the sentence of Moses, "And God saw everything that he had made and, behold, it was very good." But here in the serpent, such a spirit manifests himself who proves to be the enemy of God and who corrupts the Word of God, that he might draw away man into sin and death.

It is manifest therefore that there was something, some spirit in the serpent, far worse than the serpent itself by nature; a spirit which might properly be called the enemy of God; a spirit that was a liar and a murderer; a spirit in whom there was the greatest and the most horrible and reckless unconcern; a spirit which trembled not to corrupt the commandment of God and to tempt man to idolatry; though he knew by that act of idolatry the whole human race must perish. These things are truly horrible when they are viewed by us aright. And we see even now examples of the same security and unconcern in Papists and other sects; an unconcern by which they corrupt the Word of God and seduce men.

Eve at first nobly resisted the Tempter. For as yet she was guided by the illumination of that Holy Spirit, of whom we have spoken, and by whom she knew that man was created perfect and in the likeness of God. At length however she suffered herself to be persuaded and overcome.

With respect to the fall of the angels, it is uncertain on which day the fall took place; whether on the second or on the third day. This only can be proved, and that is known from the Gospel, namely, that Satan fell from Heaven, for Christ himself testifies of the manner of the fall, where he says, "I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven," Luke 10:18. But whether the heavens were then "finished" or yet in their rude unformed state, we know not. The discussion of this point however belongs not to our present exposition of the passage before us. Our present duty is to contemplate the extreme malice here disclosed, joined with the most horrible unconcern. For this spirit trembles not to call the commandment of the divine majesty into doubt; though he fully knew all the time, what an awful calamity must thereby fall upon the whole human race.

In the second place the wonderful subtlety here exercised is especially to be considered, which is discovered first in this: that Satan attacks the highest powers of man and assails the very image of God in him; namely, his will, which as yet thought and judged aright concerning God. "Now the serpent was more subtle," says our text, "than any beast of the field, which Jehovah God had made." But the subtlety manifested in this instance far exceeded all the natural subtlety of the serpent. For Satan here disputes with man concerning the Word and the will of God. This the serpent in his natural state and condition could not do; for in that, he was subject to the "dominion" of man. But the spirit which spoke in the serpent is so subtle that he overcomes man and persuades him to eat of the fruit of the forbidden tree. It is not therefore a creature of God, in his created good state, that here speaks; but it is a spirit, who is the bitterest enemy of God and of men; a spirit, who is indeed a creature of God, but not created thus evil by God. It is a creature, who abode not in the truth; as Christ says, John 8:44. These facts are consequences, plainly resulting from the Gospel and from the text of Moses before us.

The subtlety which we are contemplating is seen also from the stratagem of Satan in attacking the weak part of human nature; namely Eve, the woman; and not Adam, the man. For although both of them were created equally righteous, yet Adam excelled Eve. For as in all the endowments of nature, the male strength exceeds that of the female sex, so in the state of the innocency and perfection of human nature, the male in some degree excelled the female. Hence Satan, seeing that Adam was the more excellent creature, dared not attack him; for he had fears lest his attempts should fail. And my belief is that if he had attempted Adam first, Adam would have had the victory. He would more likely have crushed the serpent with his foot, and would have said to him, "Hold your tongue. The Lord hath commanded otherwise." Satan therefore attacks Eve as the weaker part, and tries her strength. For he sees that she has so much trust in, and dependence on, her husband, that she will not think it possible that she should be persuaded to do wrong after what her husband had told her.

By this portion of the sacred record we are also instructed concerning the divine permission; that God sometimes permits the devil to enter into beasts, as he here entered into the serpent. For there can be no doubt that the serpent, in the assumption of whose form Satan talked with Eve was a real and natural serpent. But when men enter into discussions whether this serpent assumed on that occasion a human countenance, etc., all such discussions are absurd. The creature was doubtless a most beautiful serpent in its natural state; otherwise Eve would not have conversed with it so securely. After the sin of the fall however that beauty of the serpent was changed. For God's rebuke to him declares that hereafter "he should go upon his belly on the ground." Whereas before, he walked upright, as the male fowl. God also declares "that he should eat dust," whereas before, he fed upon better food, even upon the productions of the earth. Nay, even the original security of man with the serpent is lost. We flee from serpents at the sight of them, as they also flee from us.

These are all wounds, which have been inflicted on nature on account of sin; just in the same way we have lost the glory of our nakedness, the rectitude of our will and the soundness of our intellect and understanding. I believe also, that the serpent lost much of his subtlety, which Moses here lauds, as a distinguishing gift of God. Moreover, I believe that in the same proportion as the serpent is now an evil creature amidst the beasts, so it was then a good creature; and a blessed and lovely creature; a creature with which not man only, but all the other beasts also, lived in perfect freedom and with great pleasure. The serpent therefore was a creature, the best adapted of all the other living creatures for the purpose of Satan. By it he could secure the most easy access to Eve, and could the most effectually converse with her so as to draw her into sin.

Such is my opinion concerning the natural serpent, the beautiful nature of which Satan planned thus to abuse. I believe it was originally a most beautiful creature, without any poison in its tail and without those filthy scales with which it is now covered. For these grew upon it after the sin of the fall. Hence we find it a precept given by Moses that any beast, which should kill any person, should itself immediately be killed, Exod. 21:28; and for no other reason than because Satan sinned by using a beast when he murdered man. Hence also a serpent is killed wherever found, as a lasting memorial of this diabolical malice and this fall of man, wrought by his means.

With reference to the grammatical expression here used, the Latin interpreter renders the Hebrew APHKI by cur. Though this rendering is not very wide of the real sense of the passage, yet it does not convey the true and proper meaning. For it is the highest and greatest of all temptations, when a dispute is entered upon, concerning the counsel of God, why God did this or that. But my judgment is, that the weight of the matter does not rest on this particle of expression why? or wherefore? But rather on the name God, ELOHIM. It is this that constitutes the greatness and awfulness of the temptation.

It is as if Satan had said, "Ye must be foolish indeed if ye suppose that God could possibly be unwilling that ye should eat of this tree when he had himself given you 'dominion' over all the trees of paradise; nay, when he had positively created all the trees for your sakes. How can he, who bestowed as a free favor all things upon you, possibly envy you these particular fruits, which are so sweet and so pleasant!" For Satan's whole aim is to devise a means of drawing them away from the Word and from the knowledge of God, and to bring them to conclude that what they had stated was not really the will of God, and that such was not really what God had commanded them. That this is the true sense of the whole divine passage, that which follows tends to prove; when Satan says, "Ye shall not surely die." For all the stratagems of Satan centre in this one:--to draw men away from the Word, and from faith unto a new and false god.

And this same plan of Satan all fanatical spirits follow. Hence, Arius reasons and inquires, Do you really think that Christ is God, when he himself says, "My Father is greater than I?" In the same manner also the Sacramentarians ask, Do you really think that the bread is the body and the wine the blood of Christ? Christ most certainly had no thoughts so absurd. When men begin thus to indulge their own cogitations, they by degrees depart from the Word and fall into error.

Since therefore, the whole force of the temptation was in leading Eve to doubt whether God really did say so; it is a more correct rendering to leave the emphasis resting on the name of God. The leaving it to rest on the interrogative particle, why? takes away from the peculiar force of the meaning. In my judgment therefore the passage will be best rendered by making the emphasis to rest on the _not_. Hath God said that ye shall _not_ eat of every tree of the garden? For Satan's real aim is, not to set up an inquiry why God said this. His object is to bring Eve to conclude that God had positively not so commanded, in order that by bringing her to this conclusion he might wrest from her the Word. Satan saw that the reasoning power of Eve might in this way be the most effectually deceived, if he drew away from her sight and judgment the Word of God, under the very name of God. And he thinks the same still.

This question of Satan is full of insidious deception. He does not speak particularly, but generally; he includes in his interrogation, all the trees of the garden together. As if he had said, "You have committed unto you an universal 'dominion' over all the beasts of the earth; and do you really suppose that God, who has thus given you 'dominion' over all the beasts of the earth, has not given you the same dominion over all the trees of the earth? Why, you ought rather to think that as God has put under you the whole earth and all the beasts of the earth; so he has also granted you the use of all things which grow upon the earth." This is indeed the very height and depth of temptation. Satan here endeavors to gain over the mind of Eve to his purpose, by artfully drawing her into the conclusion that God is never unlike himself; and that therefore if God had given them universal dominion over all the other creatures, he had given them universal dominion over all the trees also. From this therefore it would naturally follow that the commandment not to eat of the tree of life, was not the commandment of God; or that if it were his commandment, it was not so to be understood that he really wished them not to eat of that tree.

Wherefore this temptation was a double temptation, by which as a twofold means Satan aimed at the same end. The one part of the temptation is, "God hath not said this, therefore ye may eat of this tree." The second branch of this awful temptation is, "God hath given unto you all things; therefore all things are yours; and therefore this tree is not forbidden you, etc., etc." Now, both branches of this temptation are directed to the same object; to draw Eve away from the Word and from faith. For this commandment concerning not eating of this tree of knowledge, which God gave to Adam and to Eve, proves that Adam with his posterity, had they continued in their original innocency, would have lived in that perfection of nature by faith, until he and they had been translated from this corporeal life unto the life spiritual and eternal. For wherever the Word is, there of necessity is faith also. For the Word was this, "Of the tree of the knowledge, etc., thou shalt not eat, for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." Adam and Eve must therefore have believed that this tree involved in it something perilous to their salvation. Therefore in this very Word of commandment, faith also is included.

We, who are designed to be transferred from this state of sin to a state of eternal righteousness, also live by faith. But we have a Word, different from that which Adam had in his state of nature's innocence and perfection. For he was designed to be transferred simply from a state of animal life to that of a spiritual and eternal life. Wherefore this tree, as I have before observed, was intended of God to be a temple as it were in the midst of paradise, in which the Word God spoke to Adam might be preached. The substance of this Word was, that all the other trees of paradise were healthful and to be eaten; but that this tree of knowledge, involved in it the danger of destruction; and that therefore they should learn to obey God and his Word, and to render unto God his worship, by not eating of this tree, seeing that God had forbidden them to eat of this particular tree.

In this manner therefore nature, in its uncorrupt and perfect state, even while it possessed the knowledge of God, had yet a Word or precept of God, above the comprehension of Adam, which he was called upon to believe. And this Word or precept was delivered to man in his state of innocency, that Adam might have a sign or form of worshipping God, of giving him thanks, and of instructing his children in this knowledge of God. Now the devil, beholding this and knowing that this Word or precept of God was above the understanding of man, plies Eve with his temptation and draws her into thinking, whether this really was the commandment and will of God. And this is the very origin of all temptation; when the reason of man attempts to judge concerning the Word and God without the Word.

Now the will of God was that this his precept should be unto man an occasion of his obedience and of his external worship of God; and that this tree should be a sign, by means of which man should testify that he did obey God. But Satan by setting on foot the doubtful disputation, whether God really did give such a commandment, endeavors to draw man away from this obedience into sin. Here the salvation of Eve consisted solely in her determinately urging the commandment of God, and not suffering herself to be drawn aside into other disputations, whether God really had given such a commandment. And whether as God had created all things for man's sake, it could be possible that this one tree only was created, containing something incomprehensible and dangerous to man's salvation. It seems indeed unto men, to be a show of wisdom, to inquire into these things more curiously than is lawful. But as soon as the mind begins to indulge in such disputations, man is lost. But now let us hear the answer Eve makes to Satan:

Vs. 2, 3. _And the woman said unto the serpent: Of the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest perchance ye die._

Eve's beginnings are successful enough. She makes a distinction between all the other trees of the garden and this tree. She rehearses the commandment of God. But when she comes to relate also the punishment, she fails. She does not relate the punishment, as it had been declared by the Lord. The Lord had said, absolutely, "For in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die," Gen. 2:17. Out of this absolute declaration, Eve makes an expression, not absolute, "Lest perchance ye should die."

This defect in the statement of Eve is very remarkable, and demands particular observation; for it proves that she had turned aside from faith to unbelief. For as the promise of God demands faith, so the threatening of God demands faith also. Eve ought to have made her statement as a fact, and a certainty. "If I eat, I shall surely die." This faith however Satan so assails, with his insidious speech, as to induce Eve to add the expression, "perchance." For the devil had effectually persuaded her to think that God surely was not so cruel as to kill her for merely tasting a fruit. Hence the heart of Eve was now filled with the poison of Satan.

This text therefore is also by no means properly translated in our version. The meaning of the original Hebrew is that Eve speaks her own words; whereas she is ostensibly reciting the Word of God; and that she adds to the Word of God her own expression, "perchance." Wherefore the artifice of the lying spirit has completely succeeded. For the object which he especially had in view; namely, to draw Eve away from the Word and from faith; he has now so far accomplished, as to cause Eve to corrupt the Word of God; or, to use the expression of Paul, "he has turned her aside from the will of God, and caused her to go after Satan", 1 Tim. 5:15. And the beginning of certain ruin is to be turned aside from God, and to be turned after Satan; that is, not to stand firmly in the Word and in faith. When Satan therefore sees this beginning in Eve, he plies against her his whole power as against a bowing wall, until she falls prostrate on the ground.

Vs. 4, 5. _And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil._

This is the satanic rhetoric adopted by the tempter to prostrate utterly a poor weak woman; when he sees her turning away from God and inclined to listen to another teacher. Before, when he said in his satanic insidiousness, "Hath God, indeed, thus commanded you?" he did not positively deny the Word. He only attempted by speaking in the form of a question to draw Eve aside into doubting. But now, having fully accomplished his first point, he begins with daring presumption to deny the Word of God altogether, and to charge God himself with falsehood and cruelty. He is not now content with having caused Eve to add her expression, "perchance." Out of the "perchance," he now makes a plain and positive denial: "Ye shall not surely die."

We here witness therefore what a horrible thing it is when Satan once begins to tempt a man. For then ruin causes ruin and that which was at first apparently a trifling offense against God, ends eventually in a mighty destruction. It was an awful step into sin for Eve to turn from God and his Word and to lend her ears to Satan. But this her next step is more awful; for she now agrees with Satan, while he charges God with falsehood, and as it were smites him in the face. Eve therefore now is no longer the woman merely turned away from God, as in the first stage of her temptation. She now begins to join Satan in his contempt of God and in his denial of the truth of his Word. She now believes the father of lies, directly contrary to the Word of God.

Let these things therefore be to us a solemn lesson and a terrible proof, to teach us what man is! For if these things occurred in nature, while it was yet in its state of perfection, what shall we think may become of us! We have proofs, even now, before our eyes. Many, who at the commencement of our course gave thanks with us unto God for his revealed Word, are not only fallen away from it, but are become our bitterest adversaries!

Thus it was also with the Arians. No sooner had they begun to fall away from faith in the divinity of the Son, than they quickly grew into a violent enmity against him. So that they became the bitter enemies of the true Church and persecuted her with the greatest cruelty. Precisely the same examples of ultimate rage against the truth have we witnessed also in the Anabaptists. They were all led away from the Word, and tempted to use the doubtful expression, "perchance." Shortly after Satan drove them to turn the doubting "perchance" into a positive "not," "God hath not said," etc. Then from forsakers of God, they became the open persecutors of God, imitating in this their father, Satan; who after he had fallen from heaven by sin became the most bitter enemy of Christ and his church. Nor are examples of the very same description few in our day. For we have no enemies more bitter against us than those who have fallen away from the doctrine they once professed with us. And from this very sin that awful description which David has given us of the "fool" arose, Ps. 14:1: "The fool hath said in his heart there is no God." For those thus fallen are not satisfied with having turned away from God, unless they have become the assailants also of God himself and of his Word.

Wherefore there is absolutely need that we abide by this rule, and moor ourselves to this sacred anchor as it were through life. Since it is agreed for a certainty that the Word, which we possess and confess, is the Word of God, we should assent and cleave to it with all simplicity of faith and not dispute concerning it with curious inquiry. For all inquiring and curious disputation bring with them most certain ruin.

Thus for instance we have the plain and manifest Word of Christ concerning the Lord's Supper, when he says concerning the bread, "This is my body, which is given for you," Luke 22:19. And concerning the cup, "This cup is the New Covenant in my blood", 1 Cor. 11:25. When therefore fanatics depart from faith in these plain words, and fall into disputing how these things can be, they by degrees stray so far, as positively to deny that these are the words of Christ, and at length they fiercely fight against them. Just as it befell Eve, as recorded in the passage of Moses now before us.

Exactly after the same manner, when Arius began to think about God and to conclude by his own reason that God was a most positive and absolute unity, he at first fell upon this proposition, "Perhaps Christ is not God." Then he carried the accumulation of his absurdities so far, as plainly to conclude, and to defend his conclusion, that "Christ is not God." It moved him not at all, that John plainly declares, "The Word was God," John 1:1; that Christ commands men to be baptized "in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost," Math. 28:19; and that we are called upon to believe in Christ, to worship him and to pray unto him, Acts 13:39; Ps. 97:7. And yet, what absurdity can be greater than that we should take upon ourselves to judge God, since our condition is to be judged by him and by him alone?

Wherefore our duty is to stand by and persevere in this principle: that, when we hear God say anything, we believe it, and not dispute about it; but that on the contrary we bring our intellect and every thought into captivity unto Christ.

We may therefore appropriately cite the words of the prophet Isaiah, "If ye will not believe, surely ye shall not be established," Is. 7:9. For if we should inquire and inquire until we burst with curiosity, yet we shall never understand how the eye sees, nor how the ear hears, nor what the soul is, etc. And yet, all these things are a part of us, and we use them every day and every moment in all our actions. How then shall we understand those things which exceed all our faculties and senses, and are found in the Word of God alone? Hence it is found in the Word alone, that the ordained bread is the body of Christ, and that the ordained wine is the blood of Christ. These things it is our duty to believe, not to understand; for understand them we cannot.

In like manner too the words of God in the present passage of Moses were most simple and plain, "Of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden ye shall not eat." But in those words reason did not understand the mind of God, why he willed these things so to be. When therefore Eve, not content with the command of the Lord which she had heard, began curiously to inquire into it, she perished. This temptation therefore is a true example of all those temptations, in which Satan assaults the Word and faith. Before the desire of eating the fruit came to Eve, she had let go the word which God spoke to Adam. Had she held fast this Word, she would have stood in the reverence of God and in faith. On the other hand, no sooner had she let go the Word, than contempt of God entered; and then followed obedience to the devil.

It is profitable for us to learn these things and to know them. Hence it is that Peter admonishes us to stand fast under temptation, and to resist the Tempter, keeping fast hold of the Word by a firm faith, and keeping our ears shut, so as not to listen to anything contrary to the Word, 1 Pet. 5:9. For such "sufferings" and temptations of Eve are most truly "lessons" to us; that we suffer not the same things, by being drawn aside from the Word and faith, as she was.

That which follows in our text, "For God doth know that your eyes shall be opened," may be taken in a twofold sense. We may either understand Satan to have thus spoken, for the purpose of exciting an ill-will against God, for having forbidden man to eat of a fruit so good and useful by which means Satan would create in Eve the beginning of a hatred towards God for not being sufficiently indulgent. Or again, I would rather understand the passage, Satan speaks this, as in praise of God; that he may thereby the more easily entrap Eve in his deception. As if he had said to her, "Be assured that God is not such an one as to wish you and Adam to live in darkness as it were without the knowledge of good and evil. He is good. He envies you nothing which can in any way conduce to your benefit or pleasure. He will be quite satisfied and content that you should be like himself, as to the knowledge of good and evil."

When Satan thus praises God he has the razor fairly in his hands, so that he can cut the throat of a man in a moment. For the fall of a man is thus rendered by Satan the most easy, when the pretext of the Word and the will of God is brought in upon the back of that which the lust of the heart desires. This is why I would rather understand the words now in question to be spoken by Satan, as intended to persuade Eve, rather than to excite in her any hatred toward God. I leave it however quite free to you, my hearers, to adopt the sense of the passage which pleases you best. The sum of the whole or the one aim of Satan, is this: to draw Eve away by all possible means from the Word, and to persuade her to do that, which had been forbidden by the Word. For Satan is the most bitter enemy of the Word of God; because he knows that our whole salvation lies in our obedience to that Word.

But here an inquiry by no means absurd is raised. How was it that Eve did not yet feel her sin? For, although she had not yet swallowed the fruit, yet she had sinned against the Word and against faith. She had turned away from the Word unto a lie and from faith to disbelief; from God to Satan and from the worship of God to idolatry. As this was the sum and substance of her sin, for plucking the apple was not the sum of her sin, how was it that death did not immediately follow? How was it that she did not feel so mighty a sin? Nay further how was it, that after she had eaten the fruit, she did not feel the death which was the decreed punishment of it, before she persuaded Adam to eat of it also?

The schools dispute much and variously about the superior power, and the inferior power of reason. They hold, that Adam possessed the superior power of reason, and Eve the inferior. We will cast aside all such half-learned and scholastic arguments and seek the true meaning of the passage, which is as follows:

In the first place the long-suffering of God is great. Therefore he does not punish sin immediately. If he did we should soon perish. This long-suffering of God Satan ever abuses. And it just suits his purpose that man should not immediately feel his sin. For because punishment is thus deferred, Satan fills the mind with security and unconcern. So that a man is not only kept blind to the fact that he has sinned, but is caused to take delight and to glory in his sins.

All this we behold in the popes and the Papists. If they could see with their eyes and hearts the slaughter-house of conscience, yea, the perdition into which they bring men by their impious doctrine, they would without doubt change their doctrine. But now, Satan so dazzles their eyes as it were with his delusions, that they cannot perceive their own judgment and the wrath of God which hangs over them. Therefore in the very midst of these mighty sins, they live with the greatest security, even with gladness and rejoicing, displaying their magnificent triumphs as if they had performed the most noble achievements.

This was exactly the case with Eve. By her disbelief she rushed from the Word into a lie. Therefore in the eyes of God, she was now dead. But as Satan still held under his power her heart and eyes, she not only did not see her death, but was gradually more and more inflamed with a longing for the fruit; and was positively delighted with this her idolatry and with her sin.

Now if Eve had not departed from the Word, thus to look upon the fruit with a desire to taste it, it would have been to her an abhorrence. But having thus departed, she turns over the sin in her mind with gratification. Whereas had she before seen any other stretch forth the hand to touch this tree, she would have recoiled with horror. But now, she is impatient of delay. Sin has burst forth from her heart, and has descended to the lower members of her body, her mouth and tongue. This desire and delightful longing therefore to eat the fruit are as it were the diseases gendered by the sin of her heart from which death follows; though Eve, while sinning, feels it not. This is plain from the next portion of the context.