D 01 The Temptation.

The Temptation. In considering the Temptation by which our first parents were seduced from their obedience, we shall notice, first, the Tempter, and then the process by which he succeeded in his designs. In the narrative of Moses the temptation of our first parents is said to have been effected by the serpent, described by him as " more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made." The comparison here implied does not necessarily shut us up to the conclusion that the tempter was one of the lower animals, for the whole effect of the com parison may be simply to intimate that the agent here intro duced was more crafty than any of those living things with which Adam and Eve were acquainted; they knew all the beasts of the field which God had made, and could measure their power; but now they were to come into contact with an agent of deeper craft, and whose subtlety they could not easily measure or master. But a comparison like this plainly necessitates our regarding the tempter here as an actual being; a being having a substantive existence, and possessing certain properties which rendered comparison between him and the lower animals possible. Comparison may be between quality and quality, between being and being; but not between being and quality. And as we are sure of the actual being of one side of the comparison here, we must set out with the conviction that the other side of the comparison is an actual being also.

There is no one, I presume, who takes this narrative literally as it stands; no one who believes that one of the serpent tribe of its own accord, and by no impulse beyond itself, acted the part of the tempter on this occasion. In departing from the purely literal interpretation, however, w r e need not recoil to the opposite extreme, and regard this account as wholly parabolical and allegorical. The style of the historian is that of plain narrative, not that of allegory; what precedes and what follows is simple historical narration; and there is not the slightest intimation here of any departure from that style.

All attempts, therefore, to give an allegorical colouring to this part of the narrative must be repudiated as arbitrary, and as forcing upon the passage a sense which it plainly does not bear.

We therefore set aside at once the notion that we have here a highly figurative delineation of the working of evil thoughts or unlawful curiosity in the human breast. The serpent here is not a thought but a thing; and so we must hold it if we would not be found dealing lawlessly with God’s word.

(i.) Who, then, was the tempter here? If not a mere animal serpent, what being is it that appears here under this designation? On this point we have the authority of Scrip ture for speaking without hesitation. We know that it was Satan who tempted Eve; our Saviour tells us that that fallen spirit, the devil, was " a man-murderer from the beginning; " and we find him on this account, and with obvious reference to the narrative before us, called by Paul the " serpent," and by John " that old serpent." On this point, then, we can indulge no doubt. The only question that can legitimately arise is whether Moses applies the term serpent to the devil directly as Paul and John do, or whether he would intimate that the evil spirit assumed the form of a serpent, and in that form addressed Eve. I cannot say that it seems to me of much importance which side of this alternative we embrace; on either view that which is essential is preserved, viz. The fact of an actual temptation by the Wicked One of our first mother. Nor is it very easy to determine on which side the prepon derance of evidence lies. The statement of the apostle, that Satan transforms himself into " an angel of light," seems to point to some well-known instance of such a manifestation of the adversary’s power and craft, and besides the case before us there is no other instance on record in which he may be supposed to have assumed such a disguise. Nor can we sup pose any case in which such a disguise would be found so suitable for his purposes. To what being was Eve so likely to listen without suspicion and without fear as to one whom she saw in the appearance of those shining visitants from the heavenly world whom she had been accustomed to welcome as messengers of light and love? But whilst this supposition favours the conclusion that the term " serpent " here is a mere designation of Satan, and intimates nothing as to his having made use of the animal serpent for his purpose, the subsequent part of the narrative in which an animal serpent seems to be certainly introduced as having had to do with the temptation of Eve, taken in connection with the prevailing belief of the Jewish Church, the traditions of the Oriental nations, and extensive prevalence of serpent-worship, and a belief in the power of divination possessed by the serpent in the ancient world, would rather conduct us to the conclusion that a real serpent was in some way employed by Satan as his instrument in this transaction. And perhaps it is to indicate this that Moses says emphatically " the serpent " here; meaning thereby not the serpent tribe generally, which are not remarkable for subtlety, certainly not superior in this to many other of the lower animals, but this one particular serpent this terrible foe who in serpent’s guise came crawling into Paradise, and has left the poison of his trail on all earth s treasures ever since.

(ii.) Let us now consider the process by which the tempter accomplished his designs. Saluting Eve as the less en lightened, the less cautious, the less reflective, and therefore the more likely to prove a ready victim, he with apparent simplicity and artlessness put to her the question, " Yea hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree in the garden? " as if he only desired information on a point which had excited his curiosity. Under this simple question, however, was con cealed a dark insinuation against God, as if it surprised the speaker to find Him holding back from the creatures He had formed and so richly endowed any part of the produce of the place He had given to them as their own. The tempter evi dently sought to stir in Eve’s mind some suspicion of the perfect goodness of God, and to beget the thought that in what appeared an unreasonable and needless restriction there was caprice or tyranny. Too crafty to rush directly to his point, or to place before the mind of Eve the vile insinuation as something coming from him, he by quietly assuming an air of incredulity and astonishment insensibly leads his victim in the direction where doubts and difficulties about the divine wisdom and goodness might spring up as the spontaneous product of her own mind. If such doubts, however, were excited by his question in the mind of Eve, she seems instantly to have subdued them, for she at once, with the genuine simplicity of unsuspecting innocence, answers his question, dwelling on the largeness of the divine bounty in placing at their free disposal all the other trees of the garden, and inti mating the fearful penalty by which His prohibition of the one tree in the midst of the garden was sanctioned. Finding from her perfect ingenuousness that he might proceed more openly, and, indeed, must do so if he was to gain his end with her, Satan no sooner hears her utter the dreaded penalty than he proceeds boldly to play the liar, to call in question the sincerity of God, and to deride her fears, founded on the belief that God was sincere in what He had said, and meant to execute what He had threatened. " 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." How daringly, but at the same time how cautiously and adroitly, he proceeds ! First, he boldly impugns the veracity of God, assuring the woman that it was not true that death was con sequent on the eating of the fruit, and probably confirming this by showing with what impunity he himself partook of it. He thus took away from her the great conservative power which a belief in God’s faithfulness necessarily exercises over those who are placed under His law; and having thus, as it were, broken through the defences that encompassed her moral nature, he sets himself to work on her appetites and desires.

Taking occasion from the name of the tree, he hastily in sinuates that it possessed an intrinsic power to make those who ate of it wise; and perhaps also he dwelt on the beauty of its fruit and dilated on its sweet and nutritious qualities, for we find that the attention of Eve was forcibly drawn to these properties of it; she saw that it was pleasant to the eye, and good for food. It was her curiosity, however, and her ambition which the tempter sought chiefly to excite and play upon her desire to know what had been veiled from her view, and to grasp what had been thought too precious a thing for her to possess. And with the promise of enlighten ment and power, should she obey his counsel, he artfully couples the audacious assertion that God knew that such would be the effect upon His creatures of their partaking of that fruit, and therefore had forbidden it; thus insinuating that it was not from any regard to their welfare that He had thus acted, but simply from a jealous dread of their attaining an eminence where they might claim equality with Him.

Thus gradually, cautiously, and craftily did the arch-deceiver weave round our first mother the meshes of his web, and ensnare her to her ruin. The steps by which Satan advanced to his end were first to disturb the serene repose of piety in the rnind of Eve by suggesting doubts or questionings respecting the divine good ness; then to drive from her mind the restraints which fear of God’s threatening imposed by leading her to doubt the divine veracity; then to work upon her appetites and desires; and finally, to crown the whole by making her regard God as her enemy, and as one who could be actuated in His dealings with His creatures by a paltry and pitiful jealousy. With whatever other feelings we may regard this exhibition of his ingenuity, we cannot iail to see how fully it illustrates all that the Scriptures teach of his craft and cruelty, and how strongly it enforces those admonitions which bid us not be ignorant of his devices or indifferent to his wiles.