We have also a surer word for our own satisfaction, in the appli- cation of this place unto Satan in the divine writings of the New Testament: as 2 Cor. xi.8; 1 Tim. i. 14; Rom. v. 11-18, 15; Heb.
SECT. 26.] PROMISED OF OLD. 175
u. 14,15; 1 John iii. 8; Rev. xi, 9, xx. 2,3; but we forbear to press them on the Jews.
Besides, it is most evident from the thing itself; for,—first, Who can be so sottish as to imagine that this great alteration which en- sued on the works of God, that which caused him to pronounce them accursed, and to inflict so sore a punishment on Adam and all his posterity, should arise from the actings of a brute creature? Where is the glory of this dispensation? How can we attribute it unto the wisdom and greatness of God? What is there in it suitable unto his righteousness and holiness? Whereas supposing this to be the work of him who was in himself the beginning of all apostasy, and who first brake the law of his creation, all things answer the excel- lency of the divine perfections. Moreover, is it imaginable that the nature of man, then flourishing in the vigour of all its intellectual abilities, reason, wisdom, knowledge, in that order and rectitude of them which was his grace, should be surprised, seduced, and brought into subjection unto the craft and machinations of an inferior crea- ture, a beast of the field, and that unto its own ruin, temporal and eternal? The whole nature of the inferior creatures, James tells us, “is tamed by the nature of man,” chap. ui. 7, and that now, in his lessened and depraved condition; and shall we think that this ex- cellent nature, in the blossom of its strength and right unto rule over all, should be tamed, corrupted, subdued, by the nature of a beast or aserpent? And yet again, whereas in the whole action of the serpent, there is an open design against the glory and honour of ‘God, with the welfare and happiness of mankind, and that managed with craft, subtlety, and forecast, how can we imagine that such a contrivance should befall a brute worm, incapable of moral evil, and newly framed out of the dust by the power of its Creator? Hitherto it had continued under the law, and order, of its creation; and shall we now think that suddenly, in an instant, it should engage thus desperately against God and man? And further, the actings of the serpent were by reason and with speech; and doth not a supposal that he was endowed with them plainly exempt him from that order and kind of creatures whereof he was, and place him among the number of the intellectual and rational parts of the creation? And is not this contrary to the analogy of the Scripture and the open truth of the thing itself, he being cursed among “the beasts of the field?” To say, as Aben Ezra seems to do, that God gave him rea- son and speech for that occasion, is blasphemously to make God the sole author of that temptation which he so much abhorred. Lastly, considering the punishment denounced against mankind, of death temporal and eternal, that which is threatened unto the serpent bears no proportion unto it, if it concern only the serpent itself; and what rule of justice will admit that the accessary should be punished
176 MESSIAH, THE DELIVERER FROM EVIL, [EXERC. VIIL
with greater sufferings than the principal? Neither doth this pun- ishment, as to the principal part of it, the bruising of the head, be- fall all serpents, yea, but few of them in comparison,—doubtless not one in a million; whereas all mankind, none excepted, were liable unto the penalty denounced against them. Were no more men intended herein than are bitten on the heel by serpents, the matter were otherwise; but “death is passed upon all men, for all have sinned.” Satan, then, it was who was the principal in this seduction, the author of all apostasy from God, who, using the serpent as his instrument, involved that also so far in the curse, as to render it of all creatures the most abhorred of mankind.
27. Against this seducer it is denounced that “his head should be bruised.” The head of Satan is his craft and power. From these issued all that evil whereinto mankind was fallen. In the bruising, therefore, of his head, the defeat of his counsel, the destruction of his work, and the deliverance of mankind, are contained, as our apostle most excellently declares, Heb. ii, Death must be removed, and righteousness brought in, and acceptance with God procured, or the head of Satan is not bruised. This, therefore, is openly and plainly a promise of the deliverance inquired after.
Moreover, there is a declaration made how this victory shall be obtained and this deliverance wrought ; and that is by the “seed of the woman.” ‘This seed is twice repeated in the words: once ex- pressly, “and her seed;” and, secondly, it is included in the pronoun wan, “it.” And as by “seed,” in the first place, the posterity of the woman, some to be born of her race, partakers of human nature, may be intended, as the subjects of the enmity mentioned ; so in the latter some single person, some one of her posterity or seed, that should obtain the victory, is expressly denoted: for as all her seed in common do never go about this work, the greatest part of them con- tinuing in a willing subjection unto Satan, so if all of them should combine to attempt it, they would never be able to accomplish it, as we have before proved at large. Some one, therefore, to come of her, with whom God would be present in an especial and extraordinary manner, is here expressly promised; and this is the Messiah.