Chapter IV. The Sentence of Death—The Ruin of the Old World, and the Preservation of a Remnant

p. 107The trial of the Transgressors.—Of the Literal and the Allegorical.—The sentence upon the Serpent particularised.—The “Peace and Safety” cry.—Jesus came not to send peace, but a sword.—The Peace Society the enemy of God.—Cain, Abel, and Seth.—Atheism defined.—Cain rejected as the progenitor of the Woman’s Seed, and Seth appointed.—The Antediluvian apostasy.—The Cainites and Sethites distinct societies.—Their union the ruin of the old world, of which eight sons of Seth only survive.—The Foundation of the World.—The sentence upon Woman.—Her social position defined.—The sentence upon Adam.—The Constitution of Sin.—Of sin as a physical quality of the flesh.—Of the hereditary nature of Jesus.—Of “original sin.”—Men, sinners in a two-fold sense.—The Constitution of Righteousness.—Men become saints by adoption.—The Three Witnesses.—The “new birth” explained.—The Two Principles.—Of “the light within.”—The scripture revelation the divine principle of illumination.—The awful condition of “the church.”—Of the Hidden Man of the heart.

In the previous chapter, I have treated of the introduction of sin into the world; its immediate effects upon the transgressors; and of some of its remoter consequences upon their posterity. We left Adam and his companion hid among the trees of the garden, greatly alarmed at the voice of God; and overwhelmed with shame at the condition to which they had reduced themselves. But, though hid, as they supposed, they soon found the truth of the saying that is written, that “there is not any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and open unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.”^a When the Lord God called to Adam, he said, in answer to the question, “Where art thou?” “I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.”

This was the truth as far as it went; but it was not the whole truth. Fear, shame, and concealment are plainly avowed; but why he was ashamed he was not ingenuous enough to confess. The Lord God, however, knowing from the mental constitution He had bestowed upon him, that man could not be ashamed unless his conscience was defiled by transgression of His law in fact or supposition, directed His next inquiry so as at once to elicit a confession of the whole truth. “Who told thee,” said He, “that thou wast naked?” Did I tell thee, or did any of the Elohim? Or, “Hast thou eaten of the tree whereof I commanded thee p. 108 that thou shouldest not eat?” Thou hast no cause to be afraid of Me, or ashamed of thine appearance as I have formed thee; unless thou hast sinned against Me by transgressing My law. Thou hast heard My voice, and stood upright and naked in My presence before, and wert not ashamed; what hast thou done? Why coverest thou thy transgression by hiding thine iniquity in thy bosom?^a

But Adam, still unwilling to be blamed according to his demerits, in confessing reflected upon the Lord God, and turned evidence against Eve. “The woman,” said he, “whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.” As much as to say, If thou hadst not put her in my way, and I had been left to myself, I should not have done it. It is she who is chiefly to blame; for she not only ate herself, but tempted me.

The offence being traced to Eve, the Lord Elohim said to her, “What is this that thou hast done?” But her ingenuousness was no more conspicuous than Adam’s. She confessed that she had eaten, but excused herself on the ground of a deception having been practised upon her by the serpent: “The serpent beguiled me,” said she, “and I did eat.”

There is no evidence that the Serpent either touched the tree, or ate of its fruit. Indeed, if he had he would have committed no offence; for the law was not given to him, but to Adam and Eve only; and “where there is no law there is no transgression.” Besides, Paul says Eve was the first in the transgression. The Lord God, therefore, did not interrogate the Serpent as He had the others. He had, by his clumsy interpretation of what he had seen and heard, corrupted Eve’s mind from the simplicity of faith, and obedience to the divine law; but he was incapable of showing upon what moral grounds he had called in question its literality. He thought they would not surely die; because he thought they could as well eat of the tree of life as of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. He thought nothing of the immorality of the Lord God’s solemnly declaring a thing, and not performing it. Cognizance of the morality of thoughts and actions was beyond the sphere of his mentality. With all his superior shrewdness, he was neither responsible, nor able to give an account.

All the evidence in the case being elicited, the Lord God proceeded to pass sentence upon the accused in the order of their conviction. Being incriminated by Eve, and having, in effect, accused God of lying, the Lord began with him, and said, “Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life: and I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed: He shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.”

p. 109 This sentence was both literal and allegorical, like the rest of the things exhibited in the Mosaic account; being “representations of the knowledge and the truth.”^a For the information of the unlearned reader I remark, that to allegorise is to speak in such a way that something else is intended than is contained in the words literally construed. The historical allegory has a double sense, namely, the literal and the figurative; and the latter is as real, as the former is essential to its existence. Thus, the literal serpent was allegorical of “sin in the flesh”; which is therefore figuratively styled the serpent, &c., as before explained. The literal formation of Eve out of Adam’s side was allegorical of the formation of the church out of him, of whom Adam was the figure; therefore the church is the figurative Eve, and its temptation illustrated by that of the literal one. The examples of this are almost infinite. That of Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar as allegorized by Paul in the text below, is a beautiful illustration of the relation between the literal and the figurative, as they are employed in the scriptures of truth. The discernment of the due limit between them is acquired, not by rules, but by much and diligent study of the word.

The literal is the exact construction of the sentence as it reads, and is found in strict accordance with their natural habit, and mutual antipathy between serpents and mankind. They go upon the belly, and lick the dust; and by the deadly quality of their venom, or “sting,” they are esteemed more hateful than any other creatures. In walking with a naked foot one would be bitten in the heel, whose retaliation would be instinctively to bruise the reptile’s head. This is all perfectly natural; but what does it suggest?

Much that might be said upon the allegorical meaning of this passage is already before the reader. I shall add, therefore, by way of summary, the following particulars:—

1. The Serpent as the author of sin, is allegorical of “sin in the flesh”; which is therefore called ὁ πονηρος, “the Wicked One”; and symbolised in its personal and political agency by “the Serpent.”

2. The putting of “enmity” between the Serpent and the woman, is allegorical of the establishment of enmity between sin, incorporate in the institutions of the world, or the serpent: and the obedience of faith, embodied in the congregation of the Lord, which is the woman.

3. The “seed of the Serpent” is allegorical of those over whom sin reigns, as evinced in their obeying it in the lusts thereof. They are styled “the servants of sin”,^b or, “the tares.”^c

4. The “seed of the woman” is allegorical of “the children of the kingdom,”^c or, “servants of righteousness.”^b They are also p. 110 termed “the good seed,”^a who hear and understand the word of the kingdom, sown in their hearts as “incorruptible seed.”^b

5. The seed of the Serpent, and the seed of the woman, are phrases to be taken in the singular and plural numbers. Plurally, in the sense of the fourth particular; and singularly, of two separate hostile personages.

6. The serpent-bruiser of the heel is the sixth, or Imperial, head of the Dragon, to be crushed at the period of its binding, in the person of the last of the Autocrats.

7. The head-bruiser of the dragon, the old Serpent, surnamed the Devil and Satan, is emphatically the Seed of the woman, but not of the man.

The allegorical reading of the text founded upon these particulars is as follows: “I will put the enmity^c of that mode of thinking thou hast elicited in Eve and her husband against my law, between the powers that shall be hereafter, in consequence of what thou hast done; and the faithful, and unblemished corporation, I shall constitute: and I will put this enmity of the spirit against the flesh, and of the flesh against the spirit,^d between all who obey the lusts of the flesh, which thou hast excited; and those of my institution who shall serve me: their Chief shall bear away the world’s sin^e which thou hast originated; and shall destroy all the works^f that have grown out of it: and the sin-power^g shall wound him to death; but he shall recover it, and accomplish the work I now pre-ordain him to do.”