Let us mark, then, first of all, this questioning of Adam on the part of God. Three several times we find these questions. He questions the man, questions the woman; the serpent He does not question, but proceeds instead immediately to judgment. Plainly there is something significant in this. For it cannot be thought that the Omniscient needed to know the things that He inquired) about; therefore, if not for His own sake, it must have been for man's sake He made the inquiry. It was, in fact, the appeal to man for confidence in One who on His part had done nothing, to forfeit it; the gracious effort to bring him to own in the presence of his Creator, his present condition and the sin which had brought him into it. And it is still in this way that we find entrance into the enjoyed favor of a Saviour-God:"we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand," the "goodness of God" leading "to repentance." Confidence!_in that goodness enables us to take true ground before God, and enables Him thus, according to the principles of holy government, to show us His mercy. Not in self-righteous efforts to excuse ourselves, nor yet in self-sufficient promises for the future, but "if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

To this confession do these questionings of God call these first sinners of the human race. Because, there is mercy for them, they are invited to cast themselves upon it. Because there is none for the serpent, there is in his case no question. But let us notice also the different character of these questions, as well as the order of them. Each of these has its beauty and significance.

The first question is an appeal to Adam to consider his condition,-the effect of his sin, rather, than his sin itself. The second it is that refers directly to the sin, and not the first. This doublet appeal we shall find every wherein Scripture. Does man "thirst,"he is bidden to come and drink of the living water; is he " laboring and heavy-laden," he is invited to find rest for his soul. This style of address clearly takes the ground of the] first question. It is the heart not at rest here rather than the conscience. roused. Where the latter is the case, however, and the sense of guilt presses on the soul, then there is a Christ of whom even His enemies testify that He receiveth sinners, and whose own words are that the " Son of Mantis come to seek and to save that which is lost."

These are, as it .were, God’s two arms thrown around men. Thus would He fain by every, tie of interest. draw them to Himself,-of self-interest when they are as yet incapable of any higher, any worthier motive. How precious is this witness to a love which .finds all its inducement in itself-a love, not which God has, but which He is! How false an estimate do we make of it and of Him when we make Him just such another as ourselves,-when we think of His heart as needing to be won back to us, as if He,, had fallen from His own goodness, with our fall from innocence! How slow are we to credit Him when He speaks of the "great love wherewith He loves us, even when we are dead in sins "! How little we believe it, even when we have before our eyes " God, in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them "! And even when the feet evidence and measurement in one, manifests a grace overflowing, abounding over it,-even then can he justify himself rather than God, and refuse the plainest and simplest testimony to sovereign goodness, which he has lost even the bare ability to conceive.

In how many ways is God beseeching man to consider his own condition at least, if nothing else! In how many tongues is this "Adam, where art thou?" repeated to the present day! Ever grown of a creation subject to vanity, whereof the whole frame-work is convulsed and out of joint, is such a tongue. And herein is Wisdom crying in the streets, even where there is no speech and no word, " So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom." This, man never does until divinely taught. " Wisdom is justified" only "of her children."

And Adam does not yet approve himself as one of these. His confession of sin is rather an accusation of God.-" The woman whom Thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat." In patient majesty, God turns to the woman. She, more simply, but still excusing herself, pleads she was deceived.-"The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat." Then, without any further question, He proceeds to judgment, – judgment in which for the tempted mercy lies enfolded, and where, if the old creation find its end there appears the beginning of that which alone fully claims the title of "The Creation of God."

In the judgment of the serpent, we must remember first of all the essentially, typical character of the language used. We have no reason to believe that Adam knew as yet the mystery of who the tempter was. " That old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan," was doubtless for him nothing more than the most subtle of the beasts of the field which the Lord God had made. And herein, indeed, were divine wisdom and mercy shown, the tempter being not permitted to approach in angelic character, as one above man, but in bestial, as one below him; one indeed of those to which man as their lord had given names, and among which he had found no helpmeet. How great was thus his shame when he listened to the deceiver! he had given up his divinely appointed supremacy, in that moment.

So in the judgment here it is all outwardly the mere serpent, where spiritually we discern a far deeper thing. " And the Lord God said unto the serpent, ' Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed among all cattle, and among all beasts of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life.'" Thus the victory of evil is in reality the degradation of the victor:he is degraded necessarily by his own success. How plainly is this an eternal principle, illustrated in every career of villainy under the sun! By virtue of it, Satan will not be the highest in hell, and prince of it, as men have feigned, but lowest and most miserable of all the miserable there. " Dust shall be the serpent's meat." "He feeleth on ashes:a deceived heart hath turned him aside, that he cannot deliver his soul, nor say, Is there not a lie in my right hand? "

But there is still another way in which the serpent's victory is his defeat:-"And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise His heel." That this last! expression received its plainest fulfillment on the' cross I need not insist upon. There Satan manifested himself prince of this world, able (so to speak) by his power over men to cast Christ out of it and put the Prince of life to death. But that victory was his eternal overthrow.-" Now is the judgment of this world; now shall the prince of this world be cast out; and I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto Me."

This is deliverance for Satan's captives. It is not the restoration, however, of the old creation, nor of the first man. The seed of the woman is emphatically the " Second Man," another and at " last Adam," new Head of a new race, who find in Him their title as " Sons of God," as " born, not of blood (1:e.,naturally), nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God."

This is not the place indeed for the expansion of this, for here it is not expanded. We shall find the development of it further on. Only here it is noted, that not self-recovery, but a deliverer, is the need of man ; and if God take up humanity itself whereby to effect deliverance it must be the seed of the woman, the expression of feebleness and dependence, not of natural headship or of power.

The first direct prophecy links together the first page of revelation with the last, for only there do we find the full completion of it,-the serpent's head at last bruised. As a principle, the life of every saint in a world which " lieth in the wicked one" has illustrated and enforced it; In the next section of this book we shall return to look at this.

The judgment of the woman and the man now follow, but they have listened already to the voice of mercy-a mercy which can turn to blessing the hardship and sorrow, henceforth the discipline of life, and even the irrevocable doom of death itself. That Adam has been no inattentive listener, we may gather from his own next words, which are no very obscure intimation of the faith which has sprung up in his soul. '"And Adam called his wife's name Eve [life], because she was the mother of all living." The "woman which Thou gavest to be with me " is again " his wife," and he names' her through whom death…had come in, as the mother, not of the dying, but the living.

Thus does his faith lay hold on God,-the faith of a poor sinner surely, to whom divine mercy had come down without a thing in him to draw it out, save only the misery which spoke to the heart of infinite love. Like Abraham, afterward "he believed God," and while to the sentence he bows I in submissive silence, the grace inclosed in the (sentence opens his lips again. Beautifully are we permitted to see just this in Adam, a faith which left him a poor sinner still, to be justified, not by works, but freely of God's grace, but still put him thus before God for justification. And we are ready the more to apprehend and appreciate the significant action following:"Unto Adam also, and to his wife, did the Lord God make coats of skin, and clothed them." Thus the shame of their nakedness is removed, and by God Himself, so that they are fit for His presence; for the covering provided of Himself must needs be owned as competent by Himself. And we have only to consider for a moment to discern how competent it really was.

Death provided this covering. These coats of skin owned the penalty as having come in, and those clothed with them found shelter for themselves in the death of another, and that the one upon whom it had come sinlessly through their own sin. How pregnant with instruction as to I how still man's nakedness is covered and he made !fit for the presence of a righteous God! These skins were fitness, the witness of how God had maintained the righteous sentence of death, while removing that which was now his shame, and meeting the consequences of his" sin. Our covering is far more, but it is such a witness also. Our righteousness is still the witness of God's righteousness,-the once dead, now living One, who of God is made unto us righteousness, and in whom also we are made the righteousness of God. The antitype in every way transcends the type surely, yet very sweet and significant nevertheless is the first testimony of God to the Son;-a double testimony, first to the seed of the woman, the Saviour; and then, when faith has set its seal to this, a testimony to that work of atonement, whereby:the righteousness of God is revealed in good news to man, and the believer is made that righteousness in Him.

Not till the hand of God has so interfered for them are Adam and his wife sent forth out of the garden. If earth's paradise has closed for them, heaven has already opened; and the tree of life, denied only as continuing the old creation, stretches forth for them its branches, loaded with its various fruit, "in the midst of the paradise," no longer of men, but "of God."