There is a special fitness in the fact, long since known and now to be
perceived probable, that if mankind should fail in disobedience, it
should rather be through the woman than through the man. Because, the
man, _quâ man_, and the deputed head of all inferior creatures, was
nearer to his Creator, than the woman; who, _quâ woman_, proceeded out
of man. She was, so to speak, one step further from God, _ab origine_,
than man was; therefore, more liable to err and fall away. To my own
mind, I confess, it appears that nothing is more anteriorly probable
than the plain, scriptural story of Adam and Eve: so simple that the
child delights in it; so deep that the philosopher lingers there with an
equal, but more reasonable joy.
For, let us now come to the probabilities of a temptation; and a fall;
and what temptation; and how ordered.
The heavenly intelligences beheld the model-man and model-woman,
rational beings, and in all points "very good." The Adversary panted for
the fray, demanding some test of the obedience of this new, favourite
race. And the Lord God was willing that the great controversy, which he
fore-knew, and for wise purposes allowed, should immediately commence.
Where was the use of a delay? If you will reply, To give time to
strengthen Adam's moral powers: I rejoin, he was made with more than
enough of strength infused against any temptation not entering by the
portal of his will: and against the open door of will neither time nor
habits can avail. Moreover, the trial was to be exceedingly simple; no
difficult abstinence, for man might freely eat of every thing but one;
no natural passion tempted; no exertion of intelligence requisite. Adam
lived in a garden; and his Maker, for proof of reasonable obedience,
provides the most easy and obvious test of it--do not eat that apple.
Was it, in reality, an improbable test; an unsuitable one? Was it not,
rather, the likeliest in itself, and the fittest as addressed to the
new-born, rational animal, which imagination could invent, or an amiable
fore-knowledge of all things could desire? Had it been to climb some
arduous height without looking back, or on no account to gaze upon the
sun, how much less apt and easy of obedience! Thus much for the test.
Now, as to the temptation and its ordering. A creature, to be tempted
fairly, must be tempted by another equal or lower creature; and through
the senses. If mere spirit strives with spirit, plus matter, the strife
is unequal: the latter is clogged; he has to fight in the net of
Retiarius. But if both are netted, if both are spirit plus matter, (that
is, material creatures,) there is no unfairness. Therefore, it would
seem reasonable that the Adversary in person should descend from his
mere spirituality into some tangible and humbled form. This could not
well be man's, nor the semblance of man's: for the first pair would well
know that they were all mankind: and, if the Lord God himself was
accustomed to be seen of them as in a glorified humanity, it would be
manifestly a moral incongruity to invest the devil in a similar form. It
must, then, be the shape of some other creature; as a lion, or a lamb,
or--why not a serpent? Is there any improbability here? and not rather
as apt an avatar of the sinuous and wily rebel, the dangerous,
fascinating foe, as poetry at least, nay, as any sterner contrivance
could invent? The plain fact is, that Reason--given keenness--might have
guessed this also antecedently a likelihood.
A few words more on other details probable to the temptation. Wonderful
as it may seem to us with our present experience, in the case of the
first woman it would scarcely excite her astonishment to be accosted in
human phrase by one of the lower creatures; and in no other way could
the tempter reach her mind. Much as Milton puts it, Eve sees a beautiful
snake, eating, not improbably, of the forbidden apple. Attracted by a
natural curiosity, she would draw near, and in a soft sweet voice the
serpent, _i.e._ Lucifer in his guise, would whisper temptation. It was
likely to have been keenly managed. Is it possible, O fair and favoured
mistress of this beautiful garden, that your Maker has debarred you from
its very choicest fruit? Only see its potencies for good: I, a poor
reptile, am instantly thereby endued with knowledge and the privilege of
speech. Am I dead for the eating?--ye shall not surely die; but shall
become as gods yourselves; and this your Maker knoweth.
The marvellous fruit, invested thus with mystery, and tinctured with
the secret charm of a thing unreasonably, nay, harmfully, forbidden,
would then be allowed silently to plead its own merits. It was good for
food: a young creature's first thought. It was pleasant to the eyes:
addressing a higher sense than mere bodily appetite, than mental
predilection for form and colour which marks fine breeding among men. It
was also to be desired to make one wise; here was the climax, the great
moral inducement which an innocent being might well be taken with;
irrespectively of the one qualification that this wisdom was to be
plucked in spite of God. Doubtless, it were probable, that had man not
fallen, the knowledge of good would never have been long withheld: but
he chose to reap the crop too soon, and reaped it mixed with tares,
good, and evil.
I need not enlarge, in sermon form, upon the theme. It was probable that
the weaker creature, Woman, once entrapped, she would have charms enough
to snare her husband likewise: and the results thus perceived to have
been likely, we have long since known for fact. That a depraved
knowledge should immediately occasion some sort of clothing to be
instituted by the great moral Governor, was likely: and there would be
nothing near at hand, in fact nothing else suitable, but the skins of
beasts. There is also a high probability that some sort of slaying
should take place instantly on the fall, by way of reference to the
coming sacrifice for sin; and for a type of some imputed righteousness.
God covered Man's evil nakedness with the skins of innocent slain
animals: even so, Blessed is he whose unrighteousness is forgiven, and
whose sin is covered.
With respect to restoration from any such fall. There seems a remarkable
prior probability for it, if we take into account the empty places in
heaven, the vacant starry thrones which sin had caused to be untenanted.
Just as, in after years, Israel entered into the cities and the gardens
of the Canaanite and other seven nations, so it was anteriorly likely,
would the ransomed race of Men come to be inheritors of the mansions
among heavenly places, which had been left unoccupied by the fallen host
of Lucifer. There was a gap to be filled: and probably there would be
some better race to fill it.