of his seed to their final destruction; and these words, " He shall bruise thy head," laid a foundation for Adam and his wife to believe in God, that it should be according as he had spoken.

As the Tree of Knowledge, the fruit of which Adam and his wife had eaten, was a sign of curse and death if man transgressed God's law, Jehovah saying, in the day thou eatest of it thou shalt die, or dying thou shalt die; so, 'tis probable, God, in the ceremonial law, pronounceth such as die or hang on a tree accursed, that is, as having a sign of a curse upon them: and our Lord Jesus was nailed to the tree, and "delivered us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us."

Thus, in this revelation of Christ, the whole Gospel was contained. His person, one in the essence existing, himself the self-existent Saviour, who was to become incarnate that he might destroy the works of the devil. He was to live for his people: this was intimated in his bruising Satan; for he could not suffer, had he not lived in our nature. He was to bruise the serpent's head, which proclaimed his almighty power to conquer sin; seeing he was to bruise and overcome him who was the father of it, in whom it first began, even him who had brought up the cursed method of sinning against God. If the Son of God at this time appeared in human form, as a pledge and proof that his delights were with the sons of men, as some learned divines conceive, it must have struck Satan through and through with endless sorrow and confusion,

and have been a vast encouragement to the faith of the fallen pair; and as the second person in the essence spoke, and said, "Let there be light, and there was light," and as, according to the covenant settlements of the three in Jehovah, the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment to the Son, I conclude it very safe and truly scriptural to say, that the God-man, as such, appeared to Adam immediately after the fall, and spoke out, in the name of all the persons in God, this sentence on Satan, and gave forth this revelation concerning his future incarnation, passion, salvation, and conquests. I shall now add a few observations from Dr. Lightfoot; he says, "It was about high noon

when Adam and his wife fell. In their lost and sinful state they lay till towards the cool of the day, or three o'clock in the afternoon. Then they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden; who, having summoned them before him, interrogated them, and heard their shameful excuse, immediately pronounces an eternal curse on the serpent and on Satan, who had by means of it been the destroyer of mankind, promises Christ as the Redeemer of the elect, and then curses the earth, that they might not set their affections on, or seek their happiness in things below: he doometh them to labour, misery, and mortality, that they might look for rest in Heaven.Adam's story is all wonder! Dust, so raised and animated with a living soul, so soon lost and so soon renewed! He knew what was con

tained in the revelation of Christ, and received it as God's promise, that thus it would be. He proves, and gives evidence of his faith, by calling his wife's name Eve, because she was the mother of all living. He had, before her fall, named her according to her sex woman, chap ii. v. 23. Now he gives her another name of distinction; then, she was called woman because she was taken out of man; now, Eve, because all living were to come out of her. Adam shewed wisdom in naming the beasts: here he shews that and more, viz. faith and sense of his bet ter estate. She was rather the mother of death; having done that which brought death into the world; but he, sensible of a better life to come in by her, call her Eve, i. e. life, as the word sig. nifies. Lay this to that in John, chap i. v. 4. “In him was life, speaking of Christ, and the life was the light of men." Eve was the mother of all living; viz. of Christ, and all that live by him.

I proceed to consider, secondly, the solemn exhibition of him as the propitiation for sin.

To keep this most important revelation and promise of Christ in continual remembrance, required a representative priest and sacrifice, whereby the revelation and promise might be realized to the view and senses of believers in Jesus, in outward signs and memorials thereof. To inform Adam and all succeeding believers how the promise concerning Christ's victory over Satan, and of salvation, should be accomplished, the sacrifice and death of Immanuel were shewn forth and recorded in Paradise

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by the death of an animal, chosen out and commanded by the Lord to be offered in sacrifice to him: and the first death that ever took place in our world was a memorial, figure, and type, of the death of Christ. In reference to it, Christ bears the title of "the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world." Rev. xiii. v. S. A Lamb was appointed by the Lord to be a symbol of Christ. It was substituted in the room of sinners. It was to have sin laid on it; then it was to be consumed by fire. In which the substitution of Christ's person in the room and stead of his people, the imputation of their sins to him, and his bearing them in his own body on the tree, and the acceptation of his offering by fire from heaven falling on the outward figure of it, were testified; and the removal and abolishing of all their sins out of the sight of God, by consuming and reducing the oblation to ashes by fire: hence it was stiled a burnt offering, because it was wholly consumed. Now this began immediately upon the fall; was instituted by the Lord God; and was performed by Adam; who knew, by the light and teaching of the Holy Ghost, its end and design. He was a partaker of the benefit of it from what we read at the 21st verse of this chapter: "Unto Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins, and clothed them." The skins must have been those of the sacrificial animals, which had been offered up at God's command, as memorials of Christ, the Lamb of God and though they are not mentioned, yet it follows from the title given

to Christ, THE LAMB SLAIN FROM THE FOUNDATION OF THE WORLD;" and also from what it recorded in the next chapter, concerning Abel's offering to the Lord the firstlings of his flocks, that Jesus the Lamb of God was prefigured in the garden of Eden by a lamb, or lambs. He might well, therefore, be proclaimed by the Baptist to be the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of the world.” When it is said the Lord God made coats of skins, and clothed them, it is not relative to common clothing. This they had made for themselves; but it was typical of that righteousness provided by the Most High, and which was to be wrought out for them by the Lord Jesus, who is called THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS. God's clothing Adam and his wife with skins, is an evidence that they sacrificed; for, they had no need of slaying beasts for any other purpose. They were slain, says Dr. Lightfoot, for sacrifice, and their skins sewed for clothing. Thus body and soul were provided for; and, in these sacrifices they looked unto Christ, and saw him in a figure. The first death in the world was Christ dying in a figure. The prophet Zacharias, in his song, has these words, "As he spake by the mouth of his holy prophets, which have been since the world began ;" hinting that from the very beginning of the world, there were prophets of the Messiah: thus, Adam was a prophet of Christ, and prophesied of him in the name of Eve, which signifies life: and Eve prophesied of him in the name of Cain, chap, 4,