are two distinct aspects. By what he suffered in his death, our sins are blotted out; by what he did in his obedience to the law, we are justified. By Christ's bloodshedding we escape the penal sentence of eternal death; but it is by Christ's obedience that we merit the reward that we have justly forfeited. Thus, Christ's passive sacrifice, by which we are forgiven, and Christ's active obedience, or the righteousness by which we are justified, were vividly proclaimed to Adam amid the wreck and clouds and chaos that he had brought upon himself, and there and then he was taught to lift up his heart, and, instead of despairing, hope for that reparation which we know will be accomplished in the fulness of the times.

The only thing that has perplexed some in regarding this passage as the proclamation of the gospel, is the fact that it was addressed to the serpent, and not to Adam and Eve. Very naturally it has been asked, Why did God proclaim this glorious promise to the vile serpent, and not directly to Adam and Eve? Perhaps it may have been especially to abase and humble the guilty pair, - to show them that that God whom they had offended, was separated from them by their sins. But it is plain that yet, whilst he told the serpent this promise, he told it for Adam and Eve, though not to Adam and Eve. They heard the promise, and rejoiced in the gospel it unbosomed, whilst they were humbled by the truly humbling fact, that God did not speak to them directly until they had accepted the truth, been reinstated in their lost relationship, and, from being strangers, had been made again the friends and the followers of the Lamb. Or God may have addressed these words to the serpent first, in order to evolve his own glory. In other words, God would foreshow that this great interrupter of a happy world must be destroyed, before he would proclaim this glad news which would bring joy to the hearts of the

guilty. It may have been meant to indicate the subjugation of the evil, that subjugation evincing the power of Him who should accomplish it; or that his glory must be compatible with the promise of a Saviour, and with the mercy and forgiveness which it embosomed for Adam and Eve, and for all that should believe in the name of Jesus. In other words, it may have been designed to prove that the Father was not to overshadow the Judge; that mercy must not be the grave of justice; that sin could only be forgiven in a mode that should vindicate the ways of God to man, and prove that he was just, and holy, and true, while he justified and freely forgave the guilty that believed in Jesus.

Thus we have the gospel preached in Paradise, and justification by faith alone its distinctive and peculiar dogma -- proclaimed some six thousand years ago. Adam and Eve were Protestants. The first sermon that they heard was emphatically a Protestant one. "Christ and him crucified" was the text; "Christ and him crucified" was the sermon; and these two transgressors were the first congregation that listened to it, and the first true church that loved and lived it. God told them, "I am the way, the truth, and the life." Adam and Eve heard substantially these words, "I have made him to be sin for you, who knew no sin; that you, who have committed this great primal sin, might be made the righteousness of God in him." (2 Cor. v. 21.) Or rather, if it were Jesus who preached the sermon, as we believe it was, then he substantially said to them, " Come unto me, Adam and Eve, weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. agony to be endured shall prevent yours. shall restore the earth to a better Paradise. christen, my blood shall reconsecrate it; my pierced hands shall lift you to a height of glory, higher far than that from

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which you fell; and your last estate shall be better, more glorious, and more triumphant by redeeming grace, than the first was by creative power."

It was thus the great truth of gospel acceptance through the blood of Jesus is as old as the Fall, was preached, as with a trumpet voice, at the Fall, was not there a doctrine of reserve, as some have wished it to be, but the prominent proclamation the Alpha and the Omega-the very pith and substance of the first promise that was made. There was indicated in this very promise that the restoration was to be effected by sufferings then yet to be endured; for it is said that, while Satan's head was to be bruised, the Saviour's heel was to be hurt in doing so. And what is this but the early epitome of the statement, "It became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the Captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings?" (Heb. ii. 10.) In other words, it is the indication, that through death Jesus should destroy him who had the power of death; and therefore, that the sufferings of Christ were not the patient endurance of the martyr attesting the sincerity of his convictions, but the expiatory agonies of the Victim making atonement for all the sins of all that believe. Refuse to believe that the sufferings of Jesus were expiatory, and you exhaust Christianity of its lifeblood; you deny us that which is the basis of our brightest, our only, our eternal hopes; you make Christianity the revelation only of a more perfect standard, and to man, therefore, the vehicle of only a more thorough and hopeless despair. What man needs in his ruin is, not the knowledge of what he should be, for that he knows too well, but the process by which he may be restored to what he should be. When we go into an hospital, the physician does not point to the standard of pure health, and merely say that is what you should be. If he did, you would tell

him that he was placed in the.ward, not to tell you how far you are in a state of sickness, but to tell you how you may be restored to the health that you have lost. We are patients in a moral sense; we are sufferers, because we are sinners; and what we need is, not a republication of the law that we have broken, nor a reëxhibition in brighter light of a standard that we have not conformed to, or of an archetypal glory we have fallen from, but the manifestation of a curative, restorative process, by which the wrong may be righted, and the disease healed; in other words, an atonement and sacrifice by which our sins may be blotted out, and our nature renewed. All this is contained in the promise proclaimed in Paradise. Adam and Eve had the type of it in the slain animals, and in the cross and in Calvary we have the fact and fulness of it.

It follows from all this, that our present life must be more or less a ceaseless struggle. The serpent's power, it is said, shall bruise the Saviour's heel. And what took place between Christ and Satan, takes place between those who are Christ's and those who are Satan's. Well did our Lord say, "I am not come to send peace on earth, but a sword." Whenever the church is very quiet, we have too much reason to fear it is very corrupt. Stir, agitation, conflict, battle, these are the inevitable characteristics of an age in which the world feels that it is losing ground, and the church, overflowing with life, strives after her great and everlasting destiny. Two great eternities are at issue; the battle field is time; souls are the prizes. How great must those souls be, for which two eternities battle! how important is that creature for whom heaven and hell are in conflict! and how precious is that promise which announces, that the issue of that battle is fixed and predetermined from everlasting ages; that Satan shall be utterly discomfited; that error shall be finally laid prostrate; that all that is

evil shall be rooted out of this earth, and that all that is bright, and beautiful, and holy, and happy, shall characterize it once more; that whatever Satan has clouded shall be purified; that whatever Satan has convulsed with fever, or infected with disease, shall regain perfect health; that wherever the trail of the serpent is, there the foot print of the King of kings shall be; that wherever Satan's empire now is, there Christ's kingdom shall be; and he shall reign for ever and ever, and put all things under him; and the last enemy that he shall destroy is death, and when he has put him under him, then God in Christ shall be all in all! (1 Cor. xv. 24–28.)

We have an indication in this promise that Jesus must be more than man. I should infer from this very text, "The woman's seed shall bruise the serpent's head," that Christ must be God. It is asked, how? In this way: Adam in the midst of a garden, in perfect innocence, in the most favorable circumstances in which humanity was ever placed, or could be placed, was tempted by Satan; he yielded, and was overcome. But one was to emerge from Adam, who in a wilderness should be also tempted by Satan, in the most unfavorable circumstances, while clothed with a humanity that was no stranger to fatigue, and pains, and tears, steeped in sorrows, and penetrated by a thousand agonies: yet there, and in such circumstances, He overcame and discomfited the wicked one, and was more than conqueror, and finally nailed powers and principalities to his cross, and made a show of them openly. If then humanity in Adam fell before the tempter in the most favorable circumstances in which humanity could be placed, we must infer that that humanity which met the tempter in the most unfavorable circumstances, and bruised his head, and gloriously triumphed, must have been allied to God; and that Jesus therefore was none less than God himself, "the