THE QUARTERLY

JOURNAL OF PROPHECY.

APRIL 1872.

ART. I. THE PRIMEVAL, PROMISED "ENMITY."

"I will put enmity between thee and the woman.”—Gen. iii. 15. THE primeval promise has been discussed, perhaps, too exclusively in its general bearing on the Church collectively, and on the History of Redemption. It is proposed to examine it in its direct bearing on the parties immediately concerned. "I will put enmity between THEE and the WOMAN."

It might appear, at first sight, as if there were not a little 'enmity" already between the serpent and the woman, and as if it were unnecessary and superfluous for God to put more. Abundantly has the serpent proved himself an enemy to her, luring her within the range of eternal death; while she has seemed to indicate no inconsiderable enmity to him, in laying blame on him, delivering him over to justice when the Judge has come to make inquisition. In such circumstances, we may be inclined to ask, What need that the Lord should proffershould pledge Himself-to put enmity between the serpent and the woman?

To appreciate the import and the action of the promise, let the circumstances in which it is given be first considered,-th crisis in which it is interposed. The relations of the parties concerned are very greatly affected by this promise; and it is requisite to mark diligently what these relations were before it was announced. There were not a few "enmities" among the several parties already, as well as certain alliances. And the

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Sovereign Lord, who is the Judge of things as they are, and has power at His pleasure to alter them as they ought to be, announces a very great alteration through the inbringing of another "enmity":"I will put enmity between thee and the woman."

Part First.

THE "ENMITIES" IN THE FIELD ALREADY.

We need not say that there is "enmity" between the serpent and the Judge. The serpent is emphatically "the enemy the enemy of all righteousness, the adversary, the devil. Hating the Lord against whom he had sinned, he hated in Eve and in Adam the spotless reflection of the Lord's own image, and the lovely workmanship of the Lord's own hand. A liar and a murderer from the beginning; hating their holy, bold, and open truthfulness; envying and grudging at their life of blessedness; by subtlety he beguiled them into a reception of his own lie, and dragged them down into his own dark realm of death. An enemy to God, he was indeed an enemy to them. The righteous Lord, also, it is needless to say, is an enemy to him. Never shall forgiveness be extended to him. His recent and malignant act of rebellion is a new seal of his eternal doom :— "Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed." And it is in further prosecution of this, the Lord's eternal enmity to Satan, that he adds: "And I will put enmity between thee and the woman."

As to the other criminals at the bar,-the disobedient and fallen parents of a new race, how do they stand related to God, to Satan, to each other? What alliances have been broken, what enmities have sprung up, and what new alliances formed, by their rebelling against God? Certain covenants have been broken: certain controversies have arisen. What room do these afford, what call do these constitute, for the "enmity" which the Lord designs to introduce?

I. Consider the position of Eve. To whom is she at present an enemy? To God? To Adam? To Satan?

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1. In the first place, she hath indeed become an enemy to God. She hath deliberately disobeyed and defied Him. She hath eaten of the tree concerning which it is impossible her Sovereign Lord could have more expressly said, "Thou shalt not eat of it." Not in any form of language could her God have more clearly or impressively announced His will and enjoined His commandment, with the sanction thereof, "Thou shalt not eat of it, for in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt

surely die." And never could Eve more deliberately and defiantly, more inexcusably and completely, have effected a rupture, or taken up a controversy, with her God, than when "she took of the fruit of the tree, and did eat." Thus, in the first place, she declared, or pronounced for, enmity to God.

2. In the second place, she enacted enmity-real and deadly enmity to her husband also; for "She gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat."

3. But in the third place,—and as more especially bearing on the point in hand, and on the circumstances in the view of which this promise is given,-is she not also an enemy to Satan? It would seem as if she were. For, soon as the Judge demands," What is this that thou hast done?" she answers,-"The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat." She delates him to the Judge. The author of this black deed is inquired after, and she gives him up at once. When the righteous Lord seeketh the guilty one, to inflict the penalty that has been incurred, our first mother-so little love is lost between her and her tempter-hands him over unscrupulously, unrelentingly, to doom.

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But is this real, profound, and true "enmity" to Satan? Is this a proof that she has no alliance, no covenant, with the serpent, nothing save hatred to him and a controversy with him? Alas! it is evidence rather of enmity to God. This serpent, whom Thou hast made, whom Thou couldst have controlled, but whom Thou didst leave free to flatter and to fascinate me, he "beguiled me, and I did eat." Had it not been for him; had it not been for Thee creating him, and placing him near me, and ordering or permitting his access to I had been innocent and obedient still. Instead of owning her guilt, she excuses herself. Instead of confessing blameworthiness, she labours to lay it on the serpent; to lay it on the Sovereign Lord, who ordains and overrules all things. She retorts the charge on God. She is indeed His enemy. She gives battle. She stands her ground. She will not give in, even to the Most High. She has her parrying plea--one would almost say, her parrying blow-to deliver. She stands at bay. The Judge may accuse her if He think fit, and seek to fasten the guilt and blame on her. But she will shift it off. She will not gratify Him by owning herself inexcusable. She will not admit that He hath the right to call her to account and criminate her as the inexcusable author of this great evil,the blameworthy, death-worthy agent in this deadly offence. Far from standing silent, with her hand upon her mouth, as one who justifieth the truth and justice of the Judge; knowing

that of her own free will, flattered no doubt of the serpent and fascinated by the sin, yet of her own free choice, and on her own full responsibility, did "she take of the fruit of the tree, and did eat;" she nevertheless passes over very lightly, and as quite excusable in the circumstances, the tremendous and appalling fact implied in her acknowledgment, "I did eat," and throws all the emphasis, as if thereby she might throw off the scent, on her plea of Satan's guilt and guile, "The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat."

Herein is real enmity to God, but little real enmity to Satan. No doubt, when thus pressed hard by the Judge, His hand lying heavy upon her, His sword unsheathed to avenge His controversy, she is driven to deliver up her seducer, to deliver him even unto death, to the curse which is the wages of sin. But does this imply any holy, moral enmity to him? Far from it. Rather does it evince how thoroughly she is in spirit one with him; how altogether she has become such an one as her tempter is; and how well acquainted already, and how tainted with that very guile through which he had first beguiled her. For this is precisely what, in the circumstances, he himself would do. To confess sin and guilt; to own simply, honestly, with loyal truth of spirit, with honourable self-condemnation, "I did eat;" to stand before the Divine Judge, and admit without diminution and without addition, without palliation and without excuse, the very sin for which a reckoning is held; this is what Satan cannot do. He has no such confidence in the Judge, and no such reverential esteem or obedient regard for Him, as to do this. He defies Him to His face. Or he equivocates and lies to His face. In one form or another he denies the guilt-denies his worthiness of death and woe. And Eve is so far from being his real enemy, and capable of expressing righteous indignation against him, that she is in all this his most thorough and accurate pupil. She is in his toils, and she is in his school, and rapid and dread progress has she already made in her master's lessons and her master's spirit. No doubt she seems to hand him over to death-to the curse of the living God. But that is precisely what his spirit within her teaches and moves her to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth. And she now, untruthfully pleading guiltlessness, pleading off from condemnation incurred, would, in the very spirit of the murderer, leave her tutor and accomplice in the noose of death, while she, if it may be, shall escape.

For it is in no holy detestation of his offence that she delates him to the Judge, and dooms him to righteous judgment.

Were it in any such holy and honourable recoil from his iniquity and lies, she would herself own the truth. If, abandoning her enmity to God, she should take up a holy and true enmity to Satan, she would simultaneously condemn herself as unsparingly as she has condemned him, for she had become an accomplice and ally with him. Rather she would unsparingly condemn herself alone. But there is not a trace of any such holy and humble frame of mind in the spirit or the terms in which she criminates the serpent. Realising how thoroughly she has been befooled and beguiled, realising how completely she has thrown away the blessedness of her innocent estate, and how false the promise under the shield whereof she voluntarily broke Jehovah's law, and of her own accord incurred Jehovah's curse,-she may with bitter rage burn with hatred of the serpent. Yet is she nothing but his ally and accomplice still ;—his tool, no doubt, and his slave; but his pupil and his child demonstrably. Ever as the evil he hath wrought for her rises to her view in its terrors and irremediable issues, a deep feeling of fierce hatred may also rise; and, when compelled by the awful presence of the all-searching God, and by His probing questions, to speak on this dreadful theme, stung and enraged against the author of her misery and dishonour, she may relentlessly give him up to condemnation. But there is nothing pure and unselfish in this procedure-nothing ingenuous, frank, honourable, free. It is forced out by the terror of the Almighty. It is constrained by the desperate attempt at selfpreservation. It is as devilish as the devil is. There is no real enmity between them. They are tyrant and tool; teacher and pupil; father and child, still. Her covenant with hell is not broken. Her alliance with death and the prince of darkness holds, and must hold, till the Lord, the Judge, Himself shall break it.

No: there is no such "enmity" between the woman and the serpent-between the sinner and Satan-but that the Lord hath full scope for saying, as of His own proper work, the work that can be His alone: "I will put enmity between thee and the woman."

For, any enmity at present subsisting is only such as may be found between associated convicts or outcasts, the breakers of one common law, suffering together under one common condemnation. Precisely as in such a case, so here. It is mere affectation in Eve to pretend to that sense of honour which would with righteous indignation condemn her tempter. She is herself in the same condemnation. Her affected accusation of him may be met on his part with the malignant scowl of