Works, Book 1 · Discourse 41
DISCOURSE XLI.
GENESIS 3. 14.
And the Lord God said unto the Serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattel and above every beast of the field: upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life.
THESE words contain in them the Serpent's Doom and Destiny, pronounced upon him by the great Lord of Heaven and Earth. They contain in them two parts: First, The Reason of this Sentence, in the words, Because thou hast done this: Secondly, The Sentence it self, in the words following, Thou art cursed above all cattel, &c.
The Reason of this Heavy doom is, Because thou hast done this: What This? namely, Because he had beguiled the Man and Woman which God had made, and caused them to transgress his great Commandment. He therefore that is the cause and occasion of anothers sin is as hateful to God as the doer, and is liable to as great or rather a greater punishment than he: For the Serpent here for causing hath this doom, as well as the Man and Woman for doing. Nay, which is to be observed, his doom is the first read unto him, as if he were the Arch-offender, and not to the Man or Woman till he was done with. What should this mean, but that his fault, being the mover, was more grievous in the eyes of God than theirs? which is the reason also why the Woman comes in the next place to have her Sentence, because she had been a sin-maker, and was guilty, not only of her own personal sin, but of her husband's also; whence the Man who had sinn'd only himself, and not caused others to sin, had his judgment last of all. I might also confirm the same from the quality of their several judgments, in that the Serpent alone is doom'd to be accursed, and no such word spoken either of the Man or the Woman.
But I shall not need to tarry here to prove How horrible and fearful a thing it is to be the Author of another's sin. We know they are the words of our Saviour, Matt. 18. 6, 7. Wo unto the world because of scandals, and wo unto the man by whom a scandal cometh; it were better for him that a milstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the Sea. And S. Paul (1 Cor. 8. 13.) would eat no meat as long as the world lasteth, rather than make his brother to offend. Would they would consider this who are not content alone to sin themselves, but play the Devil in corrupting others. It seems they long to be double damn'd. I would also they would think of this who make no conscience at all by extremities and vexations, and other grievances, to drive a man to Perjury and other grievous sins, and yet think themselves free; when they should know, that he that is the Author of another's sin makes another's guilt his own, and shall share in the punishment every whit as deep as he.
But this shall suffice to have observed in the first part, The Reason of the Serpent's doom. Now I come to the second, The doom it self: wherein the words, as you see, have all relation to the Serpent; For the Lord said unto the Serpent, Thou art cursed, &c. Thou shalt go upon thy breast, &c. But because this Serpent was more than a brute Serpent, the Devil himself being the chief Agent in this his Instrument; it is a thing much controverted, VponUpon which of these this curse is here pronounced. 1. Some would have it spoken only of the brute Serpent, because here is a comparison made with cattel and beasts of the field, thereby accounting the Serpent one of that number. Besides, Satan (they say) was accursed before this time, and some of the words in this Curse cannot well be applied to any but the brute Serpent, as that he should eat the dust of the earth, &c. 2. Others would have this Curse pronounced only upon the Spiritual Serpent, the Devil; because the brute Serpent was only an Instrument abused by the Devil, and neither knew what was done, nor could do withal; and why should it therefore be punished? 3. Others would divide the Controversie, applying the first part of the Curse (in the 14. verse) to the brute Serpent, the latter (in the 15. vers.) to the Devil or Spiritual Serpent: because as the latter words, Of the promised seed of the woman which should destroy the Serpent and his seed, must needs be meant of Christ and Satan; so the former words are most fitly appliable to the brute Serpent only. But against this may be said, That the same Thou and Thee spoken of in the first part of the Curse is all one with the Thou and Thee in the latter; and therefore of whatsoever the first is meant, of the same is also meant the latter. 4. There is therefore a fourth opinion, That this Curse is throughout pronounced upon both, both upon the Serpent and the Devil. In which though there be some difference about the manner how, yet I embrace it as the truest, as not only conceiving it may be so, by the fitness of all the parts so applied to both; but think moreover that this only ought to be the meaning and no other, if it be conceived as I am now to shew.
For in the first place, The Devil when he beguiled man came not as a naked Spirit, but in the shape and figure of a Serpent, (as I have shew'd heretofore;) and therefore that his punishment in the manner might be sutable and answerable to his offence, he was to receive his doom likewise under the figure of a Serpent, and the style thereof framed unto a Serpent's condition: For God useth in his wisdom*See Discourse 28. p. 144 &c. to brand the Punishment with the stamp of the Sin, that the offender thereby might not only know what he felt, but also read why he suffered. Why were Adonibezek's thumbs and great toes cut off, but that he might read therein, as he did, his former cruelty?Iudges 1. 7. Threescore and ten Kings, having their thumbs and toes cut off, gathered meat under my Table: As I have done, so God hath requited me. Why was Pharaoh with his Host rather drowned in the Sea, than slain in the Field, but that all the world might read it was for his cruel Edict to drown all the male children of the Hebrews? Why did Absalom lie with David's Concubines, but to put David in mind that he had lien with Vriah's wife? And why was the Curse of the Devil shaped here in and unto the condition of the Serpent, but because he had beguiled man in a Serpent's shape?
Secondly, For the Serpent; The known excellency and subtilty of the Serpent, above all the Beasts which God had made, the Devil had abused to gain credit with the woman, that he was an excellent and a most sagacious Spirit, and therefore might be ably to pry farther into God's meaning than she could; which was the cause of her attention, and so of her ruin. For I have shewed*In the foregoing Discourse. heretofore that the Woman in the state of Integrity knew well enough, That as it was the Law of Spirits in their commerce with men to present themselves under the shape of some visible thing; so it must be likewise under the shape of some such thing as may more or less resemble their condition: And that as the glorious Spirits might take no other shape but of Man, the glory of visible creatures; so the fallen Spirits could not then afore Man's fall take any other shape but of a Beast, thereby to bewray his abasement: Yet because the Devil here took upon him the shape of the most wise and most excellent of Beasts, he so bleared the Woman's eyes with an opinion of his Excellency and Sagacity, that in a manner she forgot, or regarded not, that he was one of the evil and abased Spirits; which was the ground of her miserable ruin and overthrow.
Now because the Excellency and Sagacity of the Serpent had thus been the occasion of man's confusion, by being made the lying counterfeit of the Devil's Excellency and Wisdom, and the mask whereby he so covered his vileness, that the Woman took him not to be as he was indeed; therefore God in his wisdom thought good to change the copy, and henceforth to blu…and deface that unhappy Physiognomical letter, and by abasing the Serpent for the time to come, to make him an everlasting embleme and monument, wherein man might hieroglyphically read the malice, vileness and execrable baseness of that wicked Spirit which had beguiled him; to hate him (as now we do the Serpent) with mortal hatred, and by his unlucky fortune to expect the Devil's deadly destiny: In a word, that which was once used for a mask to cover the Devil's knavery, should for the future be a glass wherein to behold his villany.
These being the Reasons which have led me to understand this Curse in an equal sense, both of the brute Serpent and the Devil; and in the literal sense applied unto the Serpent, yet therein shaping out the Malediction of the Devil, as truly as the Devil had taken upon him the Serpent's shape: Let us now come to a more particular handling of the words. And first we will consider them, As they are the Curse of the unreasonable Serpent; Secondly, As they include the Devil's malediction.
But for the better understanding thereof, before we can proceed, two things are to be resolv'd. First, How it could be just with God to punish the brute Serpent, who was Instrumentum foreign, and had neither will to sin, nor yet knowledge of what the Devil had done; especially if we suppose, as I have done hitherto, that the Devil took only the shape of a Serpent, which the Serpent could not do withal. For this argument hath driven some to affirm, That the whole Curse was to be understood only of the Spiritual Serpent, and not at all of the Natural. But why should this strumble them more as concerning the Iustness of God, than that in Adam's censure in the 17. verse where the whole Earth is cursed for Adam's sake? Cursed be the Earth for thy sake, &c. But what had the Earth done? or how was it guilty of Adam's transgression? Again, Chap. 6. v. 5, 7. it is expresly said, That because God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, he said, I will destroy both man and beast, and the creeping things, and the fowls of the air. But how were the beasts, the creeping things, and the fowls of the air partakers of man's wickedness? what had they done more than been abused by him? which they could not avoid, he being their Lord and Master. And should not we think that Law of God just, Lev. 20. 15. where if a man commit abomination with a beast, the beast is commanded to be slain as well as the man, who only had sinned? This proves that Objection to be wholly insufficient. But yet the difficulty of the resolution, How this may stand with God's justice, remains as before; which therefore comes now to be resolved.
1. We know that all the Beasts of the Field, and the Fowls of the Air, and the Fishes of the Sea were made for the use and service of Man in one kind or other, as he should have occasion to use them. 2. If Man had stood in his first creation, the service of the Creatures should have been sutable to his excellency and integrity, and so far more noble than now it is, that even the creatures might be partakers of his happiness then, in that sense they yet*Rom. 8. 21. look for the glorious liberty of the sons of God to come. 3. But when man was once fallen, the service of the creature was altered, and became a bondage of corruption, as*Ibid. S. Paul terms it, that is, ignoble, and sutable to the corrupt condition of man under sin: Those which should have been imployed excellently for the use of his integrity, are now to serve him ignominiously according to his sin and misery; namely, either to be the means to punish him for his sin, or to relieve him in his misery. To punish him, all the Creatures for his use are become base, corrupt and unworthy, and so nothing so useful for him as they had been: the Earth will not bring forth for him, but with his labour and toil; and then too when it should bear him corn, it brings forth thorns and thistles: the Creatures which should serve and honor him,Gen. 3. 17, 18. do often seise upon him, and destroy him. And thus are the Creatures imployed for man's use indeed, but a woful use, to afflict and punish him for his sin all the days of his life. Another way notwithstanding they are useful and serviceable for his good, as helps to relieve and better him in this his condition of sin; as to be made Documents of the wrath of God to move him to Repentance, and Emblems to know the condition of his most deadly enemy the Devil, and how he ought to abhor and hate him, and the hope and expectation of conquering and triumphing over him in the Blessed seed of the woman. And for this use and service was the Serpent abased and made vile, according to his Curse in my Text; That as he was made excellent, to serve him in integrity; so he was now abased, to be made fit to do him the best service in his misery. And what Injustice could this be in God? when he made him at first, he made him so as he made him for the service of man; and now when he marr'd him, he marr'd him likewise for man's service.
The second thing to be resolved is, Whether this Curse were pronounced only upon one individual Serpent, or whether upon all Serpents in general, or upon some one only kind which the Devil had thus abused. Of one individual Serpent it cannot be, because there is mention here of the enmity of the seed of the Serpent and the seed of the woman; which implies a generation of many Serpents: and besides, this Curse was to be a Monument not only to Adam, but to all his posterity, as long as the world lasted; but one individual Serpent lived not so long. Neither is it credible to be spoken of all kinds of Serpents in general; Because there is almost as great a variety of Serpents as of four-footed beasts of several kinds and species; and why should any kind suffer save that only which had been abused to offend? Besides, I make no doubt but divers kinds of Serpents went at the first Creation upon their breasts as now they do, and were every whit as base as now they are, excepting the general decay of all Creatures since the Fall. It remains therefore that it was only one kind of Serpent which bore this special Malediction; and that such a kind as was not only the noblest of all the kinds of Serpents, but as it seems far excelling all the Creation besides (Man only excepted) for beauty, wisdom and sagacity; but afterward by this Curse became not only baser than the rest of the beasts of the field, but even as base and vile as the vilest kind of Serpent. And therefore it could not be the Basilisk, as some have held, though it be the most poisonful of all others, and as it were a King among Serpents, as the name imports: for if Plinie and Solinus, who report the former, say true, this Serpent here accursed should rather be any other kind than that, because the Basilisk (upon their report) goes with his breast and fore-part of his body advanced, (erectus à medio incedens, saith*Nat. hist. l. 8. c. 21. Plinie; or, as*Cap. 27. Solinus, mediâ corporis parte serpit, mediâ arduus est & excelsus;) but this Serpent here was from the hour of his doom to go for ever upon his breast: which I wonder they considered not, who from the advanced posture of the Basilisk's body have conceived the clean contrary. For as by this example we may believe that the Serpent now accursed did so before his curse; so that he should still do so, it is a most direct gainsaying of Scripture to imagine.
But to come to the words of the Doom; which, as you see, are first General, then Particular. General in these, Thou art cursed above all cattel, and above every beast of the field. What it is to be accursed, we shall know, if we first understand what it is to be blessed. To be blessed or happy is nothing else but an all-fruition of good, or to have a sufficient provision and furniture of good both for being and well-being. So then that Creature is happy and blessed which hath a sufficiency of all good for the being and preservation of it self; which wants neither endowments inward, nor means outward for the attaining of that End whereof it is by nature capable. To be accursed is to have the contrary to this; to be despoiled either of endowments internal or inherent, without which it hath no dignity among the creatures; or external, without which it cannot live and preserve it self, but with much penury, difficulty, toil and danger. Whatsoever therefore among the Beasts of the field (for with such only is the comparison made) is for inherent perfections of all the most unworthy and base, or for the outward furniture of means for the preservation of that ignoble Being, by unprovision, of all others the most wretched and miserable, this is that which is accursed above all cattel and above every beast of the field. And such was the Serpent's condition to be for the general.
And now for the particulars; let us go on and see how they are expressed: and that is in three things. 1. To go upon the breast, or to have the posture of the Body groveling on the earth; whereby (as I shall shew presently) is implied the abasement of the creature. 2. To have for meat the dust of the earth; wherein is shewn its unprovision of food for the maintenance of its life, being of all Beasts of the field to have the basest and coursest fare. 3. To be in continual, mortal and irreconcilable enmity with man, both his Lord and the Lord of the rest of the creatures; from whom it should be in continual danger and fear of its life, and once espied be sure to have its brains dash'd out by him: And which makes the misery so much the greater, to be no way able to be revenged of his enemy other than to come unawares behind him, and then also not able to reach above his heel; as being most unequally matched he walking …o…t with his head and whole body advanced, while the miserable Serpent shall lie groveling on the ground, ready to be troden apieces under his feet.
Of these three Particulars let us speak severally; and first of the first, VponUpon thy breast shalt thou go. In the Hebrew it is foreign, which some turn, VponUpon thy belly: which interpretation hath been one great cause of the difficulty to understand the meaning of this Malediction. For if the shape of the Serpent were after the fashion it is now, it is not possible to imagine how it could ever have gone otherwise than upon the belly; for to think that ever it went an-end, were a conceit more worthy to be derided than to be believed. By which means there appeared no other way to evade this difficulty, but to affirm that the Serpent indeed went upon his belly from the beginning; but either that it was not so toilsom to him, or not for a curse unto him till now: which, for my part, it being so far from the letter of the Text, I could never yet believe. I had much rather in this follow the Vulgar or Ierome's Translation, which reads, super pectus tuum gradiêris, upon thy breast shalt thou go; for upon thy belly I believe the Serpent went from the first Creation, but not upon the breast until this present malediction. The breast of the Serpent I call the upper part of the Serpent's body, from the navel up to the head; The belly, the other part or the other half downward, with which though at the first he walked prone to and upon the earth, yet was the other part, his breast and head, reared up and advanced, until for having been abused to the ruin of mankind, he was now with his whole body to creep groveling upon the earth. And perhaps thus much the Septuagint meant to insinuate by their Translation, which is, foreign, upon thy breast and thy belly; where it may seem that they rendred two words for one in the Text for illustration, and for intimation of this, That whereas the Serpent before went only upon his belly, foreign, now he should from henceforth walk foreign, upon his breast and belly too.
As for the Hebrew foreign here used, there is no necessity at all to translate it the belly, but rather some probability of the contrary in the Etymology of the word. For though in the Hebrew the Theme be not used, yet in the Chaldee foreign … which signifies incurvatus …uit, to bow downward, seems to mean the inclination of the head and breast, or upper part of the body, to the earth; as may be gathered from that of Elijah, 1 Kings 18. 42. where it is said, that Elijah went up to the top of Carmel, & pronum se abjecit in terram, and cast himself down upon the earth, and put his face between his knees: for here the Targum useth this word foreign … the Radix of foreign Again Mark. 1. 7. in those words of Iohn Baptist, There is one cometh after me, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to stoop down and unloose; here for the Greek word foreign … stoop down, the Syriack hath foreign … of as near a kin to foreign as is the Syriack to the Chaldee. The word foreign it self is of rare use in the Bible besides in this place, and therefore we can receive no great help from the comparing of places. It is read again Levit. 11. 42. and that in a singular mark, as the Masorites have observed; for the Vau cholem in the last syllable is foreign a great Vau, and exactly the middlemost letter of all the Law of Moses, if their Arithmetick failed them not. But no particularity of signification can from that place be gathered, the speech being of creeping things, which go as well upon the breast as the belly, and the belly as the breast.
Since therefore the word here used neither hindreth our opinion, nor much furthereth it, we will come to such other grounds as may prove our assertion, for the Serpent's going with breast advanced afore the Fall of man, and not groveling till his Malediction. And first let it be considered there is no impossibility of it in regard of the frame of the Serpent; which appears both by their advancing themselves when they assault a man, (which the Painters express in their Pictures) and also when they swim through the water, which is with their head and some part of their breast raised above water, even as a Swan holdeth up her neck; as I have heard affirmed by such as have been eye-witnesses: and lastly, Plinie and Solinus report of the Basilisk, that the Basilisk walks so still; as I shewed a little before. And it may be, as when the Giant-like stature of mankind was diminished after the Floud in a manner throughout the world, and for many ages, yet was there by God's disposition still a race of Giants left even till the time of David, for a monument and witness of the truth of a far bigger stature, in former times, which else could not so easily have been believed or imagined; (Such were the*Some think these to be the Zuzims in Gen. 14. 5. Zanzummims in Abraham's time, the sons of Anak in Moses's, and Goliah in the time of David; and it may be there are yet some in some part of the world to be sound) as, I say, these seem to have been preserved by God, as a memorial unto men that they were not now as at the first: So it may be it was the will of God and is, amongst so many kinds of Serpents to preserve this one, that it should not as the rest go groveling upon the earth, but might be as a monument of the truth of the malediction of the rest to all posterity. Thus much of the possibility, which would be far greater, if we should with S. Basil, Ephrem Syrus, Moses Bar-Cephas, and many others, affirm that the Serpent had feet, namely, some short ones beneath the navel: For feet are not essential to the nature of a thing, as appears by the lame, who can live without them, and by others sometimes by the defect of nature born without them. And those who can believe the wonderful change of Man by his fall, of an immortal creature to become mortal; of one to have been born with all glorious endowments both of body and soul, now to be brought into the world the most unfurnished of all the creatures; those who believe the great alteration of the Earth it self when it was accursed for man's sin, the diminution of the time of man's life and of his stature ever since the floud; can any who believe these things, think it so incredible for the Serpent once to have had some small feet, and afterward to have had none, being a creature wherein God intended to leave a monument for ever? But of this I will determine nothing, neither doth my assertion simply depend upon it, but may well enough consist without it.
But because possibility is not sufficient of it self alone to infer a probability, I have therefore one thing to add more thereto, namely, the reason and cause even in nature (supposing still God's abasing of the Serpent's first creation) of this alteration of the posture of the Serpent's gate from that it was at the beginning.
First, We know the more excellent and sublime the nature of a creature is, the more it raiseth it self upward; the more ignoble and base, the more it falls downward. This we see in the Elements themselves: the Fire, the most excellent and operative of the four, raiseth it self above the rest; the Earth, the basest and most unactive of all, is also of all the most dejected.
Secondly, As there is this difference in the Elements, so there is in the mixed bodies; some consisting of a more sublime and excellent temper, others of a more base and ignoble mixture; and that as in other, so amongst such creatures as live and move upon the earth.
Thirdly, This their nobleness within discovereth it self in the Body without, by advancing them naturally in their gate and gesture: whence Man, being of all creatures living upon the earth of the most excellent temper and sublimed condition of nature, is therefore of all other the most advanced in body;
Pronáque cum spectant animalia caetera terram,
Os homini sublime dedit, &c.Cic. l. 1. de Legibus. Cum natura caeteras animantes abjecisset ad pastum, solum hominem erexit, &c. Ovid. Metamorph. l. 1.
And whereas others see with down-cast eyes,
He with a lofty look did man indue,
And bad him Heav'n's transcendent glories view.
Yea experience will tell us, that even amongst men themselves, those who are of a more exalted nature, either by heroick temper or predominancy of heat, are also more advanced in the posture of their bodies. Among Beasts themselves the basest is the most creeping; the noble Lion advanceth his head and breast so far as the frame of his body is thereof capable, and so the rest: and of all creatures we may observe besides, that those creatures have the most sagacity who come most near to walk upright as Man doth.
If therefore the Serpent were of so sublime a nature at the first, as thereby it was more subtle than any beast of the field which God had made; how could so excellent a temper, the ground of so much sagacity, but advance the body thereof as far as the frame and shape thereof could admit? On the contrary, if afterward the Serpent became the most abased and accursed of all the beasts of the field, how should not this alteration of his former temper and disposition of nature make the gesture of his body also sutable, by stooping and groveling upon the earth? Who knows not that the natural position of Man is erected agreeable to his excellency above other creatures having life and motion? and yet notwithstanding so much hath the dejection of his primitive nature for sin weakned in him this propension, that were it not for education, it is supposed, yea and by experience confirmed, that he would walk upon all four like a beast. And shall we wonder that the malediction of the Serpent, exceeding that of Man's, should produce as much as this?
So then to conclude this first particular of the Serpent's curse; I understand it, from the ground aforesaid, as insinuating the cause by the outward and sensible effect, according to the manner of the Scripture; namely, the abasement and fall of the Serpent's whole nature from his primitive perfection, discovered by the fall of his once advanced body, thenceforth to go groveling upon the earth: even as the despoiling of the nature of Man of the inward indowments of perfection, is by the same sacred Trope insinuated by his outward nakedness; that is, the obscuration of that glorious and celestial beauty which he had before his sin: The difference whereof was so great,Gen. 3. 7. that he could not endure afterward to behold himself any more; but sought for a covering, even to hide himself from himself.
And now I come to the second particular, Dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life. The coursest diet that any living creature hath allowed him. None of the Beasts of the field with whom he is compared are thus poorly provided for; nay not any other, unless the base Earthworm, not worthy to be named among the creatures. Even with this vilest of creatures is now ranked that once so noble a creature, the Serpent. Which yet is not so to be understood, as though the Serpent did not sometime eat something else, for they sometime devour birds, frogs, and such like; but that this is the ordinary fare which God hath provided him, and if at any time he getteth any other, he goeth beyond his limits. Whence Esay 65. 25. among the blessings of the new Ierusalem this is reckoned for one, that the Serpent should eat dust; that is, be made to be contented with the diet God had appointed him, and not to encroach upon the food appointed for others.
But why did God appoint him this Food? I answer, Even to continue him in that accursed and vile condition to which he had dejected him: For Food is for the repairing and preservation of nature, and the goodness or badness thereof doth make the temper of the body better or worse. Hence according to the degrees of excellency in the creatures, their Food is finer or courser: Plants suck the moisture of the earth; Beasts live most upon plants; but Man of the flesh of cattel, fowl, and fishes. Since therefore the Serpent was to have no better fare than the dust of the earth; as it argues the baseness of his nature which can with such food be nourished, so doth it necessarily imply his continuance in that his dejection and vileness: whereas otherwise it were not impossible, because his nature for the essence is still the same it was, if his diet were as it had been, for him to improve himself more near to his primitive temper than now he is. But God, who had decreed he should ever remain under this malediction, appointed also the means to retain him therein.