in all points as it is, they could become perfect high priests by the power of the holiness of their lives, to redeem the creature from its thraldom in the corruption of sin and death. There are fraternal orders and there are clubs for men. There are fraternal orders and there are clubs for women; but the church of Jehovah which is for the redemption of the world, is composed of men and women alike, yet its purpose is not the animal association of the sex, as are social gatherings and theatres. The flesh of Eve's body was higher than Adam's, the distance that his had been refined by the indwelling of Jehovah's life. Her divine life was pure as that of Adam's, begotten not by the will of man nor by the desire of the flesh, but by the will of the holy spirit, and born into the world without the shedding of blood, into ripe womanhood, omitting the weakness of infancy and the immaturity of childhood. Never was human flesh in such high honor as it was in the body of mother Eve, save when her greatest son, commanding his life in holy affection, going from strength to glory, until he appeared in transfiguration on the mount, and then coming into the perfect fullness of the holiness of life, so that though they put him to death, he arose from the tomb out of the bondage of death, in a body over which death had no power. Eve was a higher, refined incarnation of divine life than Adam. This superior nature caused her body to assume a more beautiful form than that of her coarser and stronger partner. The superior beauty of the female form is peculiar to the human race. Among the brutes the reverse is true. The males are preferred. The male birds are bedecked and sing, while the females are plain and without sweet voices. The lions of artists are males; but among the human family, the women are the sweet singers and the ideals of beauty. Artists are ever trying to paint on canvas or chisel in marble the image and form of woman, and the nearer they describe her figure perfectly, the greater is the perfection of their art. The light of day never revealed form so beautiful, as the body of Eve walking in the garden of Eden in the presence of Jehovah. Following their great mother, the daughters of Eve have ever been more spiritually minded than the sons of Adam. No less than nineteen-twentieths of all the criminals in durance are men. The character of women is rated by a higher standard of morals than men, and there is a more refined code of manners for them. They are on the branch of the tree of humanity from mother Eve, whose life shapes their bodies and gives character to their persons, which makes them the citadel of virtue in the human race. It is said that children who inherit properly take the strength of their fathers, and the spirituality of their mothers. Where this order of life attains each generation happily born, by natural ordination steps up higher into spiritual life, the distance that women are more spiritually minded than men. The co-operation of divine life and natural life in one individual, with the wonderful effects of the life in the souls of Adam and Eve on Eden, augured an early filling of the creature with the power of Jehovah's life. The powers of darkness saw their kingdom was threatened, and they were stirred to their utmost efforts to defeat the designs of the Most High. It was necessary that Adam and Eve must support their natural bodies by eating of the fruit of the trees, and God told them to do so. They were a dual character, god and animal, with the experience of good and evil, yet the determinations of their will were not the resultant of their combine natures, but must be by their divine life alone, if they would hold the creature in the power of everlasting life. Of every tree in the garden said Jehovah, thou mayest freely eat, but of the tree of knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat of it, for in the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die. "They that live after the flesh shall die, but they that through the spirit mortify the deeds of the flesh shall live. Satan's hope of success lay in waking the life in the flesh of our first parents into an influence over their wills. The wisest policy was in paralleling the movement of Jehovah, by coming into immediate contact with the creature, by he himself entering into a natural organism; that the corruption of death might hold the world against the powers of everlasting life. Two distinct lines of sentient life came down through the creations. One was beasts, and the other was the bird kind. The highest development of animal life was the preadamic men. This had been appropriated by Jehovah for the sanctifying of the creature into holiness of life. The highest and the most beautiful of all the bird kind was the serpent. "Now the serpent was the wisest of all the beasts of the field. Satan entered into one of these serpents, taking possession of its life to execute the great temptation. The serpent's forehead was similar to the human skull. When standing it was between five and six feet tall. It had yellow feathers which looked like gold. Its wings were long reaching down nearly to the ground. Its appearance was not unlike a woman dressed in yellow silk. Its wings when spread were fifteen feet from tip to tip. When flying in the sunlight, it looked like a meteor, or a ball of fire passing through the air. It was the 'Gen. 2:16-17. 'Rom. 8:13. "Gen. 3:1. flying fiery serpent spoken of by Isaiah and Heroditus. The image made by the Israelites to represent the seraphim, was patterned after the flying serpents. The words designating serpent and seraphim in the Hebrew are from the same root. The uncomeliness of the flying fiery serpents were their long bills and their cloven claws. Isaiah to make an image of perfect beauty, representing absolute purity of life, saw the seraphim in prophetic imagination as having six wings; "With twain he covered his face, with twain he covered his feet and with twain did he fly. The flying fiery serpent was the turtle spoken of by the prophet whose sweet voice on its return from the south, announced to the people of Palestine that the winter was gone, and that spring had come. It was the flying fiery serpent probably to which Jesus referred when he said to his disciples, 'Be ye wise as serpents and harmless as doves. As the children of Israel journeyed in the wilderness, they were stung by the fiery serpents of the dust. Jehovah commanded Moses to make a serpent of brass and set it upon a pole where all the children of Israel could see it, and it came to pass that every one who beheld the serpent of brass lived. The fiery serpents of the dust were the serpents that crawled on the ground, they were snakes. The children of Israel were stung by these snakes or scorpions. The sons of Abraham were familiar with the story of the temptation in the garden of Eden. They knew that the snakes crawling in the dust of the ground, were the progeny of the serpent that had lent its body as an incarnation for Satan, at the first great temptation of men. They knew also that the serpents wearing the yellow brasslike feathers and "Is. 6:2. 'Math. 10:13. flying in the air were the offspring of the serpents which had not permitted Satan to enter their bodies and possess their lives. The serpent of brass was evidently in birdlike form, and not in the shape of a snake which crawls in the dust of the ground. When the children of Israel saw the brazen serpent on the pole, their souls were quickened by the great object lesson of the knowledge of the holiness of life to preserve, or heal from the corruption of sin; also as they thought of the cold hissing snakes and feeling the loathsome sickness from the poison in them, they had a keen realization of how sin destroys. The power that shall regenerate the world is the knowledge of the life of Jehovah in men. Jesus referred to this when he said, 10 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the son of man be lifted up that whosoever believeth like him should not perish, but have eternal life. 11To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. The Hebrew people kept this serpent which Moses made for seven hundred years, burning incense before it, as if it were an idol, until pious Hezekiah, king of Judah broke it into pieces. The ceremonial cleanliness of the Levitical ritual, pertaining to all the instruments used in worship, would have considered the image of a snake unworthy of the sacred enclosure. Their conception of the seraphim in the form of the fiery, flying serpent, is the idea today of the embodied angels. In this great temptation, Satan approached Eve first. There was wisdom in the plan. Satan knew that in effecting the fall his hardest task would be with Eve. He knew that he "John 3:14. "John 18:37. |