Herman Witsius (1636-1708) was Professor of Divinity at Utrecht. “The Economy of the Covenants,” from which the following (slightly edited) was extracted, was his great work. James Hervey, the English divine, commended it to every student of divinity and said, “I would not scruple to risk all my reputation upon the merits of this performance.” We have here some of his thoughts on the fall of man.
Of the Violation of the Covenant of Works on the part of Man.
As the scripture does not declare, how long this covenant, ratified and confirmed, continued unbroken, we are satisfied to remain in the dark. And we would have a holy dread of presuming rashly to fix the limits of a time which is really uncertain. It is however evident, that man wickedly presuming to eat the fruit of the forbidden tree, incurred the guilt of violating the covenant. Nor ought that to be deemed a small sin, (as the apostle in Romans 5 calls it, the offence, disobedience, and transgression) because it may seem to have been committed about a thing of no great importance: For the meaner the thing is, from which God commanded to abstain, and for which man despised the promise of the covenant, makes his transgression of it the more heinous; as may be illustrated by the profaneness of Esau, which was so much the greater, as the mess was of so little value, for which he sold his birth-right. In that sin, as divines generally observe, there was, as it were, a kind of complication of many crimes. But it is our chief purpose to shew, that this was the violation of the whole covenant, not only the precept concerning that tree, which was the trial of universal obedience; but likewise the covenant in its whole constitution, was violated by that transgression; the law of the covenant was trampled upon, when man, as if he had been his own lord and master in all things, did, in defiance of his Lord, lay hold on what was not his property, and throw off the yoke of obedience that was due to God: the promises of the covenant were set less by than a transitory gust of pleasure, and the empty promises of the seducer; and that dreadful death which the author of the covenant threatened the transgressor with, not considered and thought of in all its dreadful effects, but he presumed to act in opposition to it. And thus Adam transgressed the covenant.
Though Eve had the first hand in this crime, yet it is usually in scripture ascribed to Adam: by one man sin entered into the world, according to Paul and whom he declares to be Adam: For Adam was the head of the covenant with whom, even before the creation of Eve. God seems to have transacted. Adam was the root of all mankind, and even of Eve herself, who was formed out of one of his ribs: neither is it customary to deduce a genealogy from a woman: nor was the covenant judged to be entirely broken, till Adam also added his own crime to that of his wife’s. Then it was that the Creator, first acting in the character of a judge, summoned to his bar the inconsiderate pair, already condemned by their own conscience. But we are not to think that this inheritance of sin was so derived from our Father Adam, as to excuse our mother Eve from that guilt: for as by marriage they were made one flesh, so far they may be considered as one man. Nay, Adam is not considered as the head and root of mankind, but in conjunction with his wife. To this purpose is what Malachi says, that God, seeking a godly seed, made one: one pair, two into one flesh.
It was doubtless a wicked spirit who seduced man to this apostacy, and who, tormented with the horrors of his guilty conscience, envied man his happiness in God, and God the pleasure he had in man, and sought to have the wretched consolation of making one a partaker of his misery. And, the more easily to insinuate himself into man’s favour by his ensnaring discourse, he concealed himself in the serpent, the most subtle of all animals, and at that time not less acceptable to man, than the rest of the obsequious creatures. The great du Moulin conjectures this serpent was of a conspicuous form, with fiery eyes, decked with gold, and marked with shining spots, so as to draw the eyes of Eve to it; and that he had before that time more than once insinuated himself by his soothing sounds, into Eve’s favour, in order that having preconceived a good opinion of him, she might be brought the more readily to yield to him. In fine, he was such, that what Moses says of the subtlety of the serpent must be applied to him only, and not to the whole species. To this conjecture it is also added, that Eve, perhaps such was her simplicity, did not know whether God had bestowed the use of speech on any other animals besides man. But all this is apocryphal. We are not to advance such romantic things without any scripture authority. Whether this was the first, or the only apparition of the serpent, as having the use of speech, I shall neither boldly affirm, nor obstinately deny. But what we are told as probable, of some extraordinary serpent so curiously spotted and set off, and now made familiar to Eve, by an intercourse repeated several times, are the pleasing amusements of a curious mind. The subtlety of serpents is every where so well known, that among many nations they are proposed as the distinguishing character and hieroglyphic of prudence. To this purpose is what our Saviour says, Be ye wise as serpents. It is also injurious and reproachful to our mother Eve, to represent her so weak, and at so small a remove from the brutal creation, as not to be able to distinguish between a brute and a man, and to be ignorant that the use of speech was the peculiar privilege of rational creatures. Such stupid ignorance is inconsistent with the happy state of our first parents, and with the image of God, which shone so illustriously also in Eve. We are rather to believe, that the devil assumed this organ, the more easily to recommend himself to man as a prudent spirit, especially as this looked like a miracle, or a prodigy at least, that the serpent should speak with human voice. Here was some degree of probability, that some spirit lay concealed in this animal, and that too, extraordinarily sent by God, who should instruct man more fully about the will of God, and whose words this very miracle as it were seemed to confirm.
As this temptation of the devil is somewhat like to all his following ones, we judge it not improbable, that Satan exerted all his cunning, and transformed himself, as he usually does, into an angel of light, and addressed himself to Eve, as if he had been an extraordinary teacher of some important truth, not yet fully understood. And therefore does not openly contradict the command of God, but first proposes it as a doubt, whether Adam understood well the meaning of the divine prohibition; whether he faithfully related it to Eve; whether she herself too, did not mistake the sense of it; and whether at least that command, taken literally, was not so improbable, as to render it unnecessary to think of a more mysterious meaning. And thus he teaches to raise reasonings and murmurings against the words of God, which are the destruction of faith.
Next, he undermines the threatening annexed to the command; Ye shall not surely die, says he; God never meant by death what you in your simplicity are apt to suspect. Could death be supposed to hang on so pleasant and agreeable a tree? or do you imagine God so envious as to forbid you who are his familiars and friends to eat the fruit of this delicious tree, under the dreadful penalty of death? this is inconsistent with his infinite goodness, which you so largely experience, and with the beauty of this specious tree and its fruit; and therefore there must be another meaning of this expression which you do not understand. And thus he instilled that heresy into the unwary woman, the first heard of in the world, that there is a sin which does not deserve death, or, which is the same thing, a venial sin. The false prophet, the attendant on Antichrist, who hath horns like a lamb, and speaketh as a dragon, does at this very day maintain this capital heresy in the church of Rome, and nothing is still more usual with Satan, than by hope of impunity, to persuade men to sin.
He adds the promise of a greater happiness; your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. He presupposes what in itself was true and harmless, that man had a desire after some more perfect happiness; which he made to consist in his being made like to God, which John affirms to be, as it were, the principal mark of salvation, that we shall be like God. He says farther, that this likeness was to be joined with the opening of their eyes, and a greater measure of knowledge. Now, this is not unlike the doctrines of the scripture, which affirm that we shall see God, and that as he is, and shall know him, even as we ourselves are known. And thus far indeed it might appear, that Satan spoke not amiss, blending many truths, and those evident to the conscience, with his own lies, the more easily to deceive under the appearance of a true teacher. But herein the fraud lies concealed: 1st, That he teaches them not to wait for God’s appointed time, but unadvisedly and precipitantly lay hold on the promised felicity. Man cannot indeed too much love and desire perfection, if he does it by preparation, and earnest expectation; preparing himself in a course of holy patience and subjection to the will of God, desiring not to anticipate, even for a moment, the good pleasure of God. 2ndly, That he points out a false way, as if the eating of that tree was either a natural, or, more probably, a moral mean to attain the promised bliss; and as if God had appointed this as a necessary requisite, without which there was no possibility of coming to a more intimate communion with God, and a more perfect degree of wisdom; nor, in fine, of obtaining that state in which knowing equally good and evil, they would be no longer in danger of any degree of deception. And it is most likely he perverted the meaning of the name of the tree. But all these were mere delusions.
At last this disguised teacher appeals to the knowledge of God himself; God doth know. Most interpreters, both Jewish and Christian, ancient and modern, interpret these words, as if Satan would charge God with open malignity and envy, as if he forbade this tree, lest he should be obliged to admit man into a partnership in his glory. And indeed there is no blasphemy so horrid that Satan is ashamed of. But we are here to consider whether such bare-faced blasphemy would not have rather struck with horror, man, who had not yet entertained any bad thoughts of God, than recommended itself by any appearance of probability. For why? is it credible, that a man in his right senses could be persuaded that the acquisition of wisdom, and a likeness to God depended on a tree, so that he should obtain both these by eating of it, whether God would or not? and then, that God, whom man must know to be infinitely great and good, was liable to the passion of envy, a plain indication of malignity and weakness; in fine, that there was such a virtue in that tree, that, on tasting it, God could not deprive man of life: for all these particulars are to be believed by him who can imagine, that out of envy God had forbid him the use of that tree. It does not seem consistent with the subtlety of Satan to judge it adviseable to propose to man things so absurd, and so repugnant to common notions, and the innate knowledge which he must have had of God. May it not be made more proper, to take that expression for a form of an oath? as Paul himself says, 2 Cor. 11: 2. God knoweth. And thus the perjured impostor appealed to God as witness of what he advanced.
Some think that Adam was not deceived, and did not believe what the serpent had persuaded the woman to, but rather fell, out of love to his wife, whom he was unwilling to grieve; and therefore, though he was conscious of a divine command, and not exposed to the wiles of Satan, yet that he might not abandon her in this condition, he tasted the fruit she offered; probably believing, that this instance of his affection for the spouse whom God had given him, if in any measure faulty, might be easily excused. To this they refer the apostle’s words.
“For Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived, was in the transgression.”
But this carries us off from the simplicity of the divine oracles; the design of the apostle is plainly to shew, that the woman ought not to exercise any dominion over her husband, for two reasons which he urges: 1st, Because Adam was first created as the head, and then Eve, as a help meet for him. 2ndly, Because the woman showed she was more easily deceived, for being deceived first, she was the cause of deceiving her husband, who was likewise deceived (though not first) but by her means: For we commonly find in scripture, that some things seem to be absolutely denied, which we are to understand only as denied in a restrictive sense; John 6: 27. and Phil. 2: 4. are instances of this. Nor can we conceive how Adam, when he believed that what he did was forbidden by God, and that if he did it he should forfeit the promised happiness, nay, incur most certain death (for all this he must know and believe, if he still remained uncorrupted by the wiles of Satan), would have taken part in the crime only to please his wife. Certainly if he believed that the transgression of the divine command, the contempt of the promised felicity, and his rash exposing himself to the danger of eternal death, could be excused only by his affection for his wife, he no less shamefully erred, nor was less deceived, if not more, than his consort herself. Nor can it be concluded from his answer to God, in which he throws the blame, not on the serpent’s deceit, but on the woman whom God had given him; that the man fell into this sin, not so much by an error in the understanding, as giving way to his affection; for this subverts the whole order of the faculties of their soul, since every error in the affection, supposes some error in the understanding. This was doubtless an error, and indeed one of the greatest, to believe that a higher regard was to be paid to his affection for his wife, than to the divine command. It was a considerable error to think that it was an instance of love to become an accomplice in sin; because it is the duty of love to convince the sinner, and as far as may be restore him to the favour of God, which certainly Adam would have done, had he been entirely without error. In whatever light therefore we view this point, we are obliged to own that he was deceived: the only apology Adam would make, seems to be, that his beloved consort had, by her insinuations which she had learned from the serpent persuaded him also, and that he was not the first in that sin, nor readily suspected any error or deception by her, who was given him as an help by God.