Fraud ; to the Tree which was prohibited by GoD, and was the Occasion of all our Mifery: Which when fhe faw, fhe spoke thus to her Guide:

SERPENT! We might have fpar'd ourselves the Trouble of coming hither; this Fruit is not for me, though there be fuch an Abundance: Let the Credit of its Virtue remain ftill with thee; wonderful indeed, if it be the Cause of such Effects! but we neither may tafte of this Tree, nor touch it: GOD commanded it fo, and left that Command the only one of Obedience: As for the reft, we are a Law to ourfelves; our own Reason is our Law.

To whom the Tempter artfully replied: Indeed! hath God declar'd ye Lords of all Things in Earth or Air, and yet faid, that ye shall not eat of the Fruit of all the Trees in this Garden? To whom Eve (yet without Sin) replied:

WE may eat of the Fruit of every Tree in the Garden; but of this fair Tree in the Midst of it, Gop hath faid, ye fhall not eat thereof, neither fhall ye touch it left ye die. She had fcarce faid this, though but in few Words, when the Tempter, now grown bold, (though with Show of Zeal and Love to MAN, and Indignation at the Wrong he suffer'd) begins to put on a new Part; and fluctuates about difturb'd, as one mov'd to Paffion; yet with Decency, and as about to begin to speak of fome great Matter: As when of old fome renown'd Orator in ATHENS, (z) or free ROME, where Eloquence once flourish'd, stood collected in himself, and before he spoke, with various Motions and Gestures won upon the Audi

(x) Athens; Heb. i. e. Wifdom, Gr. i. e. Oil; from Athen, another Name of Minerva, the

ence;

Goddefs of Wisdom and Inventrefs of Oil; which bestowed her Name upon this City; or from

ence; fometimes beginning with a high Voice, and coming immediately to the Subftance of the Argument, as through Zeal too hafty to introduce it gradually: So the Tempter moving, ftanding or rearing up, thus paffionately exclaim'd:

O WISE, Wifdom-giving, and facred Plant, Mother of Science! now I clearly feel thy Power within me; not only to difcern Things in their firft Caufes, but to trace the Ways of the higheft Agents, let them be thought never fo wife. Queen of this Univerfe! don't believe thofe cruel Threats of Death; ye fhall not die: How fhould ye die? By the Fruit? No; that gives ye Life to Knowledge: Shall ye die by him who threatens? Look on me, me! who have touch'd and tafted it, and not only live, but by venturing higher than my Lot, have attain'd to a Life and State more perfect than Fate meant me. Shall that be denied to MAN, which is free to Brutes? Or will GOD blow up his Anger for fuch a petty Trefpafs, and not rather praise your dauntlefs Virtue? Whom the Pain of threaten'd Death (whatever ftrange Thing Death may be) did not deter from atchieving what led to happier Life, and the Knowledge of Good and Evil? Of Good how juft is the Knowledge! and Evil, (if there be any fuch Thing as real Evil) why fhould not

Athis the Daughter of Cranus, the fecond King of it, according to fuftin. Lib. 2. 6. Athens was the famous City and Univerfity of Greece, on the Coaft of Attica, the River of Cephius upon the Egean Sea, and once the Univerfal School of Mankind; where Arts and Sciences had their first Advancement among the Greeks, under Socrates, Plato, and many other learned Mafters. It was built by Cecrops, the Egyptian, the first King of

that

it, who lived in the Days of Mofes, about A. M. 2448. Before Jefus Chrift 1556 Years, 780 before the firft Olympiad, 375 before the Siege of Troy : then it was called Cecropia, Gr. i. e. The City of Cecrops: and now Setines and Athina, corruptly by the Turks; as they do almost all antient Names of Men, Cities, Countries, &c. But now Learning is quite loft there. The Venetians took it from the Turks, A. D. 1687.

that be known, fince it might be the easier fhunn'd? GOD therefore, if he be juft, cannot hurt you; if he did he would be not juft, not GOD; not fear'd then, nor obey'd; nor is it Pain that you yourselves are afraid of, but Death. Why then was this forbid? Why, but to keep ye low, in Awe, and Ignorance, that fo ye might always worship him: He knows, that in the Day that ye eat of that Fruit, your Eyes (that though they feem clear to you, are very dim) fhall then be perfectly open'd and clear'd; and ye shall be like Gods, knowing both Good and Evil, in the fame Manner as they do: Since I, by eating, am internally become rational as a Man; by like Comparifon, ye fhall be as Gods, rifing to Deity from human Nature, as I from brutal to it. So it may be ye fhall die, that is by putting off human Nature, to become Gods; if fo, Death were to be wifh'd for, no Matter how threaten'd, that brings no worfe than this along with it: And what I pray are Gods, that MAN may not become, if he was to participate godlike Food with them? The Gods, as they happen'd to be firft, take that Advantage to impofe upon our Belief, that every Thing proceeds from them: Now I question it; for I fee this fair Earth, as it is warm'd by the Sun, productive of every Kind; but I fee them produce nothing: If they made all Things, who was it that put the Knowledge of Good and Evil into this Tree, that who-fo eats of the Fruit, forthwith without their Leave, attains Knowledge and Wifdom? And wherein lies the Crime, that MAN fhould attain to Knowledge this Way? What Hurt can your Knowledge do him? Or what can this Tree impart against his Will, if every Thing is his? Or is it Envy? Then I ask again, can Envy dwell among Gods? Thefe, thefe, and many more Reasons, prove the Need you stand in of this fair Fruit; then human Goddefs! gather it, and tafte it freely.

HE

He ended; and his Words, full of Craft and Deceit, found a too eafy Entrance into her Heart: She fix'd her Eyes upon the Fruit, and stood gazing, which only to fee was ftrong Temptation; and the Sound of his perfuafive Words yet was in her Ear, feeming to her full of Reafon and Truth: Mean Time it drew near the Hour of Noon, which excited her Appetite, rais'd by the delicious and favoury Smell of that Fruit; which occafion'd her to look on it with longing Eyes, and at Length (being grown inclinable to touch or tafte) with Defire: Yet paufing a While, fhe firft faid mufing to herself:

DOUBTLESS thy Virtues are great, thou beft of Fruits! and worthy to be held in Admiration, though denied to MAN; whofe Tafte at once gave Eloquence to the Mute, and taught the Tongue that was not made for Speech, to fpeak thy Praife. He also, who forbids us thy Ufe, does not conceal thy Praise from us, naming thee the Tree of Knowledge, both of Good and Evil: Then forbids us to tafte! but his forbidding only commends thee the more, while it acknowledges the Good thou would'ft communicate to us, and difcovers to us, what we want and are debarr'd from: For the Good that we do not know, furely we have not; or if we have and don't know it, it is juft the fame Thing, as if we had it not at all. In plain Words then, what he forbids us is Knowledge; forbids us that which is good, forbids us to be wife? Such Prohibitions are not binding. ----- But, if DEATH fhould feize and bind us afterwards, what Profit fhall we have from our inward Freedom? In the Day that we eat of this fair Fruit, our Doom is, THAT WE SHALL DIE. How does the Ser

pent die? He has eat of it, and lives, and knows, and speaks, and reafons, and difcerns; though he was irrational 'till then. Was DEATH invented then

only

only for us? Or was this intellectual Food prohibited: us, to be preferv'd for the Beafts? Yes, for the Beasts it seems! yet that one Beaft, which has tafted it firft, he does not envy, but brings the Good befallen him, with Joy in a friendly Manner to MEN, without any Deceit or Guile. What am I afraid of then? Or rather, what do I know to fear under fuch Ignorance, of Good and Evil, of GoD or DEATH, of Law or Penalty? Here grows the Cure of all, this divine Fruit, beautiful to the Eye, inviting to the Taste, and whose Virtue is, to make thofe who eat it wife! What hinders then, but that I gather of it, and at once feed both Body and Mind?

So faying, in an evil Hour reaching forth her Hand to the Fruit, fhe pluck'd and the eat. The whole Earth felt the Wound, and Nature fighing through all her Works, gave Signs of Woe that all was loft. The guilty Serpent flunk back again to the Thicket; which he might very eafily do, without being obferv'd by her, for the wholly intent upon her Tafte, minded nothing else; it feem'd to her that the had never tafted Fruit with fuch Delight 'till then, whether it were true, or that fhe only fancied fo through her great Expectation of high Knowledge; nor was Godhead from her Thoughts and Hopes. She eat greedily without Reftraint, and did not know that she was eating DEATH: At length fatisfied, and her Spirits lifted up as with Wine, jocund, and gay, fhe thus pleasingly began to fay to herself:

O SOVEREIGN, fulleft of Virtue, and moft preci ous of all the Trees in PARADISE! bleft in the Power to operate Knowledge, 'till now kept in Obfcurity, and unknown; and thy fair Fruit fuffer'd to hang, as created for no Purpose: But henceforth (not without Song and due Praise every Morning) my early Care shall be to tend thee, and ease the fruitful Burthen of

thy