The Twenty Second of February.

THY SEED AND HER SEED --- Genesis 3:15.

"I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." --- Genesis 3:15.

By "the seed of the woman" is to be understood Christ the Saviour; not excluding his friends and followers in every age of the world. This prediction of a Saviour signified to our first parents these four things;

1. That the promised Saviour was not to be the man's but the woman's seed, or born of a virgin:

2. That he was to be a man by that expression, "Thou shalt bruise his heel:"

3. That he should break the head of the serpent, or destroy his power and dominion over mankind, and punish him, and all his votaries, with an utter destruction; and,

4. That in order to our Saviour's doing so, he must have his own heel, or human nature, that lowest part of his meditatory person, bruised by the serpent, or persecuted and put to death by the devil and his emissaries.

This was the first intimation of a Saviour that was made to the world, it was made to the serpent, for his immediate confusion; made in the presence of our first parents, and before their sentence was pronounced, to inspire them with the hope of pardon and life, and with a sense of the distinguishing mercy of God, who, before he denounced so much as any temporal punishment, animated them with the hope of eternal redemption.

Arise, arise, thou woman's seed,
And bruise the serpent in my heart!
Employ thy vengeance on his head,
And deadly strokes each day impart.