perpetrated the crime that brought death into the world and all our woe, in that very hour, Jehovah could in justice have banished them from the happy bowers of Paradise, and consigned them to the region of eternal misery and despair. It was thus He dealt with Lucifer and his rebellious crew. "And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains, under darkness, unto the judgment of the great day."[1] But instead of dealing thus with our fallen progenitors, he granted them a day of grace—he gave them a firm ground of hope in that cheering and comprehensive promise: "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."[2] That they had sufficient time granted to avail themselves, as we believe they did, of that gracious promise, is clear, from Adam's protracted
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the forbearance and
[ser. vi.
