that "the Lord God said," it is meant that thus and so the Lord viewed the matter; or, that thus and so is it in the light of divine truth. Each expression is the statement of a truth couched in correspondential language. Thus, in the Lord's view, or in the light of divine truth, the sensual principle or the serpent had become cursed; and this above all the other affections of the mind, symbolized by the expression, "Above all cattle and above every beast of the field." It had so come to be cursed, in becoming the lowest, the most depraved, the most groveling, of all portions of human nature, Nothing is lower than sensuality. Therefore it is said, "Upon thy belly shalt thou go"—a significant statement of the gross, earthly, corporeal and bestial character of the sensual principle under the conditions to which it had brought itself. It had been a good thing and spiritually erect when in its proper place, as a servant doing the bidding of the higher nature—an agent of the latter in its earthly work. But when it assumed to be master and seduced the mind and heart, erect no more it groveled on the lowest earthly plane. It ate or lived upon the mere dust and ashes of life, fed upon corporeal and terrestrial ideas and enjoyments.
And another result of the curse, or the degradation of the sensual nature, was expressed in the words, "I will put enmity between thee and the
