(1.) He does not immediately and directly, in his first onset, bring a charge against God, or his providence, but pretends ignorance, and speaks as one that wanted information, when he says, _Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree in the garden_, _q. d._ Here is a garden well stored with fruit, the trees whereof are designed for your food; are there any of which you are prohibited to eat? This question occasions her reply; _The woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it; neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die_. Some think, that her sin began here, and that she misrepresents the divine prohibition, for she was not forbid to touch it; it is only said, _In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die_, Gen. ii. 17. But I cannot see that this was any other than a just inference from the prohibition itself, as every thing is to be avoided that may prove an occasion of sin, as well as the sin itself. Others suppose, that there is a degree of unbelief contained in that expression, _Lest ye die_[54]; which may be rendered, _Lest peradventure ye die_, as implying, that it was possible for God to dispense with his threatning, and so death would not certainly ensue; whereas God had expressly said, _In the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die_. But passing by this, as an uncertain conjecture, let us farther consider, (2.) After this, Satan proceeds from questioning, as though he desired information, to a direct and explicit confronting the divine threatning, endeavouring to persuade her, that God would not be just to his word, when he says, _Ye shall not surely die_. He then proceeds yet farther, to cast an open reproach on the great God, when he says, _God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as Gods, knowing good and evil_. Here we may observe, _1st_, That he prefaces this reproach in a most vile and wicked manner, with an appeal to God for a confirmation of what he was about falsely to suggest, _God doth know_, &c.