But supposing _Adam_ and _Eve_ had, after their Expulsion, enter’d Paradise; I don’t see what valuable End it would have answered, for the special Promises made to the first Inhabitants of Paradise were now null and void. All the Blessings peculiar to that glorious Situation, were irrecoverably lost. It was not in the power of that once sacred Seat to reinstate them in their pristine Happiness. _Obj._ Could not the Tree of Life restore their forfeited Comforts? I presume not; because the Tree of Life, in the Design of it, was to perpetuate the happy Life of innocent Man, and not to restore the Life and Comforts of Criminals under a Sentence of Death; a Sentence irrepealable, which even the Death of our Blessed Redeemer does not exempt us from. Upon the whole, I can scarcely think that these strange and awful Sights or Figures, over the East Gate of _Eden_, were only to frighten our first Parents, whose distressed State stood in need of Divine Supports. To be cast out of Paradise was a Mortification that needed not a super-added Terror; therefore to make those Figures Spectacles of Horror, seems not so well suited to Persons under Circumstances so inexpressibly dolorous, tho’ restored to Favour; but might rather be design’d to conduct them to God by _Christ_, the _Tree of Life_. III. _IT’s very probable a Conversation had past between the Woman and Serpent before the Narrative publish’d by Moses._ She might upon the first Approach of the Serpent ask, How a Beast acquired the Gift of Speaking, which is the Prerogative of Rationals? The Serpent might answer, That it was by Eating the Fruit of that Tree. _Eve_ might urge, That God had forbid her to eat that Fruit upon pain of Death. The Serpent might make this Return, _viz._ What you say is true; ’tis allow’d to be the Law under the first Form of Government, but I am now come from the supreme Court, to give you Assurance of God’s kind Intentions to advance you to a higher and more noble Station: The Prohibition of this Fruit was only a probationary Restraint, and temporary. Now the End of the first Institution being answered, ’tis the Will of our Great Sovereign to take off those Restraints, and make you a free People. Upon the Formation of your Being, he brighten’d your Mind with Rays of great Wisdom; but now the happy Moment is come, in which he purposes to inspire you with higher Degrees of Wisdom.... By eating this Fruit, your intellectual Powers will be infinitely enlarged; for, _ye shall be as Gods_, and then all the Endowments and Accomplishments of Nature will arrive at their full Perfection, which as yet are only in their Embryo. This being only a Supposition, I dismiss it.