The answer therefore to all such questions and arguments ought to be this: It pleased God that Adam should be put under peril and trial, that he might exercise his powers. Just as now, when we are baptized and translated into the kingdom of Christ, God will not have us to be at ease. He will have his Word and his gifts to be exercised by us. Therefore he permits us, weak creatures, to be put into the sieve of Satan. Hence it is that we see the church, when made clean by the Word, to be put under perpetual peril and trial. The Sacramentarians, the Anabaptists and other fanatical teachers, who harass the church with various trials, are stirred up against her, to which great trials are also added internal vexations. All these things are permitted of God to take place, not however because it is his intention to forsake his church or to suffer her to perish. But as wisdom says, all these conflicts are brought upon the church and upon the godly, that they might overcome them; and thus learn by actual sight and experience that wisdom is more powerful than all things. Another question is here raised, on which we may dispute perhaps with less peril and with greater profit: Why the Scripture speaks of this matter thus obscurely and does not openly say, that one of the fallen angels entered into the serpent and through the serpent spoke to Eve and deceived her? But to this I reply, that all these things were involved in obscurity, that they might be reserved for Christ and for his Spirit, whose glory it is to shine throughout the whole world, as the mid-day sun, and to open all the mysteries of the Scriptures. As this Spirit of Christ dwelt in the prophets, those holy prophets understood all such mysteries of the Word. We have said above however that as the beasts of the creation had each different gifts, so the serpent excelled all other creatures in the gift of guile, and therefore it was the best adapted for this stratagem of Satan. Of this peculiarity in the serpent the present text of Moses is an evident proof; for he says at the opening of this chapter, "Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which Jehovah God had made." We marvel even now at the gift of insidious cunning in the fox, and also at its astonishing ingenuity in escaping danger. For sometimes when closely pursued by the dogs and quite worn out and ready to drop with exhaustion, it will hold up its tail; and while the dogs stop their course with the intent of rushing with all their force to seize it, the fox with marvelous celerity secures a little advantage ground and thus escapes their capture. There are also other beasts whose remarkable sagacity and industry surprise us; but subtilty was the peculiar natural property of the serpent, and therefore it seemed to Satan to be the instrument best adapted for his deception of Eve. V. 1b. _And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of any tree of the garden?_