This question of Satan is full of insidious deception. He does not speak particularly, but generally; he includes in his interrogation, all the trees of the garden together. As if he had said, "You have committed unto you an universal 'dominion' over all the beasts of the earth; and do you really suppose that God, who has thus given you 'dominion' over all the beasts of the earth, has not given you the same dominion over all the trees of the earth? Why, you ought rather to think that as God has put under you the whole earth and all the beasts of the earth; so he has also granted you the use of all things which grow upon the earth." This is indeed the very height and depth of temptation. Satan here endeavors to gain over the mind of Eve to his purpose, by artfully drawing her into the conclusion that God is never unlike himself; and that therefore if God had given them universal dominion over all the other creatures, he had given them universal dominion over all the trees also. From this therefore it would naturally follow that the commandment not to eat of the tree of life, was not the commandment of God; or that if it were his commandment, it was not so to be understood that he really wished them not to eat of that tree. Wherefore this temptation was a double temptation, by which as a twofold means Satan aimed at the same end. The one part of the temptation is, "God hath not said this, therefore ye may eat of this tree." The second branch of this awful temptation is, "God hath given unto you all things; therefore all things are yours; and therefore this tree is not forbidden you, etc., etc." Now, both branches of this temptation are directed to the same object; to draw Eve away from the Word and from faith. For this commandment concerning not eating of this tree of knowledge, which God gave to Adam and to Eve, proves that Adam with his posterity, had they continued in their original innocency, would have lived in that perfection of nature by faith, until he and they had been translated from this corporeal life unto the life spiritual and eternal. For wherever the Word is, there of necessity is faith also. For the Word was this, "Of the tree of the knowledge, etc., thou shalt not eat, for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." Adam and Eve must therefore have believed that this tree involved in it something perilous to their salvation. Therefore in this very Word of commandment, faith also is included.