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 fangs, all that is false and destructive. Upon this head of the serpent, or dominion of evil, the Lord Jesus, the true seed of the woman, is to tread, in order to crush and destroy its power in the souls of all his faithful followers. The woman is the church, the bride, and wife of the Lamb; and the seed of the woman is the Lord, the Truth itself, which the church brings forth for the spiritual liberation and salvation of the world; wherefore, in the Hebrew scriptures, it is written He, and not, shall bruise the serpent's head, and the serpent was to bruise HIS heel. Now, as the Lord is the truth itself—the Word made flesh; so the heel which the serpent was to bruise, being the lowest part of the body, and the back part of the foot, denotes the lowest and most external truth of the Word:—this is its letter or literal sense, which the subtle reasonings of sensual and evil men can by false persuasions pervert and injure, and thus, as it were, turn the truth of God into a lie. But it is consoling to know that such serpents, or false reasoners, can ascend no higher than the heel. They themselves crawl and live in the dust of their own uncleanness; and can only be like, a serpent in the way to nibble and bite the horses' heels (Gen. xlix. 17); but the higher truths of Divine Revelation, the spirit and life, are far above their reach. Such serpents, also, will know to their sorrow that the "iniquity of their heels shall compass them about." (Psalm xlix. 5.)

O reader, shun with horror all evils as sins against God; have a settled faith in Jesus; the truth shall then make thee free, and shall open to thy delighted soul a new and living way of salvation and peace. Soon thou shalt then feel that a mighty change has