CHAPTER VI.

PARADISE.

THE history of Man, in the primeval state, is brief, simple, and natural; and has, therefore, been the subject of long cavil and various conjecture. Mysticism would have better suited the capricious imagination of his offspring. By some, the whole narrative is taken as a mere figurative representation'. By another class, as a philosophical enigma, concealing the origin of the material world'. By a third, as an oriental allegory, picturing the influence of good and ill on the heart; the tree of life, piety; the tree of knowledge, prudence; the serpent, the allurements of the passions. It would be only a waste of time to dwell on those conceptions. One answer comprehends the whole :-the evidence that the history, taken in its most literal meaning, is the narrative

1 Dathè, Ver. Lat. Vet. Test. F. Amman. Summa Theolog. 2 Bauer. Hermen. Sacr.; with the crowd of Germans, Eichhorn, Lessing, Paulus, &c.

3 Philo Jud. de Mundi Opif.; Middleton, &c.

of a transaction suitable to the providence of God and to the nature of man.

A large portion of the Pentateuch is of an order incapable of being disputed'; consisting of statements authenticated by the whole subsequent existence of the Jewish nation; the history of their origin, progress, trials, conquests, and laws. The character of Moses himself contains the clearest internal evidence that his narrative is totally untouched by fiction; no man can more candidly relate his own errors, or those of his countrymen. But his selection as the express instrument of Providence ; and his high offices, as the direct transmitter of the Divine will, as the governor of the chosen people, and as the human giver of the national law, imply the virtue that must have precluded fiction, the

'To establish the claim of inspiration for the Pentateuch, it is by no means necessary to prove that it was written without the aid of earlier records. The inspiration might be fully shown in the peculiar use of those records. Thus, there can be no doubt that some of the Evangelists had seen the Gospel history in writing, before transmitting their own statements; yet no Christian can doubt their inspiration. The sincere historian of the Pentateuch seems even to state that he made use of such records. His fifth chapter gives "The book of the generations of Adam," the common scriptural expression for an acknowledged authority; and thence proceeds to a detail of names and years, which bears upon it the stamp of an ancient and authentic register. The Germans, however, (Eichhorn, Enleitung. Bauer, Hermen:) as usual, attempt to refine upon this, and in their clumsy dexterity affect to discover traces of various styles, interpolations, &c.

sagacity that was not to be deceived by fiction, and the dignity of mind that would have disdained to borrow fiction from the fantasies of the idolater.

To the allegorists, the answer has been justly given, that the whole must be allegorical, or the whole literal. "If the formation of the woman from the man be allegorical, the woman is an allegorical woman. The man must also be an allegorical man; for of such a man only the allegorical woman will be a fit companion. If the man is allegorical, his paradise will be an allegorical garden. Thus we may ascend to the beginning of creation, and have allegorical heavens, and an allegorical earth; and in this absurdity the scheme of allegorizing ends '." Some of our later Divines2, of whose motives it is impossible to speak but with respect, are inclined to look upon the narrative as altogether a sacred mystery, and therefore to be left among the untouched secrets of Providence. Yet it may be shown, that elevated as are the persons and objects, the transaction itself is not mysterious, that its progress is perfectly consistent with the

2 Bishop Horsley; Dr. Shuttleworth, "Consistency of Revelation."

The authorities on the reality of the Fall occupy a large space in the works of the Fathers. See the Collections of Suicer, in his Thesaurus. It is additionally referred to by Cyril, Theophilus, Eusebius, Irenæus, Tertullian, Lactantius, &c.-(Note from Holden.)

common rules of the Divine government, is equally consistent with the declared plan of revelation, and is further confirmed by signal correspondences with some of the most remarkable events of history.

The outline of Creation having been given in the first and second chapters of Genesis, the third proceeds to detail the formation and original state of the human race. Adam, formed of the clay, animated by the breath of Deity, and thus become a living soul," was immediately transferred to the garden in Eden. While man was made to live by food, and yet was not permitted to use the food supplied by animals, no location could have been more appropriate for enjoyment, health, and the exercise of his faculties.

But Eden contained a provision for a higher purpose. Man had a moral nature; he was a subject of Heaven. It was essential that he should be made sensible of the duty of constant obedience. Perhaps a more perplexing question could not be proposed to human thought, than the means by which a sense of the Divine authority might be kept constantly, yet naturally, before the mind. If a strong display of Divine power had been made to the immature mind of man, it might have utterly extinguished freewill in terror; if a strong display of future reward, it might have led the mind too much beyond the world in which its duties lay; besides establishing,

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as in the case of terror, a motive inconsistent with freedom, and a motive too not of the highest order.

Instead of either, the means actually appointed were simple, offering no peculiar stimulant to his propensities, bodily or mental, and yet adequate to the purpose of constantly reminding him of his moral obligation. "Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat; for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die1."

1 Thou shalt surely die. This sentence was not executed, because the sentence itself was changed by the new covenant; otherwise we have no reason to doubt that Adam, instead of having his life prolonged to nearly a thousand years, would have instantly ceased to be. And his promise of posterity would have been extinguished with himself, for it was not till after the expulsion from Paradise that his first offspring was born, (which puts an end to the usual queries, what would have been the state of the human race if Christ had not died? They would not have existed.) Annihilation must have been the natural punishment of Adam, for that is the natural impression of death, unless where a Divine declaration was made to the contrary. If the declaration of a future state were not required, why should it be so largely made to the Christian? But it may be objected, that this puts the Christian in a worse condition than the first sinner. Undoubtedly it does, if he falls; for there can be no question that the future suffering of the soul is worse than annihilation, a punishment which exists only in prospect, and whose suffering is at an end the moment it is inflicted. But this is the course of nature, which is but another name for the course of justice. The rewards of the Christian, if he stands, are incalculably higher;