PART I. GOD'S REST, SANCTIFICATION OF THE SABBATH AND CREATION OF ADAM.

I. V. 1. And the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.

Our Latin rendering of the text before us is "and all the adornment of them." In the original Hebrew the expression is ZEBAAM, the "host" or "army" of them. The prophets have retained this same form of speaking and of calling the stars and the planets, "the host or army of heaven," as Jer. 19:13, where the Jews are represented as having adored "all the host of heaven." And God says by the prophet Zephaniah, "I will cut off them that worship the host of heaven upon the housetops." In the same manner also Stephen testifies concerning the children of Israel in the wilderness that God "gave them up to worship the host of heaven," Acts 7:42.

The prophets borrowed these forms of speech from Moses, who in this passage calls the stars and other luminaries of heaven by a military term, calling them the host or the warning army of heaven. After a similar mode of expression he calls men beasts and trees the host or army of the earth. Perhaps this is in anticipation of the solemn realities that were to come. For God afterwards calls himself also the God of hosts or of armies; that is, not of angels and of spirits only, but of the whole creation also, which was for him and serves him. For ever since Satan was cast off by God for sin he has been filled with such desperate hatred of God and of men that he would, if he could, in one moment empty the sea of all its fishes and the air of all its birds, strip the earth of all its fruits and utterly destroy all things. But God has created all these creatures that they may be a standing army as it were; that they might fight for us and our subsistence against the devil and against men also, and thus serve us and be to us an unceasing benefit.

V. 2. And on the seventh day God finished his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.

Here cavillers raise a question of this nature: Moses says that God "rested on the seventh day from the work he had made;" that is, that he ceased on the seventh day to work: while Christ says on the other hand, John 5:17, "My Father worketh hitherto, or until now, and I work." The passage contained in Heb. 4:3, helps to explain the present text, where it is written, "If they shall enter into My rest," not indeed into the land of promise, but into "My rest."

My simple and plain reply to the above question is, that a solution of any difficulty that may be raised is furnished by the present text itself, when it says, "Thus the heavens and the earth were finished." The Sabbath or rest of the Sabbath here signifies that God so rested, as not to have any further design of creating any other heaven and earth. It does not signify that God ceased to preserve and govern the heaven and the earth, which he had now created and finished.

Concerning the manner of the creation Moses gives us the fullest information in the preceding chapter, that God created all things by the Word! "Let the sea bring forth fishes;" "Let the earth bring forth the green herb, the beast," etc., etc. And by the same Word, God also said, "Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth." Now all these words of God remain unto this present day. And therefore it is that we see the multiplication of all these creatures go on without cessation or end. Wherefore if the world were to last for a number of years endless and infinite, the power and efficacy of these words would never cease, but there would still be continued a multiplication of all these creatures perpetual and endless by the mere infinite power of this Word of God; this Word of the first creation and foundation of all things, if I may so express the original and originating Word.

The solution of the question now under consideration therefore is easy and plain. "God rested on the seventh day from the work which he had made;" that is, God was content with the earth and the heaven which he had created by the Word. He created not nor intended to create new heavens or new earths, nor new stars nor new trees. God nevertheless still works. He "worketh hitherto," as Christ says above. He forsakes not nature, which he once made "in the beginning;" but he preserves and governs it to this day, by the power of his Word. He has ceased from his creation-work, but he has not ceased from his government-work. The human race began in Adam. In the earth began by the Word the animal race, if I may so speak; in the sea, the race of fishes; and in the air, the race of birds. But the human race did not cease in Adam, nor did all other races cease in the first created animals of their kind. The Word originally spoken upon the human race still remains in all its power and efficiency. The word, "Be fruitful and multiply," ceases not nor ever will cease, nor the words, "Let the sea bring forth fishes," nor "Let the earth bring forth beasts and the air birds." The omnipotent power and efficacy of the original Word still preserves and governs the whole creation.

Most clearly therefore has Moses established the great truth, that "In the beginning was the Word," John 1:1. And as all creatures still increase and multiply, and are preserved and governed, still in the same way as they were "in the beginning," it manifestly follows that the Word still continues and lives, and that it is not dead! When Moses says therefore, "And God rested on the seventh day from the work which he had made," his words are not to be considered as having reference to the general course and laws of nature nor to their continuous preservation and government, but simply to the "beginning;" that God ceased from creating, ordering and ordaining all things, as we generally speak, and from creating any new creatures or new kinds of animals, etc., etc.

With respect to Martin Luther before you. If you look at my individual person I am a certain kind of new creature; because sixty years ago I had no existence. This is the common thought and judgment of the world. But the thought and judgment of God are far different. For in God's sight I was begotten and commenced, being multiplied immediately "from the beginning of the world." When God said, "Let us make man," he then created me also. For whatever God willed to create that he did create when he spoke the word. All things did not then appear indeed on a sudden before our existing eyes. For as the arrow or the ball from the cannon, in which is the greatest velocity attached to the works of men is in one moment directed to its mark, and yet does not reach that mark without a certain interval and space between, so God rushes, as it were by his Word, from "the beginning" to the end of the world. For with God there is no before nor afterwards; no swift nor slow; but all things to his eyes are at once present. For God is simply absolutely independent of and alone, and separate from all time!

These words of God therefore, and God said, "Let there be," "increase and multiply," etc., create, constitute and ordain all creatures, as they were, as they now are, and as they will be unto the end of the world. God has indeed ceased from creating new creatures. For he has created no new heaven, no new earth. But as he originally willed the sun and the moon to perform their courses, so have they continued to perform them to this day. As God then filled the sea with fishes, the heaven with fowls, and the earth with beasts and cattle, so have all these parts of his will been fulfilled to this day; and so have they all been preserved to this moment, as Christ said, "My Father worketh hitherto and I work." For the Word, which God spoke in the beginning, remaineth unto this day; as it is said with great majesty in Ps. 33:9, "He spake and they were made."

But here sceptics and objectors will present a further question for reply. How can it be true, say they, that God made no new thing, when it is evident that the bow of heaven or the rainbow was created in the time of Noah? And when also the Lord threatened after the fall of Adam, that it should come to pass that the earth should bring forth thorns and thistles? Which thorns and thistles the earth would not have brought forth had Adam not sinned. Also concerning the serpent, the same cavillers say, that reptile ought to creep along almost upright with its head bending toward the earth; for when first created they say it was doubtless upright, as crows and peacocks move now. We readily acknowledge that this is indeed a new state of things, wrought also by the Word.

It is moreover true that if Adam had not fallen by sin, there would not have been that ferocity in wolves, lions and bears, which now characterizes them. And most certainly also there would have been nothing in the whole creation noxious or annoying to man. For the text before us plainly declares that all things God had created were "very good." Whereas now, how numberless are the annoyances by which we are surrounded? To how many and how great distresses, especially of diseases, is the body itself subject? I will say nothing about fleas, flies, gnats, spiders, mosquitoes, etc. What a host of dangers threaten us continually from the greater ferocious and venomous beasts?

Although there had been none of these new or altered things after the creation, our sceptic objectors can surely believe that there was one glorious and marvellous "new thing," Is. 7:14, "that a virgin should bring forth a Son, the Son of God!" God therefore did not in the seventh day cease to work in every sense, but he works still, not only in preserving his whole creation, but also in altering and new-forming the creature; wherefore that which we said above, that God ceased on the seventh day from creating new orders of things is not to be understood as true absolutely and in every sense.

But we further reply to our cavillers that Moses is here speaking of nature in its yet uncorrupted state. If therefore man had stood unfallen in the innocency in which he was first created, no thorns nor thistles would have existed, no disease would have been known nor any violence of beasts feared. This is manifest from the case of Eve; she talks with the serpent without any fear whatever, and as we should do with an innocent little bird or with a favorite little dog. Nor have I any doubt that the serpent was an exquisitely beautiful creature and gifted with the peculiar excellency of having the highest praise for marvellous cunning, though then innocent cunning, even as foxes and weazels have that name among us now.

Wherefore when Adam was as yet holy and innocent, all the animals of the creation dwelt and associated with him in the highest pleasure, being prepared to render him every kind of service gladly. Nor would there have ever been known, if Adam had thus continued sinless, any fear of a flood, nor would there consequently have ever existed a rainbow in the heavens. But sin caused God to alter many things and otherwise order them. And at the last day there will be an alteration and a renewal far greater still of that whole creation, which as Paul says is now by reason of sin, "subject to vanity," Rom. 8:20.

Finally therefore, when Moses here says that "God rested on the seventh day," he is speaking with reference to the condition of the world, as originally created; meaning that while as yet there was no sin nothing new was created, that there were no thorns nor thistles, no serpents nor toads, and if there were such they possessed no venomous properties nor any inclination to harm. Moses speaks in this manner concerning the creation of the world, while yet in its state of perfection, unpolluted and unmarred by sin. It was then a world innocent and pure, because man was innocent and pure. But now, as man is no longer the same being, so the world is no longer the same world. Upon the fall of man followed corruption and upon this corruption the curse of the now corrupt creation. "Cursed is the ground," said God to Adam, "for thy sake! Thorns and thistles shall it bring forth unto thee!" Gen. 3:17, 18. Thus on account of one accursed Cain—sin, is the whole earth accursed! So that now even when tilled it does not put forth its original virtue. After this upon the sins of the whole world is poured the flood over the whole earth, and the human race throughout the whole world is destroyed, a few righteous persons only being saved lest the promise concerning Christ should fail of being fulfilled. And as it is manifest to us all that the earth is thus deformed by sin, so my belief is, as I have before said, that the light of the sun, when first created, and before the sin of Adam, was far more pure and more bright than it is now.

It is a common saying of divines in all theological schools, "Clearly distinguish times and you will harmonize all the Scriptures." Wherefore we must speak far otherwise concerning the world, under its present wretched corruption, by which it has been marred through the sin of Adam, than concerning the world when as yet it was in its state of original purity and perfection. Let us take an example still in our sight and knowledge. Those who have visited the "land of promise" in our day affirm, that there is nothing in it like unto that commendation of it which we have in the holy Scriptures. In confirmation of these statements a citizen of Stolberg, after having visited Palestine and surveyed with all possible diligence of observation, declared that he considered his own field in Germany a far more delightful spot. For on account of the sin, wickedness and ungodliness of men it is reduced to a positive pickle-tub, to "a salt land not inhabited;" so actually is the very essence of the curse of God upon it fulfilled, as it is said, Gen. 3:17, 18; Ps. 107:34. Thus Sodom also before it was destroyed by fire from heaven was a certain paradise, a garden of the Lord, Gen. 13:10. Thus does the curse of God generally follow sin, and that curse so changes things, that from the best they become the worst. Moses therefore, we repeat, is here speaking concerning the state of all creatures in their original perfection; as they were before the sin of man. For if man had not sinned, all beasts and every other creature would have remained in obedience to him until God should have translated him from paradise, or from earth to heaven. But after his sin, all things were changed for the worse.

According to these expressions therefore the solution given by us above to all sceptics, cavillers and objectors stands good, that God in six days finished his work, and that on the "seventh day" he rested from all his work which he had made; that is, that he ceased from ordaining the certain orders of things, and that then, whatsoever he willed afterwards to work, he did work. But God did not say afterwards, "Let there be a new earth;" "Let there be a new sea," etc. With respect to that wonderful "new thing;" that, after the creation was finished, the virgin Mary brought forth the Son of God, it is indeed manifest that God made our calamity, into which we had fallen by sin, the cause of this marvellous blessing. But God so wrought even this mighty work that he showed beforehand that he would, by his Word, do this glorious work also; even as he has also signified in his Word, that he will by the same Word do other marvelous things.

Thus have we replied then to these questions of all cavilling objectors concerning God's having finished the heavens and the earth and concerning his having made other things new afterwards. We must continue this explanation to learn what this Sabbath or rest of God is, and also in what manner God sanctified the Sabbath, as the sacred text declares.

II. V. 3. And God blessed the seventh day, and hallowed it, because that in it he rested from all his work which God had created and made.

Christ says, Mark 2:27, that "the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath." But Moses says nothing here about man. He does not even say positively that any commandment concerning the Sabbath was given to man. But what Moses here says is that God blessed the Sabbath and sanctified it to himself. It is moreover to be remarked that God did this to no other creature. God did not sanctify to himself the heaven nor the earth nor any other creature. But God did sanctify to himself the seventh day. This was especially designed of God, to cause us to understand that the "seventh day" is to be especially devoted to divine worship. For that which is appropriated to God and exclusively separated from all profane uses is sanctified or holy. Hence the expression "to sanctify," "to choose for divine uses or for the worship of God," is often applied by Moses to the sacred vessels of the sanctuary.

It follows therefore from this passage, that if Adam had stood in his innocence and had not fallen he would yet have observed the "seventh day" as sanctified, holy and sacred; that is, he would have taught his children and posterity on that day concerning the will and worship of God; he would have praised God, he would have given him thanks, and would have brought to him his offerings, etc., etc. On the other days he would have tilled his land and attended to his cattle. Nay, even after the fall he held the "seventh day" sacred; that is, he taught on that day his own family. This is testified by the offerings made by his two sons, Cain and Abel. The Sabbath therefore has, from the beginning of the world, been set apart for the worship of God. In this manner nature in its innocency, had it continued unfallen, would have proclaimed the glory and blessings of God. Men would have talked together on the Sabbath day concerning the goodness of their Creator, would have prayed to him, and would have brought to him their offerings, etc. For all these things are implied and signified in the expression "sanctified."

Moreover in this same sanctification of the Sabbath is included and implied the immortality of the human race. Hence the Epistle to the Hebrews speaks most beautifully concerning the rest of God, from the 95th Ps.: "If they shall enter into my rest." For the rest of God is an eternal rest. Adam therefore, had he not fallen, would have lived a certain time in paradise, according to the length of time which God pleased; and afterwards he would have been carried away into that rest of God, which rest God willed not only to intimate unto man, but highly to commend unto him by this sanctification of the Sabbath. Thus had Adam not fallen his life would have been both animal and happy, and spiritual and eternal. But now we miserable men have lost all this felicity of the animal life by sin; and while we do live, we live in the midst of death. Yet since this command of God concerning the Sabbath is left to the Church, God signifies thereby that even that spiritual life shall be restored to us through Christ. Hence the prophets have all diligently searched into these passages, in which Moses obscurely indicates also the resurrection of the flesh and the life immortal.

Further by this sanctification of the Sabbath it is also plainly shown that man was especially created for the knowledge and worship of God. For the Sabbath was not instituted on account of sheep or oxen, but for the sake of men, that the knowledge of God might be exercised and increased by them on that sacred day. Although therefore man lost the knowledge of God by sin, yet God willed that his command concerning the sanctifying of the Sabbath should remain. He willed that on the seventh day both the Word should be preached, and also those other parts of his worship performed, which he himself instituted; to the end that by these appointed means we should first of all think solemnly on our condition in the world as men; that this nature of ours was created at first expressly for the knowledge and the glorifying of God; and also that by these same sacred means we might hold fast in our minds the sure hope of a future and eternal life.

Indeed all things which God willed to be done on the Sabbath are evident signs of another life after this present life. For what need would there be of God's speaking to us by his Word, if we were not designed to live another and eternal life after this life? And if no future life is to be hoped for by us, why do we not live as those other creatures with whom God talketh not and who have no knowledge of God? But as the divine Majesty talketh with man alone, and he alone acknowledges and apprehends God, it necessarily follows that there is for us another life after this life, to which it is our great business to attain by the Word and the knowledge of God. For as to this temporal and present life it is a mere animal life as all the beasts live, which know not God nor the Word.

This then is the meaning of the Sabbath or the "rest" of God. It is a sanctified day of rest, on which God speaks to or talks with us, and we in turn speak to and talk with him in prayer and by faith. The beasts indeed learn to hear and also to understand the voice of man, as dogs, horses, sheep, oxen; and they are also preserved and fed by man. But our condition as men is far better and higher; for we both hear God and know his will, and are called to a sure hope of immortality. This is testified by those most manifest promises concerning the life eternal, which God has plainly revealed to us by his Word, since he gave to the world the obscure significations contained in this divine Book; such as this rest of God and this sanctification of the Sabbath. However these indications concerning the Sabbath are not obscure but evident and plain. For only suppose for a moment that there were no eternal life after this. Would it not immediately follow that we should have no need either of God or his Word? For that which we merely require or do in this life we can have and do without the Word of God. Even as beasts feed, live and grow fat without the Word. For what need is there of the Word to procure meat and drink, thus created for us beforehand?

As God therefore thus giveth us the Word, as he thus commands the preaching and exercising of the Word, as he thus commands the sanctifying of the Sabbath in the worship of himself, all these things prove that there remaineth another life after this life, and that man is created not to a corporeal life only, as the beasts are, but to a life eternal, even as God, who commands and institutes these things, is himself eternal.

But here another inquiry may arise concerning the fall of Adam itself, upon which indeed we have already touched: On what day Adam fell, whether on the seventh or on some other day? Although nothing indeed can be said as certain on this matter, my free and full opinion is that his fall was on the seventh day. It was on the sixth day that he was created. And Eve was created about the evening or close of the sixth day, while Adam was asleep. On the seventh day, which by the Lord had been sanctified, God talks with Adam, gives him commandment concerning his worship, and forbids him to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. For this indeed was the appropriate work or duty of the seventh day: the preaching and the hearing of the Word of God. Hence both from the Scriptures and from universal practice, hath remained the custom of appointing the morning as the time for prayer and sermons; as we have it also in the Psalms: "In the morning will I stand before Thee, and will look up," Ps. 5:3.

On the seventh day therefore, in the morning, Adam appears to have heard the Lord giving commandment concerning his domestic and national duty, the private and public worship of God, together with the prohibition concerning the fruit of the tree. Satan therefore unable to endure this most beautiful creation of man and this holy appointment of the Sabbath, and envying him so much felicity, and moreover seeing all things so abundantly provided for him on earth, and finding him in the possession of the hope of enjoying, after so happy a corporeal life, an eternal life, which he himself had lost, Satan seeing all this about the twelfth hour, perhaps after God's sermon to Adam and Eve, himself preaches to Eve. Just as he has always done to this day. Wherever the Word of God is, there he attempts also to sow lies and heresies. For it agonizes him that we by the Word become as Adam did in paradise, citizens of heaven. So Satan on this occasion tempts Eve to sin, and gains the victory over her. The sacred text before us moreover declares that when the heat of the day had subsided, the Lord came into the garden and condemned Adam with all his posterity to death. I am myself quite persuaded that all these things took place on the very day of the Sabbath, which one day only, and that not for the whole day, Adam lived in paradise, and enjoyed himself in eating its fruits.

By sin therefore did man lose all this felicity. Nor would Adam, had he remained in paradise in all his original innocence, have lived a life of idleness. He would have taught his children on the Sabbath day, he would have magnified God with worthy high-praises by public preaching, and he would have stirred up himself and others to offerings of thanks, by a contemplation of God's great and glorious works. On all other days he would have worked by tilling his ground and attending to his beasts, etc. But in a manner and from motives now wholly unknown to man. For all our labor is annoyance, but all Adam's labor was the highest pleasure, a pleasure far exceeding all the ease that is now known. Hence as all the other calamities of life remind us of sin and the wrath of God, so our labor and all our difficulty in procuring food ought to remind us of sin also and to drive us to repentance.

Moses now proceeds to describe man more particularly, repeating first of all what he had said concerning his creation in the first chapter. And though the recapitulations may seem superfluous, yet as the divine historian wishes to maintain a continuation of his history, with all due convenience and order, the repetition is by no means useless.

V. 4, 5a. These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that Jehovah God made earth and heaven. And no plant of the field was yet in the earth, and no herb of the field had yet sprung up.

"In the day" is here to be taken for an indefinite time, as if Moses had said, At that time the state of all things was most beautiful; but now I must describe a condition of things far different. We need not here inquire however in a superstitious manner, why Moses chose to use these rustic forms of expression concerning "the plants of the field" and "herbs of the field." For his object now is to describe the creation of man in its more circumstantial particulars.

V. 5b, 6. For Jehovah God had not caused it to rain upon the earth: and there was not a man to till the ground; but there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.

There was not as yet any rain, Moses says, to water the earth; but a certain mist went up and watered the whole face of the earth, to cause it to bring forth more abundantly afterwards. Now these things belong properly to the third day.

III. V. 7. And Jehovah God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

Moses here returns to the work of the sixth day and shows whence this cultivator of the earth came; namely, that God formed him out of the ground, as the potter forms in his hand the vessel out of clay. Hence Moses does not represent Jehovah God as saying in this case as in that of all the other creatures, "Let the earth bring forth man;" but "Let Us make man." He describes God as thus speaking in this case in order that he might set forth the excellency of the human race, and that he might make manifest that peculiar counsel to which God had recourse in creating or making man. However after his creation man grew and multiplied as all the other animals and beasts of the earth multiply. For the seed of all animals coagulates in the womb and is formed in the same manner in them all. In this case of generation there is no difference between the foetus formed in the cow and that formed in the woman. But with reference to their first creation Moses testifies that there was the greatest possible difference. For he shows in this divine record that the human nature was created by a peculiarity of divine counsel and wisdom, and formed by the very finger of God.

This difference, which God made in the original creation of man and of cattle, likewise manifests forth the immortality of the soul, of which we spoke above. And though all the other works of God are full of wonder and admiration and truly magnificent, yet that man is the most excellent and glorious creature of all is evident from the fact that God in creating him had recourse to deep counsel and to a mode entirely different from that which he adopted in creating all the other creatures. For God does not leave it to the earth, to form or bring forth man, as it brought forth beasts and trees. But God forms man himself, "in the image" of himself, as a participator of the divine nature and as one designed to enjoy the rest of God. Hence Adam before he is formed by Jehovah, is a mere lifeless lump of earth, lying on the ground. God takes that lump of earth into his hand and forms out of it a most beautiful creature, a partaker of immortality.

Now if Aristotle were to hear these things he would burst out into a loud laugh and would say, that the whole matter was a fable; a very pleasant one indeed but a very absurd one; that man, who was a lump of earth as to his original, is so formed by divine wisdom to be capable of immortality. For those ancient philosophers, as Socrates and others, who taught the immortality of the soul, were laughed at and almost cast out by all their fellows. But is it not the very extremity of folly for reason to take this great offense, when it beholds the generation of man to this very day full of greatest wonder! For who would not judge it an absurdity to suppose that man, who is designed to live eternally, should be born from one single drop as it were of seed from the loins of the father? There is even a greater apparent absurdity in this than in Moses saying, that man was formed from a lump of earth by the finger of God. But by all this folly reason plainly shows that she understands nothing of God, who, by the efficacy of a single thought, thus makes out of a lump of earth not only the seed of man, but man himself; and makes also, as Moses afterwards says, the woman out of a single rib of the man. This then is the origin of man!

Man therefore having been thus created, male and female, from their blood under the divine blessing is generated the whole human race. And although this generation is common to man and beasts, that similarity by no means detracts from the glory of our original formation; that we are vessels of God, fashioned by his own hand; that he is our potter and we his clay; as Isaiah speaks in his 64th chapter. Nor does this solemn state of things pertain to our original only, but pervades our whole life, and even unto death and in the tomb we are still the clay of this Potter!

From this same creation of man also we may learn, what the real power of free will is, of which our adversaries boast so much. We have indeed in a certain sense a free will, in those things which are put under us. For we are by the command of God appointed lords of the fishes of the sea, of the fowls of heaven and of the beasts of the field. These we kill when we please. We enjoy the food, and other blessings they supply. But in the things pertaining unto God, which are above us and not put under us, man has no free-will at all. But he is in reality as clay in the hand of the potter. He is placed under the mere power of God, passively and not actively. In this our real position we choose nothing, we do nothing. On the contrary we are chosen, we are prepared, we are regenerated; we receive only; as the prophet Isaiah saith, "Thou art our potter; we are thy clay," Is. 64:8.

But here a lawful and holy inquiry of a new description may be made. As Moses speaks of the creation of man here in a new phraseology, "And Jehovah God formed man of the dust of the ground;" and as he did not use the same form of expression above, when the other living creatures were created, so he here mentions a further distinction in man which is not said of any other animate creature: "And God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life." This Moses does not say in reference to any of the beasts, though all beasts, as well as man, have the breath of life in their nostrils. We may here therefore sacredly inquire first, why it is that Moses is here led to speak thus. And secondly, why it is recorded in this place concerning man only, that God "breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul," when all animals throughout the whole Scripture are called "living creatures." The divine expressions recorded by Moses above are, "Let the earth bring forth every living creature after his kind." But here the phraseology is altogether changed, "And man became a living soul."

These were the things that, doubtless, moved the patriarchs, the holy fathers and prophets of old, to examine diligently passages of this description in order to discover what these singular forms of speech might signify, being assured that the sacred historian intended by them something peculiar and great and especially worthy of knowledge.

For if you look at the mere animal life of which Moses is here speaking, there is no difference between the man and the ass. For the animal life in both stands in need of meat and drink. It needs sleep and rest. The bodies of both grow and are fattened alike by meat and drink. And from the want of meat and drink both waste and perish alike. In both the stomach receives the food and transmits it when digested to the belly, which generates the blood, by which all the members are refreshed and restored. When we consider these things in themselves, I say, there is no difference between the man and the beast. But Moses in this place so exalts the life of man that he says of him alone of all animals, that he "became a living soul;" not a living creature or a living thing like all the beasts of the earth, but in a more exalted sense "a living soul;" and that, because he was created "in the image of God," which image there can be no doubt whatever, shone with a peculiar brightness in the countenances of Adam and Eve, while yet in their state of innocence. Hence it is that even after the sin and fall, the heathen poets, etc., concluded from the position of his body, from his upright carriage and from the elevation of his eyes to heaven, that man was a creature far more excellent than any other creature in existence.

It is to this surpassing excellency that St. Paul refers when he recites the passage before us in 1 Cor. 15:45. It is there written, "The first man Adam became a living soul. The last Adam became a life-giving spirit." By a living soul in this passage the apostle means the animal life, which consists in eating, drinking, growing, sleeping, generating, etc.; all which are found also in brutes. But by an antithesis he says that "the last Adam was made a life-giving spirit." This is a life which needs not, and knows not, the conditions of the animal life. Paul moreover here teaches us that Adam, even if he had not sinned, would yet have lived a corporeal life; a life which would have needed meat, drink and rest; a life which would have grown, increased and generated, etc., until God should have translated him to that spiritual life, in which he would have lived without natural animality, if I may so express it; namely, a life from within, derived from God alone; and not a life from without as before, sustained by herbs and fruits. And yet he would have been a man with body and bones, etc., and not a pure spirit, as angels are.

My reply therefore to the new inquiry, above admitted, is this: God by the mouth of Moses speaking in the passage before us designed to set forth the hope of that future and eternal life which Adam, if he had continued in his innocency, would have enjoyed after this present animal life. As if Moses had said, Man became a living soul; not merely in the sense of that life which beasts live, but in the sense of that life which God afterwards designed Adam to live, even without any animal life at all. And this same hope of immortality or an immortal life, we now have through Christ. Although on account of sin we are subject to death and all kinds of calamity. But Adam's natural life, when he became a living soul, was designed to be far exalted above that which we now live since the fall. He would have lived on earth sweetly, happily and with the highest pleasure; and then would have been translated at the time determined in the mind of God, out of the animal life into the spiritual and eternal life; and that translation would have been attended with no pain or trouble whatever. Whereas we are not translated out of this animal life into the life spiritual and eternal, but by death; and that, after an infinity of evils, perils and crosses.

It was after this manner that we ought, like the holy prophets, diligently to look into all these expressions of Moses, and to inquire why it is that, with such depth of purpose and design, he speaks concerning man in terms so different from those he used when speaking of all other living creatures. The design evidently was that our faith and hope of immortality might be confirmed, and that we might be assured that although the life of man as to his animal life is like that of all other living creatures, even of brutes, yet that he possesses a hope of immortality unpossessed by, and wholly unknown to, any other living creature; that he possesses and bears the image and similitude of God, with no particle of which any other animal is dignified or favored.

And thus by a most beautiful allegory, or rather by a most excellent figure, Moses here intimates, though obscurely, that God would become incarnate. For with reference to man's differing in no respect from a sheep, as to his animal life, though created in the image and after the similitude of God; that assertion is in fact, a kind of statement by contraries, as they term it in the schools; or, according to another term of theirs, an addition by opposition. And yet as man was created in the image of the invisible God, by this sublime fact is signified in obscure figure, as we shall hereafter hear from Moses, that God would reveal himself in this world in the Man, Christ. These seeds as it were of the greatest and most marvelous things, did the prophets diligently search out and gather from the divine historian Moses.

PART II. PARADISE.

I. V. 8. And Jehovah God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed.

Here rises before us a whole sea of questions concerning paradise. In the first place, the word itself, whether it be Hebrew, Chaldean or Persian, for I do not think it is Greek, though Suidas endeavors to discover a Greek origin, is rendered by the Latins hortus, "a garden." This garden, Moses says, was planted BE EDEN, in Eden. For this name of the place is not appellative or descriptive, as our translation renders it, "paradise of pleasure." EDEN does, indeed, signify pleasure or delight, and from this name of the garden is doubtless formed the Greek word adona, but the preposition being here added to it plainly proves that Eden is in this place to be taken for the proper name of a place; which is further proved by the particular description of the place, for the garden is said to have been to the eastward of it. Our translation renders it a principio, "from the beginning," which is also a bad version of the expression. For the original term is MIKKEDEM, which does not properly signify "from the beginning," but "in front," that is according to our mode of expression and meaning, "toward the East." For the original word is an adverb of place, not of time.

Hence there arises here another matter of dispute, as to where paradise is. Commentators puzzle and rack themselves on this point in an extraordinary manner. Some will have its situation to be under the equator between the two tropics. Others say it must have been a more temperate atmosphere, to cause a place to be so richly and abundantly productive. But why should I proceed? Opinions upon the subject are beyond number. My short and simple reply to them all is, that every question upon a place or thing which no longer exists, is idle and useless. For Moses is here describing things which occurred before the Flood and even before sin was in the world. Whereas, we have to deal with things as they were and are since the sin of Adam and since the Deluge.

My belief is therefore that this spot of earth was called Eden, either by Adam or in the time of Adam, on account of that astonishing productiveness and that delightful pleasurableness, which Adam experienced in it, and that the name of a place so delightful, remained with posterity long after the place itself was lost and gone. Just as the names of Rome, Athens and Carthage exist among us at this day, though scarcely any traces of those mighty states and kingdoms can now be discovered.

For time and the curse which sins merit consume all things. When therefore the world with all the men and beasts upon it was destroyed by the Flood, this noble and beautiful garden perished also, and all traces of it were washed away from the face of the earth. In vain therefore do Origen and others enter upon their absurd disputations. The text moreover says that this garden was guarded by an angel, lest any one should enter it. Even if this garden therefore had not perished by the curse which followed, as doubtless it did, yet man's entrance into it is thus absolutely and forever prevented, as is indicated by the guardian angel's flaming sword. Its place can nowhere be found. This latter answer concerning the curse might be given to all questioners and disputers, though the former argument concerning the inevitable consequences of the Deluge, I deem less imaginative and more conclusive.

But what shall we say to that text of the New Testament, "Today shalt thou be with me in paradise," Luke 23:43? And to that passage also, "He was caught up into paradise," 2 Cor. 12:4? I have no hesitation whatever in affirming that Christ did not go with the thief into any corporeal place. For that point is made quite plain from the case of Paul, who says, "that he knew not whether he was in the body, or out of the body," verses 2 and 3. Wherefore my opinion is that in each case by paradise is meant that condition or state in which Adam was, when in paradise, full of peace and rest and safety, and full of all those gifts of blessedness, which are enjoyed where there is no sin and no death. As if Christ had said, today shalt thou be with me in paradise, free from sin, and safe from death. Just as Adam in Paradise was free from sin and from all death and from all curse. Thus I believe paradise to be a paradise state. Just as the Scriptures, when speaking of the bosom of Abraham, does not mean the very fold of the robe which covered the bosom of Abraham, but descriptively that life or state of life in which the souls of the departed enjoy the heavenly life, and the peace and rest which "remain for the people of God," Heb. 4:9.

Wherefore my testimony concerning this text is, that Moses is here giving us an historical description and informing us that there was a certain place toward the East, in which there was a most beautiful and fruitful garden. For, as I have before said, the Hebrew expression MIKKEDEM properly signifies a place, not a time, as our version improperly renders it. Hence it is usual with the Hebrews to call the East wind KADIM, a dry cold wind which parches the fields. In that region of the world therefore was paradise or a garden, in which there were no teil-trees, nor oaks, nor scarlet-oaks, nor any other trees that were barren, but the richest and noblest fruits of every kind and trees of the noblest description; such as we now deem those to be which bear cinnamon and the richest spices. And although all the rest of the earth was cultivated, for there were as yet no thistles nor thorns, yet this place had its far higher cultivation. This Eden was a delightful garden, exceeding in cultivation and fecundity the whole earth besides. Though all the rest of the earth, if compared with its present miserable condition, was itself a paradise.

It was in this garden, which he himself had planted with such peculiar care, that the Lord placed man. All these things, I say, are historical. It is idle for us therefore to inquire at the present day, where or what that garden was. The rivers, of which Moses afterwards speaks, prove that the region of its situation comprehended Syria, Mesopotamia, Damascus and Egypt, and it is in the midst of these as it were that Jerusalem is situated. And as this garden was destined for Adam with his posterity, it is in vain for us to imagine it to have been a confined garden of a few miles extent. It was doubtless the greater and better part of the earth. And my judgment is, that this garden continued until the Deluge; and that before the Flood it was protected by God himself, according to the description of Moses, by a guard of angels. So that I believe it to have been a place well known to the posterity of Adam, though inaccessible to them. And my opinion is, that it continued thus known until the Flood utterly destroyed it and left no traces of it remaining. Such is my mind on this subject. And such is my reply to all questions which over curious men would move concerning a place, which after the sin and the Deluge had no longer any existence or trace of former existence.

Origen however is dissatisfied with any view of the extent of the garden of Eden, corresponding to that which I have taken. His opinion is that the distance of the rivers ought by no means to determine the dimensions of the garden. But he is thinking all the time about such gardens as we now generally cultivate. Hence he has recourse in his usual way to an allegory. He makes paradise to represent heaven; the trees, angels; and the streams of rivers, wisdom. But these triflings are unworthy a divine. They may perhaps not be unbecoming an imaginative poet; but they are out of place in a theologian. Origen bears not in mind that Moses is here writing a history; and that, too, a record of things, now long ago passed away.

After this same fashion do our adversaries absurdly dispute at the present day holding that the image and similitude of God still remain, even in a wicked man. They would, in my judgment speak much nearer the truth, if they were to say that the image of God in man has perished and disappeared; just as the original world and paradise have done. Man in the beginning was righteous; the world in the beginning was most beautiful. Eden was in truth a garden of delight and of pleasure. But all these things were deformed by sin and remain deformed still. All creatures, yea even the sun and the moon, have as it were put on sackcloth. They were all originally "good," but by sin and the curse they became defiled and noxious. At length came the greater curse of the Flood, which destroyed paradise and the whole human race, and swept them from the face of the earth. For if at this day rivers, bursting their banks, inflict by their floods such mighty calamities on men, beasts and fields, what must we suppose to have been the awfulness and horror of the calamities brought upon the earth by the universal Deluge! Whenever therefore we would speak of paradise, since the Flood, let us speak of that now historical paradise, which was once, but now has no longer existence in any trace. Let us speak of it just as we are compelled to speak of the original innocence of man. In doing so our utmost effort can effect no more than to reflect with a sigh that it is lost, and that we never can repair or regain it in this life.

But further, as Moses had before distinguished man in various ways from the brutes, which nevertheless have the same origin as we have, brutes being formed like us from the earth; so the divine historian in this place distinguishes man from every other creature by giving a description of that peculiarly delightful garden, and that superb dwelling-place, which God had planted with great care and culture, and prepared with magnificent splendor, far beyond anything of the kind which he had bestowed on any other spot upon the face of the earth at that time.

For the principal object of Moses in his sacred record of the creation of man was to cause it to be clearly understood that man was by far the noblest and most excellent creature, which God had made. The brute animals had the earth, on the grass of which they might feed. But for man, God himself prepared a more noble dwelling-place, in the cultivation and adorning of which he might labor with extreme pleasure, and in which he might find his food, separated from the beasts indeed, but nevertheless holding all of them throughout the whole earth under his dominion.

Therefore Origen, Jerome and all the other allegorists are alike involved in the greatest folly, who because they can no longer find a paradise on the face of the earth think that some other sense than the natural one is to be given in its interpretation. But that there was a paradise and that there is a paradise are two very different subjects for consideration. Moses, as is the general nature of all such narrations, merely records that there was a paradise. The case is the same in reference to Adam's dominion over all the beasts. He could call the lion, and command and manage him, according to his will and pleasure; but it is not so now. All these glorious things are no more. They are simply and merely, though sacredly, recorded by Moses as having been in the beginning.

Another question is here agitated, as to the spot of the earth where God created man. There are some who maintain with great warmth that he was created in or near Damascus; because they find it recorded that the soil of Damascus is red and fertile. But I pass by all idle and vain inquiries of this description. It is enough for us to know that man was formed out of the earth on the sixth day after all the other animals had been created, and that he was placed by God himself in the garden of Eden. But as to the very spot on which he was created, what necessity is there for our knowing that? It is certain that he was created out of paradise. For the text before us declares that he was removed to or placed in paradise, before Eve was created who, as Moses here shows, was created in paradise.

Now let us proceed to that which follows:

V. 9a. And out of the ground made Jehovah God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food.

The contents of this verse properly belong to the description of paradise. For although the whole earth had been so created as naturally to bring forth trees and herbs, with their fruits and seeds, yet this garden of Eden had its peculiar cultivation. A similitude illustrative of the case before us may be derived from things as they now are among us. Woods and fields bring forth their trees. But when we select a place as a garden for special cultivation, the fruits of the garden are always more excellent than those of the field. So paradise, having been created for and devoted to peculiar cultivation, beyond that which was bestowed on any other part of the earth, was adorned with trees delightful to the sight, whose fruits were sweet to the taste and for use. When therefore God said, in the first chapter, verse 29, "Behold I have given you every herb and every tree for food:" by that meat was meant necessary food. But paradise supplied food for pleasure and delight; fruits better, sweeter and more delicious than those which the trees of any other part of the earth produced. On these the beasts also fed.

II. V. 9b. The tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge (scientiae) of good and evil.

Moses so describes paradise that he makes God himself as it were the cultivator of it; as a cultivator, who after he has planted a garden with the greatest care according to his pleasure, selects this and that tree from the rest, which he tills and loves as particular favorites. One of these trees was "the tree of life," a tree created to the end that man by feeding on it might be preserved with a sound body, free from diseases, and not subject to fatigue.

Here again we find the man, whom God first created, highly distinguished from the brutes; not only by the delightful spot in which God placed him, but also by the exalted privilege of a longer life, a life always continuing in the same state. Whereas the bodies of all other living creatures grow in youth and increase in strength, but in old age decay and perish. But the original condition of man was intended to be far different. Had he continued in his innocence he would have enjoyed his meat and his drink; a change of his meat and drink and a conversion of them into blood would have taken place in his body, but that commutation would not have been impure and foul as it is now. This tree of life moreover would have preserved him in perpetual youth, nor would he have experienced any of the afflictions or inconveniences of old age. His brow would have contracted no wrinkles, nor would his foot nor his hand nor any other part of his body have known weakness or languor. By the blessing of the fruit of this tree man's powers would have remained perfect for generation and for labor of every kind; until at length he should have been translated from this corporeal to his spiritual life. The other trees would have supplied him with food the most excellent and the most delicious; but this "tree of life" would have been as it were a general medicine which would have preserved his natural life and powers in perpetual and complete vigor.

Some may here interpose the question, How could this corporeal food or natural fruit effect such a conservation of the body as to prevent it from being weakened or debilitated by time? The reply is easy and divine. "He spake, and it was done!" Ps. 33:9. For if God can make bread of a stone, why should he not be able to preserve the natural powers of man by a fruit? Even since the sin of the fall we see what powerful properties the smallest herbs and seeds possess.

Look for a moment at our own bodies. Whence comes that peculiar property of their nature that bread, eaten by them, is by their natural heat digested and converted into blood, by the circulation of which the whole body is strengthened and confirmed? Now bring together all the fires and all the furnaces of the universe, you cannot produce by them all this one single effect, the conversion of bread into blood. But this mighty effect is produced by that small degree of heat, which our natural bodies contain. There is no room for wonder therefore that this tree should have become by the will of the Lord, its Planter and Maker, "The tree of life!"

Adam possessed a natural and movable body, a body which generated, ate and labored. These exertions are considered to produce decay or at least some kind of change, by which at length man is naturally worn out and destroyed. But by this appointment of nature, "the tree of life," God provided a remedy, by the use of which man might have a long and sound life, without any diminution of his powers and in perpetual youth.

Thus all these things are historical facts. This is a point which I am repeatedly admonishing every hearer and reader to bear in mind, lest he should be stumbled by the authority of some of the fathers, who leaving pure and positive history turn aside to hunt allegories. It is on this ground that I am so partial to Lyra and so willingly rank him with the best of commentators. He always carefully abides by and follows history. And although he sometimes permits himself to be swayed by the authority of the fathers, yet he never suffers himself to be turned aside by their authority from the plain and real sense of any portion of the Scriptures to allegories.

But much more wonderful is that which Moses here speaks concerning "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil." For here we have to inquire, what this tree was, why it was so called and what would have been the consequence, or result, if there had not been this tree in paradise. Augustine and those who follow him rightly consider the matter, when they observe that the tree was so called from that which was shortly to take place and to be ordained concerning it; and from the solemn consequences which followed. For Adam had been so created and the garden of Eden so planted and constituted that if any inconvenience had occurred to his natural body and life, he had a protection against it and remedy for it in "the tree of life," which could preserve his powers and the perfection of his health at all times. Wherefore if Adam had thus remained in his innocency, wholly swallowed up in the goodness of his Creator and in the bountiful provision which that goodness had made for him on every side and in every way, he might have acknowledged God his Creator throughout that life of innocence and might have governed all the beasts according to his will, not only without the least painful toil or trouble, but also with the highest pleasure. For all things had been so created as to afford man the extreme of pleasure and delight without the least degree of evil or harm.

After Adam therefore had been so created and so surrounded with every blessing that he was intoxicated as it were with joy in God and with delight in all the other creatures around him, God then creates a new tree, a tree of knowledge and of distinction between good and evil, in order that Adam by means of that tree might have a certain sign of worship and reverence of God. For after all things had been delivered into the hand of Adam that he might enjoy them according to his will or according to his pleasure, God next requires of him that by means of this "tree of the knowledge of good and evil" he should show his reverence and obedience towards God as his Creator; and that he should hold fast, as a sign of this exercise of his obedient worship of God, that he would not taste any of the fruit of this tree; thus refraining, as in obedience to God's prohibition.

All therefore that Moses has hitherto said have been things natural or domestic, or political, or judicial, or medicinal. The present however is theological. For here the Word of God concerning this "tree of the knowledge of good and evil" is set before Adam, in order that by means of this tree he might have a certain outward sign of the worship of God and of obedience to God, to be performed by him in his nature, as man, by the duty and service of an external work. Even as the Sabbath, of which we have spoken above, pertains more especially to the performance of the internal and spiritual worship of God; such as faith, love, calling upon God in prayer, etc.

But alas! alas! the true institution of this external worship and obedience toward God has been attended with the most disgraceful results. For we find at the present day that the Word of God, than which nothing is more holy, nothing more blessed, is an offense unto the wicked. Baptism also was instituted of Christ, as the washing of regeneration. But has not this divine institution become a great scandal and excitement of offense by means of various sects? Has not the whole doctrine of baptism been distressingly corrupted? And yet, what was more necessary to us than this very institution of baptism? It was most necessary in order that the animal man should have some correspondingly animal or outward worship; that is, some outward sign of worship and reverence of God, by which he might exercise an obedience towards God even in his body.

The present text therefore truly belongs to the church and to theology. After God had given to man a polity or national government, and also an economy or the principles of domestic government, and had constituted him king over all creatures, and had moreover appointed for him as a protective remedy the tree of life, for the conservation of his corporeal or natural life, God now erects for him a temple as it were, that he might worship his Creator, and give thanks unto that God who had bestowed upon him all these rich and bountiful blessings. So at this day we have churches and an altar in them for the celebration of the holy communion or supper of our Lord; we have pulpits also, or elevated chairs, for teaching the people. And all these things are thus prepared, not on account of necessity only, for the sake of solemnity also. But this tree of the knowledge of good and evil was itself to Adam his church, his altar, his pulpit; near or under which, as the place appointed of God, he might perform his acts of obedience to God, might acknowledge the Word and the Will of God, might offer his thanks to God, and in which spot he might also call upon God in prayer against temptations.

Reason indeed vents its rage that this tree was ever created at all, because by means of it we have sinned and fallen under the wrath of God and into death. But why does not reason on the same ground betray its rage that the Law was ever revealed by God at all, that the Gospel was ever revealed afterwards by the Son of God? For have not offenses of errors and heresies, infinite, arisen on account both of the Law and of the Gospel?

Let us therefore learn from this passage of Scripture that it was necessary for man, being so created and constituted as to have all the rest of the living creatures in his hand and under his dominion, that he should not only privately, but publicly also, acknowledge his Creator, should give thanks unto him, should offer him some public and external worship, and have a certain form and work of obedience. If therefore Adam had not fallen, this tree would have been a common temple or church, a sure palace to which all might have flocked. Thus it was afterwards, when nature was in her fallen and corrupt state, the tabernacle in the wilderness and the temple at Jerusalem were places appointed for divine worship. As therefore this "tree" eventually proved to be the cause of so awful a fall, it was rightly called by Moses "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil," on account of the horrible and miserable event which followed.

Two questions may here be raised as to whether this tree of life was one only or whether there were more; and whether the Scripture which here speaks in the singular number should be considered as speaking in the plural; just as we, speaking collectively, use the expression "the pear," "the apple," whereby we mean pears and apples generally; either of those fruits as kinds; not individual species or specimens of them. To me it appears by no means absurd or out of the way that we should understand "the tree of life," as a certain space in the middle of paradise, or a certain grove, in which many "trees of life" of the same genus or kind grew, and were called by the same name, "trees of life." Hence it is probable that a certain grove was called collectively "the tree of life," which was a kind of sacred retreat, in which grew a number of trees of the same kind; namely, "trees of the knowledge of good and evil," concerning which God pronounced his prohibition, that Adam should not eat of any of them, and if he did he should surely die the death. Not that there was anything in the nature of this tree, or of any one of these trees, to cause death; but such was the Word of God pronounced concerning it or them, which Word of God was ever attended with its efficacy to all creatures; and the efficacy of which Word still preserves all creatures, that they degenerate not nor alter nor fail of their original form and intent; that all creatures may be preserved in their original form and nature by an infinite propagation!

Hence it was that by the Word the rock in the desert gave forth its waters in all their abundance, Ex. 17:6, and that by the same Word the brazen serpent healed all those that looked unto it, Num. 21:9. By this same efficacy of the Word of God's prohibition, this one tree or this certain species of many trees in the middle of paradise killed Adam by his disobedience to that Word of God; not that the tree itself was deadly in its own nature but because it was appointed by the Word of God to be so in its effects. In the same way also are we to understand the nature of the tree of life, of which God commanded Adam to eat as often as he needed to restore his powers. It was by the Word of God that the tree of life produced that restoration.

To reason indeed it seems absurd, that one apple could have such deadly properties or produce such deadly effects as to destroy the whole human race throughout its almost infinite succession; and that too with a death eternal. But this was not the nature or the effect of the apple in itself. Adam did indeed force his teeth into the apple, but his teeth struck in reality upon the sting in the apple, which sting was the prohibition of God, which made his bite to be disobedience to God. This was the real cause of the mighty evil. Adam thus sinned against God, disregarded his commandment and obeyed Satan. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil was in itself "good," the tree which bore the most noble fruits. But as the prohibition of God was attached to it and man disregarded that prohibition, the tree became the deadliest of all poisons.

Just in the same manner as God has said, "Thou shalt not steal," Ex. 20:15, the man who touches the property of another as his own sins against God. So in Egypt when the Jews were commanded of God to ask silver from their neighbors and to carry it away with them; that was no sin; they were justified by the command of God, to whom obedience is due, whatever be the issue or result. So also the suitor when he loves a virgin and has a strong desire of nature to possess her as his wife and marries her, committeth no adultery; though the Law of God forbids coveting and concupiscence. And the great reason is this, matrimony is a divine institution and is a command of God to them who cannot live chastely without marriage. Just the same also is the nature of these two trees. The tree of life gives life, by virtue of the Word which promises and ordains that life. "The tree of the knowledge of good and evil" produces death by virtue of the efficacy of the Word which prohibits the eating of it on the penalty of death in case of disobedience.

This latter tree however is called "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil," Augustine says, because after Adam had sinned by eating of it he not only saw and experienced what good he had lost, but also into what evil and misery he had been hurled by his disobedience. The tree therefore was in itself "good," even as the divine commandment attached to it was "good;" that it should be to Adam a tree of divine worship, by which he should prove his obedience to God, even by an external act of service to him. But by reason of the sin which followed, the same tree became the tree of the curse. Moses now by digressing a little proceeds to give a more extensive description of the original "garden!"

V. 10. And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became four heads.

Here again the Latin version is in error, when it makes the proper name, Eden, an appellative. And here Origen and his followers are to be condemned who have recourse in their usual way to allegories. For the things here recorded by Moses as history, are facts. There actually was a great river in Eden, by which the whole garden was watered. That river rising from the east of the garden divided itself into four streams, that no part of the garden might remain unwatered. For, as I have before observed, we are here to have in mind a large space or portion of the earth; because this garden was so constituted that it might be, as to its original design, an appropriate and perpetual habitation for Adam and his whole posterity, which was equally designed to be most extensive.

Vs. 11, 12. The name of one is Pishon; that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; and the gold of that land is good; there is bdellium and the onyx stone.

This is one of the most difficult passages in the writings of Moses, and one which has given rise to the greatest offense in unholy minds. For the real state of the facts recorded, as they are now before our eyes, cannot be denied. The description here given by the sacred historian applies properly to India, which he here calls "Havilah," through which the river Pishon, or the Ganges, flows. The other three rivers Gihon, Hiddekel and Phrath; that is, the Nile, the Tigris and the Euphrates are also well known; and it is equally well known that the Nile and the last two rivers have their sources very distant from each other. The great question therefore that naturally arises is, since the whole world well knows how far distant these rivers are from each other, how can the account of Moses be reconciled with the facts, when he says that all these rivers issued from one fountain; that is, that they flowed from one source in the garden of Eden toward the east? For with respect to the Nile, although its source is unknown, yet the arguments and proofs are plain that it flows from a region in the south. Whereas it is quite certain that the Ganges and the Tigris and the Euphrates flow from the north; sources in the entirely opposite direction.

The account of Moses therefore militates against sense and fact as they now are. This state of things has given occasion to many to form conjectures that Eden was the whole world. Though such conjectures are certainly false, yet they would not of themselves, even if true, reconcile the statements of Moses, nor make all plain when he here says that the source of all these rivers was one and the same. And although it is very probable that if Adam had remained in his innocence and his posterity had greatly multiplied in that state of innocency, God would have enlarged this garden correspondently; yet even that consideration would not justify the supposition that Eden was the whole earth originally; for the sacred text most plainly separates Eden from all the rest of the earth. What shall we say therefore concerning this passage of Moses, contrary as it is to sense and experience, as things now are, and on that account so liable to cause offense being taken; especially since Origen and others have built upon it so many marvelous and absurd fables? Some commentators pretend that there is no difficulty at all nor any liability to offense being taken; and therefore they walk dryshod as it were over this deep sea. Such lack of candor however is also highly unbecoming a commentator.

My opinion on the matter, which indeed I have already given, is that paradise, which was very soon closed against man on account of sin, and afterwards totally destroyed and swept from the earth by the Flood, left not one trace or vestige of its original state remaining, which can now be discovered. I fully believe, as I have before stated, that paradise did exist after the fall of Adam, and that it was known to his posterity; but that it was inaccessible to them on account of the protection of the angel, who as the text informs us guarded Eden with a flaming sword. The awful Deluge however destroyed all things. By which also, as it is written, "All the fountains of the great deep were broken up," Gen. 7:11.

Who can doubt therefore that the fountains of these rivers were also broken up and confounded? As therefore since the Flood mountains exist where fields and fruitful plains before flourished, so there can be no doubt that fountains and sources of rivers are now found where none existed before and where the state of nature had been quite the contrary. For the whole face of nature was changed by that mighty convulsion. Nor do I entertain the least doubt that all those wonders of nature which are from time to time discovered, are the effects and relics of that same awful visitation, the Deluge. In the metallic mines which are now explored are found large logs of wood, hardened into stone; and in masses of stone themselves are perceived various forms of fishes and other animals. With the same confidence I also believe that the Mediterranean sea before the Deluge was not within the land. My persuasion is that the position which it now occupies was formed by the effects of the terrible Flood. So also the space now occupied by the Red Sea was doubtless before a fruitful field, and most probably some portion of this very garden. In like manner, those other large bays, the Gulf of Persia, the gulf of Arabia, etc., as they now exist, are relic effects of the Deluge.

Wherefore we are by no means to suppose that the original source of the rivers, of which we are now speaking, was the same as it is today. But as the earth still exists and brings forth trees and their fruits, etc., and yet these, if compared with those in their original and incorrupt state, are but miserable remnants as it were of those former riches which the earth produced when first created, so these rivers remain as relics only of those former noble streams; but certainly not in their primitive position; much less flowing from their original sources. In the same manner, how much excellency has perished from our bodies by sin! Wherefore the sum of the matter under discussion is that we must speak of the whole nature since its corruption, as an entirely altered face of things; a face which nature has assumed, first by means of sin, and secondly by the awful effects of the universal Deluge.

Nor has God ceased to act still in the same way. When he punishes sins he still curses at the same time the earth also. Thus in the prophet Zephaniah, God threatens that he will consume the fowls of the air and the fishes of the sea, Zeph. 1:3. Hence the fact is that many of our rivers have in this age a far less number of fishes than in the memory of our forefathers. The birds also are much fewer in number than they once were, etc. God threatens also, Is. 13, that He will punish in this same way the sins of Babylon. For when men are taken away by God's judgments the beasts of the earth also disappear and monsters and destroying wild beasts alone remain, Is. 13:21, 22. For example Canaan was one of the most fruitful lands; but now it is said to be as it were a mere pickle-tub of unfruitful saltness, according to the divine threatening in the 107th Psalm. If then such calamities are inflicted of God as the punishments of the particular sins of nations, what destructions and desolations must we consider the universal punishment of the Flood to have wrought?

Let no one be offended therefore at Moses saying that four rivers, which are at this day widely distant from each other and have now different fountains, flowed from one source in the garden of Eden. For as I have here repeatedly observed we are not to think that the form of the world now is the same as it was before the sin of Adam. Origen was indeed of this opinion himself, and yet he turned aside to the vainest allegories.

The Nile indeed exists to this day, so does the Ganges. But as Virgil says concerning the destruction of Troy, "A cornfield now flourishes where Troy once stood," so if any one had seen the Nile and the other great rivers mentioned by Moses in their primitive beauty and glory he would have beheld them to be far different from what they are now. For not only are their sources altered, but their qualities and their courses are also changed; just as all other creatures are also deformed and corrupted. Hence it is that Peter affirms "That the heaven must receive Christ until the times of the restitution of all things," Acts 3:21. For Peter here intimates, that which Paul also testifies, that the whole creation was subjected to vanity, Rom. 8:20, and that the restitution of all things is to be hoped for; the restitution not of man only, but of the heaven and the earth, of the sun and of the moon, etc.

My answer therefore to all questioners upon the passage before us is: There is the Nile, there is the Ganges and there are other rivers still in existence; but they are not now such as they once were; they are not only confounded with respect to their sources, but altered as to their qualities also. In the same manner also man has indeed feet, eyes and ears, just as they were created and formed in paradise; but all these same members are miserably corrupted and marred by sin. Adam before his sin had eyes the most bright, a smell of body the most pure, refined, delicate and grateful; a body the most perfectly adapted to generation and to every purpose intended of God without the least let, hindrance or obstruction in the performance of those purposes as services in obedience to God. But how far removed from all this aptitude, this service and this natural vigor are all our members now! Just the same is the present nature of these rivers and of the whole creation if compared with its original state and condition.

Let us look therefore in hope and faith for the "restitution of all things;" not of the soul only, but of the body also; believing that we shall have in that day a body better and more noble even than it was when first created in paradise. For we shall not then be placed in a state of animal life, subject by its nature to alteration and change; but in the state and enjoyment of a spiritual life; that life, into which Adam would have been translated, if he had lived without sin. Into the hope of this life Christ brings us by the remission of sins; and thereby makes our condition better and higher than Adam enjoyed, but lost in paradise.

The Hebrew verb SAB, which Moses here uses, has a very extensive meaning; it signifies "to go round," as watchmen go their round in a city. Pishon, therefore, or the Ganges is still in existence, if you speak of its mere name and stream; but if you consider its fertilizing and fructifying qualities, its various other properties and the course of its waters, even the remnants of the original noble river are not to be found.

The land of Havilah is India, situated towards the east. This country is celebrated both in the present passage and in other places in the Scripture as most rich and abundant in every respect. So that at this day the gems and the gold of India are considered the most precious and most noble. I believe however, according to the phraseology here adopted by Moses, that in "the land of Havilah" is included Arabia Felix and other adjacent regions.

When Moses speaks of bdellium and the onyx stone, I take these specimens of gems for gems in general. For we find India to abound even at the present day, not only in jewels of the description mentioned, but in emeralds, sapphires, rubies, garnets, diamonds, etc.; for I retain their appellations as they are now used among us. But here again I would bring back your attention to that which I have before stated. Seeing that this region is endowed from above with such a rich abundance of all things useful and precious; how much more rich, abundant, opulent and divinely favored must we conclude it to have been in its original state before the sin of the fall! Its present productions and contents can scarcely be called even remnants of its former excellency.

Vs. 13, 14. And the name of the second river is Gihon; the same is it which compasseth the whole land of Cush. And the name of the third river is Hiddekel; that is it which goeth toward the east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.

Moses mentions the three remaining rivers by name only, giving no particular descriptions in reference to them. Gihon is the Nile. This river, as it runs through all Egypt, takes in its course, Cush or Ethiopia also, as well as Egypt. Hiddekel is the Tigris (in Armenia), the most rapid river of all. "The fourth is the river Euphrates." As if he had added, the river near to us.

In this passage therefore we have a description of paradise with its four rivers. But now it is utterly lost and unknown; and no traces of it exist except these four rivers. And even these, first rendered leprous as it were and corrupted and marred by sin; and then changed, altered and confounded in their sources and in their courses by the mighty Deluge.

Moses now proceeds to describe how a law was given to Adam before Eve was created, so that he might have a mode or form of external worship, by which to show his obedience and express his gratitude to God.

PART III. THE INTRODUCTION OF MAN INTO THE GARDEN, THE COMMAND GOD GAVE HIM AND THE THREATENING GOD ATTACHED TO IT.

I. V. 15. And Jehovah God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and keep it.

After God had created and variously adorned the universe of heaven and earth, he next prepared the garden of Eden, which he willed to be the habitation and royal seat of man, to whom he had committed the government over all other living creatures of the earth, the heaven and the sea. And now God places man in that garden as in a citadel and a temple, from which he had liberty to go out and to walk abroad in any other part of the earth, which also was most fruitful and most delightful; and there to amuse and delight himself with the beasts and other animals when and as he wished.

And God gives to Adam a two-fold charge that he should work or till this garden, and also that he should guard and defend it. Some faint vestiges of this original command yet remain in these miserable remnants of primitive things, which we still possess. For even to this day these two things must ever be joined together: not only that the earth should be tilled but also that the productions of that cultivation should be defended. But both these great principles are corrupted and marred in an infinite number of forms. For not the tillage of the earth itself only but the defense of it also are filled with every kind of misery and trouble. And what the cause of all this sorrow is will be fully clear to us shortly in the following chapter of this book. For we shall there see that this working or tillage of the earth is defiled and embarrassed by thorns, by thistles, by the sweat of the brow and by various and unending misery. For, to say nothing about the labor and sorrow of procuring necessary food, what difficulty, what labor attend even the bringing up a child from its birth!

If Adam therefore had remained in his innocency he would have cultivated the earth and planted his beds of spices, not only without toil or trouble but as an amusement, attended with exquisite pleasure. His children when born would not long have needed the breast of their mother, but in all probability would have started on their feet, as we now see chickens do by nature, and would have sought their own food from the fruits of the earth, without the helplessness or weakness and without any labor or sorrow of their parents! But now how great do we behold to be the pain and misery of our birth, our infancy and our growth!

If we speak of food and the misery attending it, not only have beasts the same general produce of the earth, now no longer an Eden, which we have; but men defraud men of the same and rob them of it by theft and plunder. Hence hedges and walls and other strong defences are found necessary for the protection of property; and even by these the produce, we have obtained by the labor and sweat of cultivation, can scarcely be preserved in safety. Thus we have indeed a remnant of the labor of cultivation, but very far different from the employ of the original tillage. Not merely because it is attended with the greatest toil and distress, but because the ground itself, being as it were unwilling, yields sparingly; whereas to Adam it yielded as it were with the greatest joy and with the richest abundance, whether he sowed his seed within Eden itself or in any other part of the earth. There was then no danger from plunderers and murderers. All was in perfect peace and safety.

In all these respects therefore we can form an idea of the mighty evil of sin; when we behold the thorns, the briers, the sweat of the brow, etc., which are before us. Whichever way we turn the magnitude of that evil is ever present. Hence man did not fall by sin in soul only, but in body also; and both participate in the punishment. For labor is a punishment, which in the state of innocence was an amusement and a pleasure. Even as now, in the present state of the misery of nature, if any one has a productive garden, neither digging nor sowing nor planting is a labor, but a certain devoted employment and a delight. What then must have been this employment and delight in the garden of Eden in the state of original innocence! How much more pleasurable and perfect!

And here also we may reflect with profit that man was not created to idleness, but to labor; no, not even in the state of primitive innocence. Wherefore every state of an idle or indolent life is condemnable; such for instance as the life of monks and nuns.

As the original labor and employment of man were unattended with sorrow or distress, as we have shown, so also this guarding and protecting of that which he possessed was full of pleasure and delight; whereas now all such protection is full of labor and peril. Adam could have stopped or driven away even bears and lions by one single word. We have now indeed our means of defense, but they are truly horrible; for we cannot do without swords and spears, and cannon, and walls, and ramparts, and castle-fosses, etc.; and even with all these we and our loved ones scarcely abide in safety. Hence we have scarcely the feeblest traces remaining either of the original work or the original protection.

Others expound this passage differently, making it to mean, "that God might till and keep it." But the text speaks of human "tilling" and human "keeping" absolutely. So Cain just below, Gen. 4:2, is said to have been "a tiller of the ground." And in Job and Ecclesiastes kings are called tillers of the earth or husbandmen; not merely on account of their labor itself in tillage, but on account of their guardianship and protection. But as I have all along said, labor and protection are now hard and difficult terms? But originally they were terms denoting a certain delightful employment and exquisite pleasure.

II. Ver. 16, 17a. And Jehovah God commanded the man, saying, 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 of it.

Here we have the institution of the church before there was any domestic government (oeconomia) or civil government (politia). For Eve was not yet created. And the church is here instituted without any walls or any pomp; in a place all open and most delightful. After the church was instituted domestic government (oeconomia) is established, when Eve is brought to Adam as his life-companion. Thus we have at God's hand a church before a private house; the former of which indeed is greater and better than the latter.

And as to civil government (politia); before sin there was none; nor was it needed. For civil government is a necessary remedy for corrupt nature. Because the lust of men must be curbed by the chains and penalties of the laws, that it transgress not all bounds. Wherefore we may properly term polity, or civil government, the established "kingdom over sin," just as Paul also calls Moses the minister and the law the "ministration of sin and of death," 2 Cor. 3:7, 8; Rom. 8:2. For the one and special object of civil government is to prevent sin. Hence Paul says, "that the power beareth the sword" and is "the avenger of evil doings," Rom. 13:4. If therefore, men had not become evil by sin there would have been no need of civil government; but Adam would have lived with his posterity in the greatest joy, peace and safety, and would have done more by the motion of one of his fingers than can now be effected by all the magistrates, all the swords and all the gallows of a kingdom. There would then have been no ravisher, no murderer, no thief, no slanderer, no liar. And therefore what need would there have been of civil government, which is as it were the sword, the caustic and the terrible medicine, which are necessary to cut off and burn out noxious members of the state, that its other members may be saved and preserved.

After the establishment of the church therefore in paradise is committed unto Adam the government of his family. The church is thus first instituted by God, that he might show by this as a sign that man was created to another and a higher end than any of the other living creatures. And as the church is thus instituted by the Word of God, it is certain that Adam was created by an immortal and spiritual life to which he would assuredly have been translated and conveyed without death after he had lived in Eden and the other parts of the earth to his full satiety of life, yet without trouble or distress. And in that life there would have been none of that impure lust which now prevails. The love of sex for sex would have been uncontaminated and pure. Generation would have proceeded without any sin or impurity, in a holy obedience unto God. Mothers would have brought forth children without pain, and children themselves would have been brought up without any of that misery and labor and distress with which they are now always reared.

But who can find language capable of describing the glory of that state of innocency, which we have lost? There certainly still remains in nature a desire of the male for the female. There also proceed the fruits of generation. But the whole is attended with a horrible impurity of lust, and with overwhelming pains of parturition. To all this are added turpitude, shame and confusion even between man and wife when they would enjoy their lawful embrace. In a word, even here and in all things else, is present the unspeakable awfulness of original sin. Creation indeed is "good." The blessing of fruitfulness upon creation is "good." But all these things are corrupted and spoiled, by sin. So that even man and wife cannot enjoy them without shame and confusion of face. Whereas none of these things would have had existence if the innocency of Adam had continued. But as husbands and wives eat and drink together without any shame; so there would have been a singular and heavenly purity without any shame or confusion of feeling, either in generation or in parturition. But I return to Moses.

The church was originally instituted, as I have observed, before there was any house or family or domestic government. For the Lord, we here find, preaches to Adam and sets before him the Word. On that Word, though so short, it highly becomes us here to pause awhile and dwell. For this sermon of God to Adam would have been to him and to us all, his posterity, had we continued in the original innocence, a whole Bible as it were. And did we, or could we, possess that sermon now we should have no need of paper, ink and pens, nor of that infinite multitude of books, which we now require to teach us knowledge and wisdom. The whole contents of these books put together, could we grasp them in our minds, would not put us in possession of one-thousandth part of that wisdom, which Adam possessed in paradise. Could we attain to the sum of all the wisdom in all the world, this short sermon would swallow up and overflow the whole. It would show us in all plainness and fullness, as if painted on a tablet, that infinite goodness of God which created this nature of ours pure, holy and perfect; and it would show us with equal plainness all those impurities, calamities and sorrows, which have since overwhelmed us by the inbursting of sin.

Since therefore, as the text shows, Adam alone heard this sermon from God, it must have been preached to him on the sixth day, and Adam must have afterwards communicated it to Eve on the same day. And if they had not sinned Adam would have set this remarkable sermon or precept before his whole posterity also; and by it they would have become the most profound divines, the most learned lawyers and the most experienced physicians. Now there exists an infinite number of books by which men are trained to be theologians, lawyers and physicians. But all the knowledge we can obtain by the help of all these books together can scarcely be called the dregs of science, if compared with that fund of wisdom which Adam drew from this one sermon of God. So utterly corrupted are all things by original sin.

This "tree of the knowledge of good and evil," therefore, or this place in which a number of trees like unto it were planted, would have been, as we have said, a church, where Adam and his posterity, had he and they continued in their innocency, would have assembled on the Sabbath day; and Adam, after refreshment derived from the "tree of life," would have preached God to those assembled, and would have praised him for the dominion which he had given them over all other creatures he had made. The 148th and 149th Psalms set forth a certain form of such praise and thanksgiving, where the sun, the moon, the stars, the fishes and the dragons are called upon to praise the Lord. But there is no one psalm so beautiful, but that any one of us might compose one far more excellent and more perfect, if we had been born of the seed of Adam in his state of original innocence. Adam would have preached that highest of all blessings, that he had been created in and that his posterity bore the image and the similitude of God. He would have exhorted them all to live a holy life without sin, to till the garden in which God had placed them with all industry, to keep it with all diligence, and to guard with all caution against tasting the fruit of the "tree of the knowledge of good and evil." This external place, form, worship and preaching of the Word, man would most certainly have observed on the Sabbath. Afterwards he would have returned to his duties of laboring and guarding until the time appointed of God had been fulfilled, in which he should be translated without any death and with all sweetness to heaven.

We must now speak of all these blessings however as a lost treasure, and we are deservedly left to sigh for that day, when all these things shall be restored. It is nevertheless most profitable to remember the blessings we have lost, and to feel the evils we suffer and in the midst of which we live, in so much wretchedness that we may be thereby stirred to look for that redemption of our bodies, of which the apostle speaks, Rom. 8:23. For as to our souls we are already freed and delivered by Christ; and we hold that deliverance in faith until the "end of our faith" shall be revealed, 1 Pet. 1:19.

It is moreover very profitable to consider from this text that God gave unto Adam a Word, a worship and a religion, the most simple, most pure and most disencumbered of all laborious forms and sumptuous appearance. For God did not command the sacrificing of oxen, nor the burning of incense, nor long and loud prayers, nor any other afflictions or wearyings of the body. All that he willed was, that Adam should praise him, should give him thanks, and should rejoice in him as the Lord his God; obeying him in this one great thing that he ate not the fruit of the forbidden tree.

Of this worship we have indeed some remnants restored to us in a certain measure by Christ, even amidst all this infirmity of our flesh. We also are enabled to praise God and to give him thanks for every blessing of the soul and of the body. But too true it is, that these are but very remnants of the original worship of Eden. But when, after this miserable life, we shall come among the company of angels, we shall then offer unto God a purer and holier worship. And there are also other remnants of this original felicity still vouchsafed unto us; that by the blessing of marriage we avoid and prevent adulteries; that this corporeal life has not only food, though procured with infinite labor, but a protection and a defense of that which we possess, secured unto us against all the evils and dangers which surround us on every side. These are indeed merciful remnants, still they are but miserable remnants if compared with the original blessedness and security.

Moreover, brethren, ye are here to be admonished against false prophets, through whom Satan endeavors by various means to corrupt sound doctrine. I will give you an example of this in my own case, and just show you how I was tormented by a fanatical spirit when I first began to preach this doctrine, which I am now setting forth in my Comments on the passage before us. The text indeed uses a Hebrew verb signifying "to command;" "And Jehovah God commanded the man." Yet this agent of Satan argued, and drew his conclusion thus:—"The Law is not made for a righteous man." Adam was a righteous man; therefore, the Law was not made for Adam; because, he was a righteous man. Upon this argument he immediately pinned another; that this sermon of God therefore was not a law but an admonition only; and that, consequently, "where there was no law there was, as Paul affirms, no transgression." And from this argument, that "where there is no law there is no transgression," he crept on to the conclusion, therefore, there was no original sin; the truth of which doctrine he consequently denied. By thus connecting together these two passages of Scripture he gained, as he considered, a marvelous victory, and he publicly displayed his triumph as if he had discovered a treasure hitherto unknown to the world. Now it is profitable thus to mark the mighty attempts of Satan, that we may learn to meet them with wisdom and skill.

Both the above passages, that the "Law is not made for a righteous man;" and that "where there is no law there is no transgression" are found in the Epistles of Paul, 1 Tim. 1:9, and Rom. 4:15. And it is the business of a sound and skillful logician in divine things, to mark carefully the aims and the devices of the devil; because our sophistical reasoners, his miserable slaves, use them after him. They pretend indeed to found their arguments on Scripture. For they know that it would appear perfectly ridiculous to thrust upon men's minds nothing but their own dreams. But they do not cite Scripture wholly and honestly; they seize upon those parts of it only which seem at first to make for them; but those portions which stand against them, they either craftily pass over or corrupt by cunningly devised interpretations.

Thus when Satan found that Christ trusted in the mercy of God under his great hunger, he attempted to draw him into a forbidden confidence, Math. 4:3, 4. And again, in the matter of his standing on the pinnacle of the Temple, the devil tried to make him tempt God; by quoting to him a passage seemingly adopted for his purpose, Ps. 91:11-12, "He shall give his angels charge concerning thee; and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone."

Now that portion of the passage in the psalm, which was contrary to his purpose, Satan craftily passed over, "to keep thee, in all thy ways." Here lies the whole force of this Scripture, that this guardianship of angels is promised to us "in all our ways" or "in our lawful calling" only. Christ in all divine wisdom sets before Satan this as the true meaning of the sacred text, when he replies to his face in this precept, "Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God." By this Christ signifies that the "way" of man is not in the air, but that was the "way" of the flying fowls; but that the "way" of man was the steps which led from the roof of the temple to the ground; and which were made for the end that there might be a descent from the top of the temple to the bottom, easy and without peril. When therefore we are in our lawful calling and duty, whether that duty be commanded of God or of men, which latter have a right to prescribe the duty of our calling, while we are thus "in our ways," then we may assuredly believe the guardianship of angels will not fail us.

The above example therefore will furnish a very useful rule to be observed in our disputations with these fanatical tools of Satan. For those who are not on their guard are often deceived when crafty men transfer their arguments, after their own manner, from connected to unconnected portions of the Scripture; or adopt dishonest connections or divisions of the sacred text; but adduce not passages in their integral state as they stand in the Word. Now this is the very method adopted in the present case by my adversary, when he argues as above from these two detached portions, "That law is not made for a righteous man," and "Where there is no law, there is no transgression." He who is not on the watch-tower of wisdom and caution here is entangled before he is aware of it, and drawn into the horrible conclusion, that there was no real sin in eating the first apple; because, as our crafty opponents would argue, there was no law; and, as they further argue, which is indeed true in itself, because "where there is no law there is no transgression."

And I am by no means certain that some even in our day have not been deceived by this very argument of the devil. For they so speak of original sin as to make it not a sin itself, but a punishment of sin only. Hence Erasmus, discussing this point with his famous eloquence, observes, "Original sin is a punishment, inflicted on our first parents, which we their posterity are compelled to bear for another's fault, without any desert of our own. Just as the son of an harlot is forced to endure the infamy, not by his own fault but by that of his mother. For what sin could any man commit who had as yet no existence?" These sentiments flatter human reason, but they are full of impiety and blasphemy.

Wherein then is the syllogism of our crafty adversary unsound? It is because, according to Satan's common artifice, the text on which it is founded is not quoted entirely, but most perfidiously mutilated. For the whole text stands thus, "The law is not made for a righteous man, but for murderers, for adulterers," etc., etc. Wherefore nothing can be more evident, nothing else can be concluded than that the apostle Paul is here speaking of that Law which God revealed unto man after sin was in the world; not of that law, which the Lord gave unto Adam in paradise, while he was yet righteous and innocent. The Law, says Paul, "was not made for a righteous man;" wherefore it insubvertibly follows, that the Law of which Paul speaks was given to nature, when not innocent, but sinning and liable to sin.

Is it not then the height of wickedness thus to confound passages of Scripture in causes of such solemn moment? Adam after his sin was not the same as he was before, when in his state of innocency. And yet these men make no difference between the law delivered to man before sin and the Law delivered to man after sin. But what the apostle says concerning the Law, which was delivered to the world after it was filled with sin, these instruments of Satan, lyingly and with the greatest blasphemy, transfer and apply to the law, delivered to Adam in paradise. Whereas, if no sin had existed the law prohibiting sin would not have existed. For as I have said above, civil government and laws, or cauteries, and the sword, and the "schoolmaster," as Paul terms "the Law," would not have been needed in a state of innocent nature. But the boy because he is now bad needs the "schoolmaster" and the rod. So the prince, because he has disobedient citizens, equally needs the crown-officer and the executioner. It is of this law that Paul is really speaking; the law which nature when corrupted by sin needed.

With respect to the need which Adam had of this commandment of God concerning the "tree of the knowledge of good and evil," I have shown that need above. It was that Adam might have a settled external worship of God and a work of external obedience towards him to perform statedly. Thus the angel Gabriel is without sin, a creature most pure and innocent, and yet he received a commandment from God to inform Daniel concerning things of the utmost importance, and to announce to the virgin Mary that she was to be the mother of Christ promised to the fathers. These are positive commandments, given to a creature perfectly innocent.

In the same manner there is here a commandment given of the Lord to Adam before his sin that he should not eat of the "tree of the knowledge of good and evil," which commandment Adam would have fulfilled willingly and with the highest pleasure, had he not been deceived by the craft of Satan. But Paul is referring to quite another law; for he is plainly speaking of a law which was given, not to the righteous, but to the unrighteous. Who is there, then, so stupid or so insane, who will after all conclude that a law was not given to Adam because he hears us affirm that Adam was a righteous man? For no other conclusion can follow than that the law, which was made for the unrighteous, was not the law that was given to the righteous Adam; and on the converse it must follow that as a law was given to righteous Adam, that law was not the same as the law which was afterwards made for the unrighteous.

There is therefore in this syllogism or argument of our adversary, the two-fold unsoundness of unjust connection and unjust division. There is in it moreover a double equivocation. The first is in not making it plain that the law before sin is one thing, and the law after sin another. And in the second place, the equivocation lies in not making it equally plain, that the righteous man before sin and the righteous man after sin are each righteous, but in a different sense; that the one is righteous by nature the other by new-creation and justification.

It is most useful to examine thus the arguments and reasonings of our adversaries, and in this manner to apply the science of sound logic to good purpose in these momentous discussions. For the arts of logic were not seriously intended to be used in the dead disputation of the school only; but that the gravest and most sacred subjects might by them be soundly explained and taught. And it is by the very false reasoning now in question, that Satan does a great deal of business in denying original sin. Whereas to deny original sin, is to deny virtually the passion and resurrection of Christ.

Let the passage of the apostle Paul therefore, 1 Tim. 1:9, hinder us not from determining with Moses in the text now before us, that a law was here commanded of God to Adam though a righteous man, "That he should not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil," in the same way as commandments were also given to angels. And because Adam transgressed this commandment he sinned, and begat and propagated his children after him also sinners.

III. V. 17b. For in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

This penal threat also thus expressly added proves that it was a law, not an admonition, that was given to Adam. And it moreover shows that Adam was created in a state of innocence and righteousness. For as yet there was no sin in existence because God did not create sin. If Adam therefore had obeyed this command he would never have died, for death entered into the world by sin. All the rest of the trees of paradise therefore were created to the end that they might aid and preserve unto man his animal life, sound and whole, and without the least evil or inconvenience.

Now it naturally appears wonderful to us at this day, that there should have been an animal life without any death and without any evils or accidental causes of death, which now abound, such as diseases, boils and fetid redundancies, in bodies, etc., etc. The reason is that no part of the body in the state of innocency was foul or impure. There was no unpleasantness in the evacuations or secretions. There were no impurities whatever. Everything was most beautiful and delightful. There was no offense to any of the organs or senses. And yet the life was an animal life. Adam ate, digested, performed the functions of, and managed and regulated, his body. And had he continued in his innocence he would have done all these and other things the animal life does and requires, until he had been translated to the spiritual and eternal life.

For this deathless translation also we have lost by sin. And now, between this present and a future life, there exists that awful medium passage, death. That passage, in the state of innocence, would have been most delightful; and by it Adam would have been translated to the spiritual life, or as Christ calls it in the Gospel, the life "as the angels in heaven," Math. 12:25; in which state all animal actions cease. For in the resurrection we shall neither eat nor drink nor are given in marriage. So with respect to Adam, all animality would have ceased and a spiritual life in glory would have followed; even as we also believe it will be with us "in the resurrection" through Christ. So also Adam would have put off his childhood glory of innocence, if I may so term his natural life of innocency, and would have put on his heavenly glory. He would have done with all inferior actions, which however, in that childhood glory of innocency, would have been pure and unattended with that sorrow which mars all things since the fall; and would have been translated from his infantine glory of created innocence, to that manhood of glorious innocence, which angels enjoy; and which we also who believe shall enjoy in the life to come.

I call Adam's primitive, creative innocence the childhood of glorious innocency, because Adam, if I may so speak, was in a middle state, or a state of neutrality or liability; in a state where he could be deceived by Satan; and could fall into that awful calamity into which he did fall. But such a peril of falling will not exist in that state of perfect manhood of glorified innocency, which we shall enjoy in the future and spiritual life. And this indeed is that which is signified in this threat of punishment. "For in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." As if the Lord had said, thou mayest remain indeed, if thou obey me, in this life, in which I have created thee; yet thou wilt not even then, be immortal, as the angels are. It is a life placed as it were in a middle, neutral or liable, state. Thou mayest remain in it by obedience, and afterwards be translated into an immortality, which cannot be lost. On the other hand if thou shalt not obey me, thou shalt fall into death and shalt lose that immortality.

There is a great difference therefore between the created spiritual state of angels and the created natural innocency of Adam. Angels as they now are cannot fall, but Adam could fall; for Adam was created in a state in which he might become immortal, that is, in which he might continue in his original innocency without death, for he was free from all sin and stood in a condition from which he might be translated out of the childhood glory of original innocency into the manhood glory of immortality, in which he could never sin afterwards. On the other hand, Adam could fall out of this childhood glory of natural innocence into sin, the curse and death, as indeed it sadly happened. Adam was in a state of natural immortality, or which might have been a natural immortality, because he had recourse to certain created trees, the virtue of whose fruits produced preservation of life. But this natural immortality was not so secured to him, as to render it impossible for him to fall into mortality.

Why God willed to create man in this middle, neutral or liable state is not for us to explain or curiously to inquire. Equally impossible is it for us to say and unlawful to ask, why man was so created that all mankind should be propagated from one man by generation, while angels were not so created. For angels generate not nor are propagated, because they live a spiritual life; but the counsel of God in the creation of man is worthy the highest admiration, in that he created him to an animal life and to corporeal actions, which also the other animals have, and gave him also a power of intellect, which indeed the angels also possess. So that man is a compound being, in whom are united the brute and the angelic natures.

Moreover, as we have here come to consider the nature of angels, we must not keep back the written opinions of some of the fathers, that there is a certain similarity between the creation of man and that of angels. This similarity however cannot be extended to the properties of generation, which in the spiritual nature has no existence, but to the imperfection that subsisted in each nature as to liability to fall. For since man, as I have shown, was created in a kind of a middle, or liable or pendent state, so also angels when first created were not so confirmed in their natural standing that they could not fall. Hence it is that Christ says concerning the devil, that he "abode not in the truth," John 8:44. On these grounds the holy fathers supposed that a battle or sedition arose between the angels, some of those beings taking the part of some very beautiful angel, who exalted himself above all the rest on account of certain superior gifts bestowed upon him. These things are very probable nor are they at variance with that which Christ here affirms by the Evangelist John, that the devil "abode not in the truth;" nor are they inconsistent with that which Jude also affirms in his epistle, that the angels "kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation," Jude 6.

In confirmation of these sentiments, the fathers adduce the passage, Is. 14:12, 13. But with reference to Isaiah, he is evidently speaking of the king of Babylon, who wished to sit in the throne of God, that is, to rule over his holy people and his temple.

Whether, therefore, there really was this dissension and war among the angels, or whether, which is more agreeable to my views, certain proud angels, filled with envy and taking offense at the humility of the Son of God, wished to exalt themselves above him, it is quite certain that the angels also like man were in such a state of innocence as could be altered. After the evil angels however had been judged and condemned, the good angels were so confirmed in their standing that they could not sin after that confirmation, for they were all elect angels, but the reprobate angels were cast out.

So also, if the great dragon, or the evil angels, mentioned in Revelations, had continued in their innocence, they also would afterwards have been confirmed therein and could never have fallen. The fathers, speaking on this subject, hold that the elect angels were created in righteousness and were afterwards confirmed therein; but that those who fell, "abode not in the truth," John 8:44. But we are not to think that the angels are few in number, for Christ affirms, Luke 11:18, that Satan has a kingdom, and that he is as the chief one among robbers and governs all things in his kingdom by his authority and counsels; and it is also said, in the same chapter that the devils or evil angels have their prince Beelzebub, who was at the head of this sedition in heaven.

But there has arisen a question here, in the discussion of which the books of all the sophists are idly employed, and after all they explain nothing. The question to which I allude is, "What was original righteousness?" Some make it a certain quality, others give different definitions. We however following Moses, will define original righteousness to be so termed, because man was originally created righteous, true and upright; not in body only, but especially in soul, and because he acknowledged God; because he obeyed him with the utmost pleasure; because he understood the works of God without any instruction concerning them. This last faculty of Adam is wonderfully exemplified by the fact, that when he had been in a profound sleep and God had formed Eve out of one of his ribs, the moment he awoke he recognized Eve as the work of God, saying "This is now bone of my bones." Was not this a marvelous proof of intellect, thus at the first sight to know and comprehend the work of God?

From this same original righteousness also it arose that Adam loved God and his works with all purity of affection; that he lived among the creatures of God in peace without any fear of death or any dread of disease, and that he enjoyed a body also the most obedient to the will of God, without any evil desires and utterly free from that impure lust, which we continually feel. So that a most beautiful and most certain picture of original righteousness may be portrayed from its entire contrast to that deep corruption, which we now feel throughout our whole nature.

When human reasoners speak of original sin, they consider only its wretched and unclean lust or concupiscence. But original sin is in truth the entire fall of the whole human nature. The intellect is so darkened that we can no longer understand God and his will, nor perceive nor acknowledge the works of God. Moreover the will is so wonderfully depraved that we cannot trust in the mercy of God nor fear God, but living in security and unconcern, we disregard the Word of God and his will and follow the concupiscence and violent lusts of the flesh. The conscience also is no longer at peace and in quiet, and when it thinks of the judgments of God it sinks into despair, and seeks and follows after unlawful supports and remedies. And all these sins are so deeply rooted in our nature that they cannot be entirely eradicated through our whole life. And yet these miserable sophistical reasoners do not touch upon these deep corruptions even in word. But by taking this true view of original sin, it clearly demonstrates, according to the nature of correlative proofs, what original sin really was by its awful contrariety to that original righteousness. Thus it is evident that original sin is the essential and entire loss and deprivation and absence of original righteousness; just as blindness is the privation or absence of sight.

Yes! the divine matters of original sin and original righteousness extend much more widely and deeply than is imagined by the monks, who understand original righteousness only as it refers to sexual chastity. Whereas they ought first to look at the soul of man as the seat of all sin and corruption and then turn to the body, and view it as deriving all its defilement and pollution from the soul. With reference to the soul the great proof of its fallen state under original sin is, that we have lost the knowledge of God; that we do not always and everywhere give thanks unto him; that we do not rejoice in the works of his hands and all his doings; that we do not wholly trust in him; that we begin to hate and blaspheme him whenever he visits our sins with deserved punishments; that in our dealings with our neighbor we follow our own interests, desires and objects, and are plunderers, thieves, adulterers, murderers, cruel, unkind, unmerciful. The ragings of lust are indeed a certain part of original sin, but those sins and corruptions of the soul, unbelief, ignorance of God, despair, hatred, blasphemy, of which calamities of the soul Adam knew nothing in his state of innocence.

And in addition to these reflections, the numberless punishments of original sin are to be contemplated. For whatever is now lost of those endowments with which Adam was created and gifted, while his nature was yet unfallen, is rightly considered the consequence of original sin. Adam for instance was of a most perfect and sagacious intellect. For the moment that Eve was presented to him he understood that she was his own flesh. He had also the most minute knowledge of all the other creatures. He was not only just and upright, but of a most perfect and wonderful understanding in all things. He had moreover a most upright will, yet not a perfect will; for perfection itself was deferred from the state of the animal life to that of the spiritual and eternal life. Let these comments suffice upon the sacred text before us, Vs. 16 and 17, in which the church is constituted. Moses now proceeds to marriage and domestic government (oeconomia).

PART IV. THE CREATION OF EVE.

V. 18. And Jehovah God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an helpmeet for him (which may be before him).

We have just seen how the church was constituted by the Word and by the establishment of a certain day, place and order of worship. For civil government (politia) there was as yet no need, while nature was innocent and without sin. Now domestic government (oeconomia) is instituted. For God now makes the solitary Adam a husband by giving him a wife and uniting her to him of whom Adam had need also for the generation and multiplication of the human race. And as we have observed above with reference to the creation of Adam that God created him with deep purpose of mind and counsel, some here see that Eve also was created with profound counsel and wisdom of design. By all this Moses would show that man was a singularly excellent creature and that he partook both of the human and the divine natures, of divinity and immortality. Man therefore is a more excellent creature than the heaven or the earth or any other creature which God made.

And Moses would also impress us with reference to the other part of human nature, namely, woman, that she also was created with a peculiar counsel and design of God. And the object of Moses in this particular point of his divine instruction is, to show that this sex also had great concernment, in that state of animal but innocent life, in which Adam was created, and in that state of a spiritual and eternal life also, which he expected. For the female sex was necessary for the generation and multiplication of the human race. Hence it follows that if the woman had not been deceived by the serpent and had not sinned, she would have been in all respects equal to Adam. For her now being subject to her husband is the punishment laid upon her of God since sin and on account of sin; as are also all her other troubles and perils, her labor and pain in bringing forth children, with an infinite number of other sorrows. Woman therefore is not now what Eve was at her creation. The condition of woman then was inconceivably better and more excellent than now; she was then in no respect whatever inferior to Adam, whether you consider the endowments of her body or those of her mind.

But we may here inquire when God says, "It is not good that the man should be alone," what is that "good" of which God is speaking, seeing that Adam was righteous and had no need of the woman as we have, who bear about with us our flesh all leprous with sin? My reply is, that God is speaking of a common "good," or the good of the species; not of personal good. All personal good Adam already possessed. He enjoyed perfect innocency. But the common good of which all other animals partook, he possessed not. He could not propagate his species by generation. Adam was alone. Nor had he as yet a companion for that wonderful work of generation and the preservation of his species. The "good" therefore here divinely expressed, signifies the multiplying of the human race. In the same manner also Adam, although innocent and righteous, did not as yet possess that high good to which he was created; namely, a spiritual and glorious immortality, to which he would have been translated of God in his appointed time, if he had continued in his innocency. The meaning of "good" therefore in the text is, that Adam being himself a most beautiful creature possessed, as far as his own person was concerned, everything he could require. But there was yet wanting to him one thing, the "good" of God's "blessing;" the generating and multiplying of his species; for he was alone.

Now, as nature is corrupted by sin, woman is necessary, not only for the multiplying of the human race but also for the companionship, help and protection of life. For domestic government needs the ministration of women. Nay, such is our wretchedness by the fall of Adam, that, to our shame and sorrow be it confessed, we have need of woman as a remedy against sin. Wherefore, in contemplating woman, we must consider not only the place in domestic government which she fills, but the remedy for sin, which God has made her to supply; as the apostle Paul says, "To avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife," 1 Cor. 7:2. And a certain master of divine sentiments also eloquently observes, "Marriage was instituted in paradise as a duty and an obedience to God; but since the fall it is a remedy also for sin." Wherefore we are obliged to adopt a union with this sex to avoid sin. This is indeed a sad and disgraceful confession to make; but it is the truth. For there are very few now who take unto themselves wives, purely as a duty of obedience to God; according to his original will in the creation of man as male and female!

Other animals however have no necessity of this kind. Therefore they as a rule come together once in the year only, and are contented with that intercourse, as if by this fact they said, "We come together as a duty to God!" But it is far different with men. They are compelled to have recourse to their union with wives in matrimony to avoid sin. Hence we generate and are born in the midst of sins on both sides. For our parents do not come together as a pure duty to God, but as a remedy also, for the sake of avoiding sin.

And yet it is by means of this very remedy and by this very miserable state of things, that God fulfils his original blessing pronounced upon male and female when he created them. And thus men, though in sin and with sin, generate and are generated. But this would not have been the case in paradise, had man continued in the innocency of his original creation. Generation in that state would have been a most holy yielding of obedience to God, utterly free from that impure lust which now exists. And children would have been born in original righteousness and rectitude. They would have known God immediately at their birth, without any instruction or admonition. They would have spoken of his holy name, praised him and given him thanks.

But all these glorious things are now lost. Yet it is profitable to us to think upon them deeply, that we may hold fast some sense of the real state in which we now are; namely, under all the effects of original sin; and that we may rightly contemplate also the original condition of Adam, a state of perfect righteousness, which state we hope again to enjoy in all its blessedness at the "restitution of all things," Acts 3:21.

With respect to the divine expression, "Let us make," I have already observed that Eve was created, as well as Adam, by a peculiar counsel of God, in order that it might be manifest that she was a partaker with him of a better and an immortal life; a hope not possessed by any of the other living creatures, who live a natural life only without any hope of an eternal life.

That which the Latin renders "like him" in this passage, is in the Hebrew, "which may be before him." God, by this expression also, distinguishes the human female from the females of all other living creatures, which are not always "before" their mates. But woman was expressly created that she might be "before" her husband always and everywhere. Even as the emperor also calls the life of married persons "an individual life." Whereas the brute female requires her mate only once in the whole year, and after she has conceived she returns to her own kind and takes care of herself. Of her young, which were brought forth at any previous time, she takes no care whatever. She does not cohabit with her mate always.

The nature of marriage among mankind however is utterly different. There the woman is married by the man that she may be "before him" always and may cohabit with him as one flesh. And if Adam had remained in his state of innocency, this individual life or cohabitation of man and wife would have been most sweet and delightful. The embrace itself also would have been most holy and reverential, and worshipful of God. There would have existed none of that impurity and shame arising from sin, which now exists.

Is not this fallen state of man most awful to contemplate! For in its holy reality there was nothing more excellent, nothing more admirable in all nature, than the fulfilment of the divine law of generation. It was an act of obedience to God, the highest which man could perform next to praising and lauding his glorious name, which obedience Adam and Eve rendered unto God in as much holiness and freedom from all sin as when they were engaged in acts of praise and adoration. The fulfilment of this law of nature and of God indeed still continues. But how wretched are these present remnants of the original innocency! How horribly deformed by sin, pollution and baseness of every description. All these things are deplorable evidences of nature's original sin.

For the great and glorious ends of creation there was need of the woman as a helpmeet for man. For man alone could not generate; nor could the woman generate alone. As the apostle says, neither the man nor the woman "had power over their own bodies" for that high end. Hence the loftiest praises of each sex are, that the male is the father and the woman the mother of the generation of mankind. The wife in this high sense also is that helpmeet of the husband. But, as we have repeatedly said, if we look at the state of originally-created innocency, the generation of man has lost all its excellency, its pure delight, its holiness and its worshipful obedience to God.

Moreover in this age and at this day, you may find many who wish that they had no children at all born to them. And this far more than barbarous inhumanity and enormity is found more particularly among princes and nobles, who frequently abstain from marriage for the sole reason that they may have no posterity. Still more base is the practice found in those princes, who suffer themselves to be counselled and persuaded not to marry, lest their families should become too large for civil purposes. Such men are indeed worthy of having their names blotted out from the land of the living, as the punishment of their contempt of the laws and intents of God. Who is there that would not execrate such swine-like monsters as these? These inhuman beings however still further manifest in many base particulars the nature and depth of original sin. Were it not for the consequences of this mighty sin, we should all admire the fulfilment of the law of God in generation, as one of the highest acts of the obedience and worship of God. And we should extol it as one of the greatest gifts of God with its due praise and admiration.

From the above inhuman abuse and contempt of marriage have arisen those numerous reproaches of the female sex, which celibacy has greatly augmented. Whereas it is one of the greatest of his blessings that God has preserved for us women, even against the wishes and the wills of such inhuman beings, both as a divine means of generation and as a remedy also against the sin of fornication. In paradise woman would have been indeed a helper in our duty and obedience to God, and in our fulfilment of his command "to be fruitful and to multiply and replenish the earth," Gen. 1:28. But now woman is in a very great measure a medicine and remedy for sin. So that in truth we can now scarcely mention the name of woman without shame; most certainly we cannot unite ourselves to her without some sense and blush of that shame. The mighty cause of all this is original sin. For in paradise the union of man and woman would have been wholly free from the thought of shame or impurity. The whole union would have been looked upon and felt, as a duty of obedience to God, ordained by himself and sanctified by the blessings he pronounced upon it.

The same calamitous state on account of sin rests upon us also, even in the midst of all our spiritual gifts. For although we may have faith and live in faith, yet we cannot be free from doubt, fear and the sensible awe of death. These just punishments of original sin, our holy fathers in the faith deeply saw and felt. That which now follows is as it were a repetition of what has preceded, concerning the creation of Adam, by which repetition Moses would more conveniently arrive at his intended description of the manner in which woman was created. In reading what follows, therefore, we must consider Adam to have been already created.

V. 19a. And out of the ground Jehovah God formed every beast of the field, and every bird of the heavens; and brought them unto the man to see what he would call them.

As if Moses had said, "God now willed by a certain deep and deliberate counsel to create woman. For he saw that every other living creature had a helpmeet for generation. Adam alone had none. God therefore now brought all the living creatures of the earth and of the air to Adam, to see what he would call them. And when Adam had given to each one its appropriate name, he found no living creature like unto himself as an helpmeet for him."

And here we are again struck with the wonderful knowledge and wisdom which Adam possessed. Created as he was in innocency, righteousness and knowledge, he beholds all living creatures stand before him; and without any new illumination for the purpose, but by the pure properties and excellency of his nature alone, he so discerns in a moment the characteristic nature of each creature, that he gives it a name exactly descriptive of its created peculiarities. Well indeed might the "dominion" over all living creatures have been added of God to man, to whom he had given such intellectual light as this! And this "dominion" which God had conferred on Adam, he now ratifies anew by bringing to him all creatures to be named according to his judgment. By all this it is further manifest that Adam could by one single word compel lions, bears, boars, tigers and any other of the noble animals to do any thing he wishes, according to their natural properties and powers; all which properties he thoroughly understood at a moment's glance when he gave them their names. But all these original endowments of man are utterly lost by sin.

No wonder therefore that we have no knowledge of the adorable God, when we know nothing as Adam did of the natures, powers and properties even of the beasts of the earth. There exist indeed very many books, which describe the natures of the beasts and of plants. But what a length of time, what an extent of observation and of experience were necessary to collect the contents of all these volumes! In Adam however there was a marvelously different illumination and intellect. He discovered by a moment's glance at each living creature its whole nature and all its separate faculties and created endowments; and that too with a perfection far above that to which we can ever attain by a whole life of devoted study and research in natural history. And as this knowledge in Adam was a peculiar and eminent gift of God, so was it greatly pleasing and delightful to God. And on account of this pleasure God brought the living creatures to Adam and commanded him to use the knowledge he had thus given him in assigning to each living creature its appropriate name.

Vs. 19b, 20. And whatsoever the man called every living creature, that was the name thereof. And the man gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the heavens, and to every beast of the field; but for man there was not found a helpmeet for him (to be before him).

What an ocean of knowledge and wisdom there was in this one man! And although Adam lost much of this knowledge by sin, yet my full belief is that the whole contents of the books of all the wise, which have ever been written throughout all ages since letters first had birth, have not to this day equalled that wisdom which Adam possessed, even after his sin and fall. But all has become obscured by degrees in his posterity and is well nigh extinct altogether.

But we must here again note that Moses is still engaged describing the creation-work and the divine transactions of the sixth day. For that which he had briefly said in the divine expression, "Let us make man," Gen. 1:26, he now more fully explains in this second chapter, in order that he might distinguish man from all other living creatures by more than one recorded testimony. Wherefore he devotes this whole second chapter to a more particular explanation of the creation of man.

With reference to the man Moses has already said that he was made of the dust of the ground, and that the breath of life was breathed of God into his nostrils. He has also stated that the whole multitude of living creatures was brought before Adam. When Adam had seen among them all no helpmeet for him, woman was made to be his companion in the generation and preservation of the human species. For God did not will that the posterity of Adam should be made out of the ground, as he himself was, but that it should be propagated as the other animals. As to our bodily life we eat and drink, generate and are generated just like all animals. However Moses is greatly concerned in his thought to separate and distinguish man from all the animal creatures, because in this way the end is reached that after this earthly life man should become a partaker of the spiritual and eternal life. Now all these things pertain, as we have just observed, unto the creation work of the sixth day. For as God had said, "Be fruitful and multiply," the explanation of the manner in which the woman was created and brought to Adam became a necessary part of the sacred narrative.

All this is moreover intended to lead us into the firm belief and satisfaction of mind that six days were really occupied by God in his creation of all things, contrary to the opinion of Augustine and Hilary, who think that all things were created in a moment. To such an extent do they depart from the history of facts and follow allegories and indulge in I know not what kind of dreamy speculations. Nor do I speak these things by way of reproach to the holy fathers, whose labors we ought to venerate. I make these statements for the confirmation of the truth and for our own consolation. The fathers were great men. Yet they were men; men who had fallen and still liable to fall. So that we have no ground for exalting ourselves like the monks, who worship all things belonging to themselves as if they were not liable to fall. Whereas for my part, it is rather a great consolation to me than otherwise, that the fathers are discovered to have erred and fallen at times also. Because my thoughts run thus: If God pardoned sins and errors in them why should I despair of pardon from him? On the other hand, despair immediately comes on if you begin to think that the fathers did not experience the same things which you feel and suffer. It is at the same time quite certain that there was a mighty difference between the call of the apostles and the call of the fathers. On what grounds therefore can we esteem the writings of the fathers equal to the writings of the apostles?

But with special reference to the sacred passage of Moses before us, how, I pray you, is it possible that six days should be either a moment or an hour? Neither faith, which rests wholly in the Word, nor reason itself, can admit this. Wherefore let us be assured, that there were between the divine acts of the creation certain intervals. Thus, Adam is first created alone. Then there are brought unto him all the animals, not only that he might name them, but that he might be tried, by seeing whether he could find in all this collection of creatures a meet companion. After this, Eve is created. Lastly, these words are spoken by the Lord, "Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat," etc., which words struck the ears of Adam. All these things carry with them a proof that they occurred at certain intervals of time, unless indeed you would turn away like Origen from such plain and positive historical facts to the most absurd allegories. For Moses is not here giving us a record of God himself, in whose sight all things past, present, and future are ever present in the same moment; but he is recording a history of Adam, a creature of time, who was made and who lived; and with whom as a creature there is a difference between the present and the future. I have deemed it right to bring these things to your recollection by this repetition. Now let us proceed with Moses.

V. 21. And Jehovah God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof.

Here again not faith only, but reason and fact also, prove that the time of Adam's being awake was one space of time and the time of his being asleep another. These spaces have evidently their intervals. As therefore Adam was created in the sixth day, and all the animals were brought to him on that day; as he heard the command of God concerning the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; as God sent upon him sleep, it is manifest beyond dispute; that all these facts have reference to time and to this animal life. And it is equally evident that the days mentioned in the sacred record must be understood to have been true and real days, contrary to the opinion of the holy fathers. Whenever therefore we find the opinions of the fathers to disagree with the Scriptures, we tolerate them with reverence and acknowledge them to be our elders in the Church; but we do not for their sakes depart from the authority of the Scriptures.

Elegant and true is that sentiment of Aristotle, in the First Book of his "Ethics," "Where both friends and truth are near to us, it is our sacred duty to give the higher honor to the truth." The philosopher of old here plainly affirms that it is better to stand by the truth than to show too much favor to those who may be our friends or even our relations. Such a sentiment is nobly becoming a philosopher. If, therefore, a natural man and a heathen holds that such a principle should be maintained in moral, human and civil disputations, with how much greater firmness should it be held in the discussion of those things which stand on the manifest testimony of the Scriptures! How jealous should we be of setting the authority of men above that of the Word! Men may be deceived, but the Word of God itself is the wisdom of God and infallible truth.

But with respect to this portion, namely, the divine history itself, what I pray you, could be recorded more fabulous in the estimation of human reason, if you wish to follow that? For could any one be found who would believe this fact concerning the creation of Eve, if it were not thus openly declared? For here all the other creatures stand as plain examples to the contrary. Every other living creature is generated from male and female, and is so generated that it is the female that brings it into the light. But here the female herself is created from the male; and that too with a no less wonderful creation than that by which Adam himself was made a living soul, from the dust of the ground. These facts are mere monstrosities and outrageous absurdities, if you set aside the authority of the Holy Scriptures and follow the judgment of reason. Hence it is that Aristotle affirms that neither the first man nor the last man can be given as the foundation of an argument. And reason would force us to affirm the same of her naked self, without this text before us. For if it be received as a truth, a truth which the uniform law of the whole creation testifies, that nothing is born alive but from male and female, it is a true conclusion that the first man cannot be accounted for in that way.

The same conclusion may also be declared to be correct by human reason concerning the creation of the world, which the philosophers of old therefore concluded to be eternal. For although reasons are put together by reason, by which is proved that the world is not eternal; yet reason herself, all the while, settles down with all her powers upon this basis of conclusion. For what beginning will reason find in nothing? And again, if you say that the world had a beginning and that there was a time in which the world had no existence it will immediately follow close upon your heels that, before the world there was nothing at all. Other absurdities will follow in an infinite series; by the multitude of which philosophers being struck plunged at once into the conclusion that the world was eternal.

But again if you affirm that the world was infinite, there immediately springs up before you another new infinity in the successive generation of mankind. But then philosophy will not admit a plurality of infinities; and yet it is compelled to admit them upon its own conclusions, because it knows neither the beginning of the world nor the beginning of mankind. This hostile contrariety and utter obscurity brought the Epicureans into a state which compelled them to assert, that both the world and mankind existed without any reason at all; and that without any reason at all they would both perish; just as beasts, which after they are dead, are just as if they never had been. From premises like these other terrible conclusions naturally follow; either that there is positively no God at all, or that he cares not at all for human things. These are the labyrinths into which reason is brought, when without the word of God it follows its own judgment.

Therefore it is very profitable thus to behold how impossible it is that reason or our own wisdom should go beyond the above stated limits, in its judgments concerning the creature. For what, I pray you, does the philosopher with all his reasoning know of the heavens or the earth or the world; seeing that he understands not whence either of them came or in what end they all or either of them, are appointed to terminate. Nay, what do we ourselves know concerning ourselves? We all see that we are men. But ought we not to believe also and know that we have this man for our father and that woman for our mother? But how or why this is so can never be learned from human reason. Hence all our knowledge and our wisdom lie only in the comprehension of the material or formal cause; and even in these we often make the most wretched mistakes. But as to the efficient and final cause, we know nothing, nor can explain anything whatsoever. And the saddest part of our ignorance is, that our deficiency is at its worst when we come to dispute or to speculate concerning the world into which we are born and in which we live. Is not this, I pray you, a poor and miserable pretension to wisdom?

Hence Aristotle affirms, that man and the sun beget man. A noble doctrine of human philosophy, truly! Follow this highest effort of natural reason and it will bring you at length to the inevitable conclusion, that both man and the sun are eternal and infinite, as the same philosopher concluded the world itself was. For you will never find a man who was or is in himself either the beginning or the end of himself or of his race. Wherefore I myself am not able to discover by my own reason, either the beginning or the end of my Martin Luther, if I wish to understand either my beginning or my end, and not to believe it. For as to our possessing a formal knowledge or a knowledge of the forms of things, a cow possesses the same, which knows her own home, or, as the German proverb has it, "The cow sees and knows the gate." Here again the awfulness of the original fall and sin is revealed. For we are thereby rendered so destitute of true knowledge that we cannot of ourselves discover either our beginning or our end.

After all the disputations therefore of Aristotle, Plato, Cicero and other philosophers of note, who have concluded from man's walking upright, while all other animals have their heads inclined downwards, looking towards the earth, and from his possessing the powers of intellect, that man is a singular animal and created to immortality according to all this argument and conclusion, what a poor, meagre and almost futile wisdom is this! The whole of it after all is derived from a contemplation of the form. And if you should still go on to argue upon the material of man, would not the same human reason compel you to conclude that this nature of ours is perishable, must be dissolved and cannot be immortal?

What then is the conclusion of the whole matter? Let us learn it. It is, that the only true wisdom is found in the Holy Scriptures and in the Word of God. For the Word teaches us not only concerning the material, not only concerning the form of the whole creation, but also concerning the efficient and the final cause of all things; and concerning the beginning and the end of all things; WHO created them, what he created and for what end he created that which he did create. Without the knowledge of the two causes, the efficient and the final, all our highest wisdom differs but little from that of the beasts, which use their eyes and their ears, but know nothing of the beginning or the end of what they see.

The text before us therefore is very remarkable. And the more it seems to be contrary to all our experience and to reason, the more diligently should we ponder it and the more firmly should we believe it. By this text therefore we are taught the beginning of man, that the first man did not exist by generation, as Aristotle and the other philosophers, deceiving themselves by human reasonings, have dreamed; that the propagation of the posterity of the first man is indeed effected by generation; but that the first man himself was created from the dust of the field and that the first woman was formed and fashioned out of a rib of the man, extracted from him while he was asleep. Here therefore we have the true beginning of man which all the reason and philosophy of Aristotle could not discover.

The beginning then of man, as wrought of God, being thus established by the testimony of Moses, there follows the propagation of man by means of the union of male and female; in no degree less wonderful than the original creation of each. The whole human race are procreated by a single drop of human blood. On this propagation of mankind it is that the apostle Paul eloquently displays his philosophy, derived from this sacred portion of the Scripture, before the philosophers of Athens, "The God that made the world and all things therein," etc., "seeing he himself giveth to all life, and breath, and all things; and he made of one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth; that they should seek God, if haply they might feel after him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us: for in him we live, and move, and have our being," Acts 17:24-28. Here Paul speaks before all the Athenian philosophers of the propagation of mankind "by the blood of one," as he expresses it. If therefore the whole race of mankind have been generated from one small drop of blood of one man, and are still so generated, as the experience of all men throughout the whole world testifies, most certainly this miracle is no less wonderful and admirable than were those original wonders, namely, the creation of the first man from the dust of the ground, and that of the first woman from the rib of the man.

But how is it that the original miracles of the creation of Adam and Eve seem to us so wonderful and so incredible; while the still standing miracle of the continuous propagation of man, which we all know and daily see, excites no wonder or admiration at all? It is because, as Augustine says, "Miracles become no miracles at all, by familiarity." Hence we wonder not at the admirable light of the sun, because we see it every day. For the same reason we admire not other gifts and blessings of God's creation, but are blind and deaf to them all. On the same ground Pythagoras well said, that a most sweet and marvelous concert of sounds was effected by the harmony and velocity of the motions and revolutions of the heavenly bodies, but that men became deaf to this celestial concert by hearing it continually; just as those who are accustomed to the roarings of the Nile are not at all affected by the thunders of the water, while to others, who are not accustomed to them, they are awful and intolerable. There is no doubt that Pythagoras received this idea from the fathers by tradition. Not however that they really believed in any actual harmony of sounds, made by the motions of the heavenly bodies. Their meaning was that the creation of these celestial bodies was truly delightful and marvelous; but that their beauty and their glory were not duly observed by us ungrateful and insensate beings; and that we did not render unto God the praises due to him, as the Creator of such wonderful and admirable creatures.

Thus also it is a great miracle that a small seed placed in the ground should cause to spring forth a lofty and magnificent oak. But as this is so familiar as an everyday occurrence, it makes no impression upon us; just so little do we appreciate the nature and manner of our own propagation. For why is it not worthy of the highest admiration that a woman should receive human seed, which then grows, and as Job 10:11 so beautifully says, "Thou hast clothed me with skin and flesh, and knit me together with bones and sinews;" that is, formed me and nourished me in my mother until I was matured to live in the air, separated from her. In this new state of existence I received no new nourishment, but it came from the same mother in a new way and manner, in that from both breasts of my mother as from fountains, her milk went forth by which her infant was nourished. All this is most wonderful and utterly incomprehensible, but lightly esteemed by us because we have truly become deaf to this most pleasant and lovely music of nature.

Whereas could all these marvelous realities be seen and estimated by the vision of true faith, they would be no more common things to the beholder, nor less miracles, than that which Moses here records, when he testifies that one of Adam's ribs was taken from his side while he was asleep, and that the woman Eve was formed out of it by the hand of God. For if it had pleased the Lord to form us as he did Adam, from the dust of the ground, by this time that manner of forming man might have ceased also to be a miracle in our sight; and we might now perhaps be rather admiring the existing law of the generation of mankind by male and female. So true is that barbarously-composed perhaps, but by no means random-shot poetical line,

Omne rarum carum: vilescit quotidianum. "Rare things will e'er delight our eyes, But common things are no surprise."

Thus if the stars did not rise every night and in all places, what crowds would gather where the light of one night's starry heaven might be witnessed! But now not one of us opens a single window to behold the sight.

Most justly condemnable, therefore, is our ingratitude. For if we believe God to be the efficient and final cause of all things, ought we not to wonder at his works, to be delighted with them, and to proclaim them always and everywhere? But how few are there who do this in truth and from the heart?

In vain therefore and absurd is the doctrine of Aristotle, that man and the sun beget man. We learn from this book a far different cause of propagation, the commanding Word of God which says to this and to that husband, Thy drop of blood shall on this occasion become a male, and on that occasion a female. But of this word reason knows nothing. Therefore reason can do nothing but invent trifles and absurdities concerning the causes of such mighty things. Medical professors, following the philosophers, have given us their various opinions concerning the propagation of mankind; and though reason may not be able to deny the justness of many of them, yet all of them put together cannot reach the great first cause. The Holy Spirit leads us far deeper than all the opinions of men, when it sets before us the Word of God, by which all things are created and conserved.

Hence the mighty reason why a man, and not an ox nor an ass, is generated by a drop of human blood, is the effectual power of the Word which was spoken by God at the creation of all things, "in the beginning." It is in divine truth therefore that Christ teaches us in the Lord's Prayer to call upon God as our Father, and that the Creed teaches us to confess God as our Creator. When we look back therefore to this first cause, then can we speak of all these things with pureness, with holiness and with joy. But if we leave out the first cause, we cannot even think of them without baseness and obscenity.

From this part of our sacred discussion we further behold the horrible nature of the fall and of original sin, in that the whole human race is sunk in ignorance of its very origin. We see male and female come together in marriage union. We see the female at her appointed time bring forth from a drop of masculine blood her infant into the light of heaven. These things, we repeat, are familiar to the sight and to the knowledge of all; and yet, if the Word teach and instruct thee not, thou knowest nothing of the marvelous work which is wrought and which thine eyes behold. This ignorance is abundantly proved by the vain disputations of philosophers, which we have just been contemplating. Is not this then a miserable ignorance and a horrible blindness?

Whereas, had Adam continued in his innocency, he would have found no need of instructing his posterity in their origin, even as there was no need of being himself instructed in the creation of his wife Eve, for the moment he saw her he knew that she was "bone of his bones, and flesh of his flesh." And had the original innocence continued, the same knowledge of themselves would have existed in all the posterity of Adam. They would all have understood the great final and efficient Cause of which things we now know little or nothing more than the beasts of the field themselves.

Therefore to the ears of reason this is a most beautiful and pleasing fable which philosophers have with pleasure greatly misused, if they heard it and just as they heard it, especially those versed in the arts and wisdom of the Egyptians. But for us it is an inexpressibly precious wisdom that makes known to us the fable the world judges ridiculous; namely, that the genesis of the generation of man was constituted by the Word of God. For God takes the dust of the earth and says, "Let us make man!" Likewise afterwards he takes the rib of Adam and says, "Let us make a helpmeet for man." We will now consider the words themselves since we have referred sufficiently to the doctrine as it was necessary to do so.

Having thus discussed, as was necessary, the divine facts themselves, contained in the text before us, let us now consider the expressions used by the sacred historian in recording them.

Jehovah God, says Moses, caused to glide or fall upon Adam THARDEMAH, "a slumber" or a "deep sleep;" for the verb RADAM signifies "to fall asleep as those do who become drowsy unaware and nod the head." For there are various kinds and degrees of sleep. Some are heavy and profound, which are so deep as to be disturbed by no dreams. These are healthful, because they moisten the body, are beneficial to promote digestion, and are attended with no distress to the head. Others again are light, mingled as it were with wakefulness. In these latter, dreams are more frequent. They also, more or less, distress the head and are proofs of a weakness of body.

Moses says therefore that Adam was sunk into a profound sleep; so that stretched on the grassy earth, he breathed deeply, as those do who sleep well and sweetly. It was such a sleep that God, as Moses informs us, caused to fall upon Adam. And this is indeed a sleep truly divine, a most delightful gift of God, which comes down upon us like a dew from above, and softly pervades and irrorates the whole body.

When Adam therefore was thus fallen asleep, the Lord took out one of his ribs. The Hebrew word ZELA signifies, "the rib with the side." Wherefore my view of the passage is, that the Lord did not take the bare rib of Adam, but the rib clothed with the flesh, according to that very expression of Adam below, verse 23, "this is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh." And God, be it observed, did this by his Word. So that we are not to suppose that God used any cutting, after the manner of a surgeon. God said, out of this bone thus clothed with flesh, "Let there be woman!" and it was so. And God afterwards filled up the aperture in his side with flesh.

Here a discussion is raised by some marvelous triflers of commentators. They will have it that the male has more ribs on one side of the body than on the other. But surgeons, who are anatomists, know better than this. Lyra disputes the point thus: "Are we to consider that the extracted rib was a superfluous one in the body of Adam? If it was so, it was a monstrosity. If it were not so, it must follow that Adam after- ..."[text not printed] At length, Lyra arrives at the conclusion that the extracted rib was superfluous in Adam, as a solitary instance; and that therefore when it had been extracted, the body of Adam was perfect. And yet, that the body of Adam was deficient in this extracted superfluous rib, because of the creation of the woman out of it.

But to all these things we give an answer by the words, "God said!" This divine Word settles all arguments of this description. What need is there then of disputation as to whence God took any particular portion of created material, who by one word of his mouth can create and did create all things? All these idle questions however are used by philosophers and professors of medicine, who dispute about the works of God without the Word of God; whereas by so doing, they sink out of sight both the glory of the Holy Scriptures and the glorious majesty of the Creator.

Wherefore leaving all such questions as these, we will abide simply by the history of the facts, as they are recorded by Moses; that Eve was formed out of the rib of Adam, and that the aperture made in that part of his body was closed up with flesh. Thus Adam was made out of the dust of the ground. I was made out of a drop of my father's blood. But how my mother conceived me, how I was formed in the womb, how my bones grew there, Eccles. 11:5, all this I leave to the glory of my Creator. It is indeed incredible that a man should be born from a drop of blood; yet it is a truth. If therefore this Almighty power can produce a human being from a drop of blood, why not from a lump of earth also, why not from a rib!

And as to Adam's sleeping so profoundly, as not to feel what was done unto him; this soundness of sleep is as it were a sweet picture of that change which Adam would have witnessed had he continued in his state of innocency. For a righteous nature could have experienced no pains of death. Adam would have lived in the highest possible pleasure, in obedience to God and in admiration of his works until the time of his change, appointed of God, had come; and then he would have experienced a removal something like this sleep, which fell upon him so sweetly as he lay down amid the roses and beneath the richest foliage of trees. And in such a departing sleep would he have been changed and translated into the glorified spiritual life, feeling no more in death than he felt of his body being opened and of the extraction of the rib, with its flesh, from his side.

But now this nature of ours must experience the pangs of death. That dissolution of the body however is followed in the saints by the sweetest of all sleep, until the day when we shall awake unto a newness of life and a life eternal. And as Adam here in all the fulness of wonder exclaims this is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh, and yet was so sweetly and deeply sunk in sleep, that he knew not that his rib had been extracted from his side; so shall we in that day exclaim, Behold, into what sudden glory does this body, lately gnawed by worms, arise, etc.

Thus far have we spoken with sufficient copiousness upon the creation of Eve, which creation, although it seems to human reason perfectly fabulous, is yet most sure and true, because it is recorded in the Word of God, which alone teacheth the truth concerning the two principal causes of philosophers, the efficient and the final; and concerning the great first cause of all causes. The knowledge of which two causes, where it can be obtained, is of the utmost moment even in natural things. For what doth it profit to know how beautiful a creature man is, if you know not the end for which he was created; namely, that he was created for the worship of God, and that he might live to all eternity with God.

Aristotle does indeed say something of note when he makes the end of man to be happiness, a happiness consisting in the action of virtue. But in all this weakness of our nature, who is there that ever yet attained unto that end, when even the very best of men are exposed to a multitude of evils, which the common trials of life or the depravity and malice of men are sure to bring upon them? That happiness of which Aristotle speaks, requires tranquility of mind to make it perfect; but who can always hold fast that peace of mind, amid such tossings to and fro of human life? In vain therefore is such an end proposed by the philosopher, which no man can attain.

The principal end of man's creation therefore, which the Holy Scriptures set before us is, that man was created in the likeness of God, with the divine intent that he should live forever with God, and that while here on earth he should praise and extol God, give him thanks and obey his Word in all patience. And this end we do attain by some means or other, through grace, though with all infirmity in this life, and in the life to come we shall attain unto it perfectly. Of these things philosophers know nothing. And therefore the world, in the height of all its wisdom, is yet sunk in the deepest ignorance, wherever it is found destitute of the Word or of theology. For men without the Word know nothing of their beginning or their end. I mention not any of the other living creatures, who are not created, as we have abundantly shown, to know any of these things, nor to partake of these high blessings.

PART V. THE INSTITUTION OF MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY.

V. 22. And the rib, which Jehovah God had taken from the man, made (built) he a woman, and brought her unto the man.

A new expression is this again, unheard before. Moses does not use the verb "to create," or "to make," as in Gen. 1:26; but the verb "to build." This has caused all commentators to conclude that some great mystery lies under so singular a phraseology. Lyra thinks, with his Rabbi Solomon, that the new form of the female body is intended to be intimated. For, as the form of buildings is broader at the base, but narrower at the upper part, so, he says, the bodies of women are broader in the middle, and more contracted in the upper parts, while men have wider chests and broader shoulders. But these are mere peculiarities of certain parts of the body; whereas the Scripture is speaking of the body as a whole, and calling it a building; just as Christ himself calls the body the house of a man, Math. 12:29.

Others have recourse to an allegory, and say, that the woman is here called "a building," on account of her being spoken of in the Scriptures as a similitude of the Church. And as in a house there are various parts, walls, beams, rafters, roof, etc.; so in the Church, which is represented by the Holy Spirit under the similitude of a body, on account of the diversity of its members, there are various offices and administrators. As to myself I am by no means displeased at anything that is appropriately advanced by those who would transfer what is here said respecting the building of the woman, to Christ and his Church. But as all these opinions amount only to an allegory after all, the historical and proper meaning of this passage must be diligently searched into and retained. For a woman, especially a married woman, is here sacredly termed "a building," not allegorically, but historically and really. And the Scriptures universally use this form of expression.

Hence Rachel says to Jacob, "Take my maid Bilhah, that I may also be built up by her," Gen. 30:3. The Scriptures speak in the same manner also concerning Sarah, Gen. 16:2. And in Exodus, it is said concerning the midwives, "that the Lord built them a house," Exod. 1:21; that is, that the Lord repaid them for all the services which they had rendered unto his people Israel, contrary to the command of the king, by blessing them with a household and family. So again, in the history of David, when he had it in his heart to build a house for the Lord, he receives this answer from God by Nathan, "Furthermore, I tell thee, that the Lord will build thee an house," 1 Chron. 17:10.

It is a form of expression therefore quite general in the Scripture, to term a woman a domestic "building," on account of the fruits of generation and the bringing up of the offspring. But the real nature of this building up, which would have existed had Adam not fallen, we have now lost by his sin; so that we cannot now reach it, as we have all along observed, even in thought. Our present fallen condition in this life retains certain small miserable remnants of the original domestic life, cultivation of the earth, and defense of property; and also of dominion over the beasts. We have the rule over sheep, oxen, geese, fowls, etc.; though boars, bears, lions, etc., regard not this our dominion. So also there remains a certain hardly visible remnant of this female building. Whoso taketh to himself a wife, hath as it were in her a certain nest and home. He dwells with her in a certain place, as birds nestle with their young in their little nest. But this dwelling together in the one nest they know not, who live unmarried like the impure Papists.

This living together of male and female, as man and wife, in the state of matrimony, their keeping house together, their being blessed together with offspring, their bringing up their children, is a faint picture and remnant of that blessed original married life, on account of the nature of which, Moses here terms the woman a "building." The posterity of Adam, had he continued in his innocency, would have taken to themselves wives, would have parted from Adam their father, and would have chosen for themselves certain little garden spots of their own, and would have there dwelt with their wives, tilled the ground, and brought up their children. There would have been no need of splendid mansions built of hewn stone, nor of rich kitchens, nor cellars of wine, which now make up the luxuries of life. But as birds in their little nests, the married pairs would have dwelt together here and there, diligently laboring and calling upon God. And the women would have been the principal cause of their husbands living in certain dwelling places in paradise. Whereas now, under our present fallen and calamitous state by sin, we absolutely need houses of wood and stone, to defend us from the injuries of the weather. And though we cannot form even a conception, as we have said, of the original felicity of man and woman in their marriage happiness, yet even these miserable remnants, we repeat, are excellent gifts of God; to live in the possession of which, without continual thanks, is wickedness in the extreme.

With reference to the "dominion" which man received from the hand of God, we feel how much of that dominion is lost since our fall and defilement by sin. Yet, what an infinite mercy still remains to us, that this "dominion" was given to man and not to the devil! For how should we possibly have been able to stand in this matter, against such an invisible enemy, especially if power to harm had been possessed by him equal to his will? We might all have been in danger of annihilation in an hour, yea, in a moment, if Satan had determined to infuriate the wild beasts against us. Although well nigh all the original "dominion" is lost, it is an infinite blessing that our present remnants of it are not possessed by the devil!

It is an infinite mercy also that we possess our present remnants of generation. Although, in the state of original innocency women, as we know, would have brought forth without pain; yet there would have been a much more extensive fruitfulness. Whereas now the blessing of generation is impeded by numberless diseases. It often happens that the fruit of the womb does not arrive at maturity and birth and sometimes the woman is barren altogether. All these defects are the punishments of the horrible fall of Adam and of original sin. Just in the same manner, to this present day, is the woman the "building," and house, and home of the husband. To the woman the man devotes himself. With her he lives; and together with her, he undertakes the labor and care of bringing up the family; as it is written below, verse 24, "Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife," etc.

But this living together as man and wife is not only attended with those other trials, which afflict the marriage state in great number and variety on account of sin, but is also astonishingly deformed and marred by perverse nature; seeing that there are not only those who consider it to be very wise and great to reproach the female sex and to despise marriage, but who even forsake the wives whom they have married, and cast off all paternal care of their children. Such men destroy the building of God by their perverseness and wickedness. Men of this description are a kind of monsters in nature. Wherefore let us show our obedience to the Word of God by acknowledging our wives to be the building of the Lord; through whom not only our house is built up by generation, and by whom other necessary domestic duties are performed; but through whom we the husbands themselves are also built up, by our rising offspring around us. For wives are, as we have said, a certain nest and center of habitation to which the husbands resort, where they dwell and live in pleasure and happiness.

When Moses adds, "And he brought her unto the man," this is a certain divine description of espousals especially worthy our observation. For Adam does not take hold of Eve when created and draw her to himself, according to his own purpose and will, but he waits till God brings her to him; just according to the saying of Christ, "What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder," Math. 19:6, for the joining of male and female is a lawful joining and ordinance, and an institution divine.

Wherefore Moses here adopts his peculiar and appropriate phraseology, "And he brought her to the man." Who brought her to the man? He, God, Jehovah, Elohim, the Jehovah God, the Whole Divinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. These all unitedly say to Adam, Behold, this is thy bride with whom thou art to dwell and with whom thou art to generate and bring up children. And there is no doubt whatever that Adam received Eve with the utmost pleasure; for even now, in this corrupt state of nature, the mutual love between bride and bridegroom is peculiar, great and excellent.

But apart from the epileptic and apoplectic lust in the marriage state today, it was a chaste and most pleasing love, and union itself was most honorable and most holy. Now however sin pours itself in and expresses itself from the eyes and ears everywhere, and then in all the senses.

This passage demands particular notice. For it stands as the revealed will of God, not only against all abuses of the sex and lusts of every kind, but also as a confirmation of marriage, and all those impious revilings and refusings by which the papacy has deformed and marred matrimony. Is it not worthy of admiration that God instituted and ordained marriage even in the state of innocency? Much more need then have we of this divine institution and ordination in our present state, wherein our flesh is weak and so corrupt through sin. This divine consolation therefore stands proof and invincible against all doctrines of devils, 1 Tim. 4:1. By the Scripture before us, we see that marriage is a state of life divine; that is, ordained of God himself.

What was it therefore that came into the minds of those tools of Satan and enemies of Christ, who deny that there could be any holiness or chastity in marriage, and who affirmed that those only were adapted for ministers of churches who lived in celibacy, because the Scriptures, they argued, said, Be ye clean that bear the vessels of the Lord, Is. 52:11. Are then those who are married unclean? If so, God himself is the author and institutor of uncleanness, who himself brought Eve to Adam. Adam himself also did evil in suffering himself to be persuaded to enter into a state of uncleanness, when his nature in his state of innocency needed not marriage. But have not the impious Papists suffered the righteous punishments of such blasphemies? They have not only polluted themselves with harlots in multitudes, but have indulged in other unmentionable wickednesses, even unto abomination, and are at this day just ripe for the punishments of Sodom and Gomorrah.

When I was a boy, marriage was positively considered so infamous on account of all this impure and impious celibacy, that I used to believe I could not even think of the married life without sin. For the minds of men generally were filled with the persuasion that if any one wished to live a holy life, and a life acceptable to God, a man must never become a husband nor a woman a wife, but must take upon them the vow of celibacy; and hence many men who had married became on the death of their wives either monks or contemptible priests. All those worthy men therefore who have labored and endeavored to cause marriage to be honored as aforetime, according to the Word of God, and to be held in all its due praise, have taken upon themselves a highly useful and necessary service to the Church of Christ. So that now, blessed be God, all men consider it to be good and holy to live in unanimity and tranquility with a wife, even though it should be the lot of any one, Prov. 16:33, to have a wife that is barren, or laboring under any other affliction.

I do not however deny that there are some men who can live chastely without marriage; but let these who have thus a gift greater than the most of mankind, sail in their own ship. But as for that chastity which the Pope so highly lauds in his monks and nuns, and contemptible priests, it is in the first place polluted and contaminated by numberless horrible sins; and in addition to all this, celibacy is an institution of man without any warrant from the Word of God. O, what triumphs would the Papists celebrate could they but prove by the Word of God their celibacy to be a divine institution, as we can abundantly prove marriage to be. With what mighty weight of the Pope's authority would they compel all men to adopt their life of celibacy. Whereas now the only commendation of celibacy, which they can discover, is a tradition of men, or rather as Paul hath it, a doctrine of devils, Col. 2:8; 1 Tim. 4:1.

V. 23a. And the man said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh.

The sentence which immediately follows, "Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother," etc., is cited by our Lord, Math. 19:5, as the words of God himself, and not of Adam. But in that particular point there is no difficulty whatever, because as Adam was pure and holy the words of Adam may rightly be said to be divine words or the voice of God, for God spoke through him. All the words and the works of Adam in that state of innocency are divine, and therefore may truly be said to be the words and works of God.

Eve is presented to Adam by God himself. And just in the same manner as the will of God is prepared to institute marriage, so Adam is prepared to receive Eve with all pleasure and holiness when brought unto him. So even now also the affection of the intended husband toward his betrothed spouse, is of a particular and elevated kind. It is, nevertheless, deeply contaminated with that leprous lust of the flesh which, in righteous Adam, had no existence.

It is worthy of our greatest wonder and admiration, that Adam, the moment he glanced his eye on Eve, knew her to be a building formed out of himself. He immediately said, "This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh." These are not the words of an ignorant one, nor of one who was a sinner; nor of one who was ignorant of the works and of the creation of God. They are the words of one righteous and wise, and full of the Holy Spirit; of that Holy Spirit who reveals to the world, before ignorant of such high and holy wisdom, that God is the efficient cause of marriage and of man's taking to himself a wife, and that the final cause of marriage is that the wife might be unto her husband a civil, moral and domestic habitation, and cohabitation. This knowledge comes not from the five senses and reason merely. It is a revelation, as we here see, of the Holy Spirit.

The expression HAPAAM, "now," "in this instance," or "at length," is by no means useless or superfluous as it may at first seem. That very word in this sentence, uttered by Adam, most beautifully expresses the glad surprise and exulting joy of a noble spirit which had been seeking this delightful meet companion of life and of bed; a companionship full, not only of love, but of holiness. As if Adam had said, I have seen all beasts; I have considered all the females among them given to them of God for the multiplication and preservation of their kind, but all these are nothing to me! This female however is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh. She is at length what and all I want. With her I desire to live, and with her to obey the will of God in the propagation of a posterity. This is the kind of overflowing feeling of joy and love which this particular word "HAPAAM," used by Adam, is intended to express.

Now however this true purity, innocence and holiness are lost. There still remains indeed a feeling of joy and affection in the intended husband toward his spouse; but it is impure and corrupt, on account of sin. The affection of Adam however was most pure, most holy and most grateful to God, when under the excess of it, he said, "This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh." She is not made of stone, nor of wood, nor of a lump of earth, as I was. She is nearer to me than all this, for she is made of my own very bones and very flesh.

V. 23b. She shall be called Woman (man-formed), because she was taken out of Man.

As Adam knew by the Holy Spirit the things just mentioned, which he saw not before, and as he praises God and extols him for his having created for him a meet life-companion out of his own body; so now, by the same Spirit, he prophesies of his Eve's future, when he says that she ought to be called a man-formed or man-like female (virago). The truth is, that it is utterly impossible for any interpreter to convey through any other language the peculiar strength and beauty of the original Hebrew expression. ISCH signifies a man,—and Adam says concerning Eve, "She shall be called ISCHA," as if we should say, She shall be called vira, from vir, a man. Because a wife is an heroic or man-like woman; for she does man-like things, and performs man-like duties.

This name Adam gives to the woman contains in it a wonderful and sweet description of marriage, in which, as the lawyers express it, "The woman shines in the rays of her husband." For whatever the husband possesses, is possessed and held by the wife also. And not only is all their wealth possessed by them in common, but their children also, their food, their bed, and their habitation. Their wishes are also equal. So that the husband differs from the wife in no other thing than in sex. In every other respect, the woman is really a man. For whatsoever the man possesses in their house, the woman possesses also; and what the man is, that also is the woman; she differs from the man in sex only. In a word the woman, as Paul remarks in his instructions to Timothy, is man-formed and man-like by her very origin; for, as the apostle says to Timothy, Adam was first formed, then Eve from the man, and not the man from the woman, 1 Tim. 2:13.

Of this communion of all things in marriage, we still possess some feeble remnants, though miserable indeed they be when compared with what they were in their original state. For even now the wife, if she be but an honorable, modest and godly woman, participates in all the cares, wishes, desires, pursuits, duties and actions of her husband. And it was for this end indeed that she was created "in the beginning;" and for this end was called virago, that she might differ in sex only from the father of the family, since she was taken from man.

And though this name can apply in its strictest and fullest sense to Eve only, who, alone of all women, was created thus out of man, yet our Lord applies the whole sentence of Adam to all wives when he says that man and wife are one flesh, Math. 19:5, 6. Although therefore thy wife be not made of thy flesh and thy bones; yet, because she is thy wife, she is as much the mistress of thy house, as thou art the master thereof, except that by the law of God, which was brought in after the fall the woman is made subject to the man. That is the woman's punishment, as are many other troubles also which come short of the glories of paradise, concerning which glories the sacred text before us gives us so much information. For Moses is not here speaking of the miserable life which all married people now live; but concerning the life of innocency, in which, had that innocency continued, the government of the man and of the woman would have been equal and the same.

Hence it is that Adam gave the name, "woman," ISCHA, or "man-formed female," virago or vira, to Eve, prophetically on account of the equal administration of all things with her husband in the house. But now the sweat of the brow rests upon the man. And to the wife it is commanded that she be in subjection to the man. There still remain however certain remnants or dregs as it were of the woman's dominion. So that the wife may still be called man-like female, on account of her common possession of all things with her husband.

V. 24. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife.

Christ in Math. 19:5 and Paul in 1 Cor. 6:16, apply these words of Adam, as a common rule or law for our marriages since the loss of original innocence. If therefore Adam had remained in his original state of innocency, the children born unto him would have married; and leaving the table and dwelling place of their parents, and living no longer with them, would have had their own trees under which they would have lived separate from their parents. They would have come from time to time to their father Adam, sung a hymn, spoken gloriously of God, called upon him, and then returned to their own houses.

And even now, though all other things are changed, yet this close bond between married persons still remains firm. So that a man would leave his father and his mother much sooner than he would leave his wife. And where we find the contrary to this, for married persons are now sometimes found to leave and forsake each other, all this is not only contrary to the present divine command by the mouth of Adam, but such things are awful signs of that horrible corruption, which has come upon man through sin; and such corruption and unfaithfulness are greatly increased by Satan, the father of all dissensions.

Heathen nations also have discovered that there is nothing more appropriate for man nor beneficial for kingdoms than this oneness of the life of married persons. Hence they affirm, that it is a conclusion drawn from the law of nature that a wife, who shall retain her individuality or oneness of life with her husband, even unto death, is necessary for man. Hence also Christ himself says, that Moses suffered the Jews to give their wives a bill of divorcement, because of the hardness of their hearts; but that in the beginning it was not so, Mark 10:4, Math. 19:8. These evils of divorcements have all arisen since the fall through sin; as have also adulteries, poisonings and such like, which are sometimes found among married persons. Scarce a thousandth part of that primitive innocent, holy marriage is now left to us. And even to this day the husband and the wife have their home-nest, for the sake of mutual help and generation, according to the command of God, issued by the mouth of our first parent Adam; by which this state of married life and this leaving father and mother is exaltedly and gloriously commended, as well as commanded of God himself; as Christ also affirms in his reference to the words of Adam, on which we are now dwelling.

This "leaving father and mother" however is not to be understood as a command that the children of Adam, when married, should have nothing more to do with their parents. The command reaches only to dwelling any longer with their father and mother. It enjoins the children when married to have their own home-nest. In the present state of sin, and all its various evils, we often find that children are compelled to support their parents, when worn down with age and necessities. But had paradise and all its innocency continued, the state of life would have been inconceivably more exalted and blessed than our present fallen and sinful condition. Yet even then this same command of Adam, or rather of God himself, would have been obeyed. The husband, through love of his wife, would have chosen his homestead and made his home-nest with her, as the little birds do, and would have left his father and his mother for that purpose.

This sentence of Adam is also prophetic. For as yet there was no father or mother; nor consequently were there any children. Adam nevertheless through the Holy Spirit prophesies of that married life, which should be in the world, and predictively describes the separate dwelling of man and wife, and the separate domestic authorities and governments of the several families in all ages; that each family should have their own nest habitation, authority and rule.

V. 25. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.

This short closing sentence of the present chapter might have been omitted without any loss, seeing that it mentions a circumstance for recording which there seems no great need. For what does it concern us to know whether those in paradise walked about naked or clothed in raiment? This little clause of the concluding sentence however is very striking and very necessary. It shows us in a matter apparently quite insignificant, how dreadful an amount of evil this nature of ours has suffered through original sin.

All nations, more especially those of the north, hold nakedness of the body in great abhorrence. In like manner the more grave and modest characters among us, not only condemn short military jackets, as they are called, which are worn by our youth, but avoid public baths. And our uncomely parts, 1 Cor. 12:23, are always most studiously covered. This among us is wisdom and a moral discipline worthy of all praise. But Adam and Eve, Moses informs us, went about naked, and were not ashamed. For them therefore to go about naked was not only not disgraceful, but even laudable, delightful and glorious to God.

But all this delight and glory we have now lost by sin. We alone, of all creatures, are born naked; and with an uncovered skin we enter into this world. Whereas all the other animals bring into the world with them, as coverings of their own, skins, hairs, bristles, feathers or scales. We, on the other hand, continually need the shadow of buildings to protect us from the heat of the sun, and a multitude of garments to defend us from the rain, the hail, the frost and the snow. Adam however, had he continued innocent, would have felt none of these injuries or inconveniences. But as the human eyes retain still that peculiarity of nature, that they are not evilly affected or distressed either by cold or by heat; so would the whole body of Adam have been entirely free from the distresses of cold or heat, had he never fallen. Had Eve, our mother, sat among us naked the mere form of her breast and other members of her body would not have offended us. But now because of sin they awaken in us shame and inflame us with evil lust and passion.

This brief clause therefore shows us the awfulness of the evil which has come upon us, as the consequence of the sin of ... [text not printed] ... would be considered a proof of utter insanity. That very state of body therefore which was in Adam and Eve their highest glory, would be in us, should we be seen in that state, our deepest shame. It was the very glory of man and would have continued to be so, had he remained in his original innocency, that while all the other animals had need of hairs, feathers, scales, etc., to cover their unsightliness, man alone was created with that dignity and beauty of body, that he could appear uncovered, in the glory of his created nakedness. But all this glory is lost. We are now compelled not only for necessary protection, but for the sake of avoiding the deepest turpitude, to cover our bodies with more study and care than any other animals of God's creation. For they all come into the world covered by nature.

After this manner therefore does this second chapter of the book of Genesis more clearly and fully describe the creative work of the sixth day. In what manner man was created by the wonderful counsel of God. In what manner the garden of Eden was formed, in which man might have lived in the highest possible pleasure. In what manner, by means of the prohibition of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the external worship of the future church was instituted by divine authority. By what external worship and in which place, had the prohibition of the tree of knowledge not been violated by Adam and Eve, they would have testified their obedience to God, had they not been deceived and drawn aside by the snares of Satan.

Some suppose that Adam with his Eve passed the night of the sixth day in paradise until the following seventh day, the Sabbath. And what occurred on the Sabbath day, the following chapter will inform us.