but had not yet become visible, except through a dense atmosphere,
which gave the appearance of a diffused twilight, while the body
whence it emanated was unseen. We cannot adopt this idea, but
adhere to the literal history, and in so doing must conclude with some
of the best critics that the light in question existed at the time of its
primary production in a diffused state, and was afterwards collected
in the sun. The means by which such a result was effectuated
must be unknown to us, who are not yet agreed as to the sun itself,
what is its nature, and how it produces or communicates light.
The fact is simply, we have light mentioned on the first day, and
the creation of the sun on the fourth. After the grant of light,
we have the division of it from darkness; the names of Day and of
Night imposed; "and the evening was, and the morning was-one Order of
day." This mode of reckoning from the evening to the morning,
and of placing the darkness first, accords with all the usages of First day.
antiquity; and gave birth to its mythological representation of
night as the elder-born of nature. This was the work of the first
day.

creation.

On the second day, an expansion was made; for so the word (y) Second day. rendered " firmament" signifies; and seems to refer to the atmosphere encircling the globe, possessing density sufficient to support the clouds; drawing up particles of water, until the accumulation is too great for it to sustain, and then suffering them to fall in showers of rain. This appears to be the import of the separation which it was said to make between the higher and the lower waters; unless, indeed, there is reference to an accumulation of waters in the heavens, supposed by some to have subsisted originally, and to have been expended at the deluge.

The work of creation proceeded on the third day, to gather the Third day. waters, before universally diffused, into their grand receptacles, imposing upon them the name of “ seas;" and to render the earth, thus made visible, and which now received its distinctive appellation, capable of producing, at the divine mandate, herbs, plants, trees, the innumerable varieties of vegetation; each possessing in itself the seeds of reproduction, and bearing the fruits correspondent with its kind.

On the fourth day, the sun and moon were created: which are Fourth day. described by the historian according to their visible appearance, as "the greater and the lesser lights"-his language being accommodated to the popular sense, rather than confined to philosophical precision: the moon although much less than the sun, approaching so near us, appears of almost equal magnitude; and, far inferior in dimensions to those heavenly and distant bodies which are so insignificant to the naked eye, she yet occupies a more important and useful station to us, in her immediate connection with the globe which we inhabit. Such a mode of expression, conformed to ordinary appearances, is perfectly allowable, interferes with no

Fifth day.

Sixth day.

Man formed
in the
Divine
Image.

system of philosophy, and is rendered more valuable, as it
descends to the level of the meanest comprehension. The heavenly
bodies are evidently represented, in their immediate relation to us,
when their uses are specified, "to give light upon the earth" to
distinguish between day and night-to measure out, and to regulate
the seasons of the year. The ancients regarded them as signs of
another order; and built upon this imagination the splendid, impos-
ing, but unphilosophical and futile theory of astrology.
"He
made the stars also;" but whether on that day, or whether the
account extended to the entire universe; to the sun, moon, and
earth only, or only to the solar system, of which our globe is a
part, and which some celebrated writers have considered as most
probable, the history does not determine. Of the same order is
the inquiry, whether angels were created on the first day, and
as the first work of that day;- —or whether they subsisted before,
and were called into being at some unknown and more remote period
selected from eternity. We only know that they witnessed the
process of the creation-which, indeed, they might have done had
they been only the first-created on the first day. Of their creation
Moses does not speak; but Job assures us, (or rather God, address-
ing himself to Job,) that at the creation of the earth, "the morning-
stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy." Our
speculations must be utterly unavailing upon a subject, respecting
which the historian himself is wholly silent.

The fifth day produced from the waters the inhabitants of the deep, the fowls of heaven-and, perhaps, insects are intended by "the moving creature that hath life, as found in connection with winged animals; the fins of those which inhabit the water, being only wings adapted to the element to which they are confined.

On the sixth day, all terrestrial animals were formed—both beasts and reptiles: then, also, man was made, "of the dust of the earth,” and animated with " a living soul."

As this creation of man was the most sublime work, and the very end of all other of the divine operations, a more enlarged account is given of it than of any of the rest; the historian resuming it, after he appeared to have rested from his short but comprehensive narrative. The particulars stated are few, but they are most interesting. "God created man in his own image. There were striking points of resemblance, between what we know of man, in his original state, from this historical record, and what we conceive of Deity, as essential to his nature and sovereignty. In his intellectual endowments, in his dominion, in his felicity, he was made after the image of God; but we apprehend the point of resemblance particularly intended is his purity. "Male and female created he them.' In regard to this clause of the record, it evidently implies, that whatever is intended by the image of God is alike applicable to both sexes: he was created male and female; but man is his

general title, and man, in this sexual distinction, is formed after the divine resemblance. From these expressions arose the monstrous fable, imagined by the Jewish rabbins, adopted by Plato, and very generally diffused in tradition, that the first man united in one person both sexes-(avògoyvvor);-a singular and striking evidence this, that the history of Moses had not only been traditionally circulated in substance, but received even in form, since its expressions were so misunderstood and misapplied.

The woman was formed out of the side of the man; but at what Woman. time is not absolutely fixed. He was first created; he was placed in the station which he was to occupy; he was there long enough to feel the barrenness of solitude, and to learn that it was not good for him to be alone. Cast into a deep sleep, the Creator took one of his ribs, and fashioned it into woman. For reasons which cannot be fathomed, he chose means to produce an end to which they were in themselves wholly inadequate: he who employed six days in the creation, could have effected it at once; and he who formed the female from a rib, in the ordinary process of nature by which man is yet produced, evinces no less an act of creation, and from materials as disproportionate to the work.

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day.

Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host Completion. of them." When the great design was completed, God was said to rest from his work; an expression, doubtless, accommodated to the common forms of speech, and our conceptions; for "the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not; neither is weary." In commemoration of this consummation of his plan, "God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it.' This fact is established by obser- Seventh vances kept up until the resurrection of Christ-by the separation of a seventh part of our time still, to religious purposes; although, for sufficient reasons, the day has been changed; and by the otherwise inexplicable circumstance of the universal practice, from time immemorial, of considering the number seven, as a number of perfection. The food allotted to man, was vegetable ;- every herb Food. bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth," and the "fruit of every tree." The ancients all agreed in this fact. Poetry and philosophy contended that man lived upon the produce of the earth only. Pythagoras built his plea for abstinence from flesh, as much on this tradition as upon his doctrine of metempsychosis.

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Man thus created, male and female, was placed in a garden Eden. "eastward in Eden.' The human race were all derived from two persons, Adam and Eve; who were endowed with all perfections of mind and of body, and encircled with every arrangement of circumstances which could conduce to their felicity: heaven within, and paradise around. Some have imagined that the whole of these representations are allegorical, and that there never was a local paradise. If these incipient records are allegorical, all that follows Not may be so, for any sufficient reason that can be assigned to the allegorical.

Several
Edens.

Local.

Conjectures

as to its situation.

Cannot be

contrary. But to put this speculation at rest, it is evident, that subsequent parts of the Bible speak of those events, and others which followed, as facts-that the apostle Paul so reasons upon them, and traces analogies between them, the scheme of salvation, and the person of Christ: and that to regard these narratives as metaphorical representations of man's primitive state, is to destroy the authenticity of the history, and to leave us without a record of the most important transactions in the infancy of time; and in which the human race has the deepest interest. Others, have transferred this blissful habitation, from the earth, to we know not what unknown regions, -in the moon-the immeasurable expansion of space-the third heavens.

There are several places which have borne the name of Eden: some have been mentioned in the Scriptures; others by different writers. These sometimes appear under a little variation, being written Addan, and Aden, as well as Eden. It seems to have been a name applied to various situations distinguished for beauty in themselves, or for their superiority over the surrounding scenery: thus perpetuating, through all generations, and in all countries, the memory of this original garden of delight. The name of paradise has the same universality of application.

It is evident that the historian speaks of it as a place upon earth; and distinguishes its locality by assigning countries and rivers as its boundaries, which were well known in his day, at least traditionally, and for ages afterwards.

The conjectures as to its situation have been unbounded. Asia, Africa, and Europe, have all been honoured with the imputation of bearing it on their bosom; and America, since her discovery, has not been excluded a share in the distinction. Persons have been misled, sometimes by similarity of names given to rivers and districts in different countries; others by geographical resemblances of certain portions of the earth to the sketch of the site of Eden, as given by Moses; others, again, by the produce of certain spots, abounding with gold or precious stones-conforming, in their imagination, the particular gems of the selected country, to the unknown words by which the riches of paradise are described, and which are rendered in our translation, "bdellium and the onyx-stone.'

The general opinion seems to lean towards Persia, which Sir determined. William Jones is inclined to think was the fountain of knowledge to the world. But it is impossible to arrive at any certain conclusion on this point. The deluge must have made such an alteration on the face of the earth, as to have swept away all traces of local scenery. And here we differ in toto from the respectable and learned writers of the Ancient Universal History, who impugn this argument, and maintain "that Moses described things as they were supposed to be when he wrote." To constitute it a correct history, especially with its distinct claims to inspiration, he must have designed to describe

the place as it really was originally situated. And we have said, that its boundaries were traditionally well known in his day, because they may be supposed to have been so distinctly marked, as to be easily traced until Noah; by whom the knowledge of them generally might afterwards be transmitted through his family, although no features of the actual scenery remained; and with sufficient distinctness to guide their posterity of the earlier times, so far towards the spot where Eden once stood, as to enable them to fix upon some existing rivers to denote generally what could not be precisely determined. For when the garden itself perished, it seems reasonable to conclude that its express local boundaries should also disappear.

testimonies

Tradition furnishes among the heathens abundant testimonies, Heathen both to this garden, and the blissful condition of its innocent inha- to these bitants. Who can doubt that the golden age, celebrated with so facts. much poetical fire, and adopted so universally by philosophy itself, originated in the state of primeval felicity appertaining to the progenitors of the human race? The Elysian fields, and the garden of Adonis, seem to refer to their paradise; for Bochart shows that the name Elysian is Phoenician, and of similiar import with the Hebrew term Eden, implying a garden of delight. To these we may add the garden of the Hesperides, the Fortunate Islands, Ogygia, Taprobane, and other celebrated bowers of happiness, conceived by the ancients, whose substance, if they were more than shadows, must be looked for in the paradise of Moses.

It may be necessary to add, that from the fact of the connubial Marriage. union of Adam and Eve, and the circumstances in which it originated, the historian takes occasion to establish a grand article of jurisprudence, as it has proved in the event, by its adoption into all well-cultivated states, regarding marriage; which demonstrates that the law of morals and the law of nature are in fact coincident; and that we come nearer the one, as in its detail we approximate to the other. "Therefore, shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife; and they shall be one flesh. It is remarkable that Jesus Christ adopts this sentiment, and with it the express language; thereby giving his august and indisputable sanction to the Mosaic History as a narrative of facts, in form as well as in substance, when he quotes this passage literally, and affirms that the departure from it in some respects in the law of Moses was compelled by the peculiar circumstances of the case, and "the hardness of heart" (to use his own terms) of the people over whom this distinguished legislator presided; but that the institution, as here recited, is the genuine law of morals, and should be that of society, as conformed to the law of nature, "from the beginning. The state of innocence is justly described as one of great simplicity, State of as well as purity. "They were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed." Such a representation accords with the

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innocence.