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which he had planted, to dress it and keep it: and having therein caused to grow every tree either pleasant to the sight, or good for food; the tree of life also, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil; the Lord 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; for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. 3. Having given the man this injunction, the Lord God said, it is not good that the man should be alone, I will makehim a help meet for him. But, 4. before God proceeded to make this meet help for man, the beasts of the field being before formed," and every fowl of the air, God brought Adam to a trial how he might name them. And after this, 5. God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept. And he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof. And the rib which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, this is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh, she shall be called woman, because she was taken out of the man. These are the particulars relating to the creation of mankind, which Moses distinctly mentions in this second chapter. And if we would place them

d

z Ver. 16, 17.

a Ver. 19.

y Gen. ii. 9. b We render the place, God formed; but, as I have before observed, the Syriac version is rightly translated, God had formed; for the creatures were made before man.

d Ver. 23.

Gen. ii. 19, 20.

h

in order as they were done, together with what is hinted in the first chapter, we might insert them between the 27th and 28th verses of the first chapter. God created man in his own image: in the image of God created he him, and the male and the female, he created both of them. The male he formed of the dust of the ground;' placed him in the garden, commanded him his duty there; declared that he did not intend him to be alone; called him to try to name the creatures of the world; then caused him to fall into a deep sleep, and out of the man made the woman to take her beginning. The male and the female being now both created, God gave them both the general blessing, and said unto them all that Moses farther adds in the 28th, 29th, and 30th verses of the first chapter; in all which the two chapters entirely agree, and the second is no more than a supplement to the former. For I think it needless to remark, that there is no manner of contradiction between the first chapter's giving them leave to eat of every tree upon the face of all the earth,' when the second shews plainly, that of one tree in the garden they were not to eat." It is only to be observed that the forbidden tree was one tree only, and that growing in the garden; there was no forbidden tree out of the garden all over the world. The restraint, as to one tree,

e Gen. i. 27.
Ver. 11, 17.

i Ver. 19, 20.

f Gen. ii. 7.
h Ver. 18.

* Ver. 21, 22.

Gen. i. 29.

m Gen. ii. 17.

gar

was enjoined to be observed by them within their den; but wherever they went out of their garden into the earth to replenish and subdue it, all was common. They had no care to inquire, whether a like tree with that prohibited in the garden, grew any where else in the world; for all that grew without the garden, every tree, and every herb upon the face of the earth, was indiscriminately given them for meat.

CHAP. II.

Considerations concerning some particulars related by Moses as belonging to Adam's first day.

NO sooner was Adam created, than Moses tells us he heard the voice of God ;" and that, I think, upon two different points. First; he was audibly commanded, that he should not eat of the forbidden tree. Secondly; he was told, that he should not live alone; for that, God would make for him a help, that should be his likeness. Without doubt he sufficiently understood

n Gen. ii. 17.

• Ibid.

P Ver. 18. I apprehend the word which our version renders a help meet for him, might be translated, a help, that

what was thus spoken to him; otherwise the voice of God had spoken to him in vain. But it will be here asked, how should Adam, having never before heard words, instantly know the meaning of what the voice of God thus spake to him? May we not fully answer this question by another? how did the apostles, and such of the early disciples of Christ as God so enabled,a1 instantly know the meaning of words, in tongues or languages which they had never before heard or understood? The spirit of God in both cases raised in the mind the ideas intended, as far as God was pleased to

עוד כנגדו The IIebrew words are

shall be his likeness. [nezer cenegeddo]: the interlinear Latin renders them, auxilium quasi coram eo, a help, as it were before him, i. e. in his sight or presence, to stand ready to receive his instructions, to aid and execute them. But I do not find the word [neged] ever thus used. To stand before, or in the presence of one ready for his aid or service, is, I think, always otherwise expressed in scripture: See Deut. x. 8. 1 Sam, xvi. 22, &c. Some of the versions intimate the meaning of this passage to be, that God would make for Adam a help like himself: adjutorium simile sibi, says the vulgar Latin. Bonfòv xar duтdi, says the Septuagint. The Syriac is, adjutorem similem ipsi. Onkelos, adjutorium quasi eum. And why may we not, instead of taking the word [neged] to be a preposition, and to signify coràm, before, or in the presence of, suppose it to be a noun substantive from the verb [nagad] indicavit, and translate [cenegeddo] quasi indicium ejus? I would say in Faglish, an indicating, or, as it were, a speaking likeness of him. 1 Corinth. xii. 10-30.

have them perceived; which the words spoken would have raised, had a knowledge of such words in a natu ral way been attained. God, who planted the car, hath given us to hear; and so made us, that whatever sound strikes that organ, shall move the mind of him who hears it. But in themselves words are mere sounds; when they strike the car, the understanding instantly and naturally judges, whether they are soft or loud, harsh or agreeable; i. e. how the car is affected by them. But to give words a meaning; to make them carry, not only the voice of the speaker to the hearer's ear, but the intention of the speaker's mind to the hearer's heart; this comes not naturally from mere hearing, but from having learned what intention is to be given to such words as are spoken. Should a man hear it said to him, bring the bread, it is evident that if the words had never before been heard by him, they would be to him sounds of no determinate meaning. But let the

word bread be repeated to him, and the loaf shewed him, until he perceives, that whenever he hears the word bread, the loaf is intended by it; let him farther, upon hearing the word bring, see the action intended by this word done, until he apprehends it, and from that time the words, whenever he hears them, will speak their design. But should we now say, that therefore some process of this sort must have been necessary for our first parents' understanding what God, in the beginning of their being, was pleased to cause in words to be heard by them; we err most inconsiderately, neither attending to the scriptures, nor to the power of God. The scriptures shew us, in the instance of the apostles and early disciples above mentioned, that God

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