has in fact, long since the days of Adam, made men instantly understand words never before heard or learned by them. And he can, undoubtedly, from any sound heard, teach the heart of man what knowledge he pleases, instantly causing, from any words spoken, such sentiments to arise in the mind, as he thinks fit to cause by them. This matter, I apprehend, is so plain, that it is unnecessary to be argued in general; though it may not be improper, before I leave this topic, to consider a little farther, what extent or compass of ideas we may reasonably suppose our first parents had of the things spoken to them from the words of God, which they heard in this their first day.

An ingenious writer has queried upon this subject: how could Eve, upon hearing that death was threatened to the eating of the forbidden tree, have any notion of what could be meant by dying,' having neither seen nor felt any thing like it? Our author seems to think, that our first parents could have no ideas of death at all, if they had not such sentiments as time and experience enabled them to form, and which they had gradually more and more enlarged. Whereas nothing can be more obvious, than that if upon hearing what God threatened, namely, that they should die; God caused them to apprehend that they should cease to be, though they could in nowise conceive the man

C

Quo die comedetis moriemini-mori! Quid hoc rei est inquit ignara virgo, quæ nihil unquam mortuum viderat, ne florem quidem, neque mortis imaginem, somnum, vel noctem, oculis vel animo adhuc senserat. Burnet. Archæol. p. 291.

ner how; a general notion of this sort might have been sufficient for them. Their first idea of dying was, un doubtedly, not the image which they afterwards came to have of it, when they slew their first sacrifice. And their idea of death became afterwards farther aug mented with new terrors, when the murder of their son Abel, by Cain, shewed them more plainly how it would affect them in their own persons. Many incidents, also, probably occasioned their additional observations and reflections concerning it; although as we cannot, so neither could they, have their idea of death full and complete, until they had gone through their own disso lution. But, as in this one instance, so in all others, the sentiments which God was pleased to raise in the minds of our first parents of the things he spake to them, were no more than as it were their first and unimproved notions of those things; God did not cause them to think of them in that extent and variety of conception, which they came afterwards to have, as their thoughts enlarged by a farther acquaintance with the things spoken of, and with other things from which they distinguished, or with which they compared them. In and from the words which God was pleased to speak to them, he gave them some plain and obvious sentiments, which were the first beginnings of the thoughts of their lives; conceptions which grew gradually, and produced others more enlarged and diversified, as they grew more and more acquainted with themselves and the things of the world.

It may here be considered, whether God was pleased to give Adam and Eve to understand all the words of some one language, so that they immediately conceived

whatever was said to them in that particular tongue. Many have supposed, that God endowed them with both speaking and understanding some innate language; but I confess I cannot see sufficient reasons for this sentiment, as I have suggested in another place." The author of Ecclesiasticus, indeed, tells us of our first parents, that they received the use of the five operations of the Lord: and in the sixth place he imparted to them understanding, and in the seventh speech, an interpreter of the cogitations thereof. But we shall hastily go beyond the true sentiment of this considerate writer, if we conclude from it, that God instantly gave Adam every word he was to introduce into his language, or gave him instantly to understand every word of that language in which God spake, by whomsoever any word of it might have been spoken to him. The author of Ecclesiasticus does indeed declare that the speech of man is the gift of God; but in like manner he represents that the perception of man by his five senses, and the judgment of man by his understanding, is so too;" not meaning, that in giving man speech, God actually gave him every word he was to utter, any more than that in giving him the five operations of his senses, or in giving him understanding, God planted innate in him every idea which his senses were to raise; or actually formed in his mind every sentiment of his judgment and understanding, respecting those things which he percei ved. Rather, in all these cases, God gave only a capacity or ability; in the one he made man capable of

See Connect, vol. i. b. ii. Ecclesiasticus xvii. 5.

u Ibid.

sensations of things without him; in the other, able to form a judgment of the things perceived, and in language capable of uttering sounds, and of judging from what he had heard from the voice of God, how he might make his own sounds significant to himself, and in time to others, to intend what he might fix and design by each sound to point out and denominate. In this manner Adam and Eve might form for themselves all the words of their language, beside those few which had actually been spoken to them by the voice of God. Their immediately understanding these, was unquestionably from him who spake to them: but because they were instantly enabled, by the power of God, who could affect their minds as he pleased, to understand each word that proceeded from the mouth of God, (for otherwise they could not have been instructed by God's speaking to them ;) it does not, therefore, follow, that they should as readily understand all the words of some one whole tongue.

Some writers, indeed, represent Adam as abounding in great fluency of speech, pouring forth the fulness of his heart in most eloquent soliloquies, as soon as he perceived he was in being; but a considerate inquirer will think this very unnatural. Adam, though created a man, not in the imbecility of infancy and childhood, cannot be supposed to have had a mind stored with ideas (and without these, what could be his thoughts'?) before he attained them by sensations from without, or

w Vide quæ sup.'

* See Milton's Paradise Lost, b. viii. ver. 273.

reflections upon пров his perceptions within: and shall we think that he had words upon his tongue sooner or faster than he acquired sentiments? Moses introduces Adam into the world in a manner får more natural: whatever Adam heard and understood from the voice of God, Moses does not hint that he attempted to speak a word, until God called him to try to name the creatures; so that here we find the first attempt Adam made to speak. We perceive likewise the manner and the process of it; for God, we are told, brought the beasts of the field, and the fowls of the air, unto Adam, to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof." After Adam had been called to this trial, we find him able also to give a name to the woman. But before this trial we read nothing that can induce us to think that he attempted to speak at all; rather, an attention to what was said to him by the voice of God entirely engrossed him. God brought to Adam the creatures, to see what he would call them: i. e. to put Adam upon considering how to name them. But how superfluous a thing would this have been, if Adam had had an innate word for every creature that was to be named by him? Whenever he saw a thing, the innate name for it would have readily offered itself without trial; he must have had that name for it, and he could have had no other. But the text plainly supposes that Adam, vin

b

y Gen. ii. see to ver. 19.

* The fact here related will be more distinctly considered chap. 3. b Ver. 23.

a Gen ii, 19.