10. "THE HEAVENS AND THE EARTH."

thing of the Sciences; but the Sciences have created a new world, namely, what is commonly called the scientific world, and this corresponds to a new earth, being a new formation of the external mind of man. The creation of a new earth implies the creation of a new heaven, or a new state of religion. A new earth without a new heaven would lead to positive infidelity; for, as already observed, since all the controlling forces of Nature are in the visible heavens, so the forces controlling the external mind must proceed from the heavens in the internal mind, or otherwise the external mind is under no inward and controlling power whatever. Therefore there must be a new heaven corresponding to the new earth. At present the correspondence does not exist; for the old heavens do not correspond with the new earth; the old state of Theology, with the new state of Science.

If indeed, as affirmed by some, the beginning of all things and the end of all things are equally beyond comprehension, are the intermediates between the beginning and the end equally so? This, we believe, will not be asserted. What then are the intermediates between the heaven and earth at the beginning, and the heaven and earth at the ending, of all things? In two cases, namely those of the Mosaic and those of the Christian Dispensation, we have positive knowledge of what they are. Thus in the only cases in which they have come within reach of comprehension, they have been of a moral, or allegorical nature. Therefore, if in a series of heavens and earths the two intermediates are known to be of an allegorical nature, it is but reasonable to presume that those of the beginning and ending of all things are of the same description.

Suppose, however, that we interpreted the narrative in Genesis only in the literal sense, it would still be true that the literal heavens and earth, the garden, plants, rivers, trees, and animals would all have a reference to MAN, as modern Science has shewn; and all would still point to some hidden spiritual truths, as maintained by the ancient philosophy: the only difference would be, that while it was indicated by Nature, we as Christians would be unable to interpret the hieroglyphics of Nature.—But—

Not only were the heavens and earth finished, but "all the host of them." The term host is correlative to the expression without form and void; for host signifies an organized multitude, and hence by some is rendered in Latin exercitus. The Septuagint renders it by the term Cosmos, the chaos having now become a Cosmos. The angels are called the heavenly host in relation to their number and perfect order and arrangement: the twelve tribes of Israel in military order were also called hosts upon the same principle, and, as in the Apocalypse, represented those of heaven.

In Psalm exlviii. all the hosts are called upon to praise the Lord:—"Praise ye the Lord from the heavens: praise him in the heights. Praise ye him all his angels: praise ye him all his hosts." To praise the Lord in the heavens and the heights, is to praise Him in a state of elevated affections and thoughts. If we regard the term hosts as including all things animate and inanimate, in this case when it is said, "Praise the Lord from the earth, ye dragons and all deeps: fire and hail, snow and vapor, stormy wind fulfilling his word: mountains and all hills, fruitful trees and all cedars: beasts and all cattle, creeping things and flying fowl."—How are we to call upon these to praise the Lord? In answer to this we are told, that "every work of God's hand partakes so much of his perfections, that it requires only to be studied and known, in order to shew forth the manifold wisdom, power and goodness of the Creator." This indeed is true, but is not the whole truth. For independently of all this,* "he who cannot trace one grand and deep system of Analogy running through the whole Creation from the top to the bottom, is wholly incapable of comprehending it. He is unfit to look upon it. Until once more we are taught to read the book of the world in this way, it will remain to us a sealed volume."

"For," says the Wisdom of Solomon,† "by the greatness and beauty of the creatures, proportionably the Maker of them is seen." "The word‡ proportionably is in the Septuagint rendered ἀναλόγως analogically or by analogy. And so did Chrysostom, Cyril, and Gregory in his Morals interpret the passage; so that the sense is: From the greatness and the appearance, that is, the beauty of things created, God himself, who is their Author and Maker, may be known by analogy or analogically, by a certain kind of mutual comparison between them, which is done in the manner above mentioned,

* Sewell's Christian Morals, p. 326.

† Chap. xiii. 5. ‡ Biblia Maxima of De La Haye, in loc.

namely, by comparing the effect with the efficient cause." This is also the interpretation of Menochius, Arnauld, etc. Indeed De la Haye observes, that "all the various renderings of this passage agree in this sense, that the Creator may be known from the creatures by analogy, namely, by arguing from the effect to the cause."

This is the identical doctrine of Swedenborg,* who says—That "natural things represent spiritual, and that they correspond together, may also be known from this consideration, that what is natural cannot possibly have existence except from a cause prior to itself. This cause is of spiritual origin, and there is nothing natural which does not thence derive the cause of its existence. Natural forms are effects, nor can they exist as causes, still less as causes of causes . . . all natural things represent the things appertaining to the spiritual to which they correspond," etc.

It is then this doctrine of Analogy or Correspondence which is thus plainly taught in the Wisdom of Solomon; and this is the meaning of the ancient saying of Trismegistus,†—"Universum liber est divinitatis, et seculum hoc sublustre speculum divinorum."

"It is the constant opinion of all the Fathers," says De La Haye,‡ "that many truths are divinely signified to us by things; since this is no inferior mode of expression, but is very significant, and exceedingly profound. For it well became the majestic character of Divine language, not to

* Arcana Celestia, n. 2991.

† Psalmorum Davidicorum Analysis, by Le Blanc; Psalm exlvii, tom. vi., p. 1629.

‡ Biblia Maxima, Prolegomena, p. 12.

confine itself to one mode of speaking only, but to be open to many methods of signification, so as to express itself not only by words but by things. Hence it would not be foreign to the truth if we said, that the Divine teaching of Holy Scripture began not merely when it was first committed to writing, but long before, when the Most High provided earthly things for the purpose of instructing us and signifying very sublime mysteries. For not only by the history of the Patriarchs and the marvellous events of the world, but also by the very characters of Nature he began to instruct the human race. Hence not inaptly did some persons call Nature, or the Universe consisting of diversified natures, the first Scripture of God: Prima Dei Scriptura ipsa Natura est. Hence Basil says, 'The whole extent of the world is a book printed over with letters.' And Chrysostom:—'All these things were ordained by God from the beginning, to impress the mind of the spectator, and excite his rational and intellectual powers to inquire after and adore the Artist and most surpassing Artificer, who so made these things that the whole body of Creation might serve for so many books and alphæcts. Wherefore David also said, 'The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament sheweth his handiwork. There is neither speech nor language where their voices are not heard.'"

"Both the Sacred Oracles, therefore, and the Fathers agree, that the various genera of things, both in heaven and earth, are so many spoken words, characters, or writings, making known the Divine majesty; so that the antiquity of the Sacred Oracles is not less than that of the nature of things, since the language of God originated with the Creation of the world.

... "By the Tabernacle of the Covenant and the Ark of the Testimony are signified things which God has shadowed forth in Nature, and which he finally declared in the New

Testament; so that the ordination of Nature, and the artificial structure of the Tabernacle respond to each other with wonderful harmony; both agreeing with the writings of the New Testament which further develop the mysteries of God."

Accordingly Swedenborg, referring to the Hundred and Forty-Eighth Psalm, observes,* "In this Psalm the things which shall praise Jehovah are enumerated by various things which are without life in the world; as fire, hail, snow, vapor, stormy wind, mountains, hills, trees, fruits, cedars: likewise by beasts, cattle, creeping things and birds, which things themselves cannot praise Jehovah. Who cannot see, therefore, that to recount such things in the Divine Word would be vain and superfluous, unless they were significative of such things in man as can praise, that is, can worship, Jehovah. From the Science of Correspondences it is known, that whales signify the scientifics of the natural man in general; abysses, or deeps and seas, the natural principle itself where scientifics are; beasts and cattle, the affections of the natural man, both of his understanding and of his will; creeping things, the sensual principle, which is the ultimate of the natural man; and winged birds, the cogitative principle thence derived."

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

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

* Apoc. Ex., art. 650.

What is the work which God created and made, and from which he rested?—

We have seen that MAN was the Final Cause of Creation; that the Heaven and Earth were the heaven and earth of the human mind; that the Chaos was the Chaos of the human mind; that the Cosmos was that of the human mind; and the six days' work, the several processes by which man was brought out of Chaos into the Cosmos, or into Paradise. These processes had now terminated, and man had reached the sabbatical state: viz., that which is represented by Paradise.

The nature of the rest, then, which is implied in the words, "God rested from his work," must be derived from the nature of the work from which He is said to have rested. The nature of this work we have already explained; viz., the bringing of man out of the Chaotic or sensuous state, into the sabbatical.

"Our* weakness lies in the sensitive soul, the immediate seat of all our passions and affections; which, as it results from the conjunction of the pure spirit and body, is solicited on both sides, and must incline to one or the other. If it join with the spirit, it will itself become spiritualized in all its tendencies; but as it more or less inclines to the flesh, so far it becomes carnal and degenerate. Now because all the motions and affections of this inferior soul are more immediately conversant with the objects of our bodily appetites, and more constantly importuned by their constant and intimate presence, they are in their own nature apt to close with these and dwell upon them. And it is not without

* Bishop Browne On the Procedure, etc., of Human Understanding p. 380.

great difficulty and resolution that they can be weaned and drawn off from them, so as to be chiefly employed upon the invisible things of another world, and such things here as have a more immediate relation to them. For this reason both the inferior soul and body go under the denomination of flesh; and accordingly of this it is said, that 'the flesh lusteth against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh, and these are contrary the one to the other.'

"These are the two enemies which must engage: implacable, irreconcileable enemies ever since the Fall; and the short fierce combat is for Eternity. The secret influences of the Holy Spirit of God come into the assistance of the purely spiritual part of us. The Devil on the other side is a constant auxiliary to the flesh; the struggle is for no less than life or death everlasting; and the one or the other must obtain a complete victory."

Everlasting life is everlasting rest: it is the rest signified by the seventh day, or the Sabbath. Is it rest only future, or is it present? The Apostle says: "We which have believed do enter into rest." Vulgate says, "We that believe shall enter into rest herein departing from the original Greek which the present tense. "We† do not deny," a Commentator, "that in this passage may be said an entrance already prepared, and in a measure menced. This preparation and commencement effected by faith."

Accordingly another Commentator‡ interpose passage thus:—

"The great spiritual blessings, the forerunner

* Hebrews, chap. iv. 3.

† Esther

‡ Adam Clarke, in loc.

"HE RESTED."

glory, which were all typified by that earthly rest or felicity promised to the ancient Israelites, we Christians do, by believing in Christ Jesus, actually possess. We have peace of conscience and joy in the Holy Ghost; are saved from the guilt and power of sin, and thus enjoy an inward rest."

"The Holy Scriptures," says another Commentator,* "do not speak only of one rest. But as there was a rest of the seventh day therein mentioned, so there was a rest in the promised land; and from that which is said touching it, we may rightly infer that there is a third rest which is the rest and tranquillity of the soul, entered upon by faith justifying us, and procuring unto us peace with God, which shall be perfected hereafter in heaven. And this rest, both that of the seventh day, and in Canaan, may well be counted types and figures."

"True rest,"† says Gregory, "is that of truth and virtue, when compared with the labors of men in the ways of error and vice. There is no peace saith my God to the wicked. The soul finds no rest in error and in vice. Rest therefore pertains to the good; the wicked have no rest."

So also Augustin:‡—

"God is said to rest, inasmuch as he causes others to rest. For when we work He works in us, and when we rest He rests in us. Or, the rest of God signifies the rest of those who rest in God, etc. God is, moreover, said to have rested, as having ordained that the order of those things which he had made should be preserved for all future time without infringement; and having caused every creature to have ceased from the old state of confusion."

* Mayer, in loc.

† Sylva Sylvarum of Lauretus, art. Requies.

‡ Ibid. See also De Civitate Dei, lib. xi., cap. viii.

This explains the meaning of the Apostle:*—

"There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of

God. For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his. Let us labor then to enter into that rest."

There is the labor or drudgery arising from being the slave of sin. "Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and ye shall find rest to your souls." There is the labor or work which consists in struggling against sin. This is the labor meant by the Apostle when he says, "Let us labor to enter into that rest." When that rest is attained, the work in this respect is finished. Man rests in God, and

God rests in man; for before, God and man were both said to work.† "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God that worketh in both to will and to do." Therefore in this sabbatical state as the work was before attributed to God, so is now the rest.

Accordingly, when the Apostle says, "Let us labor, therefore, to enter into that rest,"—a Commentator‡ observes, that "these things signified that faithful and Christian people would, in like manner, rest in heaven in the eternal rest of God; and would, in much greater felicity, repose from all the toilsome and arduous labors to become virtuous; and from all the laboring and struggling against vice and temptation, and from all self-mortification whether active or passive, under which persons are suffering, and with which they are afflicted in this life."

* Heb. iv. 10.

† Phil. ii. 12.

‡ A Lapide, Heb. iv. 10.

"HE RESTED."

"There," says Chrysostom, "is rest indeed, where grief and sorrow and sighing flee away, and where there are no more cares, labors, or strugglings." So in the Apocalypse, "Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth. Yes, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors"—that is, says a Commentator,* . . . "from all outward sorrows and calamities in this life men labor under and are wearied with in this life; and from all inward troubles, from a body of sin, from the temptations of Satan, and from all doubts and fears, from their present warfare state, and all conflicts with their spiritual enemies." Thus the Church is militant here upon earth, wrestling not only against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, until it enters into its rest in heaven.

But what ground have we for this sense of the terms labor and rest in the present case? As to the term rest, Bishop Horsley† well observes that "Peace is a thing of order and arrangement. But evil consists in the want of order and arrangement, and in the want of a direction of everything to its proper end. Of this the God of good and order is indeed the Creator," etc.

We have seen that the narrative of the first chapter relates to the passage of man from out of Chaos into Paradise, out of disorder into order, out of conflict into harmony. The work of God, therefore, signifies those Divine operations by which man has been brought out of unrest into rest, out of the six days

* Biblical Criticism, vol. i., page 32. † Gill in loc.

into the seventh, out of his state by nature into his angelic state. In all these cases, indeed, man himself was a laborer and a worker; but it is called the work of God, in the same sense as faith on the part of man is so called when it is said, "This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent." The work of God, then, does not exclude the work of man, but presupposes it; for God first worketh in man to will and to do, and then man worketh out his own salvation. Were the case otherwise, how could Adam himself have rested on the seventh day? He would have done nothing from which to rest. For labor and rest are correlative terms. If Adam rested on the seventh day as well as his Creator, it must have been for the reason that before that time there was a state of labor, or of work: otherwise Adam would have rested from nothing.

"Now the fact is obvious," says a modern writer,* "that the world is intended to create or develope works combined and harmonized out of opposite principles, and that this creation and development is to be a work of time."—There is a chaos now in the world; all the processes of Creation mentioned in Genesis, are at this very day being carried on by the Creator, and the laws by which God effects his purposes are no other than those of his Divine Providence. The entire history of the Bible is the history of man in these several stages either of creation or of chaos, of order or disorder, of life or of death.

There are, as we have seen, three essentials of the Divine Being; Love, Wisdom, and Power, corres-

* Sewell's Vestiges of Creation, page 24.

"HE RESTED."

ponding to the three distinctions of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In this Trinity in Unity there is a subordination, according to which the Father is first in order, the Son is second, the Holy Spirit is third; and the order of the distinctions is as important as the distinctions themselves. To place wisdom or truth before love is to place the Son before the Father; and to place sovereign Power before Love or Wisdom, is to place the Holy Spirit before the Father and the Son. Moreover, to place truth before love is to place faith before charity; and this is a disturbance of Divine Order; the new creation of man not being completed till the greatest of all virtues is seen to be charity. In this case, from being an image and likeness of God, man becomes a likeness and image of God; likeness having a relation to love, and image to faith. Until that consummation, man is in a state of labor; when that consummation arrives, he is in a state of rest, and this is the state described in the present chapter. For as the seventh day has relation to the mind of man, so have the six days labor; so that the whole seven days have relation to man, or to distinct states of the human mind: and these distinct states are classed under two heads, viz., those of labor and rest.

The expressions, then, that God ended his work which he had made, and rested on the seventh day, are not puerile,—suited only to a childish and ignorant people; they are full of deep spiritual meaning, and imply a state of spiritual wisdom and experience far beyond that to which the most exalted Christian at present attains.

4. "These are the nativities of the heavens and of the earth when he created them, in the day that Jehovah God made the earth and the heavens."

Mention is made in the Word of creating, forming, and making; also of the Divine Being as Creator, Former, and Maker. There is always observed, says Swedenborg,* a nice distinction between these several terms. By creating† is signified what is new, or which was not before; by forming is signified quality, and by making effect. Thus in Isaiah,‡ "I have created him for my glory, I have formed him; yes, I have made him." Accordingly, to create the heavens and the earth is to cause them to be: to form them is to bring them into order; to make them is to perfect or complete the order. Hence, man is made, i.e., perfected when he becomes the celestial man.

So again in Isaiah:§ "I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace and create evil: I the Lord do all these things." I am the source of intelligence and of its genuine form and quality; I have caused the existence of darkness or ignorance as the plane upon which the light of intelligence is made to shine. I effect harmony in the mind out of those contending passions of the animal man. I cause malum pœnæ, but not malum culpæ.

We may now see what ground there is for the following interpretations of Swedenborg:||—

"In the beginning God created the heavens and

* Arcana Celestia, art. 88. † Art. 10,373.

‡ Chap. xliii. 7. § Chap. xlv. 7. See our Appendix.

|| Apocalypse Explained, vol. i., art. 294.

"HEAVENS AND EARTH."

the earth,' etc. This narrative treats of the establishment of the first Church on this earth. The reformation of the members of that Church, as to their internal and as to their external state, is understood by the creation of the heaven and the earth. That there was no Church before, because men were without good and without truth, is signified by the earth being void and empty; and that they were then in dense ignorance, and also in falsities, is signified by the darkness upon the faces of the deep. Their first illumination is signified by the Spirit of God moving upon the faces of the waters, and God saying, 'Let there be light: and there was light.' By the Spirit of God is signified Divine truth proceeding from the Lord; and by moving itself upon the faces of the waters is signified illustration: a similar thing is signified by light; by there was light is signified the reception of Divine truth. That God created man in his own image, signifies that he was in the love of good and truth, and corresponded to heaven and its likeness; for the love of good and truth is an image of God, and hence also the Angelic heaven is an image of God, wherefore in the sight of the Lord it is as one man. That God created them male and female, signifies that he reformed them as to truth and as to good; male in the Word denotes truth, and female denotes good.

"From these considerations it is evident, that it is not the creation of (the material) heaven and earth, but the new creation or reformation of those who composed the first Church, which is described in the first and following chapters of Genesis; and that

C similar things are there understood by the creation of heaven and earth, as by the creation of the new heaven and the new earth."

Thus:—

"'Behold, I create a new heaven and a new earth, and the former shall not be remembered nor come into mind. Be ye glad and exult for ever in that which I create; for behold I create Jerusalem exultation, and her people gladness;'—Jerusalem denoting the Church, exultation its delight from good, and gladness its delight from truth."

5. "And no shrub of the field was yet on the earth, and no herb of the field was as yet put forth, because Jehovah God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground."*

Musculus remarks, that in this verse there is expressed a distinction between the herbage brought forth in the first chapter, and that which is here mentioned in the second. For in the first chapter, the herbage grows by the command of God, before the creation of man; in the second, the herbage is produced not merely by the command of God, but by the secondary causes of rain and tillage. There was as yet no herbage arising from rain, and from tillage by man, after he had arrived at the sabbatical state. This was the opinion also of some of the Hebrews, and therefore they say that not all plants and herbs are here meant, but only such as grow in grounds husbanded by the art of man; and that they are expressly called plants of the field קֹדֶשׁ, signifying a field

* See our Appendix.

"HERB OF THE FIELD."

manured, and not plants of אֲנִיָּה, signifying the earth in general.

A similar observation is made by other Commentators:*—

"In this passage there are three words demanding our attention, and none of which are extant in the first chapter: שָׁנָה or multitudo virgarum, growing up from the root: שָׁנָה ager cultus, and שָׁנָה germinare et pullulare, viz., from the seed and the root. There is no such in the creation preceding. שָׁנָה is a cultivated part of the earth consisting of arable and pasture land, plants, etc.; so that I here understand to be signified those fruit-trees, trees, and plants which, by culture and attention to ornament, give rise to delightful parks and gardens. For although on the third day God had replenished the earth with trees and plants, still the fields and gardens were not so delightful as now; because as yet there was no rain, nor any man to till the ground. This sense of the passage wonderfully harmonizes with the sequel, where the formation of man and the plantation of Paradise is described."

The distinctive meaning of the passage, however, is farther evident from a remark of Hilary,† who considers that it is the external man which is here treated of;—

"Man, inasmuch as he contains within himself an internal and an external nature differing one from the other, and out of two kinds is made into one living being who is a partaker of reason, begins from a double origin. For first it is said, 'Let us make man after our image and likeness;' and then, secondly, 'That God took of the dust of the earth and formed man.'"

When, therefore, it is said that the Lord God

* Ludov. De Dieu Bochart. See Poole's Synopsis.

† Bened. Ed., p. 299.

c 2 breathed into him the breath of life, and man became a living soul—

"Man was prepared or formed with a view to this inspiration: by means of which the nature of the soul and of the body was, as by a bond of union between the two, held together in one perfect life. The blessed Paul knew that in himself there was a twofold nature, when he delighted in the law according to the interior man, and when he saw another law in his members (the external man) which led him captive to the law of sin. That, therefore, which is made after the image of God pertains to the dignity of the mind; but that which is formed of the earth is the original of the form and nature of the body."

Both Tertullian* and Augustin† take a similar view of the subject; so that when God said, "Let us make man in our image after our likeness," reference is made to the interior man; and when it is said, "the Lord God made man out of the dust of the earth," reference is made to the exterior man.

This passage, therefore, is not a recurrence to the narrative concerning the formation of man in the first chapter. The first narrative has relation to the interior man, the second to the exterior. Commentators in general have overlooked this distinction; Swedenborg has not. With Hilary, Tertullian, and Augustin, Swedenborg here considers the narrative to treat of the exterior man; but it is the exterior of man when arrived at the sabbatical state, called by Swedenborg the celestial man.

Augustin‡ observes that,

* De Resurrectione Carnis, cap. v.

† De Geneei contra Manichæos, in loc.

‡ Ibid., in loc.

"RAIN."

"Even now God is making the green thing of the field; but this He does by raining upon the earth, that is, by his Word he causes souls to renew their verdure. It is, however, from clouds that he waters them, that is, from the Scriptures of the Prophets and Apostles. Rightly, therefore, are these denominated clouds; because their words which are resonant, and die away with the vibration of the air, when accompanied with the obscurity of allegories which enfolds them in a certain kind of darkness, become as it were clouds. So that when these words are expressed in a discourse, a shower, as it were, of truth is poured down into the minds of the intelligent." . . .

"I wish," says Augustin, "that from these clouds man would but receive this shower of truth willingly." Philo has a somewhat similar interpretation—"The truth is," says he, "that by the green herb of the field is meant that which is perceptible by the intellect only, the budding forth of the mind."

So in Isaiah:* "Drop down, ye heavens, from above, and let the clouds pour down righteousness."

So in Zechariah:† "Ask ye of the Lord rain in the time of the latter rain; so the Lord shall make bright clouds, and give them showers of rain, to every one grass in the field." i.e., "God shall give," says A Lapide, "grass unto all that ask Him, or the germs of salvation in their hearts; because He shall inspire them with pious thoughts, affections, impulses, desires, which, like germinations, shall bring forth abundance of good fruits and heroic works." . . . "Those clouds are gravid and bright which afford copious showers of wisdom and of the Spirit with which to irrigate

* Chap. xlv. 8.

† Chap. x. 1. A Lapide in loc.

the parched hearts of men, in order that they may bring forth the germs and produce the fruits of virtue." So likewise Mayer, who says that by rain is set forth heavenly doctrine, or teaching from heaven. "As the rain cometh out of the clouds, so doctrine out of the Scriptures, out of which only the true men of God raise them."

So in Ezekiel:* "And I will raise up for them a plant of renown, and they shall be no more consumed with hunger in the land."—"Christ by his doctrine and grace," says A Lapide, "as with a shower, raises up in the mind, that is, in the understanding and will, pious and holy germs, namely, the holy inspirations of virtues; so that being fed by these and strengthened, we may experience no hunger of the spirit, but may be nourished, and grow, and advance to the perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ."

So in Hosea:† "Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy; break up your fallow ground; for it is time to seek the Lord, till he come and rain righteousness upon you;" where it is generally admitted that by rain is signified doctrine, or the teaching of Divine truth; according to Swedenborg the influx of Divine Truth, as in the Psalm,‡ where it is said, "Thou, O God, didst send a plentiful rain upon thine inheritance," etc. This rain, however, was not yet.

6. "But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground."

"Before the introduction of sin," says St. Augustin,§

* Chap. xxxiv. 29. † Chap. x. 12. ‡ lxviii. 9.

§ De Genesi contra Manichæos.

" DUST OF THE GROUND."

"when God had made the green thing of the field and pasture, by which expression is signified, as we have already observed, the invisible creation, God watered this creation from an interior fountain, speaking into the intellect of man; so that man received not words from without, descending upon him as rain from the clouds above mentioned; but was satiated from his own fountain-head, that is, from truth flowing from his own inmost recesses."

The more strict interpretation of the words implies the ascent or exaltation of the truths of the natural mind, effected by the influx of Divine Love.

7. "And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul."

There had not been as yet a man to till the ground; but there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground. The interpretation of ground in these passages requires a corresponding interpretation of the dust of the ground. If, therefore, the ground has relation to the mind of man, so has dust of the ground. The original seems to mean, that Jehovah God formed into man the dust of the ground, or, the dust of the ground into man. Thus Cajetan,—"Et formavit Deus pulverem de terra hominem, i. e., in hominem." Now the Apostle says, "There is a natural body and there is a spiritual body." The natural body is the same with the animal body or animal man; and consequently what is here signified is, that Jehovah God formed into man the very external or animal part of man; and as the image and likeness of God is the interior man, so Jehovah God is here represented as forming into His own likeness and image the very corporeal sensuous man: so that both externally and internally man becomes a likeness and image of God. Now this is done when all the senses, and hence all the imaginative region of the mind, are brought into correspondence with the regenerated will and intellect or interior man, so that they shall act and hence live from these, and not merely from without.

This passage, therefore, is no mere repetition or amplification of what had already been stated in ver.27 of the former chapter. That chapter had reference to the intellectual and voluntary life of man as formed out of the animal man; the present chapter has reference to the animal man as formed out of the voluntary and intellectual life of man, and the inspiration of the interior life of both into that of the external man. The two processes, therefore, correspond, first, to the formation of principles, and, secondly, to the subordination of the external life to those principles.

Conformably to this interpretation the Psalmist says, "My soul cleaveth unto the dust," i.e., to sensuous and worldly things: "quicken thou me according to thy Word," i.e., inspire me with a new life which shall cause the sensuous things in me to live. Indeed that the dust signifies sensuous and worldly things is a common interpretation;* and hence to "cleave to the dust" signifies a strong inclination to things sensuous and worldly: this dust the serpent eats. "The soul," we are told, "was not made of

* As in Gregory the Great, Lib. Mor. on Job xl. 13. Also Scott, Gill, Matthew Henry on Psalm cxix. 25: Cruden.

"DUST OF THE GROUND."

the earth as the body was: it is a pity then that it should cleave to the earth and mind earthly things." Properly speaking, by dust is signified, says Swedenborg,* "the corporeal sensual principle, which is understood by walking upon the belly and eating dust, as is everywhere said of the serpent." Hence in Amos ii. 7 reference is made to those "who pant after the dust of the ground," designating those who pant after earthly things.

When, therefore, it is said that God "breathed into his nostrils the breath of life," the expression is of the same kind with "God said," "God saw," "God divided," which does not exclude the co-operation of man, but implies that man effected these things from God, so that it is God who effects them through the medium of man; and as man had now brought his very external life into conformity with the life of his regenerated will, and the life of his regenerated understanding, so this new state of man is represented by God breathing into the very external region of the mind the breath of lives, the life of the will and the life of the intellect; thus making the external man into a likeness and image of the internal. By the term lives in the plural number some understand the vegetative, sensitive, and rational life; some, the vegetative, sensitive, and angelic; or, the lives of plants, brutes, and angels; for, "Man† hath a vegetative life with trees and plants, a sensitive life with beasts, and above them both an intellectual or reasonable life with angels."

* Apocalypse Explained, vol. iv., art. 632.

† Assembly's Annotations, in loc.: also Menochius.

c 3

Swedenborg interprets it as the voluntary life and the intellectual life, or the life of the will and the life of the understanding, to which the natural or animal man is now perfectly conformed; the whole man being thus brought into a state of sabbatical rest. So Cajetan remarks that the intellective soul, made in the image of God, is itself the first principle or origin of breathing. Hence he says that Moses formally describes respiration as depending upon the intellective soul. Now it was this intellective life, inspired into man by the Spirit of God, that caused Adam to live in Paradise, as Athanasius* says, "a true life, even the life of the holy angels."

Hence Philo,† says Bishop Bull,—

"Manifestly places the image of God, i. e., the perfection thereof, after which Adam was created, in those divine characters which were impressed on his soul in his creation, or in the supernatural gift and faculty whereby he was enabled to attain the vision and perfect knowledge of God: and he also asserts that this was the recondite sense of Moses' words in the history of man's creation."

Indeed so far from disapproving of this view of the subject, Bishop Bull maintains that it is substantially the same with that of the Church of God in all ages. Hence he says with Tertullian,‡ that in man made after the image of God, man's soul was exalted and lifted up to the highest altitude. He was Deo de proximo amicus, so that he could celestia por-

* Bishop Bull on The State of Man before the Fall, p. 102.

† The State of Man before the Fall, vol. ii., p. 118.

‡ Ibid., p. 124.

"BREATH OF LIVES."

tare bear heavenly things, and sustain the approaches of the Shechinah or majestic presence of God.

"For* if it be once granted, that man in his first and best estate was a creature merely animal, I challenge any man to shew me, wherein that great fall of mankind, of which the Scriptures and the writings of the catholic doctors from the days of the Apostles to our present age so loudly ring, can be imagined to consist—

"'Qui cadit in terram, non habet unde cadat.'

"According to this hypothesis, man before the fall was but an earthly animal creature, and he is no worse now since the fall."

But of this, more in the sequel.

Now Jehovah God is said to have breathed this life into the nostrils of man. "By† the nostrils are signified," says Eucherius, "that discretion or discrimination by means of which we choose the virtues and reprobate the vices." Hence the expression, "noses have they and smell not," when applied to man, signifies those who have the faculty for perceiving spiritual odors, and yet exercise no spiritual discernment.

The life, therefore, which is now breathed into the nostrils signifies not an involuntary life, but a life chosen by the man himself in virtue of the judgment, discretion, or discrimination which he has now acquired, and which is divinely inspired even into his very sensuous and corporeal principle; i. e., from the internal into the external man. And this interpretation illustrates what is said in Job,†

* Ibid., p. 130. † Lauretas, art. Nares. ‡ Chap. xxxii. 8.

"I said, Days should speak, and multitude of years should teach wisdom. But there is a spirit in man: and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth them understanding." And so again in the Wisdom of Solomon,* "He knew not his Maker, and him that inspired into him an active soul, and breathed in a living spirit."

This seems to be implied in the observations even of certain Commentators: "The Lord animated or inspired him," says the Assembly, "with a living and reasonable soul or spirit, which presently appeared by breath at his nostrils;"—where it is evident, that the breath of the body is made to depend upon that of the spirit.

Hence the Apostle's exhortation to be "renewed by the Spirit of their mind," where Chrysostom gives us this paraphrase of the words, "by the Spirit which is in their minds." For the learned Jews, says Bishop Bull,†

... "Beside or above the νούς or highest natural faculty in man's soul, believed another principle necessary in order to a supernatural life, viz., the divine Spirit; and that this divine Spirit immediately affects only the νούς, and so is fitly termed Πνεῦμα τοῦ νούς, being from thence derived into the inferior faculties."

Hence this prelate observes, that it is very reasonable thus to interpret the text; as St. Paul, in discoursing of other mysteries of the Christian religion, has the same common notions with Philo, and other Jews which were before him. This Spirit or Nesama,‡

* Chap. xv. 11. † The State of Man before the Fall, p. 97.

‡ Ibid., p. 95. See our Appendix.

"BREATH OF LIVES."

observes the Bishop who was no mystic, is that Nesama in his mind which man lost by his sin and folly. This Spirit, he maintains, is the Spirit of God which Adam received, in order to a celestial life and the attainment of the beatific vision.

The breath of lives, therefore, here breathed into man, does not mean the breath of the material body; for this the body had when man was in a state of Chaos. Though spiritually dead then, he nevertheless breathed as to his body—a breath which was not the breath of life, but the breath of the senses, the breath of the animal, thus the breath in virtue of which the animal man exercised the bodily senses. The breath now received by man was that in virtue of which he respired from the Nesama, hence from the affections and thoughts which controlled and directed the breath of the material body; so that man now respired from within as well as from without; and this interior respiration being the predominant, the exterior became subordinate and ceased to be a subject of direct consciousness.

On this subject Swedenborg observes,* "Concerning this respiration nothing can as yet be said; inasmuch as at this day it is a subject altogether hidden and unknown; notwithstanding, the most ancient people had a perfect knowledge of it, as they also have who are in another life. But there is not a single person on earth at present who is at all acquainted with it. It is from this ground that they likened spirit or life to wind."

There is, therefore, in the remark of Professor

* Arcana Celestia, art. 97.

Jowett a meaning beyond his meaning when he said, "Of this aboriginal state we only entertain conjecture: it is beyond the horizon even when the eye is strained to the uttermost." Nevertheless, we may be convinced that such a respiration or breathing of the spirit there must be. Life and respiration are intimately connected with each other. When the body dies, the spirit of man survives and continues to breathe: that respiration comes into consciousness which had been tacit during the abode of the spirit in the body. For as the corruptible body preaseth down the soul and the earthly tabernacle weigheth down the mind; so the respiration of the body preponderates over that of the spirit, and the consciousness of the spiritual is lost in the consciousness of the bodily; and this state of unconsciousness of the spiritual is confirmed by false theories concerning the nature of the soul. "The favorite representation of the soul as a simple substance," says Mr. Mansel,* "indivisible, and therefore indestructible, is one which, in so far as it is synonymous with continued existence in time, is either untrue or unmeaning." To speak of the respiration of a simple substance would be simply—nonsense. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body; and when the natural body ceases to breathe, the breathing of the spiritual body comes into consciousness.

"It is strange to observe," says Dr. Barclay,† "how many so fondly cherish the fancy that a soul such as ours may in a future state, like the Deity, be able to operate and exercise its various faculties independently of anything like

* Metaphysics, p. 370. † On Life and Organization, p. 435.

"BREATH OF LIVES."

corporeal organs. The Sacred Scriptures afford no encouragement to entertain any such hypothesis. They explicitly inform us that the human soul after its departure from the present body shall inhabit another which is to be immortal; a species of body which, for aught we know, may be as different from the present body as is the loathsome and the crawling caterpillar from the winged, the active, and the splendid butterfly; two species of forms which in the progress of expanding faculties, are constructed by the same animating principle. What the form and the structure of the new and immortal body are to be, we neither know nor have any means of knowing; but that the same animating principle may in different circumstances construct new bodies and successively pass from one into the other, is what we know from daily observation. Even Plato, amidst all his refinements and abstractions, never imagined that the soul could be at any time without a body, or something equivalent, which he called a vehicle."

Surely, if the soul or rather spirit be clothed with a body in the Spiritual World, it will be with a human body. If the spirit after death ceased to be human, we might say that it would not then be clothed with a human body. But if it be the spirit which constitutes the man,* and the man be clothed with a spiritual body, it must be a body so organized as to be suitable to man; and what is this but the body of its own spirit; in other words, a human body? Indeed, the animating principle is even now constructing the very spiritual body which shall serve to clothe us hereafter. This human spiritual body has functions, and one of its functions is the respiration of

* See our Appendix.

which we have spoken. For while the material body serves for the animal man, there must be a spiritual body for the spiritual man; and there is a distinct respiration proper to each. This fact seems to have been in a manner recognized by a German writer:—

"If* we observe the course of our feelings," says he, "by pauses or as it were by pulsations, and of our thoughts, we shall always see a new crisis of comprehension, and of a renewed internal tension, succeeding a moment of relaxation or dissipation. These are the respirations and pulsations of the inner life, which are most perceptible where this life attains its highest and noblest elevation."

Now the highest and noblest elevation to which the inner life attains, is when it is in correspondence with the love, wisdom, and power of God; when the heart beats with love, and the lungs breathe wise thoughts, and the actions are performed from these as motives; for in this case the functions of the mind act with a strong energy, and the inner man is more fully brought into the outer, so that the outer is a manifestation of the inner.

How it was that the outer life was a manifestation of the inner we proceed to explain; and we shall then see what was the nature of that celestial life, or beatific vision, to which Adam is said to have attained in Paradise—an enquiry which can be no mere speculation. For if Paradise has been lost, Paradise may be regained; but in order to regain Paradise, the life must be regained which Adam led in Paradise. But how can we regain it if the whole subject is incomprehensible? Is that which has

* Menzel's German Literature, vol. iii., p. 60.

"BREATH OF LIVES."

been lost in this world, lost for ever? To the Church of Ephesus, who had fallen from her first love, it was promised, "To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the Tree of Life which is in the midst of the Paradise of God."

How was it then that, in Adam, the outer or sensuous corporeal life was a manifestation of the inner? We have seen that Dean Trench on the Parables,* admits the following principle to be true:†—

"When God created this lower world," says R. Simeon Ben Jochai, "he created it according to the pattern of the world above, in order that this world might be the image of the world above; and his reason for so doing was, that the one world might be connected with the other."

It is on this principle that Swedenborg records, concerning the Adamic Church,‡ that "The objects of the outward senses, such as terrestrial and worldly things, were to them as nothing; nor did they perceive any delight in them, but only in the things which they signified and represented. Wherefore, when they saw terrestrial objects they did not think at all about them, but only about those which they signified and represented, which to them were most delightful; being such things as exist in heaven, by virtue whereof they saw the Lord himself."

As the outward world was thus to the Adamic Church a manifestation of the inner, so the outer or sensuous life was a manifestation of the inner or rational life; for the senses perceived from the

* Notes on the Parables, p. 13.

† Archdeacon Lyall's Propædia Prophetica, p. 264.

‡ Arcana Celestia, art. 1122.

reason: the rational life was the soul of the sensuous, and the sensuous life was thus in perfect correspondence with the rational.

8. "And the Lord God planted a garden Eastward in Eden, and there he put the man whom he had formed."

When our Lord said, "Every plant which my heavenly Father hath not planted shall be rooted up," he did not mean to exclude the co-operation of man, and assign the work of planting to God only, apart from the will of man. For although it is God who plants, yet He doeth it in man and by man; and therefore when the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, it was man who planted it by the help of God, and God who planted it through the instrumentality of man. But all is assigned to the Lord God, that man may appropriate no merit to himself.

What, however, was the Garden which was thus planted? We have already seen that man had attained to the angelic life; and therefore the garden of Eden had relation to that life, or it could have been no garden of delight to Adam, for there would have been in it nothing to cherish that life. As then heaven and earth were the heaven and earth of the human mind, it follows that the Garden upon the earth was the garden also of the human mind; and thus that Adam or the Church was that garden. Hence in Jeremiah* the soul is spoken of as a watered garden—"Therefore they shall come and sing in the height of Zion, and shall flow together to the goodness of the Lord, for wheat, and for wine, and for oil, and

* Chap. xxxi. 12.

" PLANTED."

for the young of the flock and of the herd, and their soul shall be as a watered garden; and they shall not sorrow any more at all." On which a Commentator observes, that* "our souls are never valuable as gardens but when they are watered with the dews of God's spirit and grace."

So again in Isaiah :†—"The Lord shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not."

And again :‡—"Ye shall be like an oak whose leaf fadeth, and as a garden which hath no water."

So in the Canticles :§—"A garden enclosed is my sister, my spouse, a spring shut up, a fountain sealed;" signifying, says Bishop Patrick, "the Church bringing forth not only the fruits of godliness and virtue, but all sorts and variety of fruit like an excellent garden. And indeed in the prophetic language the flourishing condition of the Church, after it hath been in affliction, is set forth by the planting of a wilderness with all sorts of the best trees, and by making fountains break forth and waters flow therein." So another Commentator :—"The bridegroom having called the Bride an enclosed garden, carries on the metaphor, and compares her virtues and accomplishments to all the choicest productions of an Eastern orchard." So again :||—"Sanctified souls are as gardens; gardens of the Lord enclosed for him. Graces in the soul are as spices in these gardens—that in them which is valuable and useful."

* Henry's Commentary. † Chap. lviii. 11. ‡ Chap. i. 30.

§ Chap. iv. 12. || Henry's Commentary—Canticles iv. 15.

So likewise Ambrose:*—"If Paradise be a place in which shrubs grew up, then is the soul which multiplies the seed that is sown into it, seen to be a Paradise; in which is implanted every virtue; in which also is the Tree of Life, i.e., wisdom, as Solomon said. For wisdom cometh not from the earth, but is of the Father."

The Garden mentioned by Plato in his Symposium, and into which Love is represented as entering, St. Ambrose† thinks was originally borrowed by Plato from the Canticles.

"It is," says he, "from this book of Canticles that he took the idea; because the soul adhering to God entered into the garden of the rational mind, in which was an abundance of various virtues, and of flowers of discourse. Who is there that is ignorant, that from out of the Paradise we read of in Genesis, which has the tree of life, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and other trees, the abundance of the virtues ought to be transferred, and planted in the garden of the rational mind; by which, in the Song of Songs, Solomon signified the garden of the soul, or the soul itself."

Now it is generally acknowledged‡ by writers, ancient and modern, that this Garden of Eden was a type of heaven. The observations of Parkhurst upon this subject are to the same purport.§

"And Jehovah Aleim planted a Garden eastward in Eden; surely not for the purpose of a mere Mahomedan Paradise, but as a school of religious instruction to our first parents. Many arguments might be adduced in confirmation of this

* De Paradiso, vol. i., chap. i.

† De Bono Mortis, vol. i., chap. v.

‡ Bishop Bull on the State of Man before the Fall, p. 67.

§ See his Hebrew Lexicon, art. 22.

"GARDEN."

truth. Such a method of teaching by the emblems of Paradise was suited to the nature of man, who is capable of information concerning spiritual things, by analogy from outward and sensible objects. It was also agreeable to the ensuing dispensations of God, who, in that religion which commenced on the Fall, and was in substance reinstituted by Moses, did instruct his people in spiritual truths or the good things to come, by sensible and visible objects, rites, and ceremonies; by the Cherubim, Gen. iii. 24; by sacrifices, Gen. iv. 4 (comp. Heb. xi. 4); by the distinction of clean and unclean animals, Gen. vii. 2; by abstinence from blood, Gen. ix. 4; by the institution of priests, altars, burnt offerings, drink offerings, holy washings, etc., Gen. xiv. 18 (comp. Exod. xxiv. 5); Gen. viii. 20; xxii. 13; xxv. 2, 14. And even under the Christian state, much of our religious knowledge is communicated to us partly by the Scriptures referring us for ideas of spiritual and heavenly things to the visible works of God's creation, to the emblems of Paradise, and to the types of the Patriarchal and Mosaic dispensations; partly, by the ordinance of the sabbath day; and partly, by the two sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper, which are outward and visible signs of inward and spiritual benefits."

... "Know, says Rabbi Simon Bar Abraham, that in the trees, fountains, and other things of the Garden of Eden, were the figures of the most curious things by which the first Adam saw and understood spiritual things; even as God hath given to us the forms and figures of the tabernacle, of the sanctuary, and of all his furniture, the candlesticks, the table, and the altars, for types of intellectual things, and that we might from them understand heavenly truths. But no doubt those particulars were more plain and clear to Adam in the garden of Eden wherein he dwelt, as he also was more holy, being a creature formed by the hands of God himself, and an angel of God. In the trees likewise, and fountains or rivers of the garden, he prefigured admirable mysteries."

The method of proceeding by analogy in the attainment of this spiritual knowledge, is well stated by the author of the Figurative Language of Holy Scripture:*—

"From the difficulty we are under of comprehending such things as are above natural reason, the manner of the Scripture is as extraordinary as its matter: and it must be so from the necessity of the case. Of all the objects of sense we have ideas, and our minds and memories are stored with them. But of invisible things we have no ideas till they are pointed out to us by Revelation: and as we cannot know them immediately, such as they are in themselves, after the manner in which we know sensible objects, they must be communicated to us by the mediation of such things as we already comprehend. For this reason, the Scripture is found to have a language of its own, which does not consist of words, but of signs and figures taken from visible things. It could not otherwise treat of God, who is a Spirit, and of the spirit of man, and of a spiritual world; which no words can describe. Words are the arbitrary signs of natural things; but the language of Revelation goes a step farther, and uses some things as the signs of other things; in consequence of which, the World which we now see becomes a sort of commentary on the mind of God, and explains the World in which we believe."

Now it is a common observation, that our knowledge of the Spiritual World must necessarily be confused and indistinct. This confusion and indistinctness we have seen to be a state proper to Chaos, and Chaos represents the first state of the natural

* Rev. W. Jones, of Nayland, p. 11.

"MAN."

mind in regard to spiritual things. The whole of the first chapter of Genesis, therefore, represents the process by which we are brought out of this state of indistinctness and confusion, into those clear perceptions of heavenly truth which are proper to the state of Paradise. Hence, as we have seen, the first divine process was the infusion of light, by which alone could clear distinctions be made; so that on the second day the distinction was first made between things natural and spiritual, earthly and heavenly.* Till this period heavenly things, or heaven, had lain hid within earthly things, or the earth, nay, even the earth itself was not duly developed; but in the Paradisiacal state man has a clear perception of the heavenly within the earthly, or of the spiritual within the natural. This spiritual perception, therefore, is a work of Jehovah God in the mind of Adam; and before this distinction had been wrought, had he been introduced into Paradise, he would have seen nothing

* Hence Augustin in his Tractate De Genesi contra Munichæos observes, art. 11, "In principio fecit Deus cælum et terram; non quia jam hoc erat, sed quia hoc esse poterat; nam et cælum scribitur postea factum." Hence he observes, "sic dictum est quasi semen cœli and terræ," as if the heaven and earth had first existed in a seminal state, i.e., as if the human mind had first existed seminally or potentially, as we have already noticed at the commencement of the present chapter. In this case, the expression "In the beginning" might be considered as having reference to this inchoative and seminal condition.

We may further remark, that the six days which follow, Augustin refers to six states of the human mind; thus in lib. 1., art. 43: "Habeat enim unusquisque nostrum in bonis operibus et recta vita tanquam distinctos istos sex dies, post quos debet quietem sperare. Primo die lucem fidei," etc.

but what our modern literalists see—objects of sense and natural science—but nothing more; for in this respect his condition in Paradise would not be the least advanced beyond his condition out of it. It was only when the mind of Adam had been so formed as to have attained to a clear perception of celestial things, that he was brought into the Paradisaical state, and thus into Paradise. For this reason Adam is spoken of with express reference to this pre-formation—“And there He put the man whom He had formed,”—the mind in its natural or chaotic state being without form.

But does not the expression THE MAN imply only one human being? In proof that this is the case it is said;—

“In* verse 26 we read, ‘And God said, Let us make man (Adam, without article) in our image, after our likeness, and let them have dominion,’ etc. Here the language is indefinite. It refers to the whole human race. But then follows, ‘And God created the man (Adam, with the article) in His image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them.’ Here the language is definite, ‘the man,’ and in the first half of the verse the pronoun is in the singular number, and the masculine gender, ‘In the image of God created He him.’ If the author had intended briefly to have stated, that at first only one human being, and that one the male, was created, what other language could he have employed?”

If, however, the expression the man signifies only one individual male human being, does it not follow that when it is said, “So he drove out the man,” that

* The Mosaic Record of Creation in Aids to Faith, p. 230.

"TREE."

only one individual male human being was excluded from Paradise?

When God said, Let us make Man*—"That which is here said of the Man is also to be understood of the Woman; or, which comes to the same, that the Woman is here comprehended under the Man, is evident from the latter part of the next following verse, 'Male and Female created he them;' whereas no express mention had been afore made of any other than the Man, and therefore under that word must be comprehended also the Woman. The same is likewise evident from other instances in this account of Moses, particularly chap. iii. 23, 24. In the former of which verses it is expressed only, that God sent HIM from the garden of Eden, and in the latter that God drove out the Man: but now no one doubts but that the Woman was also driven out, and therefore is to be understood as comprehended under the Man. In short, that both sexes were comprehended under the common name of Man, is evident from chap. v. 2."

According to this account, when it is said, "God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him," Adam is not to be regarded as one person. Nor, indeed, in chap. v., where it is said, "This is the book of the generations of Adam;" for though,† as we have seen, some critics assert that by Adam is here meant one individual male human being, yet the version of the Septuagint is Αὐτῆ ἡ βιβλὸς γενέσεως ἀνθρώπων—"This is the book of the generation of men" (Adam), an expression far from implying a single individual. Calmet gives a similar interpretation; and indeed Von Bohlen af-

* Wells on the Old Testament, vol. i., p. 12.

† Aids to Faith, p. 230.

D firms, that even "with the article, Adam signifies the human race." A Lapide observes, that both the man and the woman were called Adam, to signify that they were one man in two bodies, and so ought to be one in soul and in will.

It seems then impossible, in regard to the use of the term Adam in this narrative in Genesis, to single out any one passage in which it necessarily implies only one individual human being. Therefore, whether the whole human race originally descended from a single pair or not, is an open question which the Book of Genesis does not determine. That it treats of a species under the name of Adam, and not of an individual, is plain from the admissions of many Commentators; and of how many that species consisted is nowhere asserted. The interpretation of Swedenborg is, that Adam was the name of a Church; and as there were those who lived before this Church was formed, or before they belonged to the Church called Adam, or had reached the Adamic state, there were in this sense Pre-Adamites.

9. "And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of lives also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil."

Does every tree that is pleasant to the sight mean only every tree that is pleasant to the natural eye? Are merely natural beauties sufficient for the spiritual mind? Surely if the earthly Paradise be typical of the heavenly, the earthly trees will be typical of the heavenly. Hence Parkhurst observes—