The three gardens ...

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I Man's Original Character and Condition , . 13

IT . . . .Man's First Probation 82

I. Man^s Original Character And Condition

As the sun rises in a cloudless morning, the eastern hills and waters seem to be in contact with the sky ; and, when it goes down in the west, the earth and the heavens appear once more to be blended together in a yet brighter effulgence. This world has had one '' golden age ;" and, when the circle of its eventful life is complete, it will certainly enjoy another.

In one of the galleries of Italy, there hangs a picture of an exiled nobleman. The artist has aimed to portray the most abject condition of a kingly nature. The hair is matted and dishevelled ; the cheek pale and sunken ; the dress worn and tattered ; yet, through all this misery, depression, and contempt, you see, in the contour of the face, the fire of the eye, and the expansion of the forehead, the glory of an ancient and noble lineage. High and glorious is the pedigree of man, " who was the son of Seth, who was the son of Adam, who was the Son of GodP At the beginning, man held joyful communion with his Maker. Fallen from that high estate into guilt and misery, will he ever be restored ?

The history of man has a past, a present, and a future. We can not read it unmoved, since our own character and destiny are involved in the life of our race. Let us go back' to Eden, and see man in his original innocence and -glory, his temptation, his fall, his shame, his expulsion, the hereditary consequences of the first disobedience, and all his fruitless attempts at self-recuperation. Next will we visit the garden of Gethsemane, where the Son of God fainted in excess of agony, and, inquiring who he was, and what he did, learn by what methods man has been redeemed. Then will we read together of that Paradise of God which is promised to the penitent — its joy, its security, its society, all its elements of blessedness — that we may be taught how man is to be restored to more than his original perfection.

These are the topics about which there has been the greatest amount of speculation. Concerning them we have had fable and philosophy, fiction and hypothesis. It is time that we turn to historic facts, and their interpretation in the sure word of inspired Scripture, man's origin. 15

which together form a unity of testimony, as the block of marble is one, though veined and clouded with all varieties of color.

Concerning the beginning of our race, the only authentic record we have is in the Word of God, There is no other accredited book which pretends to carry the history of man to its very origin. Profane history begins its authentic dates centuries later than the Mosaic account of man's creation. All beyond is conjecture, mythology, and mystery. Eeason, unaided by revelation, could only demonstrate this one thing — that man, at some time, must have been created ; for man is a finite being, and an eternal succession of finite beings involves a contradiction. A series of finite beings, each beginning his life in time, must have had a Creator infinite and eternal. How^ when^ where,, this succession of human life began, we have no method whatever of ascertaining, save through the revelation which has been given us by that Being from whom human life proceeded. This revelation is explicit, and, if it contains not all which curiosity might desire, the facts which it communicates are precisely those which it is most needful for us to know.

Not only was there a time when man, as yet, had no existence in this world, but, as we believe, man began existence when he was created in Eden. We have no faith whatever in the pre-existence of man, in some

IG THE GARDEN OF EDEN.

other state, prior to this world's creation. We are not altogether uninformed of what has been written in favor of such a theory. The notion was broached in antiquity, and it has been revived in modern times for the avowed purpose of solving certain mysterious problems in the moral government of God, about which speculative minds have carried* on a conflict for ages. Concerning this theory of man's pre-existence, two things may be said. The one is, that, admitting^ it to be true, it furnishes no solution whatever of the difficulties in question pertaining to sin and responsibility, but only removes those difficulties to a remoter stage of being, leaving them there as much in mystery as they now are. Besides which, the theory is unsupported by one particle of proof. The obvious teaching of Scripture is against it. The New Testament certainly connects the character and condition of the human race with the history of the first pair, and not with any pre-existence of our own, before we began to live in this world. In expressing this judgment concerning the theory of man's pre-existence, we would not object to any form of hypothesis which does not overstep the modesty of true science ; but we can not countenance any interpretation of the Sacred Writings which would bring up an occult and philosophic sense to override and conceal that which is obvious to a simple-minded reader. An insupcra))le objection to tliis theory of man's pre-existence.

MAN NOT PRE-EXISTENT. 17

as that theory has been revived and advocated of late, is, that it makes the Scriptures of little account. It is affirmed that this theory is the only one which can save the glory of God from disastrous "^^ eclipse." It is the only one which can save a thoughtful mind from blank despair. It promises to be a solution and a help, a resting-place and a joy to man, such as alone can give him confidence in his Maker — the only method by which all this can be accomplished. On this supposition, of how much value to me is the Word of God ? If this does not vindicate sufficiently the glory of God, so that we can have all faith in his wisdom and truth — if it does not meet these essential conditions of my being — how have you depreciated it in my esteem ! Any theory, therefore, which claims to be better than the obvious meaning of Scripture — which proposes to honor God, comfort and satisfy man, in some other manner than that revealed in this book — to that degree supplants Scripture, making it worthless, and so is palpably infidel in its tendencies. We have no memory of pre-existence ; we have no history of it ; no tradition of it ; and no proof whatever of it. The history of man begins with his creation on the earth where we now live. The creation of man is represented as the last and highest act of divine skill. Everything before had been preparatory to this. The earth had emerged from the surging waters. The lights of the firmament had been kindled. Vegetation had begun its luxuriant growth. Animal life had been created — cleaving the air with wing, moving through the pliant wave, or walking on the solid earth. Science, by her latest observations, authenticates all these written testimonies as to the series and succession of things created — discovering in the great leaves of Nature's book the self-same order of procession which is described in the pages of the inspired volume. When this goodly creation was finished, man was made in the image of God ; and, in this act, the Omnipotent is represented as evoking his utmost skill, employing his own plastic hand, and imparting his own life-giving breath.

We receive what is here written of man's creation and first abode as historical verity. We believe that Eden had a definite topography. The rivers which bounded it are called by names. All has the appearance of historical description. It were idle to mention all the fables, traditions, and theories, which have been written in reference to the locality of paradise. There is a moral in the fact that the exact position of the garden of innocence can not be authenticated. Eden exists not now. We have relics of it, but it is no more a reality. It is a faded vision. It ivas^ but is not now to be found. History begins, as the sun rises, in the East. Somewhere in that remote land, probably not far from the chain of the Caucasus, between the waters of

BODY AND SOUL. 19

the Black sea and tlie Caspian, near the head-springs of the Euphrates and the Tigris, in a region afterward known as Armenia, was the dwelling-place of the first man, in the original perfection of his nature.

Behold what contrasts met and mingled in the formation of man — the dust of the earth, and the inspiration of the Almighty ! Distinct and dissimilar are these several properties, but they are wonderfully combined in the person of man.

The body of man was first fashioned, and this out of the dust of the ground. Its form and organization were complete before it was animated with life. And God '' breathed into his nostrils the breath of life ; and man became a living souL^^ What is life? Where is it seated ? How is it diffused ? It is a mysterious power which warms and vitalizes that body which, without it, would be as cold and motionless as common clay. We know nothing concerning it save by its effects. We follow it, and it eludes our inspection. The scalpel of the anatomist opens a way through which inquiry may enter ; but, no sooner is the inner citadel reached, than the dweller is found to have escaped. Animal life is itself a prodigy — even when we see it vitalizing a little handful of earth, and sending it up, with music in its warbling throat, to the gates of heaven; or making another form of it, invested with scales of gold and silver, to spring from the brook, leaping for joy in the simple pleasure of existence. But man is something more than vitalized clay. The breath of God imparted to the human form something more than animal life. The inspiration of the Almighty gave him understanding. He was made in the likeness of his Maker. He received a rational and intelligent nature. More than instinct, there was given to him a reasonable soul. All that has been written in advocacy of materialism is disproved at once by a reference to this simple record of man's creation. The soul is not the product of matter, nor any accident or modification of matter. It is a distinct existence — distinct in its origin, distinct in its nature. Though united, the body and the soul each preserves its own separate quality. The one is dust, the other is spirit. The one was fashioned by God's fingers, the other came from God's own life. This distinction is recognised throughout the whole of Scripture. What we call death is the dissolution of this fellowship and conjunction between the body and the soul. So saith the Scripture : " Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was, and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it." There lies the lifeless form, complete in structure. Not yet

^'Decay's efFacing fingers

Have swept the lines wlierc beauty lingers" —

and the human body seems for a brief term, now that the soul has parted from it, even as it was when God

UNITY OF THE RACE. 21

first fashioned it, before the soul was united unto it. The philosophic speculations of all ages concerning life and soul, materialism and immaterialism, have not advanced one iota beyond the sublime conciseness of this inspired description of man's creation — this compound of dust and divinity — a body that dies, and a soul that will live for ever. Behold the first man^ as he stood before his Maker : —

'' Erect in stature, With front serene and thoughtful, self-knowing, Magnanimous, to correspond with Heaven !"

What can we imagine of such awful beauty as the human face when it first reflected the smile of God ? Man's brow is now knit with care, soiled with dust, seamed and scarred with disease ; his eye downcast upon the path he treads ; and his heart depressed with the humiliations of guilt. So was not man at the first.

That our conception of unity might not be disturbed — that our conviction of the oneness of the human race might be clear and strong — the creation of woman is described, not as a separate existence, but as a part of the very life which is the parent-stock of our species. Vulgar infidelity may scoff and cavil at this narration, and call the Mosaic record of woman's creation a myth and nothing more ; but the power which fashioned man out of the dust, and the worlds out of nothing, may readily be believed to have performed what is here written, beyond the reach of a sarcasm. If ever fitness, design, proportion, and harmony, were subserved, it was here. Woman was not made a distinct, divided, independent, and isolated personality, but she was taken from beneath the arm and nearest the heart of man, to be protected and loved; so the two thus united had but one life.

The unity of the human race is not a mere philosophical speculation. Our minds toil after its intuition. We believe that it is taught expressly in the Sacred Scriptures. We hold it to be implied in the very structure of doctrinal Christianity. It was by one man's disobedience that the relations of the whole race were changed, even as it was by one man's obedience that the world was redeemed. There was one Adam and one Christ. In asserting this belief we cast no reproach upon scientific theories. We are not, indeed, ignorant of the auspices under which the unity of the human race has been questioned. It was Voltaire who gave chief currency to the notion, for the very purpose of discrediting the Bible. It was ably met and answered by Haller and Cuvier — greater and better physiologists than he. Let scientific research be aided and forwarded in this direction ; for our faith is strong that the ultimate testimony of physiology will be in accordance with the Scriptures, in proof of the imity of the human race.

Desirous of knowing what changes have since oc-

ORIGINAL PERFECTION. 23

curred in our common nature, we would first be informed of its primeval properties.

The body of man was perfect in its organization and functions. The mind was not disordered nor enfeebled, as now, by physical infirmities. The appetites and passions which, since the apostacy, often destroy both body and soul, were then conformed to their proper uses, and subject to their prescribed moderation and regularity. Poetry has always delighted, in weaving the traditions concerning the Golden Age, to describe th^ beauty, and size, and strength of man in that state of innocence. Setting aside all that is purely imaginative, we know that man, in Paradise, was a stranger to disease, deformity, and pain ; that the perfect organism of his body made existence a delight, and brought no shadow or depression upon the soul.

The mind of man was clear and true. The power of intelligence was a property which made him the image of God. Unlike inert matter, moved by physical forces, unlike irrational animals impelled by blind instinct, man was capable of understanding the will of his Maker. We will not indulge in fanciful conjectures as to the degrees of his knowledge, but, content with what is written of the faculty of knowing, delight ourselves with imagining what man must have been, when that faculty was unperverted by prejudice, unbeclouded by falsehood — so that there was no refraction to the rays of truth entering the mind, which in pure and honest intelligence answered unto the intelligence of God.

Man was endowed with perfect freedom. In the well-ordered words of the Westminster Confe^ion, " God endowed the will of man with that natural liberty and power of acting upon choice, that it is neither forced, nor by any absolute necessity of nature determined; to do good or evil." Nothing so exalts our idea of the goodness and power of the Almighty as the creation of a being capable of acting, and free to act, upon his own choice and responsibility. Concisely and admirably has Milton described this property of man, in the words of Raphael to Adam in Paradise : —

" God made thee perfect, not immutable : And good he made thee : but to persevere He left it in thy power : ordained thy will By nature free, not overruled by fate Inextricable, or strict necessity.

Our voluntary service he requires, Not our necessitated. Such with him Finds no acceptance, nor can find : for how Can hearts not tree be tried whether they servo Willing or no : who will but what they must By destiny, and can no other choose ? Myself and all the angelic host that stand In sight of God enthroned, our happy state Hold, as you yours, while our obedience holds On other surety none : freely we serve Because we freely love : as in our will To love or not, in this we stand or fall."

ORIGINAL CONDITION. 25

When we add, that man was originally holy^ we do not intend that his holiness was created in the same manner as the faculties of his mind and the organs of his body ; or that it was involuntary, like the natural instincts and appetences ; but simply this, that all his thoughts, affections, and actions, were right : that his obedience was perfect — that there was no conflict between the several parts of his nature — no law in the members warring against the law in the mind, that the voluntary obedience of man was so complete, that he was the very image of his Maker — his holy affections responding unto the holy affections of God. A " golden age" indeed was that when the human conscience spake approvingly, without one impeachment, without one compunction of remorse ; man rejoicing in his own conscious innocence, and God pronouncing this his last and greatest work superlatively good.

Such were the original elements of man's character. The circumstances of his condition corresponded thereto. The curse is on the earth itself now, in consequence of sin. Thorns and thistles does it bring forth. It is hard for us to conceive what that garden was which God had planted as the perfect abode of his perfect creatures. Every tree that was pleasant to the sight and good for food was there, flowers and fruits in their endless profusion of form and fragrance. That we may not be thought to be drawing upon fancy for

26 THE GAEDEN OF EDEN.

tlic sources of pleasure which abounded in Eden, we will mention such only as are described by the pen of inspiration.

The first was cheerful occupation. Indolence is the offspring of sin and not the blessing of innocence. Well was it said by Matthew Henry, " if either a high extraction, or a great estate, or a large dominion, or perfect innocence, or a genius for pure contemplation, or a small family, could have given man a writ of ease, Adam had not been set to work." The blessedness of God is not in sleep, but in unwearied and beneficent action ; and man, made in his image, was immediately assigned an occupation. " And the Lord put him into the garden of Eden, to dress it and keep it." Man's first employment was to till that very earth out of which he sprung, and in the bosom of which he is to find his grave. Work and labor are not synonyms. With the latter we associate difficulty — sometimes hard and depressing drudgery. Man's work at first was pleasant only, restraining and pruning the exuberance of nature's spontaneous growth ; sin has changed that easy occupation for the sweat of the face, and the bending of the back.

Next to the pleasant exercise of the body and mind was sublunm't/ lordship delegated to man over all the works of God's hand. Not one of the inferior animals was an object of terror or disgust to man or to one another, but their instincts were subjected to innocence

ORIGINAL BLESSEDNESS. 27

and kindness. No venomous reptile was there to bite — no ravenous beast to devour; the vulture had not yet covered the dove — nor had the lion preyed upon the lamb ; the tiger and the leopard kissed the hand of innocence, and came fawning and gentle to the feet of man, their unfeared and fearless lord.

To this was added society. It had not been good even for innocence to be solitary. Marriage is a word and an institution which sin has so far associated with low instinct, with ideas of barter, convenience, and advantage, that some effort of the imagination is requisite to conceive of its heavenly original, its paradisaical prototype, which secured to man the exercise of his most joyful sympathies, society so blessed, confidence so complete, that between the two whom God had placed in Eden there was but one heart.

Last of all was ivorship of the Creator^ and God's benediction. The worship of God by sinless man! — not with mediatory rites and sacrifices, not by smoking altars and bleeding beasts, not by typical sacraments and priestly intercessions ; but by direct, immediate, personal, sensible communion. With no shame on his cheek, no fear in his soul, man stood erect before his Maker in all the confidence and joy of perfect innocence. Then was it that God abode with man as with his child, smiling upon him morning, noon, and night, and walking with him amid the bowers of Eden. Not now did he seem to man as afterward, when he descended on Sinai, making darkness his pavilion and flaming fire his chariot. Not now did he reveal himself as afterward to the vision of inspired prophecy, Avhen he rode upon the wings of the wind, or made the mountains to smoke at his touch, and the pillars of the temple to tremble at the approach of his glorious majesty. There were no images of terror to represent the coming of the Almighty — no thundering, no lightning, no earthquake, no voice of trumpet — nor was there one emotion of fear in the soul of man. How was this communion accomplished ? Did God reveal himself in a visible form ?

We will not trespass beyond what is written. But it were strange indeed if God has manifested himself in a human form to man in his apostacy— if he has promised that this manifestation should be repeated, at the last, when every eye shall see him — and man in his original blessedness and glory had no sensible communion with his Maker. Second causes did not then interpose their opaque influences to prevent the light of God's countenance from shining full upon the soul. He was seen to be near; he was felt to be near; and truly heaven and earth were blended together in the morning of the world's history. God blessed our innocent progenitors, and the first sabbath of the world shone on their consummate felicity. If angelic choirs chanted

MEMORY AND HOPE. 29

praises on the plains of Bethlehem, when man's Redeemer was born, wonder not that the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy, over the unsullied blessedness of Eden.

By comprehending what was peculiar in man's character and condition at first, we shall the better understand what changes have occurred in our common nature — what lineaments of the divine likeness still remain — what have been efi*aced — where and how restorative help is to be applied.

In this we must all be agreed. This is not Eden. We know not where we shall find it, voyaging and travelling around the world in search of it. We are not holy and happy as was man at the first. A great change has come over the race, and we must account for it. Neither are we abandoned to useless and hopeless regrets, sighing only for the paradise that is lost —

" Yearning for its meadow-sweet breath, Untainted by care, and crime, and death" —

for, in our religion, memory and hope are so blended together, that conscious guilt may smile with expectation of another paradise of God, which is far better than the first ; and to that, weary, ashamed, afraid, sorrowing, dying, does the gospel of Christ direct and help us. May the happy effect of all these our meditations upon man's original, his fall, his redemption, his restoration, his first and second probation, be to incite us to make sure of that celestial paradise which Christian faith anticipates, with its complete perfection, its eternal security, its trees of knowledge, and its trees of life!

II. Man^s First Probation

As to the interpretation of that portion of Scripture which narrates the original probation and fall of man, different methods have been advocated. It would be difficult to select any other part of the sacred volume about which there has been the same amount of curious speculation. The reader will easily perceive how many topics are suggested by the narrative, which would be likely to divert minds of a certain order from the principal subject of the history — such as curious disquisitions about the tree of knowledge and the tree of life, the mode of Satanic approach, the origin of evil, and many other matters of similar import. Many have given an allegorical interpretation to the whole passage, for the purpose of avoiding what has seemed to them a difficulty arising from the extreme simplicity of the narrative as it now stands. Others interpret it as partly allegorical and partly historical. Others, still, interpret it as a myth, a didactic fable, a truth invested in a poetic form — some asserting that the account of man's first trial was represented in a pictorial method, so that the language of Moses is here borrowed from hieroglyphic figures, thus combining together the historical and the mythical. This reference to these several methods of interpreting the passage is made for the distinct purpose of saying that the plan now proposed will not make it necessary to enter upon the discussion of any one of these incidental matters. Even those who regard the whole narrative of Moses concerning man's abode in Eden as mythological, agree in this, that the myth has a moral ; though an allegory is the form in which truth is conveyed, yet truth still is thus conveyed. It is that truth, that one fact, whether it be communicated in hieroglyphical, allegorical, or didactic language, with which we are now to be occupied. Bearing this in mind, we shall dispense with all that is simply curious and speculative, and occupy ourselves with the one great fact which is here revealed, whatever mode of interpreting the form of revelation may be adopted. Those who give the most literal interpretation to every item of the narrative, and those who incline to the tropical and mythical, all agree that the object of the sacred writer was to describe the first probation of human nature. And this is the topic now before us — a topic altogether practical to ourselves,

TEST OP OBEDIENCE. 23

since the first and second forms of human probation difi*er essentially.

The terms of man's original probation are briefly defined. Simple obedience to the will of God describes the first moral trial of human nature. A special act of obedience was presented, and the conditions of probation were simply these : ohey^ and retain all the pleasures and rewards of innocence ; disobey^ and there shall follow the pangs of remorse, and the displeasure of God. Obey, and live ; disobey, and die. Such is the definition of man's original probation. He was placed '' under law" — if we may use a word which to us is associated with severity, and compulsion, and awe, as descriptive of that trial of innocence, with which nothing repulsive was connected. The thing to be observed is, that obedience — obedience alone, nothing but obedience — describes the original probation of man. There is no mixture of mercy, of forgiveness, in the terms of it. Mercy is a gratuity offered to guilt. Nothing of this was proposed to original innocence, for it was not needed while innocence was retained. It matters not at all whether the interdicted act be in itself great or small, vast or trivial — it was a test of obedience ; and that was the moral trial to which the nature of man was first subjected.

Observe the favorable auspices of this original probation. There was no propensity in man's nature to evil. There was no derangement in his constitution inclining him to sin. Body and soul were absolutely perfect in their organization. There was no proclivity, no bias, in the wrong direction. Man was the very likeness of his Maker, with no more disposition or inclination to evil than in the holy nature of God.

The terms of the probation were definitely understood. This is essential to all fairness and equity when the principle of obedience is to be tested. Acts which proceed from ignorance or accident are not to be confounded with the intelligent and purposed infraction of positive injunctions. When serpent subtlety suggested the first temptation to the mind of Eve, she quickly repelled it, on the ground that the act to which she was solicited was forbidden by the express interdict of the Creator ; thus proving that the first condition of legal probation was complied with, in that the test of obedience was well and perfectly understood.