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Man therefore having been thus created, male and female, from their blood under the divine blessing is generated the whole human race. And although this generation is common to man and beasts, that similarity by no means detracts from the glory of our original formation; that we are vessels of God, fashioned by his own hand; that he is our potter and we his clay; as Isaiah speaks in his 64th chapter. Nor does this solemn state of things pertain to our original only, but pervades our whole life, and even unto death and in the tomb we are still the clay of this Potter!

From this same creation of man also we may learn, what the real power of free will is, of which our adversaries boast so much. We have indeed in a certain sense a free will, in those things which are put under us. For we are by the command of God appointed lords of the fishes of the sea, of the fowls of heaven and of the beasts of the field. These we kill when we please. We enjoy the food, and other blessings they supply. But in the things pertaining unto God, which are above us and not put under us, man has no free-will at all. But he is in reality as clay in the hand of the potter. He is placed under the mere power of God, passively and not actively. In this our real position we choose nothing, we do nothing. On the contrary we are chosen, we are prepared, we are regenerated; we receive only; as the prophet Isaiah saith, "Thou art our potter; we are thy clay," Is. 64:8.

But here a lawful and holy inquiry of a new description may be made. As Moses speaks of the creation of man here in a new phraseology, "And Jehovah God formed man of the dust of the ground;" and as he did not use the same form of expression above, when the other living creatures were created, so he here mentions a further distinction in man which is not said of any other animate creature: "And God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life." This Moses does not say in reference to any of the beasts, though all beasts, as well as man, have the breath of life in their nostrils. We may here therefore sacredly inquire first, why it is that Moses is here led to speak thus. And secondly, why it is recorded in this place concerning man only, that God "breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul," when all animals throughout the whole Scripture are called "living creatures." The divine expressions recorded by Moses above are, "Let the earth bring forth every living creature after his kind." But here the phraseology is altogether changed, "And man became a living soul."

These were the things that, doubtless, moved the patriarchs, the holy fathers and prophets of old, to examine diligently passages of this description in order to discover what these singular forms of speech might signify, being assured that the sacred historian intended by them something peculiar and great and especially worthy of knowledge.

For if you look at the mere animal life of which Moses is here speaking, there is no difference between the man and the ass. For the animal life in both stands in need of meat and drink. It needs sleep and rest. The bodies of both grow and are fattened alike by meat and drink. And from the want of meat and drink both waste and perish alike. In both the stomach receives the food and transmits it when digested to the belly, which generates the blood, by which all the members are refreshed and restored. When we consider these things in themselves, I say, there is no difference between the man and the beast. But Moses in this place so exalts the life of man that he says of him alone of all animals, that he "became a living soul;" not a living creature or a living thing like all the beasts of the earth, but in a more exalted sense "a living soul;" and that, because he was created "in the image of God," which image there can be no doubt whatever, shone with a peculiar brightness in the countenances of Adam and Eve, while yet in their state of innocence. Hence it is that even after the sin and fall, the heathen poets, etc., concluded from the position of his body, from his upright carriage and from the elevation of his eyes to heaven, that man was a creature far more excellent than any other creature in existence.

It is to this surpassing excellency that St. Paul refers when he recites the passage before us in 1 Cor. 15:45. It is there written, "The first man Adam became a living soul. The last Adam became a life-giving spirit." By a living soul in this passage the apostle means the animal life, which consists in eating, drinking, growing, sleeping, generating, etc.; all which are found also in brutes. But by an antithesis he says that "the last Adam was made a life-giving spirit." This is a life which needs not, and knows not, the conditions of the animal life. Paul moreover here teaches us that Adam, even if he had not sinned, would yet have lived a corporeal life; a life which would have needed meat, drink and rest; a life which would have grown, increased and generated, etc., until God should have translated him to that spiritual life, in which he would have lived without natural animality, if I may so express it; namely, a life from within, derived from God alone; and not a life from without as before, sustained by herbs and fruits. And yet he would have been a man with body and bones, etc., and not a pure spirit, as angels are.

My reply therefore to the new inquiry, above admitted, is this: God by the mouth of Moses speaking in the passage before us designed to set forth the hope of that future and eternal life which Adam, if he had continued in his innocency, would have enjoyed after this present animal life. As if Moses had said, Man became a living soul; not merely in the sense of that life which beasts live, but in the sense of that life which God afterwards designed Adam to live, even without any animal life at all. And this same hope of immortality or an immortal life, we now have through Christ. Although on account of sin we are subject to death and all kinds of calamity. But Adam's natural life, when he became a living soul, was designed to be far exalted above that which we now live since the fall. He would have lived on earth sweetly, happily and with the highest pleasure; and then would have been translated at the time determined in the mind of God, out of the animal life into the spiritual and eternal life; and that translation would have been attended with no pain or trouble whatever. Whereas we are not translated out of this animal life into the life spiritual and eternal, but by death; and that, after an infinity of evils, perils and crosses.

It was after this manner that we ought, like the holy prophets, diligently to look into all these expressions of Moses, and to inquire why it is that, with such depth of purpose and design, he speaks concerning man in terms so different from those he used when speaking of all other living creatures. The design evidently was that our faith and hope of immortality might be confirmed, and that we might be assured that although the life of man as to his animal life is like that of all other living creatures, even of brutes, yet that he possesses a hope of immortality unpossessed by, and wholly unknown to, any other living creature; that he possesses and bears the image and similitude of God, with no particle of which any other animal is dignified or favored.

And thus by a most beautiful allegory, or rather by a most excellent figure, Moses here intimates, though obscurely, that God would become incarnate. For with reference to man's differing in no respect from a sheep, as to his animal life, though created in the image and after the similitude of God; that assertion is in fact, a kind of statement by contraries, as they term it in the schools; or, according to another term of theirs, an addition by opposition. And yet as man was created in the image of the invisible God, by this sublime fact is signified in obscure figure, as we shall hereafter hear from Moses, that God would reveal himself in this world in the Man, Christ. These seeds as it were of the greatest and most marvelous things, did the prophets diligently search out and gather from the divine historian Moses.

PART II. PARADISE

I. V. 8. And Jehovah God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed.

Here rises before us a whole sea of questions concerning paradise. In the first place, the word itself, whether it be Hebrew, Chaldean or Persian, for I do not think it is Greek, though Suidas endeavors to discover a Greek origin, is rendered by the Latins hortus, "a garden." This garden, Moses says, was planted BE EDEN, in Eden. For this name of the place is not appellative or descriptive, as our translation renders it, "paradise of pleasure." EDEN does, indeed, signify pleasure or delight, and from this name of the garden is doubtless formed the Greek word adona, but the preposition being here added to it plainly proves that Eden is in this place to be taken for the proper name of a place; which is further proved by the particular description of the place, for the garden is said to have been to the eastward of it. Our translation renders it a principio, "from the beginning," which is also a bad version of the expression. For the original term is MIKKEDEM, which does not properly signify "from the beginning," but "in front," that is according to our mode of expression and meaning, "toward the East." For the original word is an adverb of place, not of time.

Hence there arises here another matter of dispute, as to where paradise is. Commentators puzzle and rack themselves on this point in an extraordinary manner. Some will have its situation to be under the equator between the two tropics. Others say it must have been a more temperate atmosphere, to cause a place to be so richly and abundantly productive. But why should I proceed? Opinions upon the subject are beyond number. My short and simple reply to them all is, that every question upon a place or thing which no longer exists, is idle and useless. For Moses is here describing things which occurred before the Flood and even before sin was in the world. Whereas, we have to deal with things as they were and are since the sin of Adam and since the Deluge.

My belief is therefore that this spot of earth was called Eden, either by Adam or in the time of Adam, on account of that astonishing productiveness and that delightful pleasurableness, which Adam experienced in it, and that the name of a place so delightful, remained with posterity long after the place itself was lost and gone. Just as the names of Rome, Athens and Carthage exist among us at this day, though scarcely any traces of those mighty states and kingdoms can now be discovered.

For time and the curse which sins merit consume all things. When therefore the world with all the men and beasts upon it was destroyed by the Flood, this noble and beautiful garden perished also, and all traces of it were washed away from the face of the earth. In vain therefore do Origen and others enter upon their absurd disputations. The text moreover says that this garden was guarded by an angel, lest any one should enter it. Even if this garden therefore had not perished by the curse which followed, as doubtless it did, yet man's entrance into it is thus absolutely and forever prevented, as is indicated by the guardian angel's flaming sword. Its place can nowhere be found. This latter answer concerning the curse might be given to all questioners and disputers, though the former argument concerning the inevitable consequences of the Deluge, I deem less imaginative and more conclusive.

But what shall we say to that text of the New Testament, "Today shalt thou be with me in paradise," Luke 23:43? And to that passage also, "He was caught up into paradise," 2 Cor. 12:4? I have no hesitation whatever in affirming that Christ did not go with the thief into any corporeal place. For that point is made quite plain from the case of Paul, who says, "that he knew not whether he was in the body, or out of the body," verses 2 and 3. Wherefore my opinion is that in each case by paradise is meant that condition or state in which Adam was, when in paradise, full of peace and rest and safety, and full of all those gifts of blessedness, which are enjoyed where there is no sin and no death. As if Christ had said, today shalt thou be with me in paradise, free from sin, and safe from death. Just as Adam in Paradise was free from sin and from all death and from all curse. Thus I believe paradise to be a paradise state. Just as the Scriptures, when speaking of the bosom of Abraham, does not mean the very fold of the robe which covered the bosom of Abraham, but descriptively that life or state of life in which the souls of the departed enjoy the heavenly life, and the peace and rest which "remain for the people of God," Heb. 4:9.

Wherefore my testimony concerning this text is, that Moses is here giving us an historical description and informing us that there was a certain place toward the East, in which there was a most beautiful and fruitful garden. For, as I have before said, the Hebrew expression MIKKEDEM properly signifies a place, not a time, as our version improperly renders it. Hence it is usual with the Hebrews to call the East wind KADIM, a dry cold wind which parches the fields. In that region of the world therefore was paradise or a garden, in which there were no teil-trees, nor oaks, nor scarlet-oaks, nor any other trees that were barren, but the richest and noblest fruits of every kind and trees of the noblest description; such as we now deem those to be which bear cinnamon and the richest spices. And although all the rest of the earth was cultivated, for there were as yet no thistles nor thorns, yet this place had its far higher cultivation. This Eden was a delightful garden, exceeding in cultivation and fecundity the whole earth besides. Though all the rest of the earth, if compared with its present miserable condition, was itself a paradise.

It was in this garden, which he himself had planted with such peculiar care, that the Lord placed man. All these things, I say, are historical. It is idle for us therefore to inquire at the present day, where or what that garden was. The rivers, of which Moses afterwards speaks, prove that the region of its situation comprehended Syria, Mesopotamia, Damascus and Egypt, and it is in the midst of these as it were that Jerusalem is situated. And as this garden was destined for Adam with his posterity, it is in vain for us to imagine it to have been a confined garden of a few miles extent. It was doubtless the greater and better part of the earth. And my judgment is, that this garden continued until the Deluge; and that before the Flood it was protected by God himself, according to the description of Moses, by a guard of angels. So that I believe it to have been a place well known to the posterity of Adam, though inaccessible to them. And my opinion is, that it continued thus known until the Flood utterly destroyed it and left no traces of it remaining. Such is my mind on this subject. And such is my reply to all questions which over curious men would move concerning a place, which after the sin and the Deluge had no longer any existence or trace of former existence.

Origen however is dissatisfied with any view of the extent of the garden of Eden, corresponding to that which I have taken. His opinion is that the distance of the rivers ought by no means to determine the dimensions of the garden. But he is thinking all the time about such gardens as we now generally cultivate. Hence he has recourse in his usual way to an allegory. He makes paradise to represent heaven; the trees, angels; and the streams of rivers, wisdom. But these triflings are unworthy a divine. They may perhaps not be unbecoming an imaginative poet; but they are out of place in a theologian. Origen bears not in mind that Moses is here writing a history; and that, too, a record of things, now long ago passed away.

After this same fashion do our adversaries absurdly dispute at the present day holding that the image and similitude of God still remain, even in a wicked man. They would, in my judgment speak much nearer the truth, if they were to say that the image of God in man has perished and disappeared; just as the original world and paradise have done. Man in the beginning was righteous; the world in the beginning was most beautiful. Eden was in truth a garden of delight and of pleasure. But all these things were deformed by sin and remain deformed still. All creatures, yea even the sun and the moon, have as it were put on sackcloth. They were all originally "good," but by sin and the curse they became defiled and noxious. At length came the greater curse of the Flood, which destroyed paradise and the whole human race, and swept them from the face of the earth. For if at this day rivers, bursting their banks, inflict by their floods such mighty calamities on men, beasts and fields, what must we suppose to have been the awfulness and horror of the calamities brought upon the earth by the universal Deluge! Whenever therefore we would speak of paradise, since the Flood, let us speak of that now historical paradise, which was once, but now has no longer existence in any trace. Let us speak of it just as we are compelled to speak of the original innocence of man. In doing so our utmost effort can effect no more than to reflect with a sigh that it is lost, and that we never can repair or regain it in this life.

But further, as Moses had before distinguished man in various ways from the brutes, which nevertheless have the same origin as we have, brutes being formed like us from the earth; so the divine historian in this place distinguishes man from every other creature by giving a description of that peculiarly delightful garden, and that superb dwelling-place, which God had planted with great care and culture, and prepared with magnificent splendor, far beyond anything of the kind which he had bestowed on any other spot upon the face of the earth at that time.

For the principal object of Moses in his sacred record of the creation of man was to cause it to be clearly understood that man was by far the noblest and most excellent creature, which God had made. The brute animals had the earth, on the grass of which they might feed. But for man, God himself prepared a more noble dwelling-place, in the cultivation and adorning of which he might labor with extreme pleasure, and in which he might find his food, separated from the beasts indeed, but nevertheless holding all of them throughout the whole earth under his dominion.

Therefore Origen, Jerome and all the other allegorists are alike involved in the greatest folly, who because they can no longer find a paradise on the face of the earth think that some other sense than the natural one is to be given in its interpretation. But that there was a paradise and that there is a paradise are two very different subjects for consideration. Moses, as is the general nature of all such narrations, merely records that there was a paradise. The case is the same in reference to Adam's dominion over all the beasts. He could call the lion, and command and manage him, according to his will and pleasure; but it is not so now. All these glorious things are no more. They are simply and merely, though sacredly, recorded by Moses as having been in the beginning.

Another question is here agitated, as to the spot of the earth where God created man. There are some who maintain with great warmth that he was created in or near Damascus; because they find it recorded that the soil of Damascus is red and fertile. But I pass by all idle and vain inquiries of this description. It is enough for us to know that man was formed out of the earth on the sixth day after all the other animals had been created, and that he was placed by God himself in the garden of Eden. But as to the very spot on which he was created, what necessity is there for our knowing that? It is certain that he was created out of paradise. For the text before us declares that he was removed to or placed in paradise, before Eve was created who, as Moses here shows, was created in paradise.

Now let us proceed to that which follows:

V. 9a. And out of the ground made Jehovah God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food.

The contents of this verse properly belong to the description of paradise. For although the whole earth had been so created as naturally to bring forth trees and herbs, with their fruits and seeds, yet this garden of Eden had its peculiar cultivation. A similitude illustrative of the case before us may be derived from things as they now are among us. Woods and fields bring forth their trees. But when we select a place as a garden for special cultivation, the fruits of the garden are always more excellent than those of the field. So paradise, having been created for and devoted to peculiar cultivation, beyond that which was bestowed on any other part of the earth, was adorned with trees delightful to the sight, whose fruits were sweet to the taste and for use. When therefore God said, in the first chapter, verse 29, "Behold I have given you every herb and every tree for food:" by that meat was meant necessary food. But paradise supplied food for pleasure and delight; fruits better, sweeter and more delicious than those which the trees of any other part of the earth produced. On these the beasts also fed.

II. V. 9b. The tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge (scientiae) of good and evil.

Moses so describes paradise that he makes God himself as it were the cultivator of it; as a cultivator, who after he has planted a garden with the greatest care according to his pleasure, selects this and that tree from the rest, which he tills and loves as particular favorites. One of these trees was "the tree of life," a tree created to the end that man by feeding on it might be preserved with a sound body, free from diseases, and not subject to fatigue.

Here again we find the man, whom God first created, highly distinguished from the brutes; not only by the delightful spot in which God placed him, but also by the exalted privilege of a longer life, a life always continuing in the same state. Whereas the bodies of all other living creatures grow in youth and increase in strength, but in old age decay and perish. But the original condition of man was intended to be far different. Had he continued in his innocence he would have enjoyed his meat and his drink; a change of his meat and drink and a conversion of them into blood would have taken place in his body, but that commutation would not have been impure and foul as it is now. This tree of life moreover would have preserved him in perpetual youth, nor would he have experienced any of the afflictions or inconveniences of old age. His brow would have contracted no wrinkles, nor would his foot nor his hand nor any other part of his body have known weakness or languor. By the blessing of the fruit of this tree man's powers would have remained perfect for generation and for labor of every kind; until at length he should have been translated from this corporeal to his spiritual life. The other trees would have supplied him with food the most excellent and the most delicious; but this "tree of life" would have been as it were a general medicine which would have preserved his natural life and powers in perpetual and complete vigor.

Some may here interpose the question, How could this corporeal food or natural fruit effect such a conservation of the body as to prevent it from being weakened or debilitated by time? The reply is easy and divine. "He spake, and it was done!" Ps. 33:9. For if God can make bread of a stone, why should he not be able to preserve the natural powers of man by a fruit? Even since the sin of the fall we see what powerful properties the smallest herbs and seeds possess.

Look for a moment at our own bodies. Whence comes that peculiar property of their nature that bread, eaten by them, is by their natural heat digested and converted into blood, by the circulation of which the whole body is strengthened and confirmed? Now bring together all the fires and all the furnaces of the universe, you cannot produce by them all this one single effect, the conversion of bread into blood. But this mighty effect is produced by that small degree of heat, which our natural bodies contain. There is no room for wonder therefore that this tree should have become by the will of the Lord, its Planter and Maker, "The tree of life!"

Adam possessed a natural and movable body, a body which generated, ate and labored. These exertions are considered to produce decay or at least some kind of change, by which at length man is naturally worn out and destroyed. But by this appointment of nature, "the tree of life," God provided a remedy, by the use of which man might have a long and sound life, without any diminution of his powers and in perpetual youth.

Thus all these things are historical facts. This is a point which I am repeatedly admonishing every hearer and reader to bear in mind, lest he should be stumbled by the authority of some of the fathers, who leaving pure and positive history turn aside to hunt allegories. It is on this ground that I am so partial to Lyra and so willingly rank him with the best of commentators. He always carefully abides by and follows history. And although he sometimes permits himself to be swayed by the authority of the fathers, yet he never suffers himself to be turned aside by their authority from the plain and real sense of any portion of the Scriptures to allegories.

But much more wonderful is that which Moses here speaks concerning "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil." For here we have to inquire, what this tree was, why it was so called and what would have been the consequence, or result, if there had not been this tree in paradise. Augustine and those who follow him rightly consider the matter, when they observe that the tree was so called from that which was shortly to take place and to be ordained concerning it; and from the solemn consequences which followed. For Adam had been so created and the garden of Eden so planted and constituted that if any inconvenience had occurred to his natural body and life, he had a protection against it and remedy for it in "the tree of life," which could preserve his powers and the perfection of his health at all times. Wherefore if Adam had thus remained in his innocency, wholly swallowed up in the goodness of his Creator and in the bountiful provision which that goodness had made for him on every side and in every way, he might have acknowledged God his Creator throughout that life of innocence and might have governed all the beasts according to his will, not only without the least painful toil or trouble, but also with the highest pleasure. For all things had been so created as to afford man the extreme of pleasure and delight without the least degree of evil or harm.

After Adam therefore had been so created and so surrounded with every blessing that he was intoxicated as it were with joy in God and with delight in all the other creatures around him, God then creates a new tree, a tree of knowledge and of distinction between good and evil, in order that Adam by means of that tree might have a certain sign of worship and reverence of God. For after all things had been delivered into the hand of Adam that he might enjoy them according to his will or according to his pleasure, God next requires of him that by means of this "tree of the knowledge of good and evil" he should show his reverence and obedience towards God as his Creator; and that he should hold fast, as a sign of this exercise of his obedient worship of God, that he would not taste any of the fruit of this tree; thus refraining, as in obedience to God's prohibition.

All therefore that Moses has hitherto said have been things natural or domestic, or political, or judicial, or medicinal. The present however is theological. For here the Word of God concerning this "tree of the knowledge of good and evil" is set before Adam, in order that by means of this tree he might have a certain outward sign of the worship of God and of obedience to God, to be performed by him in his nature, as man, by the duty and service of an external work. Even as the Sabbath, of which we have spoken above, pertains more especially to the performance of the internal and spiritual worship of God; such as faith, love, calling upon God in prayer, etc.

But alas! alas! the true institution of this external worship and obedience toward God has been attended with the most disgraceful results. For we find at the present day that the Word of God, than which nothing is more holy, nothing more blessed, is an offense unto the wicked. Baptism also was instituted of Christ, as the washing of regeneration. But has not this divine institution become a great scandal and excitement of offense by means of various sects? Has not the whole doctrine of baptism been distressingly corrupted? And yet, what was more necessary to us than this very institution of baptism? It was most necessary in order that the animal man should have some correspondingly animal or outward worship; that is, some outward sign of worship and reverence of God, by which he might exercise an obedience towards God even in his body.

The present text therefore truly belongs to the church and to theology. After God had given to man a polity or national government, and also an economy or the principles of domestic government, and had constituted him king over all creatures, and had moreover appointed for him as a protective remedy the tree of life, for the conservation of his corporeal or natural life, God now erects for him a temple as it were, that he might worship his Creator, and give thanks unto that God who had bestowed upon him all these rich and bountiful blessings. So at this day we have churches and an altar in them for the celebration of the holy communion or supper of our Lord; we have pulpits also, or elevated chairs, for teaching the people. And all these things are thus prepared, not on account of necessity only, for the sake of solemnity also. But this tree of the knowledge of good and evil was itself to Adam his church, his altar, his pulpit; near or under which, as the place appointed of God, he might perform his acts of obedience to God, might acknowledge the Word and the Will of God, might offer his thanks to God, and in which spot he might also call upon God in prayer against temptations.