and a poffeffion, for which no man is too high, nor too low. If we believe the Scriptures," concludes he, "we must allow, that God Almighty esteemed the life of man in a Garden the happiest he could give him; or elfe, he would not have placed Adam in that of Eden "*

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The Garden of Eden had, doubtlefs, all the perfection it could receive from the hands of Him, who ordained it to be the manfion of his favourite creature. We may reasonably prefùme it to have been the earth in miniature, and to have contained specimens of all natural productions, as they appeared, without blemish, in an unfallen world; and these disposed in admirable order, for the poses intended. And it may be obferved, that when, in after times, the penmen of the Scriptures have occafion to describe any remarkable degree of fertility and beauty, of grandeur and magnificence, they refer us to the Garden of Eden. "He beheld all the plain well watered as the Garden of the Lord. The land was as the Garden of Eden before them, but behind them a defolate wilder nefs." The prophet Ezekiel, at the command of God, for an admonition to Pharoah, thus portrays the pride of the Affyrian empire, under the fplendid and majestic imagery afforded by vegetation in its most flourishing state. "The Affyrian was a cedar in Lebanon, fair of branches, and with a shadowing shroud, and of an high stature, and his top was among the thick boughs. The waters made him great, the deep fet him up on high, with her rivers running round about his plants, and fent out her little rivers to all the trees in the field. Therefore his height was exalted above all the trees of

* Sir WILLIAM TEMPLE, Gardens of Epicurus.
‡ Joel i. 3.

† Gen. xiii. 19.

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the field, and his boughs were multiplied, and his branches became long, becaufe of the multitude of waters when he fhot forth. Thus was he fair in his greatnefs, and in the length of his branches: for his root was by great waters. The cedars in the Garden of God could not hide him, nor was any tree in the Garden of God like unto him in his beauty. I have made him fair by the multitude of his branches; so that all the trees of Eden, that were in the Garden of God'envied him.” * After having related the fall of his towering and extensive empire, the prophet makes the application to the king of Egypt; "To whom art thou thus like, in glory and greatnefs, among the trees of Eden? Yet fhalt thou be brought down with the trees of Eden, to the lower parts of the earth." In another place we find the following ironical addrefs to the king of Tyre, as having attempted to rival the true God, and the glories of his Paradife. "Thou fealeft up the fum, full of wifdom, and perfect in beauty. Thou haft been in Eden, the Garden of God; every precious ftone was thy covering-thou waft upon the holy mountain of God-thou waft perfect in thy ways, from the day that thou waft created, until iniquity was found in thee-Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou haft corrupted thy wisdom, by reason of thy brightness: F will caft thee to the ground, I will lay thee before kings, that they may behold thee."+

Traditions and traces of this original Garden feem to have gone forth into all the earth, though, as an elegant writer juftly obfèrves, "they muft be expected to have grown fainter and fainter in every transfufion from one people to another. The Romans probably derived their notion of it, expreffed VOL. I.

* Ezek xxxi. 3, &c.

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† Ezek. xxviii. 12 &c

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in the gardens of Flora, from the Greeks, among whom this idea feems to have been fhadowed out under the stories of the gardens of Alcinous. In Africa they had the gardens of the Hefperides, and in the east those of Adonis. The term of Horti Adonides was used by the ancients to fignify gardens of pleasure, which anfwers ftrangely to the very name of Paradife, or the Garden of Eden.” * In the writings of the poets, who have lavished all the powers of genius and the charms of verfe upon the fubject, these and the like counterfeit or fecondary paradifes, the copies of the true, will live and bloom, fo long as the world itself shall endure.

It hath been already fuggefted, that a Garden is calculated no lefs for the improvement of the mind, than for the exercise of the body; and we cannot doubt, but that peculiar care would be taken of that most important end, in the difpofition of the Garden of Eden.

From the fituation and circumftances of Adam, it should not feem probable, that an all wife and all gracious Creator would leave him in that ftate of ignorance, in which, fince the days of Fauftus Socinus, it hath been but too much the fashion to represent him. For may we not argue in fome fuch manner as the following?

If fo fair a world was created for the use and fatisfaction of his terrestrial part, formed out of the duft, can we imagine, that the better part, the immortal spirit from above, the inhabitant of the fleshly tabernacle prepared for it, fhould be left in a ftate of deftitution and defolation, unprovided with wisdom, its food, its fupport, and its delight? If men, fince the fall, and labouring under all the disadvantages occafioned by it, have been enabled

SPENCE'S Polymetis, cited in Letters on Mythology, P. 126.

bled to make thofe attainments in knowledge, which they certainly have made; and we find the understanding of a Solomon replete with every species of wisdom, human and divine; can we conceive ignorance to have been the characteristic of the first formed father of the world, created with all his powers and faculties complete and perfect, and living under the immediate tuition of God?

If upon the trial of Adam, as the head and reprefentative of mankind, their fate, as well as his own, both in time and eternity, was to depend, can we ever think, his Maker would expose him to such a trial, with a mind not better informed, than that of a child or an idiot?

If redemption restored what was loft by the fall, and the second Adam was a counterpart of the firft, muft we not conceive Adam to have once been what man is, when restored by grace to "the image of God in wisdom and holinefs?" And does not he, who degrades the character of the Son of God * in Paradife, degrade in proportion the character of that other Son of God, and the redemption and restoration which are by him?

Our firft father differed from all his defcendants in this particular, that he was not to attain the use of his understanding by a gradual procefs from infancy, but came into being in full ftature and vigour of mind as well as body. He found creation likewife in its prime. It was morning with man and the world.

We are not certain with regard to the time allowed him, to make his obfervations upon the different objects, with which he found himself furrounded; but it thould feem, either that fufficient time

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* Luke iii. 38.-" Which was the fon of Adam, which was... the Son of God."

time was allowed him for that end, or that he was enabled, in fome extraordinary manner, to pervade their effences, and discover their properties. For we are informed, that God brought the creatures to him, that he might impofe upon them fuitable names; a work which in the opinion of Plato, * must be ascribed to God himfelf. The use and intent of names is to exprefs the natures of the things named; and in the knowledge of those natures, at the beginning, God, who made them, must have been man's inftructor. It is not likely, that without such an instructor, men could ever have formed a language at all; fince it is a task which requires much thought; and the great mafters of reafon feem to be agreed, that, without language, we cannot think to any purpofe. However that may be, from the original impofition of names by our first parent we cannot but infer, that his knowledge of things natural must have been very eminent and extenfive; not inferior, we may fuppofe, to that of his defcendant, king Solomon, who "spake of trees, from the cedar to the hyffop, and of beafts, and fowl, and creeping things and fishes.” It is therefore probable, that Plato afferted no more than the truth, when he afferted, according to the traditions he had gleaned up in Egypt and the east, that the frit man was of all men Φιλοσοφωτατος, the greatest philofopher.

As man was made for the contemplation of God here, and for the enjoyment of him hereafter, we cannot imagine, that his knowledge would terminate on earth, though it took its rife there. Like the patriarch's ladder, its foot was on earth, but its top, doubtless, reached to heaven. By it the mind afcended from the creatures to the Creator, and defcended

* Τα πρωτα ονόματα οι Θ:οι έθεσαν, ---In Cratylo.

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