deep sleep of this sort Daniel was made to understand a vision that appeared to him." And Job in like manner, in tardemah, a deep sleep of this kind, when a vision of the night fell upon him, saw a spirit passing before his face, an image before his eyes, and heard a voice. Abram' in tardemah, this depth of sleep, had a very signal revelation made to him; and, accordingly, such was the tardemah, deep sleep, which on the occasion before us fell on Adam. Whether, abstracted from all impressions of his outward senses, he saw, as Balaam speaks, a vision of the Almighty; as the book of Job mentions, a spirit, an image, before him,' actually performing what was done to him, I cannot determine. But, as Moses has no where said, that Adam ever saw any similitude or appearance to represent God; I rather think, that God was pleased, by impressions, such as the ear usually conveys to the mind, and which God undoubtedly can cause to arise in us, as lively as he pleases, as well without their actually coming through the ear, as if they did come through it; to cause Adam to perceive the same, as if awake he had heard that voice, in which God had before spoken to him, commanding a rib, a bone, to be taken out of him, and seen that it was done; bidding the flesh be closed up instead thereof, and it was so: saying, Let the woman be made

Daniel viii. 19-26. b Gen. xv. 12-16.

Job, ubi sup.

a Job iv. 13, 15, 16.

Numbers xxiv, 16.

We read of no divine ap

f Gen. ii. 21-23.

pearance to any one before the days of Abraham. See Con

nect. b. ix.

hereof, and she was created. Upon Adam's awaking, he found in fact, what in his sleep had been shewed to him the woman, such in reality as he had before apprehended her, was brought to him; i. e. was present before him; and he now using the power of naming things, the exercise of which was upon his mind, as he had just began to practise it, before he fell asleep; having had a clear perception of what had been transacted, said naturally of this new creature; This is now bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man. But I conceive that Adam ended here: for he in no wise added the words which follow; Therefore shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh for Adam could not yet say what it was to be a father or a mother, and therefore could draw no conclusion concerning them. Moses indeed records these words as now spoken, but he does not say that Adam spake them; and our Saviour has told us, that not Adam, but God himself said this to them. It was He who made them, that said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they twain shall be one flesh.'

The last transaction of this first day of Adam's life was, that after the woman was created, God blessed them both, and said unto them what we read in the 28th, 29th, and 30th verses of the first chapter of Genesis; the particulars of which may be sufficiently considered, if I take a general review of the things concerning Adam said and done in this day.

* Gen. ii, 23.

d Ver. 24.

Matth xix. 4, 5.

One of Dr. Burnet's objections to the history of Moses is, that it heaps together too many things for the space of time allotted to them: and indeed this writer has endeavoured to run together a multiplicity of incidents, and to crowd them all into this one day; in order to re present it as having been a day of great hurry and confu sion, rather than such as the day ought to have been, on a cool and deliberate sense of which, and a conduct according to it, depended the life or death; we might say, if there had been no further purpose in the deep counsel of God for us, depended the whole of man. But if we carefully examine, and distinguish what are the facts which Moses ascribes to this one day, and what are not, and in what manner he describes them; we shall see reason to differ widely from this writer. God breathed into Adam the breath of life, and caused him to become a living soul: but Moses in no wise describes Adam, as soon as he began to think, as abounding instantly in a variety of conceptions concerning his own nature, con cerning the Deity, or the works of God, and the fabric of the world. Had Moses brought forth Adam expa tiating in such an unbounded wild of sudden and indi gested apprehensions, there would have been reason to consider whether the human mind would not have hence

k

* Quantillo tempore hæc omnia peracta narrantur-! Quot autem, et quanta, congerenda sunt in huné unum diem! Burnet. Archæol. p. 294. . Gen. ii. 7.

We may see a large field of imagination of this kind most beautifully coloured, but in fact and the reason of the thing mere fancy and romance, in Milton, Par. Lost, b. viii.

fallen into great confusion. But there is a propriety in the manner in which Moses brings Adam into the world: he does not tell us, that in order to take his first sight of things, God set him upon a hill, to look around him over the creation; but God put him into a garden, where a few plain and easy objects surrounded and confined his first views from taking in such variety as would have been too much for him. A bounded shade of trees was a scene, which neither fatigued his eye nor gave a multiplicity of conceptions to his mind. In this silent cover from the many things which were in the world, he hears the voice of God, and finds that he knows what was said to him.

The words now spoken to him, were not such as called him into the midst of things to load him with a multitude of sentiments, either of God, of himself, or of what was in the world; or concerning what were to be the moral and relative duties of his life. The voice of God, as yet, spake to him only of the plain objects then visibly before him; called the lofty plants which he saw, the trees of the garden; told him, that he might eat of them all except one; but commanded him not to eat of that one; for that if he did, he should surely die." And it is remarkable that this one tree was so distinguished from all others by its situation, that it

■ Gen. ii. 16, 17.

• It does not seem to

me determined, that the tree of life stood also in the midst of the garden. Eve seems rather to hint that the forbidden tree stood single and alone in that situation, Gen. iii. 3. Our 9th verse of the second chapter might be pointed and translated

must, at sight, have been known in order to be avoided, before he had time to make observations, to see wherein one tree differed from another.

May we add, that Adam heard the voice of God declare that it was not good that he should be alone; but that a help, which should be his likeness, should be made for him? Suppose that these words conveyed to him, not all the enlarged notions of the wants and imperfections of solitary life, nor the variety of the comforts of social happiness; the ideas of which could not begin and increase in him, sooner or farther, than a knowledge and experience of life raised and improved them and suppose that the words suggested to him no more, than that another person like himself should be made to be with him, and that it was good for him to have it so; (a point, which perhaps if God had not told

thus: "And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food, and the tree of life; in the midst of the garden also, the tree of knowledge of good and evil." And thus this. verse would agree exactly with what Eve said in the next chapter.

Milton supposes

Gen. ii. 18. vide quæ sup. Adam wonderfully able to expatiate upon the unhappiness of solitude, and the benefits of equal society; to say why God might, but man could not, comfortably be alone. The representation he draws is most delightfully poetical. But we can in no wise think considerately, that Adam could as yet have thoughts like these upon the subject. Milton, Par. Lost, b. viii. 365-435.