Lactantius had a juft fenfe of this paffage, which he expreffes thus. Ipfumque paradifum igni circumvallavit, ne homo poffet accedere. And Grotius agrees with him, though he doth not feem to have been aware of this passage of Lactantius. Senfus eft, fays he, igne impervio obfeptum paradifum.

A learned writer of our own fuppofes, that this fire proceeded from the accenfion of fome inflammable matter, round about the garden; which excluded all comers to it, till fuch time as the beauty of the place was defaced †. And he had very good grounds for this fuppofition: For he refers to several antient writers, Pliny, Plutarch, Strabo, and Curtius; who give an account, that the country about Babylon abounded with an inflammable bitumen, called Naptha; and that there was a cer tain plain, in which it daily flamed out. Their teftimonies are collected by Grotius, on the place.

* Inftit. Div. lib. ii. cap. 12.

+ Nichols, Conf. with a Theift, part I.

‡ Vide Grot. annot. ad locum.

Now

Now here is another instance, near akin to the foregoing ones, wherein God expreffed his fore displeasure at man's tranfgreffion. And if the whole face of nature was thrown into fuch diforder, as hath been obferved, on account of it, it would be thought very ftrange, if the spot, in which the scene of this unhappy event, lay, should escape without any marks of his resentment. It might, on the contrary, be expected, that fome fpecial, and still feverer tokens of it fhould be here exhi bited. Accordingly, as we have seen, that the earth in general trembled, and hove. into mountains at it: So here, moreover, the divine wrath was kindled into a fire. And it is obfervable, that earthquakes, and firy eruptions, often attend each other. This fire burst out, and raged with such, vehemence, as utterly to destroy that delightful habitation, in which God had placed his then innocent creatures; so that it could never afterwards be discover ed, notwithstanding it is fo particularly pointed

to

pointed out, its fite delineated, and its boundaries circumfcribed: Notwithstanding, likewife, the moft diligent fearch hath, age after age, been made for it. God, for wife reasons of his Providence, feems to have made ufe of this, and other means, which will be mentioned prefently, in order to its total deftruction. If the garden of Eden had been fuffered continue undeftroyed, it is. poffible the tempter might have excited his votaries to make it the fcene of fome idolatrous rites or other, to keep up the 'remembrance of his triumph over the Creator for fuch undoubtedly it would be reckoned, as well as over his creatures: To prevent which perhaps it was, that God was determined to deftroy the place; as the body of Mofes was concealed for the like reafon.

It might, however, be proper for Mofes to give a defcription of it; if for no other reafon, yet to fignify, that this was no allegorical paradife that it had an existence in fact that it was fituated on this earth; and

and not any where elfe, as fome, in defpair of finding it here, vainly imagined. At the fame time it ferved to exercise the diligence of many, in their enquiries after it, however fruitless they have hitherto been.

If I may be indulged a conjecture, among others, I apprehend the garden of Eden was planted in a peninsula, formed by the main river of Eden, on the east fide of it, below the confluence of the four feffer rivers, which emptied themselves into it, fomewhere about the 27th degree of north latitude, which is now all swallowed up by the Perfian gulf. From thence, fays Mofes, it, the river that went out of Eden, was parted, or branched out, and became into four heads; that is plainly, to my ap prehenfion, the four fountain-heads of the rivers; for a river can properly have no other head: These he traces the rivers up backwards to, and is very defcriptive in his account of them; they being all well known in his time, and all keeping their diftinct courfes, till they met all together,

4

much

much lower down than they do at present; of which fome proof will be given prefently; however, from various causes, two of these rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates, have fince changed their course, and run into each other; though they separate again, and fall in feveral different branches into the Perfian gulf.

The first river, Pifon, fo called from its irrigating and fertilizing the country it runs through, I take to be that river, which, according to our most approved modern maps, branches out from the Euphrates at Bafra, fomething above lat. 30. and empties itself into the Perfian gulf, fomething below lat. 27.; forming, with the Euphrates and the fea, the isle of Chader. This I take to be the land of Havilah, which this river thus encom paeth; anfwering the defcription with great exactnefs *. There is gold-And the

* This removes a difficulty fuggested by the univerfal hiftorians, of conceiving how a whole land can be encompaffed by a river, without being an island, See vol. i. p. 118.

gold