And by a wholesome necessity *, he was for the future to procure his livelihood by the sweat of his brow, until his death, or dissolution of the body.

The final salvation of our first parents, upon their repentance and obedience in future, was the doctrine of the primitive Jewish and Christian Churches. The author of the book of Wisdom, declares: "WISDOM preserved the first-formed father of the world, who was created alone, and brought him out of his fall; and gave him power to rule all things," Wisd. x. 1, 2. Here, WISDOM denotes the ORACLE, or personified WORD OF GOD, as in Prov. viii. 22-25; Matt. xi. 19; Luke xi. 49; or JESUS CHRIST, Matt. xxiii. 34. And Adam was brought out of his fall, or from the punishment due thereto, when a remedy was promised by the blessed Seed of the woman; through whom he was to be reinstated in his original privileges of dominion, &c. To this very passage St. Paul appears to allude, in his extension of redemption to Ere also:

"For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived; but the woman being deceived, was in the transgression. Nevertheless she [also] shall be saved, by means of the child-bearing; if they [both] remained [for the rest of their lives] in faith, and love, and holiness, with sobriety †," 1 Tim. ii. 14, 15.

THE INSTITUTION OF SACRIFICES.

It is very probable, that sacrifice was instituted immediately after GOD had revealed the covenant of grace, by means of the promised "seed of the woman" in his denunciation to the serpent, Gen. iii. 15. That promise was the first stone that was laid toward the erection of this glorious building, the work of

Virgil well expresses it :

PATER IPSE, colendi

Haud facilem esse viam voluit, primusque per artem
Movit agros: curis acuens mortalia corda.

GEORGIC.

In this difficult and much contested passage, we may, with the judicious Hammond, understand dia rηg TeKvOyoviag to refer to the bearing the promised Seed, or CHRIST : the salvation of Eve, owinσerat, to include the salvation of Adam, a fortiori; which will account for the plural aorist, ɛav μevov, "if they remained," both Adam and Eve, in the observance of their several duties of faith or trust in the divine promise, of love, or gratitude, and holiness of life, with sobriety, or moderation in the indulgence of their appetites.

Redemption, through JESUS CHRIST," the chief corner stone," to crown and complete the whole, at the consummation of all things, Ephes. ii. 20. And the next stone that was laid upon that, was the institution of sacrifice, to be a type or significant emblem of the great atonement, or all-sufficient sacrifice of “the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sins of the repentant and believing world," John i. 29, thus "slain for us, from the foundation of the world," Rev. xiii. 8.

After God had pronounced sentence on all the offending parties, we are next told, that "the Lord God made to Adam and his wife, coats of skins, and clothed them." Instead of the slight and imperfect covering they had made for themselves, God now taught them to make more substantial, to protect them from the inclemency of the weather in their new abode, when excluded from Paradise.

These coats are supposed, by the generality of divines, to have been made of the skins of beasts slain in sacrifice, by the Divine appointment. They could not have been slain for food: because in Paradise, man was only allowed to eat of its "fruits;" and after his expulsion, of " the herb of the field:" the grant of flesh-meat was not given till after the deluge, to Noah and his family, Gen. ix. 3. For sacrifice, therefore, no other reasonable cause can be assigned. What temptation could have induced our first parents to shed the blood of unoffending animals? a deed so revolting to their feelings and to their reason; to which, nothing short of a divine injunction would naturally have compelled them. In animal sacrifices, the blood, in which was the principle of life, was devoted to GOD, as an atonement for the forfeited life of the sacrificer, Levit. xvii. 11. But this symbolical atonement could only have been appointed by Him with whom are "the issues of life and death," GOD himself; whose sole prerogative it is "to kill and to make alive, to wound and to heal," Deut. xxxii. 39. The death of the victim was also wisely appointed to be a mournful presage to our first parents, as often as they were required to sacrifice, of that death which they had incurred by their transgression, and to be inflicted on them

This is beautifully expressed by Milton, and expanded,

"Nor HE their outward only with the skins

Of beasts, but inward nakedness, (much more

Opprobrious) with his robe of righteousness

Arraying, covered from his FATHER'S sight." P. L. B. x.

selves, they knew not how soon. Sacrifice, therefore, furnished a useful memento of their own death.

Besides their positive transgression, our first parents seem also to have been guilty of a sin of omission, not usually noticed, but implied in the reason assigned for their expulsion from Paradise in the divine council; namely, a continual neglect to partake of the fruit of the tree of life, that sacramental sign and pledge of immortality, during the golden opportunity of their residence there. "And the LORD GOD said, Behold, the man is become [in his own imagination] as one of Us, [Gods,] to know good and evil; [by eating of the forbidden tree of knowledge, at the Devil's suggestion;] and now, lest he [presumptuously] put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and live for ever: therefore, the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.” "So he drove out the man [and the woman,] and [to prevent any one from entering it again] He placed at the east of [or before] the garden of Eden, Cherubims, and a flaming sword, which turned every way, to keep the way to the tree of life.”

THE SHECHINAH, OR DIVINE PRESENCE, AT PARADISE.

"This flaming sword," or as it may be rendered, by a usual enallage, “sword-like, or pointed flame," is generally considered as a sensible symbol of the divine presence: resembling, perhaps, the flame that appeared to Moses in the bush, Exod. iii. 2; or, that afterwards rested on the heads of the Apostles at the day of Pentecost, in the form of "fiery tongues," or tongue-like flames, Acts i. 3, and was here "placed," or stationed, between two Cherubim, or glorious angels; according to the interpretation of the ancient Targums *, furnishing, probably, the original archetype of the Shechinah, (from 1, shachan, he placed) in the first tabernacle in the wilderness, and of the second, in Solomon's temple.

One design of this symbol of the Divine presence, was by "turning every way," or darting its refulgent beams all around,

"And drove out the man, and stationed his majesty of old between the two cherubim, on the east of the garden of Eden." Targum Jerusalem.

"Then He drove out the man. From which time, He stationed the glory of his divinity of old between two Cherubim." Targum Jonathan.

to bar all access to the garden on every side. But in the midst of judgment, God remembered mercy; a further, and most gracious design of its residence here, was "to keep (or preserve) the way to the tree of life" by keeping up or maintaining the practice of religious public worship, at this place, among Adam and his righteous descendants.-"The terrestrial paradise, indeed, was shut soon after the fall of man; nor is it now subsisting any where: but the way to the celestial one was opened from the first promise that was given of a REDEEMER." As judiciously remarked by Peters, on Job, p. 402, edit. 2. Paradise was lost by the first Adam: but it was regained by the second, CHRIST JESUS. Speaking in the person of CHRIST before his passion, the inspired Psalmist declares, “Thou wilt shew me the path of life; in thy presence is fulness of joy, and at thy right hand pleasures for evermore," Psalm xvi. 11; thus elegantly alluding to the second tree of life, and the Shechinah in the celestial Paradise; so admirably described in the Apocalypse, according to the following masterly explanation given by Lord Barrington, in his Miscellanea Sacra, vol. iii. p. 48.

"To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God, Rev. ii. 7. The tree of life here signifies life and immortality, Rev. xxii. 2. It bears twelve manner of fruits, and fresh fruit every month, to shew that there will be no failure of its fruit, and that the fruit will be always in the greatest perfection: which is to signify, that the immortality of those who can take of its fruit will be preserved. It is said to grow in the midst of the street of the heavenly Jerusalem †, in allusion to its growing in the midst of the garden, Gen. ii. 9. And it is said to grow on each side of the river that runs through the street of the heavenly Jerusalem, to

lishumor eth derech, to) לשמר את דרך and the phrase

The verb (Shamar) signifies to keep, or take care of. Thus, Adam was placed in the garden of Eden, “to dress it, and to keep it" [in order,] Gen. iii. 15; "keep the way," is constantly used in the sense of observing or preserving. So, to keep the way of the Lord," Gen. xviii. 19, Judg. ii. 22, is the same, as to "observe and keep his laws," Psalm cv. 45. In the present case, the emphatic article Neth, intimates the true or proper way to the tree of life as in the translation of Junius and Tremellius; ad custodiendum viam ad arborem vitæ ; adopted by Wells, in his Paraphrase: the preposition, to, being understood; and omitted, perhaps, on account of its occurrence immediately before.

xxi. 2.

The holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from GOD out of heaven. Rev.

shew that all men may have constant and easy access to it. Farther, its leaves are said to be for the healing of the nations; that is, of the hurt they had received by Adam's eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. And when they are represented as healed, it is immediately added, that there should be no more curse, Rev. xxii. 3, as there had been on [the ground, for] Adam and Eve's [transgression] after their being placed in the garden. And it is likewise added, that there shall be no more night, ver. 5, which there was in Paradise when the evening and the morning made every day, Gen. i. 5-31. The night being then as well as now, made for rest, and the day for labour. Finally, it is said, ver. 14, Blessed are they that do his commandments; for they shall have a right to eat of the tree of life, i. e. shall be entitled to immortality.

"All these observations plainly shew that relation which the tree of life in the Revelation bears to the original tree of life in Eden; and the allusion to it as a tree preserving life, Gen. ii. 9. This meaning of the tree of life is the more probable, because it makes the history of the fall appear a real history, and not a parable; which it must seem unnatural to suppose an account to be, which is related by an historian who gives us an account of facts, not parables, in all the rest of his writings: and above all, that is the foundation of all the rest of his history, and indeed of all future revelation; for such every one must allow the history of the fall to be."

Though Adam was expelled from the garden of Eden, it is highly probable that he took up his residence in its vicinity; and that he offered the sacrifices prescribed to him by God, especially that of expiation or atonement, in the presence of the Lord, or before the SHECHINAH, at the stated seasons.

CAIN AND ABEL.

The first transaction noticed after the expulsion of Adam and his wife from Paradise, is the birth of their first son, Cain; which probably happened about a year after, and about the 130th year of the world. See Vol. I. p. 280. His name Cain signifies "acquisition," from his mother's declaration, "I have gotten ( Kanithi) a man [from] the Lord," Gen. iv. 1.

The particle N, (eth,)" the," is put elliptically for ♫ND, (meth,) “from the,” as understood Gen. xlix. 25; and expressed, Gen. xix. 24, Josh. xi. 20, Ezek. xxxiii.