Section i. Observations on the State of Man, in Moses’s Paradise on the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and on the Tree of Life: With Speculations on the Divine Prohibition to Man, Not to Eat of the Fruit of the Former of Those Trees, Interspersed with Remarks on the Mortality of Innocent Man.
The mortality of animal life, and the dissolution of that of the vegetable, has been particularly considered in chapter three, section four, treating on physical evils. We now proceed to make an application of those arguments, in the case of our reputed first parents, whose mortality is represented by Moses to have taken place in consequence of their eating of the forbidden fruit.
Moses in his description of the garden of Eden acquaints us with two chimerical kinds of fruit trees, which, among others, he tells us were planted by God in the place appointed for the residence of the new made couple; the one he calls by the name of “the tree of knowledge of good and evil,” and the other by the name of “the tree of life.” And previous to his account of the apostacy, he informs us, that God expressly commanded the man and woman, saying, “be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth; and God said, behold I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon, the face of all the earth, and every tree, in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed, to you it shall be for meat.” Again, “and the Lord commanded the man saying, of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat, but of the tree of knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat of it, for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” “And the Lord said, it is not good for man to be alone, I will make him an help meet for him; and the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept, and he took out one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof, and the rib which the Lord God had taken from man made he a woman.”
Thus it appears from Moses’s representation of the state of man’s innocency, that he was commanded by God to labor, and to replenish the earth; and that to him was given the dominion over the creatures, and that at two several times he was licensed by God himself to eat of every of the fruit of the trees, and of the herbage, except of the tree of knowledge of good and evil; and because it was not good that the man should be alone, but that he might multiply and replenish the earth, our amorous mother Eve, it seems, was formed, who I dare say well compensated father Adam for the loss of his rib.
This short description of man’s state and condition in innocency, agrees with the state and circumstances of human nature at present. Innocent man was required to labor and subdue the earth, out of which he was to be subsisted; had a license to eat of the fruit of the trees, or herbage of the garden, which pre-supposeth that his nature needed refreshment the same as ours does; for otherwise it would have been impertinent to have granted him a privilege incompatible with his nature, as it would have been no privilege at all, but an outright mockery, except we admit, that innocent human nature was liable to decay, needed nutrition by food, and had the quality of digestion and perspiration; or in fine, had the same sort of nature as we have; for otherwise he could eat but one belly-full, which without digestion would remain the same, and is too romantic to have been the original end and design of eating. And though there is nothing mentioned by Moses concerning his drinking, yet it is altogether probable, that he had wit enough to drink when he was thirsty. That he consisted of animal nature is manifest, not only from his being subjected to subdue the earth, out of which he was to be subsisted, and from his eating and drinking, or his susceptibility of nutrition by food, but also from his propensity to propagate his kind; for which purpose a helpmate was made for him.
Nothing could more fully evince, that Moses’s innocent progenitors of mankind, in that state, were of a similar nature to ours, than their susceptibility of propagating the species; and as they required nutrition, their nature must have had the quality or aptitude of digestion and perspiration, and every property that at present we ascribe to an animal nature; from hence we infer, that death, or mortality, must have been the necessary consequence. What would have prevented them from having been crushed to death by a fall from a precipice, or from suffering death by any other casualty, to which human nature is at present liable? will any suppose that the bodies of those premised innocent progenitors of the human race were invulnerable; were they not flesh and blood? surely they were, for otherwise they could not have been male and female; as it was written, “male and female created he them:” and inasmuch as animal life has, from its original, consisted of the same sort of nature, and been propagated and supported in the same manner, and obnoxious to the same fate, it would undoubtedly, in the premised day of Adam, required the same order in the external system of nature, which it does at present, to answer the purposes of animal life.
Was it possible that the laws of nature, which merely respect gravitation, could be and were suspended, so as not to be influential on matter, our world would be immediately disjointed and out of order, and confusion would succeed its present regularity; in the convulsions whereof animal life could not subsist. So that not only the laws which immediately respect animal nature in particular, but the laws which respect our solar system, must have been the same in man’s innocency, as in his whimsically supposed state of apostacy; and consequently, his mortality the same. From hence we infer, that the curses, which Moses informs us of in chapter three: as being by God pronounced upon man, saying, “dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return,” could not have been any punishment, inflicted as a penalty for eating the forbidden fruit; for turn to dust he must have done, whether he eat of it or not; for that death and dissolution was the inevitable and irreversible condition of the law of nature, which wholly precludes the curse, of which Moses informs us, from having any effect on mankind.
The story of the “tree of life” is unnatural. And there being but one of the kind, it may be called an only tree, the world not having produced another of the sort; the fruit of which, according to Moses, had such an efficacious quality, that had Adam and Eve but eaten thereof, they would have lived forever. “And now lest he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever.” To prevent which, they are said to be driven out of the garden, that the eating thereof might not have reversed the sentence of God, which he had previously pronounced against them, denouncing their mortality. “So he drove out the man, and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden, cherubims, and a flaming sword, which turneth every way to keep the way of the tree of life.” A bite of this fruit it seems would have reinstated mankind, and spoiled priestcraft. Yet it is observable, that there are no travellers or historians, who have given any accounts of such a tree, or of the cherubims or flaming sword, which renders its existence disputable, and the reality of it doubtful and improbable; the more so, as that part of the country, in which it is said to have been planted, has for a long secession of ages been populously inhabited.
Yet it may be objected, that the tree may have rotted down and consumed by time. But such conjectures derogate from the character of the quality of the tree. It seems, that so marvellous a tree, the fruit of which would have preserved animal life eternally, would have laughed at time, and bid defiance to decay and dissolution, and eternally have remained in its pristine state under the protection of the flaming sword, as a perpetual evidence of the divine legation of Moses, and the reality of man’s apostacy for ever. But alas! it is no where to be found, it is perished from off the face of the earth, and such a marvellous fruit is no more, and consequently no remedy against mortality remains.
Section ii. Pointing Out the Natural Impossibility of All and Every of the Diverse Species of Biped Animals, Commonly Termed Man, to have Lineally Descended from Adam and Eve, or from the Same Original Progenitors.
It is altogether improbable and manifestly contradictory to suppose, that the various and diverse nations and tribes of the earth, who walk upon two legs, and are included under the term man, have or possibly could have descended by ordinary generation, from the same parents, be they supposed to be who they will.
Those adventurers,-who have sailed or travelled to the several parts of the globe, inform us, in their respective histories, that they find the habitable part of it more or less populated by one kind or other of rational animals, and that considered as tribes or nations, there is evidently a gradation of intellectual capacity among them, some more exalted and others lower in the scale of being; and that they are specially diverse from each other with respect to their several animal natures............