THE HELP MEET FOR ADAM.

111

the period of its fulfilment, there are related three remarkable circumstances, the naming of the creatures, the sleep of Adam, and the taking from him a rib and building it into a woman. The creatures were brought to Adam to be named, when he began to incline towards himself, that he might review the quality of all his interior affections and thoughts, and so remember their origin and value. They were all pure graces communicated from the Lord, and therefore, the man could not find among them that which is spoken of as the help, meet for him. Nothing of the selfhood was discoverable; his inclination led him to look for it among them, but it was not found. And this circumstance beautifully reveals to us, that all the virtues and graces of a genuine religion acknowledge God to be their exclusive author, and eschew every thing of man.

The manner

But the disposition not to be alone, and the inclination to consider that self had something to do with the production of those excellences, had made some inroad upon men's character, and the result, in process of time, was, that they were led into great obscurity and darkness of thought concerning it. This state was represented by the deep sleep that fell upon Adam. And now the time had come for the Lord to realize his promise. of it is thus described. "The Lord God took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof. And the rib which the Lord God had taken from man, he built into a woman and brought her unto the man.”* Now, if we remember that it is the religious, and not the physical condition of the man, which is here treated of, the difficulty in perceiving the true meaning of these statements will be considerably lessened. The leading ideas so expressed, are, that something was taken from the man, raised into a new condition, gifted with new life, and then presented to him, as an object that might help him, and to which he might be affectionately attached.

That which was taken from him, is called a rib, because it represented selfhood, without spiritual life; this is said to have been built into a woman, to denote, that it was afterwards raised into the condition of such a life; it is then declared, that she was

* Gen. ii. 21, 22. The common version is, "made he a woman," but "built into a woman " is the more correct rendering of the original, and indeed recognized in the marginal readings. It is used in contradistinction to the terms, creating and making, as previously employed in reference to the development of man, in order to indicate the idea of raising up something that had fallen.

brought unto the man, to signify, that selfhood thus vivified and introduced to his affections, would help to sustain his character and maintain his happiness. In other words, this significant history means, that when this posterity of the most ancient church, began to think holy things might have arisen with themselves, and thus fell into states of obscurity (deep sleep) about their genuine origin, the Lord, during its continuance, mercifully effected the removal of that unspiritual selfhood (rib), and endowed it with a new capacity, by which it was enabled to know truth, and do good, as from self, still always preserving the acknowledgment and belief that they are from the Lord: under this aspect, selfhood became an object that might be loved and cherished; and therefore, it is represented by the woman brought unto the man; whereas, under its condition as a rib, it was separated and taken away from him.*

These facts will admit of some degree of illustration from the state of human selfhood now. This, with merely natural men, is such, that they regard it to be the chief thing of their existence.t They think that all they know of truth, or feel of good, has come from self, and thus they are in a deep sleep as to the real truth, that all such blessings descend from the Lord. This selfhood, like the hard and bony structure of man, is scarcely possessed of any spiritual life; it, as it were, surrounds his heart, and so it is represented by the rib which is adjacent thereto. Before his elevation can be effected, this rib must be taken away. It must be raised into a new condition, and be animated by another life; it must come to see that truth and good are to be believed and done by man as of himself, yet always under the acknowledgment that they are from the Lord. When this takes place, it is soft and yielding, fair and lovable, and hence compared to a woman, beau

tiful and innocent.

That bone, which the rib is afterwards called, denotes the selfhood of man, may be made evident from many passages of the Scriptures. The Psalmist says, "Make me to have joy and glad

"This part of the history, where Eve is said to have been made from the rib of Adam, might have been a hieroglyphical design of the Egyptian Philosophers."— Dr. Darwin's Temple of Nature. Additional Notes, 10.

Rochefoucault, Esprit, and their disciple, Mandeville, have contended, that self-love was the origin of all those virtues mankind most admire; and teach, that the highest pretensions to disinterestedness, are only the more artful disguises of self-love!

SIGNIFICATION OF BONES ILLUSTRATED.

113

ness, that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice;" (Psalm li. 8;) where, the bones which are broken, denote the selfhood dejected, when spiritual happiness may be obtained. It is to be observed, that the breaking of the bones is here somewhat analogous to the removal of the rib—that separation implying the idea of a breaking- a breaking, however, only in the sense of humiliation and dejection, with a view to subsequent exaltation. Again, it is written; "Hear me, O Lord, for my bones are vexed;" (Psalm vi. 2;) "all my bones are out of joint;" (Psalm xxii. 14;) "my bones are consumed;" (Psalm xxxi. 10;) "neither is there any rest in my bones;" (Psalm xxxviii. 3;) all of which sentences imply states of anxiety and trial, which the selfhood was undergoing. But when this selfhood is made somewhat alive, by an infusion of the Divine spirit, it is said, "all my bones shall say, Lord, who is like unto thee;" (Psalm xxxv. 10 ;) and, for a similar reason, it is promised that "your bones shall flourish like an herb." (Isaiah lxvi. 14.) Passages of this nature could be extensively increased; they not only show that the term bones, was employed by the ancients in a figurative sense, but they also show that figure to be the selfhood of man, from the intelligibility which the sentences acquire on the application of that idea to the word.

The vivified bones, spoken of in the two passages last adduced, are not called woman, as in the case of the animation given to Adam's rib, because the quality of both the selfhood and vivification treated of, is of a different nature: they relate to what is spiritual, that of Adam's to what is celestial. Nevertheless, the prophetical Word does furnish some approximation even to that idea. Ezekiel, relating his vision of the valley of bones, teaches that the bones heard the Word of the Lord, received his breath, and became alive, and thereupon they are declared to be the whole house of Israel. (Ezekiel xxxvii. 4, 5, 11.) Thus bones are distinctly said to have been raised into a whole people, consequently some of them into women. Of course, this inference from the vision, like the vision itself, will not be understood in a natural sense; the vision was designed to represent the impartation of a new principle and character to the selfhood of a degenerated people. Viewed under that aspect, it is somewhat parallel to the narrative of Moses: he is treating of a people who were not content to be alone, and upon whom a deep sleep had fallen; and therefore, it was mercifully provided to remove the selfhood, which had attended this condition, to infuse into it a

new life, and give it a new form, which is described as taking a rib from the man and building it into a woman. This is perfectly consistent with the circumstance of Adam's stating, that it was bone of his bone; it was a new selfhood in the external man, raised out of that which the internal man had furnished as the basis. Hence, it is said to have been taken out of man, and then called woman, because she represented its weaker character, but still displaying a lovely aspect. In consequence of the change of state, that was now induced upon this posterity of the Adamic church, it was permitted them to recede from internal things, and attach themselves to what was pure and good in external. This is what is meant by man "leaving father and mother and cleaving to his wife." The father and mother who might be left, were those internal things from which they had receded; and the wife that might be cleaved to, was the selfhood to which celestial and spiritual influences were now adjoined. It is then said, that they were both naked and not ashamed, to teach, that the wisdom which constituted the man, and the selfhood, represented by the woman, were still in innocence and free from blame. Thus it is a figurative, and not a literal history: it proceeded from a peculiarity of intellectual genius, some remains of which are traceable in the mythology of after-times, and in which there are some apparent histories of a similar kind. Thus, Venus is said to have risen from the froth of the sea; Gigantes to have sprung out of the blood, which issued from the wound of Cœlus their father; and Minerva from the brain of Jupiter, whose head was opened by the axe of Saturn. Surely every one may see, that it is no less difficult to receive these relations as literally true, than that which states a woman to have been built up from the rib of a man. Those Greek fables were framed by men, who possessed merely the wreck of that exalted genius, which had been employed in the construction of the divine narrative; nevertheless, a sufficient amount of the original remained, to assure us that its written utterances are singularly figurative. It is plain, that the ideas and circumstances of primeval man, were very different from those which subsequently existed; and also, that their method of expressing them, must have been less literal than that which was afterwards adopted. It is therefore evident, that we cannot arrive at correct notions concerning the written sentiments of the former, by the same kind of judgment, as that which we bring to decipher the productions of the latter. What they wrote was from internal

THE SERPENT AND ITS DECEPTION.

115

perception; what has subsequently been written has been from external observation. The one relates to internal things figuratively expressed, the other to external things literally described. By overlooking this distinction, and judging of the documents of the former, by a standard proper to be applied only to the writings of the latter, a meaning has been claimed for them, which they never could have been intended to express. We are aware, that the long standing of such a meaning may raise a difficulty in the way of its being relinquished. The mind, when once familiarized with an inconsistent notion, does not readily fasten upon its perplexities. It is like a vicious habit, the disorder of which is hid from the perpetrator by long continuance. But the question is not, whether the literal interpretation of the narratives is of long standing, but whether it is true: if it is not true, its antiquity can have no claims upon our respect, and the sooner it is abandoned, the better will it be for the interest of an enlightened and spiritual religion. The narrative is commonly spoken of as an artless statement: this we believe to be a mistaken idea. As a divine composition, it must be looked upon as a work of God; it cannot, therefore, be an artless production: it must be the result of the most consummate skill, and so correspond with every other work that is divine.

CHAPTER X.

THE SERPENT AND ITS DECEPTION.

"Inquire no longer, man! who is the author of evil; behold him in yourself. Take away every thing that is the work of man; and all the rest is good."-ROUSSEAU.

THE subjects treated of, under the representation of a serpent and its deception, are of deep and melancholy interest to humanity. Great difficulties have always been experienced in the way of a satisfactory understanding of them. The letter has been contemplated, and the spirit overlooked. We shall endeavor to avoid that course, and present the truth which lies beyond it. The meaning is not that which at first appears. We cannot believe in the existence of a talking serpent; we do not think that God ever endowed a reptile with the capability of reasoning; nor can we conceive that mankind were seduced from their propriety by the utterances of a snake. At these views, prejudices may be shocked; we cannot help it; reason will rejoice; error may be alarmed, but truth will be strengthened and advanced. Truth will find her responses in the inner sensations of humanity, if they