A. M. I. 4004. Judgment being paffed on all that were concerned in this unhappy affair, it is faid that God, before he drove Ante Chr. Adam and Eve out of Paradise, clothed them with skins. It is common for the Hebrew tongue verbally to attribute things to God, which are not done by his immediate act, but by his direction, or even by the permiffion of his ordinary providence; fo that it is probable, Adam and Eve only received inftructions how to clothe themselves. what. Ás to the cherubim and flaming fword, placed to guard The cheru◄ the way of the tree of life, there are several opinions con- bim and cerning them. They who place Paradife in the fouthern Aaming hemifphere, conceive the fword to have been no more fword, than the torrid zone, which, in the parallel fituation the earth is then fuppofed to have had, muft have been a region of flame intolerably hot, like a furnace, and, confequently, impaffable: its encompaffing the whole earth fufficiently answering the Mofaic defcription, that it turned every way. Others have thought that it was a wall or circle of fire, encompaffing Paradife (G); and that this flame was an accenfion of fome inflammable matter round about the garden; which opinion may be more probable to those who place Paradise about Babylon, where there is fuch an abundance of naptha and bitumen, and where there are fields, which, even yet, at fome time of the year, feem all on fire. If it be objected, that the cherubim had nothing to do with fuch a wall; it is anfwered, that it is usual for the Scriptures to express all extraordinary works of God by angels; as to call a plague, or famine, a destroying angel, and the like. Some rabbins are of opinion, that this flaming fword was an angel; which they found on that paffage where it is faid, that God maketh his angels fpirits, and his minifters a flaming fire. And hence it has been imagined, that this flaming fword, which was esteemed by the Jews a fecond angel, was of a different kind from the cherubim, viz. a feraph, or flaming angel, in the form of a flying fiery ferpent, whofe body vibrated in the air with luftre, and may be fitly described by the image of such a sword1. i Tennison. (G) The words commonly rendered flaming fword, are, in the original, the flame of cutting, or divifion, or a dividing Aame: for the fame word which C 2 fignifies a word, fignifies alfo Having A. M. 1. Ante Chr. 4004. The effects of the fall, on man, and on the ground.. be Having thus examined the circumftances of the fall, it may proper to confider the effects it had upon our first parents and their pofterity, and alfo upon the ground, which was curfed for their fake. The unhappy pair did not, indeed, die immediately; but they became fubject to death, which continually hung over their heads; the time they had to live being but asthe space between a criminal's condemnation and his execution. They had loft God's favour, and forfeited Para-dife: the neceffaries of life were not now to be gotten but by hard labour of the man, and child-birth was to be attended with great pain in the woman; fo that the remembrance of their past happiness, and the profpect of the innumerable miferies to which they had made themfelves and their offspring obnoxious, muft needs have filled them with regret and defpair. For fince they could not, by generation, tranfmit any thing to their pofterity, but what they had themfelves, their defcendents were deftin-ed, in like manner, to undergo the troubles of life, and the pains and agonies of death, the neceffary consequences. of Adam's tranfgreffion. But that we are thereby become the objects of God's wrath, and deferving eternal. damnation, by the imputation of the guilt of Adam's fin (which is the doctrine of St. Auftin and his difciples, thence named Supralapfarians), has feemed to many a very harsh opinion, and to reflect on the goodness and justice of God . The fruits of the earth were at firft fpontaneous; and the foil, without being torn and tormented, fatisfied the wants and defires of man; but, upon his apoftacy from God, as a punishment for his fin, God curfed the ground, which immediately brought forth thorns and thiftles: for we must not fuppofe, with fome, that the original fertility of the earth continued till the deftruction brought upon it by the univerfal deluge. The deluge was, indeed, the completion of the curfe, but fome confiderable effects of it appeared before: otherwife, how could Adam be faid to eat bread in forrow, and in the fweat of his face, all the days of his life? As the earth was impoverished on man's tranfgreffion, fo the air and other elements became difordered, in fome measure unwholfome, and fometimes fatal. Hence proceeded famines, peftilences, earthquakes, ftorms, and all manner of natural calamities which caused an innumerable variety of diseases and diftempers. See Stackhoufe's Body of Divinity, p. 295, &c. There A. M. I. 4004. There was also a confiderable difference between the condition of the woman before the fall, and that which Ante Chr. she has fince been in; particularly, the was then in a ftate of greater equality with the man, and lefs fubject to forrow in the propagation of posterity than at prefent. Wherein the fecundity and amenity of the primitive earth confifted, and by what means it became fo much altered for the worfe, we cannot pretend to fhew. The change is, indeed, presently accounted for, if we have recourse to the Divine interpofition, and suppose that the fterility of the earth, the malignity of the air, and the general depravation of nature, was effected by God, or his fubordinate agents. But to affign a probable natural cause of fuch effects, is not a task fo eafy (H). SECT. IV.. The Chronology from the Creation to the Delugeftated. BE EFORE we enter on the hiftory of the antediluvian world, it will be neceffary, that we should fettle the chronology of this period. As Mofes has not fet down the particular time of any transaction before the flood, except only the years of the fathers age, wherein the feveral defcendants of Adam, in the line of Seth, were begotten, and the length of their feveral lives; all we can do, in this period, is, to endeavour to fix the years of the lives and deaths of those pa-. triarchs, and the distance of time from the creation to the deluge. This might be eafily done, if there were no varieties in the feveral copies we now have of Mofes's writings, which are, the Hebrew, the Samaritan, and the Greek verfion of the Septuagint: but as thefe differ very confiderably from one another, learned men are much divided in their opinions concerning the chronology of the first ages of the world; fome preferring one copy, and fome another. That the reader may the better judge of the variations in the three copies in this period, we fhall, in the fol (H) Those who are inclined. may confult Burnet and Whifto amufe themselves with ingenious theories on this fubject, ton. lowing table, fubjoin the numbers of each; to which we take the liberty to add thofe of Jofephus, as corrected by Dr. Wells and Mr. Whifton, the numbers in the prefent copies of that hiftorian being greatly corrupted. To the Flood, 1656 1307 2262 1556| To this table it will be neceffary, in order to explain the confe quences of thefe variations, to add feparate chronological tables, fhewing in what year of his contemporaries the birth and death of each patriarch happened, according to the computation of each of the faid three copies. A Chro |