part of this earth, it will follow that the Euphrates, that was one of the four rivers that came out of the river that watered the garden of Eden, was not the river known on this earth under that name, but may have been, may be now, and will be the one in Rev. 9. 14. and 16. 12. wherein four angels are said to be bound, and on which the sixth angel pours out his vial: which river, I think, cannot be understood of the same kind as ours, with any of which no body would suppose that spiritual creatures, like angels, have anything to do. Besides, comparing with our maps what is said of the river Gihon, (Gen. 2. 13), that it compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia, it appears to me that a river coming from the same source as Euphrates, would, to compass Ethiopia, have to descend into Egypt, then to ascend up into that other country; which is so incomprehensible to me that it strengthens me in the belief that the Bible speaks of another Ethiopia than ours, of a Gihon different from our rivers, likewise of another Euphrates, and consequently of a garden of Eden that was no part of this earth; and which it is now as impossible to find out upon her, as it ever was.

In Gen. 3. 1, 4, 5, the serpent is represented as conversing with the woman. I do not believe that such a circumstance can, with any propriety, be understood literally neither what is said in the 8th verse and following ones of the Lord God walking in the garden, in the cool of the day, calling unto Adam; speaking to him, to the woman, and to the serpent, making coats of skin to Adam, and his wife, and clothing them: driving the man out of the garden, and placing, at the east, cherubims, and a flaming sword, which turned every

way, to keep the way of the tree of life. I blame not those who understand all those things literally, but I cannot agree with them, having heard differently.

Believing, as I have already said, that the soul is the double being, spiritual and human, or the man male and female, whose creation is related in the first chapter, and that the whole Scripture refers to that inward creature; instead of taking Paradise for a material garden, ever so beautiful as it may be fancied, I should rather understand it as a religious knowledge or spirit, a spirit of simplicity and innocence, in which it had pleased God to put the spirit or the soul whom His word had formed (Zech. 12. 1) to His image and likeness, to the image of the Eternal Spirit; and of which all the knowledges and sentiments were pleasing to his eyes, and good for his food, (either in spirituality or in humanity ;) and that among the instructions which it bore there was the knowledge of the spiritual life, or of wisdom (Prov. 3. 18); the fruit of the righteous soul (11. 30), the wholesome language of the spirit (15. 4); a knowledge, the truths whereof are for the healing of the misled souls (Rev. 22. 2); and also the philosophical knowledge of good and evil, that opens the eyes of the understanding, and makes the souls-men as the spirits-gods (Gen. 3. 5); a knowledge good for man's food in humanity, pleasant to his eyes, and to be desired to make him wise (wise according to the world;) I should conceive that in that religious spirit there may have been to instruct and fertilize it a great and simple knowledge, divided into four persuasive, refreshing, and penetrating instructions (Gen. 2. 10). I should believe that the Lord God enjoined to the soul-man to cultivate and to pre

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serve the clear and satisfactory religion which He had given him for his happiness; that He commanded him to eat freely of every opinion and knowledge that proceeded from that religious spirit (16), but forbade him (17) to intricate himself in a deep study of the knowledge of good and evil, of which the full acquisition was not necessary to make him happy; neither to guide him, as he had been created with pure intentions, which prompted him to good, and away from evil: and that benevolently He warned him that he should surely fall into error (Gen. 2. 17), or into a state of spiritual death (James, 5. 20), if he should meddle with the nice and learned distinctions of that philosophical knowledge or science, before he had been sufficiently prepared to receive it. I should feel no objection to admit that, for the greater satisfaction of the soul, or inner man, and to assist him in the cultivation and keeping of his primitive religion and innocence, the Almighty gave him a spirit or a virtue proceeding from him or from his knowledge (21), and partaking of his nature (23), which the Creator so formed that it might cleave and be thoroughly united to him by piety (24). It seems to me credible that, after having so strengthened the soul, and after man had enjoyed, perhaps a long while, the felicity which he derived from his perfect religion, God may have wished to try what use he would, were he tempted, make of the free will which He had given him (Gen. 2. 16), to prove him, to know what was in his heart, whether he would keep His commandments or no (Deut. 8. 2): and may have caused, to that purpose, one of the superior spirits which He had created within him, to fall into the mental condition of one of the inferior beings within his heart,

over whom He had granted him dominion (Gen. 1. 26); and may have given to that degenerate spirit power to tempt the immaculate spirit which the soul had received for his help. I think it possible that the spirit-woman being pure, like the soul-man, grateful and satisfied with the leave of partaking of all the delights and good knowledges of the spirit Paradise, did, from her faith, resist for a long time the vile suggestions of the evil and deceiving spirit; but that, at last, she was seduced, disobeyed the commandment of God, and prevailed upon the soul to forget it also (Gen. 3. 6): (to which he may have been enticed by a sincere wish of doing always what was right, and avoiding at all times what was bad; which may have seemed to him hardly possible without the possession of the forbidden knowledge). I believe that the moment they acquired some knowledge of the difference between good and evil, they perceived that they were ignorant about it, and had recourse to worldly opinions in order to conceal it (7); and that when the hour of cool reflection came to them (8), they heard within themselves the voice of the Spirit of the Lord God, which in the beginning was moving upon the simple instructions, and had afterwards rested on the seventh light by which He had perfected the spirit which His word had formed within man (Gen. 2. 2); they heard, I say, the voice of the Lord inquiring and searching their reins and their hearts: that, conscious of their guilt, they wished, but in vain, to hide themselves (Job, 31. 33) from that inward, irresistible voice; that they could not help acknowledging their fault (Gen. 3. 12), and did hear in themselves the sentence decreed, for their own sake, against them, and against the fallen

spirit (Isaiah, 14. 12) whose pride had subtlely crept and entered into their minds (St. John, 13. 27), and had beguiled them. I admit that the soul having lost her purity by her disobedience; and having, by eating of the knowledge of good and evil, and mistaking one for the other, as it happens to us from ignorance, and as she was much exposed to, not having tasted yet of the tree or doctrine of life or of the true wisdom (1 Cor. 1. 24. 30), which might have guided her in the study of good and evil; having, I say, fallen into doubts, uncertainties, fears, wrong judgements, anxieties, and other human imperfections incompatible with her first state, was become unworthy of the religious spirit Eden, at variance and at war with it, uncomfortable and unhappy in it. I believe that it was for her good, and out of mercy to her that her Creator drove her out of the pure and simple worship of God into the love of the world and the proud opinion of oneself, and did put her, for a while, under a human form, in an inferior condition, the reward of her crime; where she is clothed with an impure, diseased body, adapted to the labours and purposes of this earth, but with which I suppose she was not clogged, while she was in the likeness of the Supreme Spirit; where her two inward natures, instead of being united, as formerly, are divided in opinions and sentiments, lusting one against the other, the superior being under the dominion of the inferior; where the companion that man has received for his help is in the same state of abjection and weakness, wanting support and deserving pity; where both have to work upon themselves, to toil and labour through obstacles. and difficulties, until by the various instructions, transi