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The whole time of her sickness, she was in a cheerful, thankful frame of mind. When she was cold, and had something warm given her, she often said: "Bless

ed be God for all his mercies; and for this comfort in my affliction." On her attendant's warming a piece of flannel, and putting it round her cold hands, she thanked her for it, and said; "O, how many mercies I have! I want for nothing. Here is every thing I can wish for. I can say, I never wanted any good thing. I wish only for a tranquil passage to glory. It was free Grace that plucked me from the very brink of hell; and it is the power of divine Grace, that has supported me through the whole of my life. Hitherto I can say, the Lord is gracious. He has been very merciful to me, in sustaining me under all my trials. The Lord brings affliction, but it is not because he delights to afflict is children: it is at all times for our profit. I can say; it has been good for me to be afflicted; it has enabled me to discern things, which, when I was in health, I could not perceive. It has made me see more of the vanity and emptiness of this world, and all its delusive pleasures; for, at best, they are but vanity. I can say, from my own experience, I have found them to be so many a time."

To her husband, the day before she died, she said; "My dear, I think I am going apace, and I hope you will be satisfied because it is the will of God. You have at all times been very loving and good to me; and I thank you for it kindly: and now I desire you freely to resign me to God. If God sees it best to prolong my stay here upon earth, I am willing to stay; or if he sees it best to take me to himself, I am willing to go. I am willing to be and bear what may be most for his glory."

The evening before she died, she found death stealing upon her; and, feeling her own pulse, said; "Well, it will be but a little while before my work in this world will be finished. Then I shall have done with prayer. My whole employment in heaven will be praise and love. Here, I love God but faintly, yet, I hope, sincerely; but there, it will be perfectly. I shall behold his face in righteousness; for I am thy servant, Lord! bought with blood, with precious blood. Christ died to purchase the life of my soul. A little while, and then I shall be singing that sweet song,'Blessing and honour, and glory, and power, be unto HIM that sitteth upon the throne, and to the LAMB for ever and

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FOR THE PRESBYTERIAN MAGAZINE.

"Surely every man walketh in a vain show.” PSALM XXXix. 6.

Life, what a fleeting empty dream,
A "vain" and unsubstantial "show:"
While gliding smoothly down its stream,
How few life's true enjoyments know.
Some dream of pleasure and of ease,
Gaily they trifle life away,
They think their joys will never cease-
With health they fade-with time decay.
Some dream of dignity and birth,
Proud of their consequence and name;
But see, they vanish from the earth:
To such-fe's but a fev'rish dream.
Some dream of honours and renown,
From learning, eloquence, and taste;
Of glorious wreaths in battle won;
Their dream, tho' bright, is short at best.
Some dream of wealth-and think true
bliss

Is only found in heaps of ore;
This constitutes their happiness,
Wealth is the idol they adore.
But how delusive is this dream!
How false this source of human joy!
Riches are never what they seem,
Mix'd is all gold with much alloy.
Great TEACHER! from the Father sent,
Thou art the life, the truth, the way;
"The way" to solid, true content,
"The life" that never can decay.
Grant me thy presence and thy grace,
Here honour, wealth, and joy unite;
For in the vision of thy face
Is inexpressible delight.

PUBLISHED BY LITTELL HENRY, 74, South Second St. Philadelphia, At 83 per annum, or 82.50 if paid in advance.

THE

PRESBYTERIAN MAGAZINE.

SEPTEMBER, 1821.

Communications.

LECTURES ON BIBLICAL HISTORY. No. II.

"And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden, to dress it, and to keep it.And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die."-GEN. ii. 15—17.

In a preceding lecture, our attention was directed to the creation of the world, with its inhabitants and various productions. We have seen our own species eminently distinguished in the scale of creatures -made but a little lower than the angels-formed after the image of God, in knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness-united, male and female, by the tender ties of conjugal affection, and invested with dominion over the numerous tribes of inferior creatures that inhabit the land, the sea, and the air. We will now contemplate this happy couple, as the objects of Heaven's special regard, as the primitive parents of mankind, and as constituting one of the parties to the covenant which God condescended to form with the human family, then existing in, and represented by them.

Our readers will recollect what was stated in our first lecturethat Eve was made on the same day with Adam, i. e. on the sixth day of the creation week, (as is evident, VOL. I.

chap. i. 17, "male and female created he them,") though the particular circumstances of her creation, for reasons already mentioned, are not to be met with in the narrative of Moses, earlier than the 21st verse of this 2d chapter. They are both, therefore, to be considered as present, and equally concerned, in the main transactions, related in that portion of sacred history which we are now going to examine.

The critics have been exceedingly puzzled to find the place, assigned as the original residence of our first parents. This is a topic on which fancy has been indulged to an unwarrantable extent. And some, weary of the search, and not being able to fix on any definite spot, bearing all the geographical marks of the earthly paradise mentioned by Moses, have been tempted to conclude, that, by the garden of Eden is meant, in scripture, the whole field of nature, every part of which must have been a paradise, or place of delight to man, while he retained his innocence, and held fast his integ ity. But the scriptural account seems, obviously, intended to convey the idea of locality. No person, perhaps, ever read the account seriously without receiving that impression; and, in regard to the most important facts and doctrines of the Bible, our first impressions are very likely to be correct, especially if we read with an honest desire to know the truth, and not with a view to find support for a preconceived opinion, or a fa

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vourite hypothesis. The place is supposed to have been selected on the third day of the creation week, when the water was drained off, and the land was prepared for vegetation. The description of it by Moses, begins at the 8th verse, and ends at the 14th, inclusive, chapter 2d. "And the Lord God planted (or, as the place may be rendered, had planted,) a garden, eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed." This land

of Eden was a province in Asia; and it is said to have lain eastward, in regard to the place where Moses was when he wrote his history. Dr. Shuckford, and other respectable writers, believe it to have been a country of considerable extent, and that it lay north of the Gulf of Persia, some twelve or fifteen degrees east of Jerusalem. "We are of opinion," says Calmet, in his Critical Dictionary of the Bible, "that the country of Eden extended into Armenia, and included the sources of the Euphrates, Tigris, Phosis and Araxes." And a country, by this name, is several times mentioned, by inspired writers, in after ages; so that we cannot doubt its existence, whatever difficulty we may find in ascertaining its relative position. See Isaiah, xxxvii. 12; 2 Kings, xix. 12, 13; Ezekiel, xxvii. 23. Out of this land of Eden, Moses informs us, there went a river to water the garden; and from thence it, i. e. the river, was parted, and became into four heads; and he gives us the names by which these four heads or streams were distinguished in his time: viz. Pison, Gihon, Hiddekel, and Euphrates. The first is said to have compassed Havila, a region of country abounding in gold and precious stones; obviously a province in Arabia, known in modern geography by another name. The second river is said to have compassed or touched upon the land of Ethiopia, or, more properly, the land of Cush -a tract of country east of the

Arabian Gulf, or Red Sea. The third, generally allowed to be the Tigris, touched on the east of Assyria. The Euphrates is well known -and it is often mentioned, in scripture, as the great river. The fact appears to be this. The Tigris and Euphrates have their sources in or near the mountains of Armenia. They run southward, in distinct streams, to within no great distance of the once famous city of Babylon, where they form a junction, flowing on, for several leagues, in one channel; then they separate, and empty into the Persian Gulf, by two mouths, known, in Moses' time, by the names Pison and Gihon. The river of Eden was the union of these waters; and, of the four heads or streams into which it was parted. two lay north, and the other two south of the garden, which was, probably, situated east of the great channel, and not far from a town now called Bassora.

This garden appears to have been well supplied with a rich variety of shrubbery, and such fruits as were wholesome and palatable. "And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food." Two trees are particularly mentioned, viz. the tree of life, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; which will fall under our notice again, in their proper place and connexion. Suffice it to remark here, that the former seems to have been so called, because it was an instituted sign or emblem of that life and felicity which man was to enjoy so long as he continued faithful and obedient to his Creator; and the latter received its name from its being appointed as a test of his reverence for the will and authority of Heaven.

Thus much for the local situation of this first and finest plantation that ever adorned the face of nature. Its climate was a charming medium between the extremes of heat and cold; its air bland; its

soil fertile; its waters perennial, and its fruits abundant and delicious. Milton, in his "Paradise Lost," gives us the following inimitable picture of its natural beauties. "A happy rural seat of various view. Groves, whose rich trees wept od❜rous gums and balm ;

Others, whose fruit, burnish'd with golden rind,

Hung amiable; (Hesperian fables true,
If true, here only) and of delicious taste.
Betwixt them, lawns, or level downs, and
flocks,

Grazing the tender herb, were interpos'd;
Or palmy hillock, or the flow'ry lap
Of some irriguous valley spread her store.
Flow'rs of all hue, and without thorn the

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The trembling leaves, while, universal Pan,

Knit with the Graces, and the Hours in dance,

Lead on the eternal Spring.".

"And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden, to dress it, and to keep it." Even in a state of innocence, and amid the richest profusion of the bounties of Heaven, it was not good for man to be idle. Here, says the bounteous Lord of the soil to the first man, here is a field well adapted to produce a plentiful increase; take possession, cultivate it, take care of its fruits, and enjoy them. What useful lessons, relating to both worlds, are to be met with in the Bible! It is profitable for instruction and correction in all things. Man is endowed with active powers, to the end that they may be exercised. And the dili

gent exertion of these powers is essential to our happiness, due to our species, and required by the law of nature. Activity marks, alike, the character of the bee, the ant, and the angel: nor can any of the human family, possessing capacity and the means of employment, be innocently idle. An early habit of industry is one of the best natural preventives of disease, ennui and sin, that can be devised. It was judged useful to our first parents in paradise, and there can be no rational doubt, that the redeemed of the Lord find employment in heaven, suited to that high and holy stage of our immortal existence.

But man is to pursue his business, and exercise his faculties, both physical and moral, under a sense of his dependance on, and obligations to, his Creator. Every intelligent creature receives his being under a law, and under the obligation of that law he is held for ever, whether he acknowledges and lives up to it, or not. The moral law, or that law of the Creator which is designed for the government of intelligent creatures, is the imperishable bond that connects the moral kingdom of Jehovah in all its parts, and holds both men and angels responsible to Him who made them, and who has, of course, a right to prescribe their duty. Under this law, Adam and Eve received their existence, and it is reasonable to suppose, that some duties were enjoined upon them by divine authority, wisely chosen and happily calculated to keep them mindful of their obligations to the munificent Author of every good and perfect gift. Of this sort was the observance of the weekly Sabbath; which was now instituted, as we are informed in the third verse of this chapter:"And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it ;" that is, set it apart-distinguished it from other days appropriated it to devout and holy services exclusively, and promised a blessing on those who

should observe it in a thankful and

religious manner. Some persons have strangely fancied that the Sabbath was not to be observed, till the giving of the law at Mount Sinai. But, if it was not intended to be observed till two thousand five hundred years after the creation, why was it instituted so early? That it was instituted on the seventh day of the creation week, and the first day of Adam's life, is as plain, in the passage just cited, as language can make any thing. And the fact of its appointment, in the beginning, shows that it was to be sacredly kept from the beginning; just as the fact, that the precept concerning it is placed in the decalogue, or summary of the moral law, as written by the finger of God and promulgated by the ministry of Moses, leaves us no room to doubt that the religious observance of it will be obligatory on mankind to the latest generation. The change of the day, from the seventh to the first, at the resurrection of Christ, does not, in the least, affect the principle of the ordinance, which demands the seventh part of our time to be devoted to God and the concerns of religion. Our first parents, no doubt, obeyed the law of the Sabbath, agreeably to its spirit and design; keeping it as a day of holy rest-acknowledging the wisdom and power of the Creator, as displayed in the works of his hand, -and offering him their grateful praises for all the tokens of his goodness with which they were surrounded. Let us imitate their pious example. To us the Sabbath commemorates not only the creation, but, also, the redemption of the world. And although the institution originated in the sovereign authority of God, yet is it so clearly benevolent in its bearing on both man and beast-so benign in its influence on public morals and general happiness, that, one would think, the common principles of humanity would prompt all men to re

gard it with reverence, and to give it the weight of their influence and unqualified approbation.

But the most interesting point of light in which we can contemplate the primitive parents of our race, is that of their being a párty to the covenant which God was pleased to enter into with the human family, then existing in and represented by them. It would not comport with the design of these lectures, to go minutely into the discussion of any topics in systematic theology. But this is a subject which lies at the foundation of revealed religion; and, perhaps, we should not pass it over without some special notice. That such a covenant, as has just been mentioned, did exist between God and man, seems evident from the frequent references made to it in the New Testament. The doctrine has, indeed, been maintained, with some modifications, by the great body of Christian divines, in every period of the church; and it is believed that the passage of sacred scripture now before us, teaches it in terms which cannot be otherwise explained, without destroying their consistency, and perverting their obvious import. "And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." Here is, we think, the substance of a covenant, though not in a very extended or explicit form. There is, first, a condition proposed, viz. obedience to a prohibitory command, "thou shalt not eat of it;" secondly, a penalty, in case of disobedience, "thou shalt surely die ;" and, thirdly, a promise of life and happiness implied, consequent, on the fulfilment of the condition. The whole was propounded by God; and when propounded, man could not, rightfully, refuse to acquiesce in it, because he was bound, by the law of

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