ing chapter, that the serpent was, not only, the most subtle of the beasts, (a very singlar classification of the reptile) but that, (more singular still) he talked familiarly in human dialect; and although truly one of God's good creatures,

With infidel temerity, gave God the lie;

And swore that Eve might eat the fruit, nor surely die: And thus succeeded with an ignorance and inexperience, that God must have, purposely, prepared for the occasion, since omniscience could not have misapprehended the result, nor the circumstances upon which it depended. It must have been a most singular state of things, when snakes knew more than folks! And yet the case was so, or this reputed revelation is a fable. In either case my point is gained: That is, to show the ignorance of primeval manhood; which must have been extreme, if Moses told the truth. Or, if the story is a fable, it shows still more; viz. That ages of observation, experience and human intercourse were wasted upon our stupid race: For surely the inconsistencies, fallacies and even absurdities of this Mosaic history, leave no room to doubt, that the writer, in comparison with a common clown of the present time, was verily a blockhead. And if, meantime, the wisest of his species, no doubt his ancestors, and may be his cotemporaries, knew less than snakes.

To corroborate this, apparently, severe remark, a few brief additional references will be presented, including some of the omissions we have made in chapter second.

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In the third chapter and fourth verse, it is thus written: And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die."

Now, at the time, when the prohibition of the fruit was communicated, (and we do not read that it ever was repeated,) Eve was not abstracted from the costal furniture of her intended spouse, and therefore must have learned of him, or the lying serpent, all she knew of God's especial interdiction.

But suppose Adam to have been God's messenger to his wife, of which, however, no hint is given, the problem must have been still, with her, whether Adam or the serpent told the truth. And if it were supposable, that Adam could, thus early, have abused the confidence of his better half, as grossly as the after custom has, too often, been, had Eve believed the serpent, or the devil, sooner than her spouse, she scarcely could have been culpable.

We find the following declaration, chap. 2. v. 5 & 6. "For the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground." But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground." And then God planted the garden of Eden, having, v. 7, just formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into him the breath of life, &c. The earth therefore had not been watered from the time that the seas were formed, viz., at the beginning of the third day, and at the close of which, vegetation had occurred, "and God saw that it was good. Here the question very naturally presents itself, How long had

this drouth continued antecedently to the mist above referred to? And how should vegetation have been thence affected? Vegetation is declared to have occurred upon the third day, or the same in which the waters were drained from the more elevated portions of the earth; and whereon the dry land first appeared after its creation. Now if the mist occurred, as it seems to have done, to promote vegetation in the garden where Adam was to be immediately placed, it must have been upon, or after, the sixth day of crea tion. And one of the two interpretations must be admitted as applicable to this strange relation. Eltheir this interval consisted, according to any plausible interpretation, of some three revolutions of the earth upon its axis, or about 72 hours, or of three geological eras of a thousand years each, which certainly would be no slight consideration in the case in question. For admitting that God made the earth out of nothing, it seems to have consisted of a miscellaneous admixture of its constituent elements during one or two of these periodical revolutions at least, and was entirely covered with water until the third, leaving, as above remarked, three other revolutions, up to the creation of man. Now if these revolutions, days or epochs, consisted of twenty-four hours each, or seventy-two in the whole, the earth having been so lately and thoroughly drenched, could scarcely suffer from a drouth so soon, nor other than aquatic vegetables thrive lustily. And on the other hand, if those eras were each a thousand years, and

a drouth had lasted during three of them, it seems a moisture would have been difficultly raised from such a parched and desert surface.

And then, a moisture taken from the earth, could do no more by its return, than to supply the loss it must have first occasioned. And, if this process were necessary in Eden, already watered by the sources of four of the largest rivers in the world, a general barrenness must have destructively prevailed; and have rendered a new creation indispensable, unless Nature were possessed of the power of procreation, which seems to be clearly though strangely in sinuated in the fifth verse of the chapter we are con sidering; and upon which we shall hereafter more particularly remark.

"And a river went out of Eden, to water the garden; and from thence it parted and became into four heads." Here we find ourselves embarrassed by the following queries. If the river went out of Eden, to water the garden, could the garden, nevertheless, have been in Eden, as it is declared to have been, in a preceding verse of the same chapter? And if not, at what distance and in what country east of that imaginary one, denominated Eden, was it most likely situated? Or was it located only in the imagination of the writer? And again. How are we to understand the declaration, that the river of Eden parted into four heads as it passed onward, consistently with our present notions of that subject? It is certainly, ordinary occurrence, that a stream should divide itself into four larger ones, which this must have

done, if there is any meaning to the reputed revelation. The only rivers to which this text can have any consistent allusion, are the Euphrates and Tigris, nor do they form a junction until one of them has traversed a distance of nearly fourteen hundred miles. At this junction, however, theologians have thought fit to place the fictitious Eden, together with the two additional, fictitious rivers.

It may not be amiss, to enquire also, how it happened that Eve, in her reputed ignorance, should have so highly appreciated the knowledge of good and evil, or that Gods were happier than men, as that it should have become a motive to such preposterous disobedience. And the serpent not having told her, that wisdom was worth possessing, how very singular that she should have had a desire for it!

But the fruit was eaten, and their eyes were opened to a recognition of their nakedness. And wherefore? Was it because the nakedness, in which God had placed them, was an evil, a sin, or shame? Then it seems that God should have earlier supplied them with garments of skins, from his own manufactory; as we are informed he afterwards did, when they had, however, already learned to manufacture for themselves, and were therefore in less need of his assistance. Another query very naturally arises:Whether the formal communication between God and his creatures, was consistent with any rational idea of the Creator of the Universe? Or was it not rather indicative of human childishness; or, at least, an ignorance of which children should now be ashamed?