infused into him by his Creator; in which better and im mortal part more evidently confifted that image or refemblance of God, wherein he is faid to have been made. and of wo- The woman was formed, also, on the same day, out of the fide of the man.

man.

Time and Season of the crea

tion.

Place where A

dam was created.

Situation f Eden.

That the first pair were created in an adult and perfect ftate, immediately capable of the full exercise of their natural powers and faculties, is not to be doubted: nor is it to be imagined, but that they both came out of their Maker's hand in the greatest perfection both of body and mind.

It has been difputed in what season of the year the world was made: which, it is to be prefumed, must be meant in refpect of the place where Adam was created; for otherwife all the feafons must have been in being at once in different parts of the world. Some fuppofe the vernal equinox to have been the time; but others the autumnal, which laft opinion is the more generally received, and feems to be confirmed from the year's anciently beginning from that time. This indeed was afterwards altered by Mofes, who ordered the ecclefiaftical year fhould commence from the vernal equinox, or the month Nifan: but the Jews, in civil affairs, ftill continued to compute from the former, or the month Tifri".

Another subject of inquiry has been the place where Adam was created. There is an ancient tradition, that it was in Syria, near the place where Damafcus now ftands'; others will have it to have been in Armenia; but it was, moft probably, in or near the garden of Eden, the feat defigned for him, wherever that was.

Several of the primitive fathers believed, that there never was a local paradife; and that all the Scripture fays of it, is to be understood in an allegorical fense: others, who allowed the reality of paradise, have fwerved fo far from the letter, as to fuppofe it not to be fituated on any part of this terreftrial globe. They have placed it in the third heaven, within the orb of the moon, in the moon itself, in the middle region of the air, above the earth; under the earth; in a recefs hidden and removed from the knowlege of men, in the place poffeffed, at present, by the Cafpian fea, under the arctic pole, and under the equator. Thefe, with many more extravagancies, have been collected by feveral authors, fome of whom have thought it worth while to give them ferious answers.

On

b Vid. Jacob. Capelle Obferv. in Genef. Steph. Morinus, Differt. de Parad. Terreft. prefix. Oper. Bocharti, edit. 1722. Mofes Bar Cepha, de Paradif. Comment. P, Dan. Huet. de

Situ

On the other hand, many of those who have allowed a terrestrial paradife, have fallen into no lefs abfurdity. There is scarce a corner of the earth which has not been ranfacked in fearch of it. They have looked for it in Afia, in Africa, in Europe, in America, in Tartary; upon the banks of the Danube, and the Ganges; in the ifle of Ceylon, in Perfia, in Armenia, in Mefopotamia, in Chaldea, in Arabia, in Palestine, in Syria, about the mountains of Libanus and Antilibanus; near the cities of Damafcus and Tripoly; in Ethiopia, towards the Mountains of the Moon; and, which will, doubtless, be thought as much out of the way, in Sweden.

This diverfity of opinions proceeds partly from that hu- What owmour which prevailed in the early ages of chriftianity, of ing to. allegorizing all paffages of Scripture, which had the leaft appearance of difficulty in them; and partly from the little agreement to be found betwixt the geography of Mofes, and that of the heathen authors, whofe imperfections are not yet, perhaps, fufficiently fupplied to refolve this difficult problem. As for the Jews, from whom we might have expected fome light into matters which concern their own antiquities, they are perfectly ignorant of the geography of their Bible, and have run as much aftray as other nations, in their defcriptions of paradife: as Jofephus, and all the rest of their authors, have fuppofed the Ganges and the Nile to be two of the four rivers; in which opinion they have been almost unanimously followed by the Chrif tian fathers.

There are feveral places which bear the name of Eden: Several we find two mentioned in Scripture, befides that in the Edens. Mofaical description, if it be not one of them; viz. one near Damafcus in Syria, the other in or about Thelaffar, in Chaldæa. Ptolemy places an Addan in this last country, and another on the Euphrates. There is alfo another Eden in Syria near Tripoly, in the road to Damafcus, as the former feems likewife to be. Cartwright, in his Travels, gives an account of an island in the Tigris, called Eden, about twelve miles above Maufel. There is a city near Tarfus in Cilicia, ftill called Adena; and Aden is a very noted one on the coaft of Yaman, or Arabia Felix, a little without the ftreights of Bab al Mondal: for Eden, or Adan, fignifying Pleasure, that name was given to places remarkable for the delightfulness of their fituation,

Situ Paradifi. Burnet's Theory of the Earth. Raleigh's Hift. of the World, &c.

Mofaical paradife local, not imaginary.

confidered either in themselves, or comparatively with the adjacent country.

It appears plainly from the Mofaical defcription (C), however prepofterous a learned author thinks it, that Mofes had no imaginary paradife in view, but a portion of this habitable earth, bounded with countries and rivers very well known in his time, and for many ages af. ter. Eden is as evidently a real country as Ararat, where the ark refted; and Shinaar, where the fons of Noah removed after the flood. We find it mentioned as fuch in Scripture, as often as the other two; and there is the more reason to believe it, because the scenes of these three remarkable events are laid in the neighbourhood of one another, in the Mofaical hiftory; but the Jews having, probably, during the diftraction of their affairs about the time of the captivity, loft the remembrance of all the particulars relating to this account of Eden (as indeed they have of most things relating to their antiquities), except that of the rivers Hiddekel and Frat; the Chriftian inquirers have loft their way for want of guides; and con fequently bewildered themselves in ftrange conjectures. There must always be a difference among men in opinions, where the uncertainty and defectiveness of the proofs leave room for controversy.

According to the most plausible opinion, Eden is placed upon the united ftream of the Dijlat, or Hiddekel, and Frat, called by the Arabs Shat al Arab, that is, the river of the Arabs; which begins two days journey above Bafrah, and about five leagues below divides again into two or three channels, which empty themselves into the Perfian Gulph. By this hypothefis, the Shat al Arab is the river palling out of Eden; which river, confidered

(d) Thev. Trav. part ii. chap. 9.

(C) And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads. The name of the first is Pifon (Fifhon); that is it which compaffcth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold, and the gold of that land is good; there is bdellium (bdolah), and

the onyx-ftone (fhoham). And the name of the fecond river is Gihon: the fame is it that compaffeth the whole land of Ethiopia (Cufh). And the name of the third river is Hiddekel: that is it which goeth toward the east of (or eastward to) Affyria (Afhur.) And the fourth river is Euphrates (Perath or Frat.)

according

according to the difpofition of its channel, and not according to the courfe of its ftream, divides into four heads, or different branches, which make the four rivers; two below, viz. the two branches of the Shat, which ferve for the Pison and Gihon; and two above, viz. the Frat and Dijlat, or the Euphrates and Hiddekel. According to this disposition, the western branch of the Shat will be Pifon; and the adjoining part of Arabia, bordering on the Perfian Gulph, will be Havilah; and the eaftern branch will be the Gihon, incompaffing the country of Cush, or Khuzestan, a province of Iran, as it is ftill named by the Perfians.

This opinion was firft ftarted by Calvin, and is, with Eden to be some little variation, followed by Stephanus Morinus, Bo- looked for chart, and Huet, bishop of Avranches: and indeed all inChaldea. the paffages of Scripture, where Eden is mentioned, concur to establish it fomewhere hereabouts. The Prophet, fpeaking of Tyre, fays, Haran, and Canneh, and Eden, were thy merchants. Now if Canneh be Calneh, or Calyo, which is taken to be Ctefiphon, or Medain, the feat of the Parthian race of Perfian kings, then Eden must have been to the fouth of that city, according to the order of mentioning the places, which feems to be from north to fouth. The fame order is obferved in two other places of the Old Teftament, where mention is made of Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, and the children of Eden, which were in Telaffar. We may add an argument of fome, that the city of Enoch, or, rather, Hanukh, built by Cain, and called after the name of his fon, is placed to the east of Eden: and Ptolemy places a city, called Anuchta, in Sufiana, or the country of Cufh.

Though this hypothefis feems the best of any that hath been yet advanced, and accounts tolerably well for the Mofaical defcription, yet it is liable to exception; which we cannot explain without entering into a difputation foreign to the defign of our undertaking.

After all, the Mofaical defcription does not agree with The Mai the ftate of things, either as they now are, or ever were cal defcripin all probability: for there is no common ftream, of tion of Eden which the four rivers are properly branches; nor can one iw perfect. conceive how a whole land can be incompaffed by a river, as Havilah is faid to be by the Pifon, and Cush by the Gihon, without being an ifland. But we are to consider Paradise described according to Mofes's notion of things, and that imperfect knowlege of the world which they had in thofe early times. It is abfurd in this cafe to

B 4

allege

Of the

artificial Sphere.

allege an alteration made by the deluge in the bounds of countries, or the course of rivers; for Mofes defcribes things as they were fuppofed to be at the time he wrote; nor is it credible, that the Hiddekel and Frat were branches of a river before, and had springs of their own afterwards.

It is obfervable, that there is no manner of doubt in authors, with relation to these two rivers; nor indeed is there the leaft room for it, they having retained their names nearly, if not exactly the fame, to this day; for what the Hebrews call Hiddekel, the Arabs, and perhaps the Affyrians and Chaldæans, called Dijlat then, as they do at prefent; and the Pherath, Forat, or Frat, is called Frat by the neighbouring people: for Euphrates is one of thofe corrupt names which our translations have borrowed from the Septuagint version, and which probably the Greeks, as Reland judicioufly observed, took from the Perfians, who often fet the word Ab or Au, which fignifies Water, before the names of rivers; of which word, and Frat, the name Euphrates is compounded. The other opinion, which forms that name from a conjuction of Frat with the preceding particle Hua, in the Hebrew text, is abfurd; as fuppofing the Greeks first came aquainted with that river, by reading this paffage of Mofes relating to the fituation of Eden*,

S ECT. II.

Sketch of Geography.

BEFORE we proceed to a regular detail of thefe events which conftitute the hiftory of mankind, it may be neceffary to explain fome general principles of geography, that the reader having recourfe to the maps which are founded on thofe principles, may conceive a more distinct idea of the scenes of fuch tranfactions as we propose to record.

The sphere is a machine confifting of many circles, invented by mathematicians to illuftrate the motion of the earth and planets, and to explain the doctrine of the globe, for the more eafy attaining the science of geography.

e Vid. Reland de Situ Paradif. Calmet. Di&t. de la Bible, p. 150. Thevenot. Travels, part ii, chap. 9. Terceira, Journey from Bafrah to Aleppo.