A JOVE PRINCIPIUM was the formulary of ancient Piety and Wisdom, which ferved to introduce what the Sage had to deliver, of more than ordinary importance, for the inftruction of Mankind. But here, the very nature of our present Argument will, of neceffity, lead us up to the FIRST CAUSE, the Author of all Being. For, without beginning at the CREATION, our view of these things would be narrow and obfcure; and human judgment not fufficiently informed to enable it to conclude, with any degree of certainty, concerning a REVELATION, which is the completion of one great Moral System, the principles of which were laid in the disobedience of our first Parents. In this Inquiry, as in all that have gone. before, our defire is, not to be carried up and down with the Waves of uncertain Arguments, (to use the words of a great Master of Reason,) but rather pofitively to lead on the Minds of the fimpler Sort, by plain and eafy degrees, till THE VERY NATURE OF THE THING ITSELF DO MAKE MANIFEST WHAT * IS TRUTH * Hooker's Eccl. Polity. Mofes, Mofes, in the account he gives of the CREATION, exprefly tells us, that MAN, or the human species, was the Work of the SIXTH DAY." So God created Man in "his own Image; in the Image of God "created he him; MALE AND FEMALE "CREATED HE THEM. And God bleffed "THEM, and God faid unto THEM, be "fruitful and multiply and replenish the “Earth, and have Dominion over-every living thing that moveth upon the Earth. ❝ And God faid, behold I have given you every herb bearing feed which is upon "the face of the Earth, and every Tree, in "which is the fruit of a Tree yielding feed, "to you it fhall be for meat.-And the even ing and the morning were the SIXTH "DAY*." Yet, because the formation of WOMAN, from the fide of MAN, was not circumftantially related till after the account of God's placing Man in PARADISE †, both Jews and Christians ‡ have generally con * Gen. i. 27-31. curred † Gen. ii. 8-25-22. Le Clerc fays-l'Ecriture nous apprend formellement qu'Adam donna les noms aux animaux, entre lef curred in one Opinion, that Eve was not created till ADAM was put into poffeffion of the Garden of Eden; for they took it for granted, that Mofes (though in a Moral or Religious hiftory of the Creation and Fall of Man) had obferved a Chronologic Order. The very abfurdity of this Opinion renders the mistake fo apparent, that the Reader fhould not have been troubled with a formal confutation of it, did not the right ftating of the fact (fo inconfiderable, as on first fight it may be thought,) serve to confirm a Truth, which hath been generally overlooked, though of the utmost importance towards our obtaining a juft idea of Revealed Religion; as will be seen in the courfe of this inquiry. quels, il n'en trouvoit aucun pour l'affifter; apres quoi Dieu CREA la Femme de l'une des côtés de l'Homme. Sentimens de quelques Theol. p. 423.-Dr. Z. Pearce, in his notes on Milton against Bentley, p. 233 And Hooker, in his Eccl. Pol. Book V. Se&t 73. Woman was even in her first Estate framed by nature not only AFTER IN TIME, but inferior in excellencies. 2 1. First, 1. First, therefore, let it be obferved, that Eve could not be created in the Garden; fince we are exprefly told, that she was created along with Adam, fome time before, namely, on the fixth day.—Male and female created be them.-A declaration fo decifive, that the Rabbins, who will needs have Eve compleatly formed in Paradise, gathered from the Words-Male and Female, (ufed by the hiftorian, where he speaks of the Creation of the fixth Day) that Adam was an Androgune, a double Animal, or Man-Woman, joined fide to fide *; and that the operation of disjoining them *This Jewish interpretation of the text appears to have been very ancient; and to have come early to the knowledge of the Heathen-World. Plato, in his Sympofium, brings in one Ariftophanes saying, that the an. cient nature of man was not as we find it at present, but very different. He was originally Avdpoyuvos, a manwoman. This fancy affords occafion to a pretty Fable, perhaps of the Philofopher's own invention, that these Apoyo were a kind of double animal, joined back to back. But that Jupiter, when he fet them a-going in the World, flit every one of them, and then fhuffling the separated parts well together, committed them to their fortune and the employment of each of them being : E 3 them was performed in the Garden; where indeed Jefus tells us, not a feparation, but a clofer union commenced. 2. When Mofes gives us the Book of the generations of Adam*, *. he repeats what he had delivered before, that man was created male and female.—Male and female created be them, AND CALLED THEIR NAME ADAM, IN THE DAY WHEN THEY WERE CREATED. Adam was the common name for man and woman; and that name was given them when the Male was created ; confequently the female was created with. him. 3. On the other hand, the fame kind of reafoning which concludes, that the Woman was not created till after the fixth day, will conclude, that the man himself was not created till after that day: for, if we fuppofe the Hiftory of the Creation ob being to find out its partner, the bufinefs of life was an inceffant fearch of every one for its better half, in order to be rejoined in a more commodious manner. This, fays the Philofopher, is the true origin of Love. * Gen. V. † Ver. 2. |