general notion of fuch truths may be artfully conveyed under the veil of fiction or Allegory: but historical and allegorical narrations are compofitions of quite different kinds, and ferving to different ends: the one to reprefent, by a literal defcription, the true and natural state of things; the other, to inculcate fome hidden truth, quite different from what it literally reprefents. It seems impoffible, therefore, that two fuch oppofite characters, which naturally destroy each other, can belong to the fame fubject; or that one and the fame description can, by any art or mixture of fenfes, be rendered both truly historical and allegorical at the fame time.

From these authorities and reflections, I have ever been inclined to confider the particular story of the fall of man, as a moral fable or allegory; fuch as we frequently meet with in other parts, both of the Old and New Testament, in which certain religious duties and doctrines, with the genuin nature and effects of them, are reprefented as it were to our fenfes, by a fiction of perfons and facts which had no real existence. And I am the more readily induced to efpoufe this fenfe of it, from a perfuafion, that it is not onely the most probable and rational, but the moft ufeful alfo to the defence of our religion, by clearing it of those difficulties, which are apt to fhock and make us ftumble, as it were, at the very threshold.

For whether we interpret the flory literally or allego

allegorically, I take it to be exactly the fame, with regard to its effects and influence on Chriftianity; which requires nothing more from it, than what is taught by both the kinds of interpretation, That this world had a beginning and creation from God; and that its principal inhabitant, man, was originally formed to a state of happiness and perfection, which he loft and forfeited, by following his lufts and paffions, in oppofition to the will of his Creator. For there could not be any religion at all, without the belief of fuch a Creator, nor any need of a reveled religion, but upon the fuppofition of man's fall. These two points, then, as the ancients obferved, are all that Mofes proposed to deliver to us; and they are delivered with equal truth and efficacy, either in the literal or the allegorical way: nor do I find any reference to them in the facred Scriptures, which appears to be inconfiftent with the allegorical acceptation of them.

Have ye not read, fays our Saviour to the Pharifees, that he who made them at the beginning, made them male and female? and for this cause shall a man leave his Father and Mother, and cleave to his wife, and they twain shall be one flesh [1]. He takes no notice of the particular manner of Eve's formation, from the rib of Adam; but intimates onely in general the fact of their creation and the moral of it, which is equally deducible from the literal and the allegorical fenfe. St. Paul feems to allude indeed to the circum

[1] Matt. xix. 4. Mark x. 6.
Ff2

ftance

stance of the rib, where he fays, that the man is not of the woman, but the woman of the man: and that Adam was first formed, and then Eve [1]: whence he infers the fubordination of the female fex. But his argument, whether it be drawn from the letter or the allegory, would have the fame force, fince it is fuppofed, that the allegory itself was contrived for the purpose of fuggesting the fame inference. Again, I fear, says Paul to the Corinthians, left, as the ferpent beguiled Eve, through his fubtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the fimplicity that is in Chrift [2]. Where he seems to unfold the true meaning and hidden fenfe of the Mofaic parable, and to fignify, that Eve was beguiled and feduced from her native fimplicity, by the carnality of her lufts and affections. For as that was certainly the cafe of the Corinthians, fo the Apostle's fimile would not be pertinent, unless we take the ferpent, as many of the learned have done, to be the fymbol of luft and fenfual pleasure.

The book of Job, according to the most probable opinion, is nothing else but a kind of Fable, or Poetic Drama; defigned to inculcate the certainty of a divine Providence; the duty of patience in afflictions, and of fubmiffion to the will of God under all his difpenfations, how fevere or afflicting foever they may happen to be. This was the fenfe of the moft ancient and learned Jews, who had no clear account or probable tradition concerning either Job himself, [1] 1 Cor. xi. 8. [2] 2 Cor. xi. 3.

or

or the author of the book: which fome impute to Mofes, fome to David, fome to Isaiah, or to one of the later Prophets; while others fuppofe it to have been written after the Babylonifh captivity: yet all of them seem to think, that Job himself, if fuch a man ever really exifted, must have lived in the times of the Patriarchs. But, be that as it will, it is evident, that every part of the book breathes a dramatic and fabulous air: the council of Angels convoked by God; the appearance of Satan among them; his debate with God, and commiffion received from him; the feveral fpeeches of fob and his friends: the conclufion of the whole, by the apparition of God himself in a whirlwind; and all this, as the critics obferve, delivered in verfe, make it highly probable, or certain rather, that it was

Yet

intended, as I have faid, for an inftructive or moral Drama. we find it referred to, and applied by Ezechiel and St. James, in the fame manner as if it were a real history [1]; becaufe its moral or doctrinal part could not fail to have the fame effect in the one way as in the other.

I cannot however omit one argument for the reality of its hiftoric character, which was wanting, as I obferved above, to the cafe of Paradife.

For though the place of Paradise could never be discovered in any age, by the most laborious fearches of the curious, yet St. Chryfoftom affured us," that it was common in his days "to undertake dangerous voyages by fea, from

[1] Ezech. xiv. 14. Epift. Jam, v. II.

"the

t

the remotest parts of the earth, to vifit Job's

dunghill in Arabia, and, upon fight of it, to "kifs the ground, which that holy champion. "had ftained with the blood of his ulcers, more "precious than any gold; and from which they "received, he fays, infinite benefit, and much 'philofophical inftruction [1]."

The cafe is the fame with the parables of our Saviour. For example; the parable of Dives and Lazarus, is delivered in fo lively and affecting a manner, as to have given rife to a difpute, both among the ancients and the moderns, whether it be a fable or true hiftory, or mixed and compounded of them both [2]. (But in what way foever it be taken, it yields the very fame fruit to us :) and all the interpreters, from the time of its publication to this day, have been drawing from it, as from a real hiftory, many excellent leffons both of faith and practice. St. Chryfoftom, in four feveral Homilies, harangues upon it, as a perpetual source of inftruction to all conditions of men; and though he treats it as a proper parable, yet he makes this reflection on the whole, That advice and admonition have the furest effect, when we fee the riotous chaftifed and punished, not in words onely, but in fact and reality [3].

To conclude; fince it is allowed to have been the practice of all the fages of the ancient world,

[1] Chryfoft. Oper. T. ii. P. 59. Edit. Benedict.

[2] Non autem fabulam retulit nobis pauperis & divitis. Sed primum quidem

docuit, neminem oportere deliciis uti, &c. Iren. 1. iv. c. 3. Vid. Not. 2.

[3] Chryfoft. T. i. 719.