it finds its consummation. This union is of a totally different nature from that of parents and children; hence marriage between parents and children is entirely opposed to the ordinance of God. Marriage itself, notwithstanding the fact that it demands the leaving of father and mother, is a holy appointment of God; hence celibacy is not a higher or holier state, and the relation of the sexes for a pure and holy man is a pure and holy relation. This is shown in Gen 2:25 : “ They were both naked ערוּמּים, with dagesh in the מ, is an abbreviated form of עירמּים Gen 3:7, from עוּר to strip), the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.” Their bodies were sanctified by the spirit, which animated them. Shame entered first with sin, which destroyed the normal relation of the spirit to the body, exciting tendencies and lusts which warred against the soul, and turning the sacred ordinance of God into sensual impulses and the lust of the flesh.
Chap. 3
The Fall
The man, whom God had appointed lord of the earth and its inhabitants, was endowed with everything requisite for the development of his nature and the fulfilment of his destiny. In the fruit of the trees of the garden he had food for the sustenance of his life; in the care of the garden itself, a field of labour for the exercise of his physical strength; in the animal and vegetable kingdom, a capacious region for the expansion of his intellect; in the tree of knowledge, a positive law for the training of his moral nature; and in the woman associated with him, a suitable companion and help. In such circumstances as these he might have developed both his physical and spiritual nature in accordance with the will of God. But a tempter approached him from the midst of the animal world, and he yielded to the temptation to break the command of God. The serpent is said to have been the tempter. But to any one who reads the narrative carefully in connection with the previous history of the creation, and bears in mind that man is there described as exalted far above all the rest of the animal world, not only by the fact of his having been created in the image of God and invested with dominion over all the creatures of the earth, but also because God breathed into him the breath of life, and no help meet for
