January Twenty-first.
PRIMEVAL STATE OF MAN.
"And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man who he had formed."—Gen. ii. 8.
THOU didst, O God of truth, create man in thine own image and likeness, and gave to him power and dominion over all the works of thy hand. (Psalm viii. 6.) Help us, O merciful Father, to catch a glimpse of thy wisdom and love, in placing man, at his creation, in that garden eastward in Eden, which thou thyself didst plant. This garden of Eden we recognise as an emblem of man's state of innocence, when celestial love to the Lord heaved in every bosom, and angelic wisdom irradiated every eye. In those primitive times of bliss, when all was very good, the blessings which the human family then enjoyed, from their spiritual creation, were easily traced to, and seen to proceed from God, who was acknowledged to be their all in all. A state of celestial love and wisdom—inasmuch as it produces, in outward life, the choicest fruits of holiness and piety, together with all the beautiful varieties of intelligence and truth, the flowers of paradise—are in Scripture shadowed forth by the garden which the Lord waters every moment. Man, in a regenerate state, is indeed such; for the soul is said to be as "a watered garden, and like a spring whose waters fail not." (Isa. lviii. 11.) Still, to teach us that this blessed primeval happiness was not the work of man, as resulting from his own power, but the work of the Lord in those who are faithful and sincere, it is therefore said that God planted the garden,
