The Garden of Eden (Doughty)/Chapter 6

by John Doughty

 

 

VI.

THE CURSE.

And unto Adam he said. Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it, cursed is the ground for thy sake.— Gen. iii. 17.

HE curses expressed in the Bible are peculiar. They bear no similarity to those evoked by human passion. When man, under the influence of a feeling that is born of sin, bursts forth into profane ravings against the neighbor, invoking maledictions on his head, he speaks under the prompting influence of hell. It is anger, or resentment, or revenge, wounded pride or defeated purpose, that would deal damnation and ruin to the offending party. Resentment in any form is as far from the Lord's nature as it is possible for anything to be.

Is it not strange that men will persistently attribute to God that which all condemn in a professed servant of God? Is it not amazing that they will clothe the Divine Being with human passions, when the whole end and aim of Christianity is to lead man to curb and subdue the same passions? Who would justify resentments, maledictions or curses in a Christian? And how shall we ascribe those attributes to Him, the reception of whose spirit alone it is that makes one a Christian?

How then are we to understand the Scripture which seems to attribute cursings to God? The answer is simple. In the literal sense, the language of the Bible is that of appearance; in the spiritual sense it is that of reality. And that meaning is generally attributed to it by man, which accords with his own instincts. This last assertion is true of our every-day conversation. If a man is brutal, there is an element of brutality entering into his conception of every word that is addressed to him. If he is sensual, there is to him an element of sensuality which enters into every expression that he hears. If he is essentially immodest, his mind instinctively turns the purest words into expressions of beastly sentiment. But if he is spiritual, to him all things are clothed with spirituality; if pure, all things with purity.

To all expressions, therefore, there is a higher import and a lower. The lower the thought, the lower the sense it will attach to words; the higher the thought, the more elevated the idea, and the more exalted its conception of the meaning which expressions are designed to convey. And this has caused the world's trouble in construing holy Writ. A pagan age has invested its terms with pagan meanings; a sensuous age with sensuous ideas; the natural mind with gross natural conceptions.

Now in this matter of cursings, as human utterances they are evil in themselves, and spring from evil in the heart of him who utters them. And men of evil passions instinctively ascribe to the Lord, when they read expressions of this kind, the same fire of passion which they feel within themselves. But the Lord is a Being of infinite love, charitv and mercy. A curse, therefore, when attributed in the Scripture to Him, must be an expression of that love, charity and mercy; for we cannot think of Him as capable of expressing anything else. When the poet says,

"The angry sun on waste Sahara's plain
Shone down, blasting all nature with its presence,"

we do not, in our poetic ardor, literally attribute to the sun a peculiar anger with the desert of Sahara above all other lands, under the influence of which it withers all attempts at herbage, and dries up ruthlessly each bubbling fount or stream. We know that it is but a poetical method of expressing a fact resulting from the atmospheric and climatic conditions of that arid region. We know that it is the same sun which shines so beneficently on our own prolific land. He sends forth the same heat, and the same amount and kind, to America that he does to Sahara. But our position, and our atmospheric and climatic conditions are such, that we receive his beams in luxuriant forms of verdure, while Sahara receives them in sterile sands.

So with human minds. This sun of everlasting light, the Word of God, sends forth his beams of truth and love with equal force, to the grossest sensualist and the most exalted Christian. How they receive these beams, whether as a sterile desert or as a fertile garden, depends upon themselves. Yet the light and heat as they come from their divine source, are the same for all. But as the same sun blasts in some climes and beautifies in others, according to the characteristics or condition of the region which receives it, so the same law of love that gives existence and life to all, if it is received in order and in answering love, renders beautiful the soul of its recipient; but if received in disorder and hate, its very power of giving life is turned into a means of death.

It is on this principle that the divine gift of life received in innocence and joy, lived in its own spirit and reflected back to its Creator in perfect images, is, in the language of holy writ, "the blessing of the Lord;" but the same divine gift received in a selfish nature, lived in perverted form, and reflected back in hideous distortions, is, in the language of holy writ, "the curse of the Lord." How perfectly a mirror without any flaw or irregularity in its surface, reflects the human countenance! But you have seen, perhaps, those mirrors which turn the human figure upside down, or distort every feature of the face. The original is perfect enough; it is the reflection: which is right or wrong. The divine original in the soul of man, is pure and upright. It is the use we make of our God-given faculties—the manner in which the soul receives and reflects the influent life, which renders it beautiful or monstrous in its proportion and form.

Life given of the Lord, is a blessing to him who uses it aright, and a curse to him who perverts it. This is the blessing and the curse. It seems as if the latter were of God, and the natural mind so views it. It really is of man; and the spiritual mind reads of God's curse, as the poet reads of the angry sun. Each one reads according to his nature. But he who follows the Word of God in its spirit, thinks of the curse of the Lord as the angels think of it—as the divine mercy resting with man amid the very ruins of his nature, and rendering him as happy as possible in the dreary region of life he has sought and found. In other words, God's curse is the divine law of life—a ruin and a wreck through man's perversity, but Divinity still working amid those ruins to save him from a worse desolation even on his chosen plane. Riches are a blessing to him who uses them aright, a curse to him who makes of them the mere instruments of self-gratification. Health is a blessing to him who nobly works in its strength for life's elevation, a curse to him who uses it for the larger gratification of his love of sensual pleasure. Education is a blessing to him who develops by its means an enlarged capacity for usefulness, a curse to him who employs it to render himself a greater adept in crime. The great gift of life is a blessing to him who lives in true order according to the Divine intent, but a curse to him who inverts its heavenly purpose and makes it a means of mischief to the world. When, therefore, we read in the Word of God, of the Lord's blessings, we are to understand his gifts of good freely received and Righteously applied or divinely lived; but when we read of his curses, we are to understand his good gifts misapplied and wickedly perverted to evil purposes and selfish ends. It is this style of Scripture from which poetry has borrowed its character, and of which it is a fair exponent oftener than matter-of-fact prose.

Having thus enlarged upon the nature of the curse, let us take a rapid review of the spiritual meaning of that portion of the parable at which we have now arrived. The primitive church called Adam, having departed from its pristine innocence, having inclined to the selfhood or proprium, having been seduced by the serpent to eat of the tree of sense and science, trended rapidly downward. Then it is said that "the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked." When it had been said, before the temptation, that "they were both naked and not ashamed," it was, in the spiritual sense, a description of their innocence. In that innocent state there was nothing whereof they needed to be ashamed. Now, however, their eyes were opened; but to what? Why, to the things of self and sense, in a manner in which their forefathers by no means understood them. Their eyes were opened to see that they regarded self and the world as the chief thing's in life, and spiritual things as matters of secondary importance; while their progenitors, in the wise innocence of their hearts, had regarded spiritual attainments as the grand purpose of life, and self and the world as merely instrumental means toward this great end. So they saw their nakedness; that is, they became aware that they were unclothed with spiritual principles, and, therefore, they sought to invest themselves with merely natural good. For, as the vine is the oft-repeated symbol of spiritual good, so the fig-tree is that of natural good. And this clothing the life with merely external or moral virtues, is correspondentially described in the statement that "they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons."

Then "they heard the voice of the Lord going forth in the garden." The voice of the Lord is any inward dictate which emanates from Him. "Going forth" is the correct translation, not "walking" as the authorized version has it. It was not the Lord walking in a natural garden and speaking face to face with a man and woman. It was an inward dictate of conscience, the voice of the Lord, which those people experienced, going forth in the garden of the intelligence of which they were yet possessed, calling them to account for the wretched mistake they had made. So they "hid themselves from the face of the Lord;" that is, they shut out the divine dictate and the divine countenance from their minds; and they hid themselves among the trees of the garden, that is, they averted themselves from the Lord or his dictates by withdrawing into the perceptions of their own self-intelligence.

It is the usual story, first enacted in the ancient garden. When man wants to do wrong, when he wants to be selfish, when he wants to gorge himself with worldly pleasure, the inward voice of the Lord forbids; yet he turns from it, shuts out the voice that would counsel and correct—the voice of divine wisdom and virtue—and justifies himself by the delusive sophistry of his self-intelligence. So did the people of the most ancient times. And when they seriously sought to shut out the suggestions which the Lord would fain make to mind and heart they brought the curse upon themselves. And then as an excuse for this, the reply was made by the proprium—the woman—to the conscience or the Lord's voice, "The serpent beguiled me and I did eat;" meaning, "The sensual principle of my nature has been too strong for me, and I have yielded to it because I could not resist its influence." The excuse, however, is but a lame one, and helps nothing. An effort to rise from the position into which they had fallen, had been far better than a mere excuse for their degradation. It was simply, however, what the man now does every day, who, while acknowledging the abstract holiness of the Lord's instructions, persists in saying, "It is not possible for any one to keep the divine commandments." So the curse followed—the fault of man entirely, and not of the Lord. It was the consequence of departing from the true order of life, and not an arbitrary decree of God. It was the inherent demoralization caused by yielding to the proprium, and not an edict of divine wrath.

"And the Lord God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle and above every beast of the field." Let us constantly bear in mind that this whole narrative is an allegory. Nothing of it transpired as a literal conversation of the Lord with man, woman, or serpent. When it reads that "the Lord God said," it is meant that thus and so the Lord viewed the matter; or, that thus and so is it in the light of divine truth. Each expression is the statement of a truth couched in correspondential language. Thus, in the Lord's view, or in the light of divine truth, the sensual principle or the serpent had become cursed; and this above all the other affections of the mind, symbolized by the expression, "Above all cattle and above every beast of the field." It had so come to be cursed, in becoming the lowest, the most depraved, the most groveling, of all portions of human nature, Nothing is lower than sensuality. Therefore it is said, "Upon thy belly shalt thou go"—a significant statement of the gross, earthly, corporeal and bestial character of the sensual principle under the conditions to which it had brought itself. It had been a good thing and spiritually erect when in its proper place, as a servant doing the bidding of the higher nature—an agent of the latter in its earthly work. But when it assumed to be master and seduced the mind and heart, erect no more it groveled on the lowest earthly plane. It ate or lived upon the mere dust and ashes of life, fed upon corporeal and terrestrial ideas and enjoyments.

And another result of the curse, or the degradation of the sensual nature, was expressed in the words, "I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed." The woman, as we have before shown, represents the afFectional nature. In this connection, as there is enmity between her and the serpent, and as she was the predestined symbol of the Church in its affectional or emotional aspect, it was a simple statement of the truth, that henceforth there would be war between the genuine affection for spiritual things in the Church, and sensualism in all its forms. The seed of the serpent, or the final fruit of sensuality, was infidelity. The seed of the woman, or the wonderful issue which was to be born of the future Church, was Christ and Christianity. The enmity between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman, was a prophecy of the war to be inaugurated by infidelity—whether Jewish, pagan, or modern—in respect to Christ and his religion. Thus the seed of the serpent has bruised his heel, that is, the heel of Christ, both in the crucifixion of his body, and in his crucifixion in every heart which has burned with hatred towards Him and the religion He taught. And the seed of the woman has bruised the serpent's head in every victory, and on the arena of every heart where true Christianity has gained a triumph over the crafty seductions of infidelity. "Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy obedience (the true rendering) shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee." The woman is here, as in the former verse, the woman of prophecy; she is the true Church in its affectional aspect; she is the affection for truth and goodness in the minds of the members of the Church. No allusion is here made to natural conceptions or births. That is the letter; and the letter is only the basis, symbol, or correspondent of the spirit. The allusion is to those things which are born of spiritual affection, to all good feelings, desires and promptings, to all new conceptions of truth, of salvation, of heaven, of the Lord. Again the prophecy is not of what the Lord does, although it is said, "I will multiply," etc. It is a statement of the inevitable consequence of human degradation and of the unavoidable condition which the human race takes on, in permitting itself to be degraded.

Those consequences to the serpent or sensuous nature, we have seen. The consequences to the woman or the affectional nature, are here described. These have no relation to the conceptions and births of natural children. They are the new conceptions of spiritual truth, and the new births of good desires, feelings and promptings. It is of these children of the soul that it is said, "I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow shalt thou bring forth children."

In the Eden state all the faculties developed into good, naturally, without struggle, pain or sorrow. Now we emerge from natural states into spiritual, through much conflict, through dark temptations, through severe inward combats, through painful losses of things we had set our hearts upon, through many sighs and tears. Then truth came to the mind in lightning flashes, quick, clear and unmistakable; to hear spiritual truth, was to grasp it and believe it. Now we have to wrestle with it, reason about it, sometimes almost to agonize over it, in order to its reception. These children of the spiritual affections, are conceived in sorrow and brought forth through much affliction. It is part of the curse. It is the result of a fallen state. It is easy to descend; but to reascend the mountain of the Lord, is a weary work indeed. It is added, "Thy obedience shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee."

The man or husband is the symbol of the intellect, as woman is of the will or affection. In true order the intellect is subordinate to the will. It is love for the Lord which renders the truths of the Lord clear. It is the love of the neighbor which teaches all life's proper duties. But another result of the curse is, that the will yields obedience to the intellect. And now in spiritual things we must retrace our steps. Now the intellect must acknowledge the Lord, before the heart will love Him; the reason must admit an act to be a duty, before we are willing to do it. It is the only way back to Eden.

"And unto Adam he said." This is the authorized version, but a mistranslation. It should read, "Unto the man (Ish—the man male) he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto thy wife:" because thou, the once God-like intellect, hast listened to the suggestions of the proprium, "and hast eaten of the tree of which I commanded thee saying, Thou shalt not eat of it," that is, hast drawn the nourishment of thy soul from self and sense and science—"cursed is the ground for thy sake"—miserable and wretched and degraded is thy mind; "in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;" that is, with trouble and affliction, vexation and disappointment, sin and sorrow shalt thou pursue thy way, as the legitimate result of thy selfish life, so long as that state endures; "thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to thee;" that is, evils and falsities shall be the fruits of thy mental condition; "and thou shalt eat of the herb of the field,"—the smallest and least consequential of spiritual conception shall be thy mental food; "in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return to the ground; " that is, with disgust and loathing shalt thou receive the true bread of life offered thee by the Lord, until finally thou shalt fall back completely into thine earthly nature; "for out of it thou wast taken,"—out of the earthly nature the Lord lifted thee when He placed thee in Eden; "for dust thou art,"—in and of thyself mere spiritual dross; "and to dust thou shalt return,"—by thine own act hast thou abased thyself, and art, therefore, self-condemned.

And so the woman, the man and the serpent—the affection, the intellect and the sensual nature—all passed under the curse. Yet it was, on the part of the human race, an act of self-degradation. The Lord seems to say, "I did it;" but it was not the Lord's will, but his broken law that did it. And so mankind went down, down, until our God-in-Christ came to earth to raise him up again.

Now the lesson here taught comes home to all of us. The curse is evil and sin, and it rests upon the hearts of all who cherish evil. It is self and sense, and it abides in every nature over which these twin deceivers hold sway. The woman and the man and the serpent are all in us. They are of every mind. Each one has his emotional, his intellectual and his sensual nature. In the Eden state, these are under the Divine influence; in a fallen or perverted state, they are under the curse. All human degradation is self-imposed; each curse that falls is self-originated. But the Lord comes down (if we will permit Him) into the midst of every sorrow, care or pain, and breathes his mercy there. The good Samaritan of the soul, He pours his oil of love into every wound. He turns, or constantly endeavors to turn, each sorrow into a balm for our healing, each pain into a cure for our hurts. And if we accept his mercy and his love, we rise and walk erect once more.

Shall we not take comfort, then, amid the saddest of life's pictures? Shall we not receive solace even when contemplating the ruins of fallen man? We have looked down; let us now look up and rejoice in the thought, that even so low as the human race has fallen, so high may it also rise.