Female Scripture Biography, Volume I

by F. A. Cox

As the bestowal of one woman upon one man, at the creation of the human species, was sufficiently indicative of the divine will, so the near equality of the two sexes is a strong presumptive argument in favour of this division of society: if a different proportion were better calculated to replenish the world with population, the circumstances of Adam seemed particularly to require such an arrangement; or if it were calculated to promote human happiness, the Divine Being, who created Eve for the very purpose of enhancing the bliss of our first parent, would have superadded this to his paradisaical possessions. The reverse, however, was obviously the case. Polygamy violates the constitution of nature, and produces contests, jealousies, distracted affections, a voluptuousness which dissolves the vigour of the intellectual and corporeal faculties, neglect of children, with other lamentable evils, for which it furnishes no compensation. "Whether," says Dr. Paley, "simultaneous polygamy was permitted by the law of Moses, seems doubtful; but whether permitted or not, it was certainly practised by the Jewish patriarchs, both before that law and under it. The permission, if there were any, might be like that of divorce, 'for the hardness of their heart,' in condescension to their established indulgencies, rather than from the general rectitude or propriety of the thing itself. The state of manners in Judea had probably undergone a reformation in this respect before the time of Christ, for in the New Testament we meet with no trace or mention of any such practice being tolerated." [[6]]

Though man was created in the state we have been representing, encircled with the divine favour, rich in all the requisites of happiness, and the tenant of a glorious palace, a melancholy alteration soon occurred. Seduced by infernal temptation, he forsook his God and forfeited his paradise; and from the narrative of his fall in the book of Genesis, which immediately succeeds the account of his felicity, we learn that the WOMAN was the first transgressor. Assuming the form of a serpent, Satan presented himself to Eve, and entered into familiar conversation with her. To his artful inquiry respecting the divine interdiction of one of the trees of the garden, she at first gave a very proper answer. Satan insinuated that the terms which God had prescribed, were severe, if not capricious: but she replied in a manner indicative of her perfect acquiescence in the commandment, her untainted purity of mind, and such a sense of the beneficence of God, as prevented even a momentary doubt of his wisdom or goodness, in the denial of "one tree in the midst of the garden."

The tempter, in making a second attack, became more positive. In contradiction to the divine assurance, he affirmed, with unhesitating effrontery, that they should not die, even though they tasted the fruit of the interdicted tree; but on the contrary, that they should be "as gods, knowing good and evil." By the very same representations do the ministers of satanic malice in every age seduce mankind, suggesting that the commands of Heaven are extremely rigid, and flattering them that sin may be committed with impunity.

The fatal moment was come--she looked at the tree!--Ah! thou mother of all living! hadst thou looked at the command, and turned away from the attractive plant and the beguiling serpent, all would have been well--thine innocence had been uncorrupted, thy posterity uncondemned! But unhallowed curiosity prompted the fatal experiment--she wished to be wise--

"Her rash hand in evil hour,
Forth reaching to the fruit, she plucked, she ate.
Earth felt the wound; and Nature from her seat,
Sighing through all her works, gave signs of wo,
That all was lost!"

It does not appear that any ill consequences resulted immediately from the criminal rashness of this sinner, so that she was encouraged to go to her husband, who, seduced by a fairer tempter, and one endeared to him by the tenderest ties, complied with her request to share the violated tree. Motives of curiosity and pride excited her to sin, and so far as appears from the history, blind affection influenced him. Alas! she who was given him as a "help meet," is changed into his seducer, and from his comfort is become his snare! That influence which she naturally possessed over her husband, ought to have been exerted to prevent his compliance with any sinful intimation, in case of an unexpected solicitation, instead of which it was used to induce him to plunge into guilt and ruin. "We have a right to presume," observes Saurin, "that as no crime was ever connected with more melancholy results, so none was ever more atrocious than hers. The more we examine its nature, the more base it appears, and the more easy is it to exculpate religion from those reproaches which this statement has so often occasioned. Whatever tends to extenuate the guilt of other sins, is an aggravation of this.

"Sometimes a confusion of the passions obscures all the powers of the soul; a man who sins in this manner, is frequently less deserving of abhorrence than of pity; he acts from a sort of compulsion, and protests against the crime, even at the moment he is committing it. Eve possessed a dominion over those passions to which we are become enslaved; she could easily calm their turbulence, and they had no other influence over her, than what was on her own part voluntary.

"Sometimes necessity inspires the design of acquiring by unlawful methods, a supply which nature has rendered requisite, and which cannot be legitimately obtained. But, what could be wanting to satisfy the insatiable cravings of this woman? What could she need as an addition to her happiness? She might be said to be 'crowned with glory and honour;' she had dominion over the works of the Creator; all things were put under her feet; all sheep and oxen; yea, and the beasts of the field, the fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas. Even her love of variety could not yet be satiated, and this garden offered a thousand exquisite fruits which she had never tasted.

"Sometimes doubt blends itself with disobedience. There are but few sins totally unaccompanied with unbelief; some clouds always obscure our faith; some veils of concealment overspread the existence of the Creator. Among the previous pangs which sin occasions, when we deliberate respecting the commission of it, there always exist certain vague ideas in the mind, such as these--perhaps no superior being concerns himself about it; or, perhaps no one has forbidden it;--but Eve could not possibly doubt of the existence or the will of the Creator. She had herself heard this language from his mouth, 'In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shall surely die.'

"Sometimes our abuse of a favour proceeds from false ideas of its origin. Though every sinner be ungrateful, yet every sinner is not a monster of ingratitude. The first cause of our felicity is sometimes mingled with the second, which is serviceable in procuring it. Our industry frequently seems to share with Providence the glory of our condition, and the nature of a blessing sometimes leads us to forget the acknowledgments due to our benefactor; but Eve enjoyed no good which did not in some respect proceed immediately from the bounty of God, and which ought not to have induced her to glorify him.