Here a discussion is raised by some marvelous triflers of commentators. They will have it that the male has more ribs on one side of the body than on the other. But surgeons, who are anatomists, know better than this. Lyra disputes the point thus: "Are we to consider that the extracted rib was a superfluous one in the body of Adam? If it was so, it was a monstrosity. If it were not so, it must follow that Adam after- ..."[text not printed] At length, Lyra arrives at the conclusion that the extracted rib was superfluous in Adam, as a solitary instance; and that therefore when it had been extracted, the body of Adam was perfect. And yet, that the body of Adam was deficient in this extracted superfluous rib, because of the creation of the woman out of it.
But to all these things we give an answer by the words, "God said!" This divine Word settles all arguments of this description. What need is there then of disputation as to whence God took any particular portion of created material, who by one word of his mouth can create and did create all things? All these idle questions however are used by philosophers and professors of medicine, who dispute about the works of God without the Word of God; whereas by so doing, they sink out of sight both the glory of the Holy Scriptures and the glorious majesty of the Creator.
Wherefore leaving all such questions as these, we will abide simply by the history of the facts, as they are recorded by Moses; that Eve was formed out of the rib of Adam, and that the aperture made in that part of his body was closed up with flesh. Thus Adam was made out of the dust of the ground. I was made out of a drop of my father's blood. But how my mother conceived me, how I was formed in the womb, how my bones grew there, Eccles. 11:5, all this I leave to the glory of my Creator. It is indeed incredible that a man should be born from a drop of blood; yet it is a truth. If therefore this Almighty power can produce a human being from a drop of blood, why not from a lump of earth also, why not from a rib!
And as to Adam's sleeping so profoundly, as not to feel what was done unto him; this soundness of sleep is as it were a sweet picture of that change which Adam would have witnessed had he continued in his state of innocency. For a righteous nature could have experienced no pains of death. Adam would have lived in the highest possible pleasure, in obedience to God and in admiration of his works until the time of his change, appointed of God, had come; and then he would have experienced a removal something like this sleep, which fell upon him so sweetly as he lay down amid the roses and beneath the richest foliage of trees. And in such a departing sleep would he have been changed and translated into the glorified spiritual life, feeling no more in death than he felt of his body being opened and of the extraction of the rib, with its flesh, from his side.
But now this nature of ours must experience the pangs of death. That dissolution of the body however is followed in the saints by the sweetest of all sleep, until the day when we shall awake unto a newness of life and a life eternal. And as Adam here in all the fulness of wonder exclaims this is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh, and yet was so sweetly and deeply sunk in sleep, that he knew not that his rib had been extracted from his side; so shall we in that day exclaim, Behold, into what sudden glory does this body, lately gnawed by worms, arise, etc.
Thus far have we spoken with sufficient copiousness upon the creation of Eve, which creation, although it seems to human reason perfectly fabulous, is yet most sure and true, because it is recorded in the Word of God, which alone teacheth the truth concerning the two principal causes of philosophers, the efficient and the final; and concerning the great first cause of all causes. The knowledge of which two causes, where it can be obtained, is of the utmost moment even in natural things. For what doth it profit to know how beautiful a creature man is, if you know not the end for which he was created; namely, that he was created for the worship of God, and that he might live to all eternity with God.
Aristotle does indeed say something of note when he makes the end of man to be happiness, a happiness consisting in the action of virtue. But in all this weakness of our nature, who is there that ever yet attained unto that end, when even the very best of men are exposed to a multitude of evils, which the common trials of life or the depravity and malice of men are sure to bring upon them? That happiness of which Aristotle speaks, requires tranquility of mind to make it perfect; but who can always hold fast that peace of mind, amid such tossings to and fro of human life? In vain therefore is such an end proposed by the philosopher, which no man can attain.
The principal end of man's creation therefore, which the Holy Scriptures set before us is, that man was created in the likeness of God, with the divine intent that he should live forever with God, and that while here on earth he should praise and extol God, give him thanks and obey his Word in all patience. And this end we do attain by some means or other, through grace, though with all infirmity in this life, and in the life to come we shall attain unto it perfectly. Of these things philosophers know nothing. And therefore the world, in the height of all its wisdom, is yet sunk in the deepest ignorance, wherever it is found destitute of the Word or of theology. For men without the Word know nothing of their beginning or their end. I mention not any of the other living creatures, who are not created, as we have abundantly shown, to know any of these things, nor to partake of these high blessings.