course with Jehovah after his fall. He had before given her the name* of woman, as being the counterpart of himself; and some new reason, arising out of the circumstances which had subsequently taken place, and of the revelation which had been made to him, seems necessary to account for the change of name which, immediately after that revelation, he assigned to her.

Would it not be natural to infer from the order in which the anecdote is placed by the historian, interrupting as it does the order of his brief sketch of facts by the introduction of a seemingly trivial circumstance, that there is some mystery couched under the letter of the anecdote, even if there was nothing in the name itself, or in the reason given for it, to confirm that inference? Does it not seem probable, from the assignment of this name, immediately after the promise of the conquering seed of the woman, that it has some relation to the birth of the conqueror; and why, it may be further asked, if it had no such relation, did Adam give a name to his wife on account of her being appointed the universal mother, rather than to himself as the universal father? His selection of her to receive the name seems to be the echo of faith to the promise he had received, that the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head.

* As woman is the feminine of ws man.

But that which is rendered probable by the position of the anecdote, is confirmed by the meaning of the name. I am aware that the name has been derived from a root which signifies to live, in order to make it correspond with the reason given for its imposition. But this etymology requires the change of a radical letter, which is altogether unnecessary, since the notion of manifestation or disclosure is better adapted to that reason when properly understood. The Redeemer of man was as yet, and would be till his incarnation, the secret, or wonderful person; * but the incarnation was the manifestation of God in the flesh, derived from a daughter of Eve, or the successional woman to whom the name was given. This Divine Person hath life in Himself, independently as he is Jehovah, and derivatively, yet in a way peculiar to Himself, as he is the constituted Mediator through whom life is communicated to fallen creatures. He was known to Job as the living Redeemer, by which title the patriarch seems to have intended more than his pre-existence, even to proclaim his faith in his expected Redeemer as the Author and Giver of spiritual and eternal life. St. John, in the beginning of his Gospel, speaks of THE WORD, quickening by his effluence the spiritual world,

* See Judges xiii. 18, 19. and Isa. ix. 6. And see Bp. Patrick on the former passage. Comp. Isa. xlv. 15.

"In

as the light of the sun does the natural. him was life, and that life was the light of men." But still more fully to our purpose, the same Apostle, after characterizing the promised seed by his personal Title, THE WORD OF LIFE, a title which belonged to Him from the time that He revealed Himself to Adam as the Saviour of mankind; adds THE LIFE was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and declare unto you THAT ETERNAL LIFE which was with the Father and has been manifested unto us."*

Eve then received her name from the promise that she should be the mother of that seed

who

is the Resurrection and the Life, in whom whosoever believeth shall live though he die, and whosoever liveth and believeth in him shall never die. Independently of this, the prospect of children, in the circumstances to which Adam had reduced them by his transgression, could afford

* H ZOH. The verb is in the preterimperfect tense, implying what had been from the beginning, is now, and ever shall be. "Which was with the Father." 1 John i. 2.

† "Some think she was called Ishcha before, and now he changed her name unto Eve, in belief that God would make her the mother of all mankind, and of the promised seed particularly; by whour (as D. Chytræus adds) he hoped to be raised from the dead to immortal life." Bp. Patrick.

Eva nominatur mater omnis viventis, quia mater esset futura ac origo ejus, qui causa foret omnis vitæ eorum, qui mortui in peccato per eum vivificarentur; h. e. Christi. Fabricii Chris

tologia. P. 204.

no ground for that gratulation which the anecdote seems to express. Independently of THE PROMISED SEED it can hardly be supposed that Adam would have given his wife a name which would continually remind him of the misery which he had entailed on his most remote posterity.

But the prophecy of Adam (for prediction is certainly implied in the name of Eve,) had a further reference to the mystical body of Christ, his church, of which Eve was a lively type, in her derivation of existence from the first Adam, in her subjection to him, and dependence on him. He was, typically and subordinately, her prophet, priest, and king. Now the two grand eras of the figurative dispensation are marked by the first promise in Paradise and its renewal to Abraham; and the two chief types of the church of God are Eve and Sarah ;* and the typical character which they both sustain, is derived from the eminence of their station in the genealogy of the Promised Seed, the Benefactor of all nations. The church which Eve symbolizes, in its spiritual circumstances resembles her in the natural circumstances of her derived life and being. "We are members," says St. Paul, alluding to the formation of the first woman, "of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones."†

* See St. Paul's Allegory, Gal. iv. 22.

† Μελη εσμεν το σωματος αυτ8, ΕΚ της σαρκος αυτ8, και ΕΚ των ορέων αυτό "We are members of his body, (derived)

He "is our life." Eve, therefore, as a type of the church of God, is the mother of all who have been made spiritually alive, or, in St. Paul's words, "the mother of us all," who are federally interested in "the Second Adam, the Lord from heaven."*

What then may we suppose the first prophet to have further intended by the name he gave his wife? He seems by faith to have foreseen, that a church would exist among his descendants to the end of time, corresponding with the type exhibited in the person of Eve ;—that this church would have to maintain a conflict, co-existent with its state on earth, with the Serpent and his adherents; that however, "its life" being "hid

from his flesh, and from his bones." Eph. v. 30. i. e. the mystical body of Christ derives its existence from Christ as Eve did from Adam, who said of her, after her formation and in allusion to it, “This is now flesh of my flesh, and bone of my bone."

• « The first typical delineation of Christ occurs in the very beginning of the Pentateuch. As Adam is the head of the natural world, so is Christ of the spiritual; consequently, by exactly inverting the character of Adam, we obtain a complete description of the character of Christ. Death was the result of Adam's transgression; life everlasting is the fruit of Christ's perfect obedience. The first Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam a quickening spirit. As the one was prior to the other in point of time; so does the natural state of man precede his spiritual regeneration. All men bear the image of the earthly; and all Christians bear the image of the heavenly. For as Adam is the natural father of the whole human species; so is Christ the spiritual father of many children." Faber's Hor. Mor. Vol. ii. p. 134.