and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever; therefore the Lord God [Jehovah] sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. So He drove out the man: and He placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming swordwhich turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.
A knowledge of evil was never the essence of divinity or manhood. In the first chapter of Genesis, evil Justice and recompense has no local habitation nor name. Creation is there represented as spiritual, entire, and good. “Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” Error excludes itself from harmony. Sin is its own punishment. Truth guards the gateway to harmony. Error tills its own barren soil and buries itself in the ground, since ground and dust stand for nothingness.
No one can reasonably doubt that the purpose of this allegory — this second account in Genesis — is to depict Inspired interpretation the falsity of error and the effects of error. Subsequent Bible revelation is coordinate with the Science of creation recorded in the first chapter of Genesis. Inspired writers interpret the Word spiritually, while the ordinary historian interprets it literally. Literally taken, the text is made to appear contradictory in some places, and divine Love, which blessed the earth and gave it to man for a possession, is represented as changeable. The literal meaning would imply that God withheld from man the opportunity to reform, lest man should improve it and become better; but this is not the nature of God, who is Love always, —
