Evangelical Federalist

Portrait of Thomas Boston from A General Account of My Life

Let us consider God’s making man, male and female; that is, man and woman.

First, Adam was the male, and Eve the female. These were the common parents of all mankind, and there was no man in the world, before Adam. He is expressly called ‘the first man,’ 1 Cor. 15:5 and Eve ‘the mother of all living,’ Gen. 3:20. And hence it is said ‘God hath made of one blood all nations of men,’ Acts 17:26.

Secondly, Man consists of a soul and body, which being united constitute man; that is, man or woman. Here I shall consider, 1. The body; and, 2. The soul.

1. The body of the man. Man’s body is a piece of most rare and curious workmanship, plainly indicating its divine Maker. In it there is a variety of members, none of them superfluous, but all adapted to the use assigned them by the wise Creator. The man’s body, as Moses tells us, was formed of the dust of the ground, Gen. 2:7. Hence he was called Adam, which signifies red earth; of which sort of virgin earth man’s body seems to have been made. The word rendered dust, signifies not dust simply, (says Zanchius), but clay, which is earth and water. This may teach us humility, and repress our pride, and particularly glorying in beauty or any external advantages of person, seeing we are sprung of no higher original than the earth upon which we tread; especially seeing, as we derived our first being from it, we must return to it again, there to abide till the resurrection-day.

2. The woman’s body was formed of the man’s, Gen. 2:21, 22 of a rib of the man’s side, but not a bare rib, but flesh on it, ver. 23 which was taken out of his side while he was in a deep sleep, into which God cast him; so that he felt no pain. And it is not improbable, that in that deep sleep God revealed to him what he himself afterwards declares concerning Eve, and marriage in general, ver. 23, 24. Whether Adam had more ribs than other men, is not determined. If he had, it was not superfluous to him as the origin of mankind, though it might be as a private person; and therefore Eve being made of it, there was no more use for it. If he had not more ribs than other men, yet he sustained no loss thereby, which was otherwise made up, ver. 21 either by a new rib, or hardening the flesh to the use of a rib. In this the wisdom of God doth illustriously appear.

(1.) The woman’s body was made of nobler matter than the man’s, to be some ballast to the man’s excellency in respect of his sex, that he might not despise but honour her. The word rendered made, Gen. 2:22 is in the Hebrew built. He made the man, but he built the woman, as a stately palace, or house, where all mankind draw their first breath.

(2.) It was made of the man’s body, to teach men to love their wives as their own flesh.

(3.) It was not made out of man’s head, to shew her that she is not to be her husband’s mistress, nor usurp authority over him, 1 Tim. 2:12.; nor out of his feet, to shew him that she is not to be his slave, to be trampled on by him; but out of his side, near his heart, to shew him that she must be treated as his companion, loved, nourished, and cherished by him.

(4.) Lastly, The mystery of the church drawing her life out of Christ’s sleeping the sleep of death on the cross, Eph. 5 seems to have been here intended and shadowed forth. The bodies of both our first parents were far more beautiful, handsome, and graceful than our bodies are now. We are begot of men, but they were the immediate workmanship of God. The author being more excellent, the workmanship must be so too. And so Adam signifies to be ruddy, and to shine, Lam. 4:7. So that to Eve in particular may justly be applied the following lines of a celebrated poet:

A woman loveliest of the lovely kind,
In body perfect, and complete in mind.

Secondly, The soul of man was of an original far different from that of his body. Moses gives us this account of it, Gen. 2:7. ‘The Lord God —breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.’ The Lord inspired him with a living reasonable soul, which presently appeared by his breathing at his nostrils; whereas before he was only a fair lifeless body. And this different account of man’s soul and body clearly holds forth, that it was not fetched out of any power in the matter of his body, but was created of nothing. For this inspiration plainly implies that something was infused into it, which was not in it before, and did not originally inhere in it. Thus was the soul both of the man and the woman created; for that both were created with rational souls, is taught in our text, where they are said to be made after God’s image; and Moses leaves us to gather the manner of the creation of the woman’s soul from that of Adam’s. Concerning the soul of man, three things are specially to be known.

1. That it is an incorporeal or spiritual substance, different from the body. It is called a spirit, Zech. 12:1. And Stephen prays, Acts 7:59. ‘Lord Jesus, receive my Spirit. Compare Luke 24:39 where our Lord says concerning his body after his resurrection from the dead, ‘Handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have.’

2. As the souls of Adam and Eve were immediately created of God, so the souls of all their posterity are immediately formed by God, and proceed not from their parents by generation or any other way: but God infuseth the soul created by him of nothing, into the body formed in the womb when it is fitly organised to receive it. And yet a man may properly be said to beget a man, though he only begets the body, as well as to kill a man, though he can only kill the body. This is plain from that express scripture-testimony, Zech. 12:1.—’that formeth the spirit of man within him.’ So, Heb. 12:9. God is held forth as ‘The Father of spirits,’ in opposition to men as ‘the fathers of our flesh;’ which must needs be by immediate creation: for otherwise he is the Father of our flesh too, Eccl. 12:7. ‘Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was; and the spirit shall return to God who gave it.’ He gave the body too, but the soul in such a manner as he gave not the body.

3. Hence the soul is immortal, being a spirit, and dies not with the body, Eccl. 12:7 just cited. Being immaterial, not consisting of parts, it cannot be dissolved. Men can kill the body, but not the soul; and therefore it doth not die with the body, being invulnerable, and unsusceptive of external injuries, Matth. 10:28 and 22:32. Neither does it sleep till the resurrection, as some have foolishly supposed. Our Lord told the thief on the cross, that that very day he (that is, his soul) should be with him in paradise, not to sleep, but to be actively employed in exercises peculiar to the heavenly state. And certain it is that the apostle Paul had no such thought, when he said, Phil. 1:23. ‘I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better.’ If his soul was to sleep and doze in indolence and inactivity after his death, he had never preferred the dissolution of his body, and the advantage of being with Christ, to his continuing in his mortal state, in which he was most usefully employed.