33. What person of sound mind is there who cannot see that, by those things which are related of Adam are not meant any states of the first-formed man, but states of the Church? As, for example, that God placed two trees in the midst of the garden, from the eating of one of which man had eternal life, and from the other of which he had eternal death; and that He made the latter "good for food, pleasant to the eyes, and to be desired for giving understanding" ([Gen.] 3:6), thus as if it were to bewitch their souls; also, that he admitted the serpent, and allowed it to speak deceitful words to the woman in the presence of her husband, who was the image and likeness of God, and suffered them to be ensnared by its flatteries and arts; as, moreover, why it was not provided,-since it was foreseen-that they, and the whole human race from them, should not fall into the damnation of His curse; for we read in the Christian books of orthodoxy: "That, in consequence of this original sin, 'in place of the lost image of God, there is in man a most inward, most wicked, most profound, inscrutable, unspeakable corruption of his whole nature, and of all his powers,' and that it is the root of all actual evils (Formula Concordiae, p. 640)"; and that God the Father turned away that universal damnation from His face, and sent His Son into the world, who might take it on Himself, and thus appease [Him]; besides many other things which are, as everyone may see, inconsistent with God.
[2] Who may not, from the particulars above-mentioned understood in their historical sense, reasonably conclude, to use comparisons, that it would be like a person who gives his dependent a most fruitful field, and in it digs a pit, which he covers over with boards that fall inwards at the touch of a hand or foot; and, in the midst, places upon a stand a harlot clothed in crimson and scarlet, holding in her hand a golden cup (like the woman in Rev. 17:4), who, by her blandishments, allures the man to herself, and so brings it to pass that he falls into the pit and is drowned? Would it not, indeed, be like one who makes a present to his friend of a luxuriant field of corn, and in the midst thereof conceals snares, and sends out a siren who, with the allurement of song and of a sweet voice, entices him to that place, and causes him to be entangled in the snare, from which he is unable to extricate his foot? Yea, to use a further comparison, it would be like a person who should introduce a noble guest into his house, in which there are two parlours, and tables in each of them, at one of which are seated angels, and at the other evil spirits, on the latter of which are cups full of sweet but poisoned wine, and dishes on which are viands containing aconite; and who should permit the evil spirits there to represent the orgies of Bacchus, and the follies of buffoons, and entice them to those foods and drinks.
[3] But, my friend, the things related of Adam, of the garden of God, and of the two trees therein, appear under quite a different aspect when spiritually comprehended, that is, unswathed by the spiritual sense. It is then clearly seen that, by Adam, as a type, is meant the Most Ancient Church; and the successive states of that Church are described by the vicissitudes of his life. For a Church, in the beginning, is like a man created anew, who has a natural and a spiritual mind, and by degrees from spiritual becomes natural, and at length sensual, and believes nothing but what the senses of the body dictate; and such a man appears in heaven like a person sitting on a beast, which bends its head backward, and with its teeth bites, tears and mangles the man sitting upon it; while the truly spiritual man appears in heaven also like a person sitting on a beast, but on a gentle one, which he controls with a slender rein, and even by a gesture.
