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DISC.

III.

Among the objects prefented to us, there is one, which, though then taken into the general account with the reft, may feem to claim a more particular attention. It stands confpicuous in the Mofaic description, the capital figure in that beautiful piece. It is faid to have been placed in the centre of Eden, like the fun of the little fyftem, and bears a name fufficiently calculated to awaken curiofity. The infpired historian having informed us, that "the Lord God "caufed to grow out of the ground every "tree that was pleasant to the fight, and good for food;" every thing in the vegetable way either ufeful or ornamental; adds -"The Tree of Life alfo in the "midst of the garden.”

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Life, we know, as it relates to man, is twofold; that of the body, and that of the foul; animal and fpiritual; temporal and eternal. Each requires to be fupported by a nutriment adapted to it's nature, and supplied by fomething external to itself. The food of the body is, like the body, ma

terial,

III.

terial, and cometh out of the earth; the DISC. food of the foul is, like the foul, fpiritual, and cometh down from heaven. The Tree of Life was, doubtlefs, a material tree, producing material fruit, proper, as fuch, for the nourishment of the body. The queftion will be, whether it was intended. to be eaten, in common for that end alone; or whether it was not rather fet apart, to be partaken of, at a certain time, or times, as a symbol, or facrament of that celeftial principle, which nourishes the foul unto immortality; meaning, by that term, not a natural immortality, or bare existence, but that divine, spiritual, eternal life, which was loft by the fall, and the reftitution of which is now" the gift of God, through Jefus Chrift our Lord."

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If it be supposed, that the Tree of Life was defigned folely for the fupport of the body of man, there will appear no reason for it's being distinguished, as it is by it's appellation, from the other trees of the garden, which were all, in that fenfe,. equally

DISC. equally trees of life, being, as we are told,

III.

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good for food." And indeed, the matter feems to be clearly determined otherwise, by the twenty-fecond verfe of the third chapter, where we find fallen man excluded from Paradife, left he should put forth "his hand, and take alfo of the fruit of "the Tree of Life, and eat, and live FOR "EVER." Immortality, therefore, was to have been obtained, according to God's original appointment, by eating the fruit of the Tree of Life; not furely, as the Jews idly talk, by any medicinal quality, or virtue, preserving the eater from fickness and death, neither of which, by the way, was in the world, till introduced by fin. No; the thing fpeaks itself. A material tree could only confer eternal life as a divinely instituted symbol, or facrament; as, "an outward vifible fign of an inward fpiritual grace, given to Adam, as a

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σε means whereby he was to receive the

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fame, and a pledge to affure him there

"of." Hereby he would be continually

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reminded of the truth communicated to DrSc. him, without all doubt, from the beginning; that there was another and a better life than that led by him in the terrestrial and figurative Paradife; a life, on which he was to fet his affections, and to which he was to look, as the end, the reward, the crown of his obedience; a life, fupported, as it was given, by emanation from that Being, who only hath life in himself, and is the fountain, from which, in various ways, it flows to all his creatures. Him, as the glorious fun of the intellectual world, and of his gracious gift, streaming, like light through the heavens, to enliven and bless the spiritual fyftem, the Tree of Life, with it's fruit, in the midft of Eden, is apprehended to have been ordained, as an instructive and comfortable symbol; that fo a memorial of his abundant goodness might be fhewn upon earth, and new created man might fing of his righteoufness.

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The facramental defignation of the Tree of Life in Paradise may be farther evinced, perhaps,

III.

DISC. perhaps, by a paffage or two in the book of St. John's Revelation. "To him that over"cometh," fays the captain of our falvation, “will I give to eat of the Tree of Life, which is in the midst of the Para"dife of God"." And again "Bleffed "are they that do his commandments, "that they may have right to the Tree of "Life"." By " eating of the Tree of Life "in the Paradife of God," is here evidently meant a participation of eternal life with God in heaven. Of this eternal life the faithful followers of their great leader are to be put in poffeffion, as the reward of their labours, when those labours shall have been accomplished; when they shall have walked to the end of their journey in the path of Chrift's commandments, and shall have finally overcome their fpiritual enemies. May we not therefore, by parity of reafon, infer from hence the fignification and intent of the Tree of Life in Eden? By means of that facrament, had Adam gone happily through his probation, and

b Rev. xi. 7.

e Rev. xxii. 14.

perfevered

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