Thus, in another place-" The fruit of "the righteous is a Tree of Life; and he " that winneth fouls is wife f." The fruit produced by the righteous, through grace, copious, fair, and well flavoured, like that which once grew upon the Tree of Life, invites all beholders to come and partake, with it's owner, of that glory and immortality with which it fhall one day be crowned. And furely he, who, by these means, winneth fouls to righteousness and falvation, is wife indeed! He refembles the eternal Wisdom, the Son of God himfelf, who came down from heaven to win fouls, when the fruit of the righteous was the true Tree of Life.

Again

"A wholesome, or healing &6 tongue is a Tree of Life; but perversenefs therein is a breach of the fpirit"."

If this be fo in what paffes about the affairs of the prefent world, how much

f Prov. xi. 30.

Prov. xv. 4.

more,

III.

more, when the concerns of another make DISC the subject of conversation! When we extend the Proverb to them, we cannot but think of the two capital inftances, in which it was moft fignally verified. We detest the tongue that "perverted" mankind from the path of Life, and made a "breach in "the fpirit," at which fin entered, and death by fin. But everlasting benediction be upon that tongue which spake, as no other ever did, or could speak, pardon, peace, and comfort to loft mankind. That was the Tree of Life, whofe leaves were for the healing of the nations." With the tongue confeffion is made unto falva❝tion."

66

Once more. 66 Hope deferred maketh "the Heart fick; but when the defire com"eth, it is a Tree of Life." This likewife is true, in temporals, of any object long wished for, and at last poffeffed; but it is emphatically fo of the hope of falvation, which, while it is deferred, maketh the heart fick; as we may find by the pas

DISC. thetic and forcible exclamations of those

III. who waited for it in old time. But when

the defire, that is, the object of the defire— he whom so many prophets and kings had earnestly defired to fee, and did not feehe who was "the defire of all nations"when he came, he proved the Tree of Life restored in the Paradife of God.

Two remarkable representations of things fpiritual and divine under the Gospel difpenfation, or in the kingdom of heaven, were exhibited to Ezekiel and St. John. Let us compare them with each other, and both of them with the original scenery in Paradise, from which the images are evidently borrowed, and to which unless they are again referred, they lose half their beauty and fignificancy.

In Ezekiel's vifion of the Chriftian church, under the figure of the fecond temple, he tells us, he saw "waters iffuing "from the fanctuary, and giving univerfal "life, wherever they went." St. John

III.

fawa river of water of life, clear as DISC. "cryftal, proceeding from the throne of "God and the Lamb*." And "a river," we know, "went forth," at the beginning, "to water and make glad the Garden of "God, in Eden."

66

"On the banks of the river, on this fide, and on that fide," Ezekiel beheld

very many trees;" or as it should, perhaps, be rendered, "a very great tree'," "whofe leaf fhall not fade, neither fhall "the fruit thereof be confumed: it (in "the fingular number) fhall bring forth

new fruit according to it's months; and "the fruit thereof fhall be for meat, and "the leaves for medicine m. "Let us now

"

turn again to St. John-" In the midst of "the street of it"--the new Jerufalem, fucceeding in the place of Paradife, and the old Jerufalem, with it's temple and fervices"in the midst of the street of it, and of either "fide the river, was there the Tree of Life, "which bare twelve manner of fruit, and

III.

Pisc. " yielded it's fruit every month; and the "leaves of the Tree were for the healing of "the nations"." Can we read either of thefe defcriptions, without immediately carrying our thoughts back to Eden, where we fee growing out of the ground, at the command of the Lord God, " every tree good "for food, and pleasant to the fight, the Tree of Life alfo in the midst of the "garden."

But let us take a view of fome other figures and facraments, ordained fince the fall of man, as the Tree of Life was appointed before it, to represent to the faithful the bleffing of immortality.

The loft bleffing was to be recovered and reftored to the human race by the sufferings and death of a furety, who, after dying for our fins, was to rife again for our justification. The grand inftitution, therefore, of this kind, commencing immediately upon the fall, and continuing in

Rev. xxii. 2.

force