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DISC. honoured with the names of the Body and Blood of Chrift, because appointed to fignify and convey, to the worthy communicant, the bleffings purchased by his Body broken, and his Blood shed, upon the cross; bleffings to the foul, like the benefits conferred upon the body by bread and wine; life, health, ftrength, comfort, and joy.

Such have been the different fymbols and facraments vouchfafed to mankind under different difpenfations, all representing and shadowing out a glorious immortality in another and better world, where we fhall fit down with the author and giver of it, at his table, to eat Bread, and drink of the fruit of the Vine, new in his kingdom; where we fhall give glory to the Lamb that was flain; where we shall partake of the hidden Manna, and eat the fruit of the Tree of Life, which is in the midst of the Paradife of God.

From the paffages of Scripture thus laid together, the nature and defign of the Tree

of Life in Eden feem fufficiently clear. And, upon a review of what hath been faid, it is impoffible not to admire the confiftency and uniformity running through both Teftaments, from the fecond chapter of the Genefis of Mofes, to the twentyfecond of St. John's Revelation, which so mutually illuftrate and explain each other. The analogy of faith, in this inftance, proclaims aloud the wisdom and harmony of the divine dispensations, from the creation to the confummation of all things.

At fundry times, in divers manners, and by various inftruments, hath heaven conveyed inftruction to man. But the inftruction conveyed, with the terms and figures employed to convey it, bespeak, at all times, the hand of the fame omniscient and beneficent author. They must be conftrued and expounded upon the fame plan; and, when rightly conftrued and expounded, will be found to terminate in the fame. awful and interefting objects, eternal life, and the means of it's attainment. To these great

DIS C.

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DISC. great ends ferve the fymbols of Paradife, the facrifices of the patriarchs, the types of the law, the vifions of the prophets, and the facraments of the Gofpel, with the numberlefs expreffions and defcriptions borrowed from them, and referring to them. These constitute a kind of facred language peculiar to holy writ, and only explicable by it. The knowlege of this language is a science by itself, and the ftudy of it, well worthy the attention of fuch as have leifure and abilities to profecute it, is it's own rich and exceeding great reward. The subjects are of fuch infinite moment, that all others muft, in comparifon, appear to be as nothing. And the drefs, in which they are prefented to us, is the most ornamental and engaging in the world. It is of that kind, to which both eloquence and poetry, among men, owe all their charms. The doctrines of Scripture are not propofed in a naked logical form, but arrayed in the most beautiful and ftriking images which the creation affords *.

* See Ld. BACON's Advancement of Learning, B. vi. C. 3. A cele

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A celebrated and well known author, DISC. whose essays have long been the established standard of true taste and fine writing, makes, in one of them, the following obfervations By fimilitudes drawn from "the visible parts of nature, a truth in "the understanding is, as it were, reflected "by the imagination: we are able to see

fomething like colour and fhape in a no"tion, and to discover a scheme of thoughts "traced out upon matter. And here the "mind receives a great deal of fatisfaction, "and has two of it's faculties gratified at "the fame time, while the fancy is bufy "in copying after the understanding, and transcribing ideas out of the intellectual world into the material. It is this talent "of affecting the imagination that gives an " embellishment to good sense, and makes

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one man's compofitions more agreea"ble than another's. It has fomething "in it like creation, and bestows a kind "of existence. It makes additions to na

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ture, and gives greater variety to God's "works. In a word, it is able to beautify "" and

DISC. " and adorn the most illuftrious scenes in

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"the universe, and to fill the mind with "more glorious fhews and apparitions than "can be found in any part of it"."

Perhaps it is impoffible any where to meet with jufter fentiments than these are, clothed in more apt and elegant expreffions. And this fingle paffage would have fufficed to establish the reputation so justly acquired by it's author. The inference I would beg leave to make from it is this: If fuch be the cafe in human compofitions, where fimilitudes are drawn by fhort-fighted man, to illuftrate things temporal; what must it be, when they are drawn, to illustrate things eternal, by him, who has a perfect knowlege of the nature and properties of the objects from whence they are drawn, as well as of those to which they are applied; nay, who, doubtless, created the visible world, among other purposes, for that, to which he himself, in his Reve

y Mr. ADDISON's concluding paper on the Pleasures of the Imagination. Spectator, vi. N° 421.

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