II.

temple and church, formed and confe- DISC. crated for the ufe of man, in his ftate of innocence. There, undisturbed by care, and as yet unaffailed by temptation, all his faculties perfect, and his appetites in fubjection, he walked with God, as a man walķeth with his friend, and enjoyed communion with heaven, though his abode was upon earth. He ftudied the works of God, as they came fresh from the hands of the workmafter, and in the creation, as in a glass, he was taught to behold the glories of the Creator. Trained, in the school of Eden, by the material elements of a visible world to the knowlege of one that is immaterial and invifible, he found himself excited by the beauty of the picture, to afpire after the tranfcendent excellence of the divine original. This facred Garden the first Adam by tranfgreffion loft; but all the bleffings, fignified and reprefented by it, have been, through the fecond Adam, restored to his pofterity. In our ftead, he subjected himself to the vengeance of "the flaming fword,” and regained

E 3

II.

DISC. gained for us an entrance into Eden. For, when he overcame the sharpness of "death, he opened the kingdom of heaven

to all believers." He is himself "the "Tree of Life in the midst of the Paradife "of God;" and, by the effufion of his Spirit, he gives us to drink "rivers of

living water." In his church here below, he has all along communicated, and ftill communicates his gifts, by external facraments, which ferve at once as figns, as means, and as pledges: but, admitted to the church above, we shall fee and taste them, as they are. Thou," O Lord Jefu, "fhalt fhew us," for thou only canst now

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fhew us "the path of LIFE," the "

way to "the tree of life," and introduce us to the truth and fubftance of all that was fhadowed out by the blifsful fcenes of Eden; for "in thy prefence is the fulness of joy, and "at thy right hand there are PLEASURES " for evermore."

DISCOURSE III.

THE TREE OF LIFE.

GENESIS II. Part of Verfe 9.

The Tree of Life alfo in the midst of the Garden.

SOM

DISC.

III.

OME arguments were offered upon a Disc. former occafion, tending to prove, that the Garden of Eden, laid out and planted by the hand of the Almighty, for the habitation of our first parents, in a state of innocence and felicity, was of a figurative and facramental nature; that, like the temple under the law, and the church under the gospel, it was, to it's happy poffeffors, a place chofen for the refidence of God; a place defigned to reprefent, and furnish them with ideas of heavenly things; a place facred to contemplation and devotion. Among

E 4

DISC.

III.

Among the objects presented to us, there is one, which, though then taken into the general account with the reft, may seem to claim a more particular attention. It stands confpicuous in the Mofaic defcription, 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 "caused 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 useful or ornamental; The Tree of Life alfo in the "midft of the garden."

adds

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 fupplied 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, spiritual, and cometh down from heaven. The Tree of Life was, doubtlefs, a material tree, producing material fruit, proper, as such, 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 fymbol, or facrament of that celestial 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."

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

equally