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temple and church, formed and confe- DISC. crated for the use of man, in his state of

II.

innocence. There, undisturbed by care, and as yet unaffailed by temptation, all his faculties perfect, and his appetites in subjection, he walked with God, as a man walketh with his friend, and enjoyed communion with heaven, though his abode was upon earth. He studied the works of God, as they came fresh from the hands of the workmaster, 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 invisible, he found himself excited by the beauty of the picture, to aspire after the tranfcendent excellence of the divine original. This sacred Garden the first Adam by tranfgreffion loft; but all the blessings, fignified and represented by it, have been, through the second Adam, restored to his pofterity. In our stead, he subjected himself to the vengeance of " the flaming sword," and reE3

gained

DISC. gained for us an entrance into Eden. For, II. "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 effusion of his Spirit, he gives us to drink " rivers of " living water." In his church here below, he has all along communicated, and still communicates his gifts, by external sacraments, which serve 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, "shalt shew us," for thou only canst now shew us "the path of LIFE," the " way to "the tree of life," and introduce us to the truth and substance of all that was shadowed out by the blissful scenes 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 Verse 9.

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

S

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 possessors, a place chofen for the residence of God; a place designed to reprefent, and furnish them with ideas of heavenly things; a place facred to contemplation and devotion.

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Among the objects presented to us, there is one, which, though then taken into the general account with the rest, may feem to claim a more particular attention. It stands confpicuous in the Mofaic description, the capital figure in that beautiful piece. It is said to have been placed in the centre of Eden, like the fun of the little system, and bears a name sufficiently calculated to awaken curiofity. The inspired 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; adds "The Tree of Life also in the

"midst of the garden."

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

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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, doubtless, a material tree, producing material fruit, proper, as such, for the nourishment of the body. The question will be, whether it was intended to be eaten, in common for that end alone; or whether it was not rather set apart, to be partaken of, at a certain time, or times, as a symbol, 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 restitution of which is now " the gift of God, through " Jesus Christ our Lord."

If it be supposed, that the Tree of Life was designed solely for the support 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 sense, equally

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