from that in which he was afterwards to be engaged, when, on his expulsion from Eden, he was sent "to till the ground," and in the sweat of his face to eat bread. If, then, to dress and keep the " garden of Pleasure," was a service so very different from tilling the ground, we may reasonably conclude, that the "garden." into which Adam was put, when GOD took him, was a place very different from the ground from which his body had been formed, and to which he was sent when GOD" drove him out" from that "garden."

"And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat of it, for in the

66

of Pleasure," or "of Eden?" For, in His " presence is fulness of joy," and at His "right hand there are pleasures for evermore1." And the term " garden," as expressing, figu ratively, the dwelling of the Deity and his saints, is fitly opposed to the words "wilderness," and "desert," which, throughout the Scriptures, are employed in a figurative sense to denote spiritual barrenness and desolation, and the condition of such as walk in darkness" and "that dwell in the land of the shadow of death 2 Thus we find "the garden of Eden" opposed by Isaiah, in a figurative sense, to the wilderness and the desert: The Lord shall comfort Zion; he will comfort all her waste places; and he will make her wilderness

like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the Lord3."

1 Psalm xvi. 11.

Isaiah, ix. 2.

3 Isaiah, li. 3.

• Gen. iii. 23.

f Gen. iii. 19.

day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely dief." Here, then, was a prohibition and a caution: the prohibition was, "Thou shalt not eat of it;" the caution was, "For in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die."

The "tree of the knowledge of good and. evil," then, imparted, to him that ate thereof, death; while the "tree of life" communicated, to him that ate thereof, eternal life: as, then, the latter "tree" was styled " the tree of life," the former "tree" might justly have been denominated "the tree of death." The "life," which was connected with "the tree of life," was not mere animal existence, but it was that spiritual and everlasting life which is given unto us by Him "which came down from heaven." And the death, which was announced as the consequence of eating of" the tree of the knowledge of good and evil," was not the mere dissolution of the earthly house of this tabernacle"; not the separation of the "inward man" from the "outward man," of "the spirit" from " the dust;" it was not the breaking of the "earthen vessel;" but it was spiritual death; it was that death which" our Saviour Jesus Christ" " hath abolished:" it was the loss of that " life," that

'Gen. ii. 16, 17.

8 John, vi. 33, 51.

h 2 Cor. v.

1.

i 2 Tim. i. 10. 1 Cor. xv.

54, 55. Hebr. ii. 14.

was

"eternal life," which "the tree of life capable of imparting, and which it was destined to impart; for we find, that after Adam had incurred the penalty attached to eating of " the tree of the knowledge of good and evil;" after the Lord God had pronounced the sentence upon him; even then had Adam " put forth his hand," and had taken “ also of the tree of life" and had eaten, he would have been made to "live for everk*.

The word eat, then, is applied both to the tree of life," and to "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil." In whatever sense, then, it is applied to the former tree, in the same sense must it be applied to the latter tree. If to eat

k Gen. iii. 22.-* For, had Adam so done, he would have "gathered fruit unto life eternal," he would have eaten of "that bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof and not die;" of that "living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread he shall live for ever2:" he would have "passed from death untò life 3; he would have been redeemed from the curse 4; for that "tree of life" was the tree whose " Branch+" yielded “ righteousness," and whose "leaves" were "for medicine," and "for the healing of the nations 7." Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life; he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live, and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die."

66

of the tree of life does not imply a bodily act, then, to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil does not imply a bodily act. To eat, as applied by Moses to "the tree of life," appears to have precisely the same signification as the same phrase has as applied by St. John to that tree; it has a figurative, spiritual, signification. But, if Moses applies the term eat, in a figurative sense, with a reference to "the tree of life," we may infer that he uses that word figuratively, when he applies it to "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil."

The eating of the two trees which were "in the midst of the garden," produced, as we have seen, opposite effects, The " tree of life" imparted "eternal life," the other tree occasioned the loss of eternal life. The latter tree was, then, the tree of the loss of eternal life, and it stood opposed to the tree of eternal life. But "the tree of the loss of eternal life" was "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil;" therefore was "the knowledge of good and evil” equivalent to "the loss of eternal life." The acquisition of eternal life is, both by Moses and by St. John, expressed, as we have seen, by the phrase eating of the tree of life'; the word tree

"The knowledge of the commandments of the Lord is the doctrine of life: and they that do things that please him shall receive the fruit of the tree of immortality'."

Eccl. xix. 19.

being employed as a figure"; so also the acquisition of "the knowledge of good and evil," is expressed by Moses, by the phrase eating of "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil," the word tree being employed as a figure"; but the loss of eternal life is implied by the eating of this latter tree; therefore, the acquisition of the knowledge of good and evil," and the loss of eternal life, went hand in hand together, and were communicated by that act of Adam, which Moses, whether literally or figuratively, expresses by the words eating of the tree which GOD commanded that he should not eat.

Adam, then, previously to his acquisition of "the knowledge of good and evil," had not incurred that death which was connected with the acquisition of that knowledge. Nor was he in possession of that life which "the tree of life" was capable of imparting. For, if "the tree of life" yielded so complete an antidote to the "tree" of death, that it could avert that death, and could impart eternal life to him who had incurred that death; the previous possession of the life connected with the former tree,

It has been already remarked, that the word tree, as used by Moses in speaking of " the tree of life" and "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil," is, either a figure of speech, or, if the word tree, as employed by him in these instances, is used in a literal sense, then were the two trees themselves, figures or types.