It

defcended from the Creator to the creatures. was the golden chain, which connected matter and fpirit, preferving a communication between thetwo worlds.

That God had revealed and made himself known: to Adam, appears from the, circumftances related; › namely, that he took him, and put him into the garden of Eden; that he converfed with him, and communicated a law, to be by him obferved; that he caused the creatures to come before him, and. brought Eve to him. In thefe tranfactions, God probably affumed fome vifible appearance; becaufe,. otherwife than by fuch affumed appearance, no man, while in the body, can fee God. find, by what paffed after the fatal tranfgreffion, that "the voice or found of the Lord God walking in the garden," was a voice, or found, to which Adam had been accustomed, though guilt for the firft time had made him afraid of it.

And we

If there was, at the beginning, this familiar in-tercourfe between Jehovah and Adam, and he vouchfafed to converfe with him, as he afterwards did with Mofes, " as a man converfeth with his friend," there can be no reasonable doubt, but that he inftructed him, as far as was neceffary, in the knowledge of his Maker, of his own spiritual and immortal part, of the adverfary he had to encounter, of the confequences to which. difobedience. would fubject him, and of thofe invifible glories, a participation of which was to be the reward of his obedience.

When God, in after times, felected a peculiar people to be his church and heritage, to receive the law from his mouth, and to be the guardians of his.. promifes, he "chofe one place to place his name: there;" to be the place of his refidence, where he

D 3..

appeared.

appeared and was confulted. He gave directions for the construction of a temple, or house, in a particular manner appropriated to him, and called his; which, though compofed of worldly elements, was fo framed as to exhibit an apt refemblance, model, or pattern of heavenly things; to ferve as a fchool for inftruction, as a fanctuary for devotion. Might not the Garden of Eden be a kind-of temple, or fanctuary, to Adam; a place chofen for the refidence and appearance of God; a place defigned to represent and give him ideas of heavenly things; a place facred to contemplation and devotion? Something of this fort seems to be intimated by the account we have of the garden in the fecond chapter of Genefis, and to be confirmed by the references and allufions to it, in other parts of the Scriptures.

With this view, we may oblerve, that though Paradife was created with the reft of the world, yet we are informed, the hand of God was, in a more especial manner, employed in preparing this place for the habitation of man. "The Lord God planted a Garden eastward in Eden. And out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the fight, and good for food.. And a river went out of Eden, to water the Gar-. den; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads." Thus the great architect of the univerfe, he who, in the language of the apostle,

built all things," is defcribed as felecting, difpofing, and adorning this wonderful and happy fpot, wherein was to be placed the creature made after his own image and likenefs, but a little lower than the angels. Does not this circumftance fuggeft to ús, that fomething more was intended, than what generally enters into our idea of a Garden?

Whenever

Whenever the Garden of Eden is mentioned in the Scriptures, it is called " the Garden of God," or "the Garden of the Lord;" expreffions which denote fome peculiar defignation of it to facred purposes, fome appropriation to God and his fervice, as is confeffèdly the cafe with many fimilar phrafes; fuch as "houfe of God, altar of God, man of God," and the like; all implying, that the perfons and things spoken of were confecrated to him, and fet apart for a religious ufe.

When it is faid, "the Lord God took the man and put him into the Garden of Eden, to DRESS it,, and to KEEP it," the words undoubtedly direct us to conceive of it,' as a place for the exercife of the body. We readily acquiefce in this, as the truth, but not as the whole truth; it being difficult to imagine, that so noble a creature, the Lord of the world, thould have no other, or higher employment. Much more fatisfaction will be found in fuppofing, that our first parents, while thus employed, like the priests under the law, while they: miniftered in the temple, were led to contemplations of a more exalted nature, "ferving to the example and fhadow of heavenly things." The powers of the body and the faculties of the mind might be fet to work at the fame time, by the fame objects. And it is well known, that the words. here used,* do as frequently denote mental as cor-.. poreal operations; and under the ideas of DRESSING and KEEPING the facred Garden, may fairly imply the CULTIVATION and OBSERVATION of fuch religious truths, as were pointed out by the external figns and facraments, which Paradife contained.

That fome of the objects in Eden were of a facramental nature, we can hardly, doubt, when we

read

שמר and צבר

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read of "the tree of knowledge," and "the treeof life." The fruit of a material tree could not, by any virtue inherent in it, convey the knowledge of good and evil," or caufe that, by eating it, a man fhould "live for ever.” But fuch fruit might be ordained as a facrament, upon the participation of which, certain fpiritual effects fhould follow. This is entirely conformable to reafon, to. the nature of man, and of religion.

It is remarkable, that, in the earliest ages, a cuft tom should be found to prevail, both among the people of God, and idolaters, of fetting apart and confecrating gardens and groves, for the purpose of religious worship.. Thus Abraham, we are told, "planted a tree, or grove, at Beersheba, and call-ed on the name of the everlasting God.”* The worshippers of false Gods are described, in the wri, tings of the prophets, as " facrificing in gardens," as" purifying themselves in gardens, behind one tree in the midft;" and it is foretold, that they should be "afhamed for the oaks which they had defired, and confounded for the gardens which they had chofen."+ A furprizing uniformity in this point may be traced through all the different periods of idolatry, as fubfifting among the Canaanites, the Egyptians, the Greeks, and the Romans. Groves were dedicated to the Gods, and particular. fpecies of trees were facred to particular deities. The fame ufage prevailed among the Druids, in these parts of the world. And to this day, the ailes of our Gothic churches and cathedrals are evidently-built in imitation of thofe arched groves, which of old fupplied the place of temples. It is not, therefore, without reafon, that the author of a learned differtation on the subject makes the following

* Gen. xxi. 33.

+ Ifai. lxv. 3. lxvi. 175 /

lowing remark Thefe were the hallowed fanes of the ancients, in which they performed divine. worship. And indeed, if we would trace up this rite to its origin, we must have recourfe to the true God himself, who inftituted in Paradife a facred garden, or grove; ordained Adam to be the high prieft of it, and confecrated in it two trees, for a public teftimony of religion."

But upon the fuppofition now made, that the Garden of Eden ferved as a kind of Temple for our firft parents, might we not expect to find fome refemblance of it in the tabernacle and temple afterwards erected by the appointment of God, for his refidence in the midft of his people Ifrael? The question is by no means abfurd, especially if we recollect, that it was the defign of the Mofaic fanctuary, with its apparatus, to prefigure the restoration of thofe fpiritual bleffings, which were forfeited and loft by the tranfgreffion in Paradife: Let us therefore enquire what fatisfaction the Scriptures will afford us upon this point.

The principal objects in the Garden of Eden, with which Revelation has brought us acquainted, are the plantations of trees, and the rivers of water, by which thofe plantations were nourished and fupported in glory and beauty. Was there any thing of this fort in or about the tabernacle and temple?

With regard to the plantations, two paffages in the pfalms incline us to think, there were fuch in the courts of the Jewish fanctuary, as well as in that of Eden;" I am like a green olive tree in the house of God. * The righteous fhall flourish like a palm-tree, he fhall grow like a cedar in Lebanon. · Thofe that be planted in the houfe of the Lord,

* PL lii, 8.

fhall

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