some, whether the food of the tree was not of a deadly or poisonous nature; deceitful to the eye; appearing to be good for food," but inwardly a

treacherously full of those malignant juices, which would have a natural effect to cause mortality? I

Y Gen. iii. 6. z The epithet, fallax, here used by Virgil, is, I think, peculiar. I do not remember any herb described by the naturalists as being remarkably tempting to the eye or taste, and inwardly a treacherous and deceitful poison; yet this seems the intention of Virgil's epithet. Mr. Pope well enough calls it the herb that conceals poison. See the notes on his Eclogue, Messiah. Had he had a word which would have hinted that the herb had been tempting, to induce men to be deceived and poisoned, he had more fully come up to Virgil's expression. The annotators upon Virgil say, " Fallax herba, quia mortales fallaciter iis utuntur." I do not see the spirit of Virgil's poetry in this explication. It rather creeps to human artifice in the use of the medicine, to represent the deceit of it, than it gives a lively hint, that the herb itself had an innate quality, both to hurt and to tempt to deceit and ruin, those who should be inclined to use it. The learned generally suppose that Virgil wrote his Pollio upon hints taken from some prophetic poems among the Romans, which had originally been formed from some sentiments taken out of the Jewish scriptures. And as Virgil introduces the serpent in the same line, occidet et serpens et fallax herba veneni; if it may be supposed that any fragment or sacred book of the heathens had hinted any thing of a serpent's having deceived mankind by eating what he had offered to them; or if Virgil had, by

should rather think, that.net, every which

thing

God had made was intrinsically good; that there was nothing naturally nocent and baleful; nothing that of man is in no wise hinted by Mosés, as being the natural event of his having eaten of the tree. He rather suggests, that the frame of man would of course not be eternal, unless God was pleased further to make it so enduring. Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return, was the declaration now made to Adam. Undoubtedly He who upholdeth all things by the word of his power; in whom we live, move, and have our being, and by whom all things consist; could have spoken the word, and the mortal of our first parents would have put on immortality; of which he gave them a sign, in the appointment of the tree of life. But this word was not as yet spoken; for they had not yet, under the direction of it,

would hurt or destroy; and the mortaliting that

any search after the notions of the Jewish literature, formed any thought of such an ancient sentiment, he may be conceived very poetically to have thence written his fallax herba veneni.

a Gen. i. 31. Things were, I apprehend, at first universally innocuous; as the prophetic writings, and best comments upon them, (see Isaiah ii. 4.-xi. 6-9. Ixv. 25, &c.) hint they will in their time be restored to be; of which happy state of things to come, Virgil had collected many sentiments almost verbatim, and thought them an ornament to his poem. See Pope's notes on his Messiah: and, more particularly, Bishop Chandler's Defence of Christianity.

e Gen. iii. 19.

Col. i. 17.

d Heb. i. 3. Acts xvii. 28. • Gen. ii. 9.

taken and eaten of the tree of life to live for ever; and this not being done, God was now pleased to prevent their doing it. Accordingly, they were henceforward to have their houses of clay, whose foundations were but dust, stand only until time would moulder them, and bring them by a gradual decay down again to the, ground,

Now this, rightly understood, must instruct us to say likewise, concerning the tree of life also, that it could have no natural effect, to give eternal life to those who should eat of it, There could be no such power. in it by nature. God only hath immortality," and he can give to have life in himself, to whomsoever, to whatsoever, and in what manner soever, he will. If he had appointed that our first parents should, whenever he commanded it, have taken and eaten of a particular tree, and from thenceforth be immortal; the command must be rationally understood, as we understand our eating bread and drinking wine in our sacrament, in order to be partakers of the body and blood of Christ.1 The outward action would profit nothing, were it not

Ibid. 23, 24.

f Gen. iii. 22. h 1 Tim. vi. 16. 1 See Common Prayer Communion Office. John vi. 51-58. * The flesh profiteth nothing; the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life: John vi, 63. These words of our Saviour do, I think, plainly hint to us, that, the notion of a transubstantiated body and blood of Christ in the sacrament, as the papists hold, is a fancy, not only groundless, but in itself insignificant and vain; for, that as the words our Saviour spake, the commandment he gave was not meant thus grossly, but intended in a spiritual sense, the flesh would

the commandment of God. But the doing, with a faithful heart, what God has expressly commanded, as a memorial, and in acknowledgment, that we receive the benefits we hope for, not as coming of ourselves, but as they in truth are the gift of God; may be both a reason, and an assurance, that they shall be given us according to our believing and doing his word. And herein we may see, why man having forfeited the hope of immortality, of which he was to have been made a partaker, in eating of the tree of life; the liberty to eat of that tree was now denied him, We cannot be so ab surd as to imagine, that if Adam and Eve, as soon as they had eaten of the forbidden tree, before God had prevented them, had taken also and eaten of the tree of life; they would thereby have defeated the purpose of God, and, notwithstanding what God had denounced, would have escaped death, by having eaten of it: the text of Moses neither speaks nor hints any such thing. The words of Moses are: And now lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, (vechai leolam). Moses does not here use the verb vachayah, which would be rightly rendered, and live, as we translate vechal," and eat; but the words used by Moses, are the particle ve and the participle chai. Now ve, in many passages of scripture, signifies, not and, but as,

profit nothing. The eating the body and drinking the blood of Christ, really, in his flesh, if they could do it, not being what he commanded, would be of no moment at all.

quasi, or sicut, in Latin ;" and ve chai, strictly rendered, signifies, as living: and the expression of Moses, rightly translated, is, and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life as one living, i. e. as if he were one who was to live for ever. The sense of the place, thus rendered, is clear and reasonable, free from those trifling insinuations which might otherwise be deduced from it. It was not fit that God should leave our first parents the use of the sign of immortality, when the thing signified was taken from them; therefore, he now ordered them to remove out of the garden, and placed at the east of the garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword, which turned every way to keep the way of the tree of life, to deter and prevent their approach to eat. God now gave them a visible evidence, such as he afterwards shewed the Jews in the holy place of Sinai, that he was greater to be feared, than it had as yet entered their poor imagination to conceive; that he had hosts in heaven to execute his word; angels that were his ministers and a flame of fire.

The facts we have considered, can, I think, want no farther examination. There are, undoubtedly, other enquiries, which may be started. It may be asked, why, or how came it to pass, that the all-good and all

See 1 Sam. xii. 15. 2 Sam. xv. 24. et in al. loc. Noldius in partic. 162.

• Gen, v. 24. ↑ Heb. i. 7.

P Exod. xix. 16-18. Psal. lxviii. 17.