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attempt to hide himself from God. " I heard thy voice in the garden, (said he, in answer to God's enquiry after him) and was afraid, and hid myself." Gen. iii. 10.

In this state of conscious guilt, and consequent fear of punishment, Adam was prevented from falling into despair, by the revelation of that gracious plan of redemption, which had been prepared in the divine councils, according to which he was given to understand, that though as a fallen creature, he had lost all access to the emblematic Tree of Life; a way was still kept open to it, through the medium of that Divine Person, who had undertaken to undo the mischief the devil had wrought, by freeing man from the guilt and consequence of sin, and thereby restoring him, on certain terms, to his forfeited inheritance.

In allusion to this gracious plan, our Saviour is described by the Apostle, as "that new and living way, by which man has boldness to enter into the holiest." Heb. x. 20. Whilst the restoration provided for fallen man is described, with a marked reference to the original forfeiture.

"To

Το

"To him that overcometh, (said the Alpha and Omega, in the prophetic vision of St. John,) will I give to eat of the Tree of Life, which is in the midst of the Paradise of God." Rev. ii. 7.

The change which took place in Adam's condition by his Fall, was necessarily followed by a suitable change in his religious worship. He was driven out from the earthly Paradise, because that free communication with the Tree of Life, which, as an innocent creature he enjoyed, had been forfeited by transgression, and the only remaining access to what that Tree represented, was through the office of a promised Redeemer; which a consciousness of guilt and corruption, had now shewn to be necessary. To convince him of the heinous nature of sin, and, at the same time, to fix in the mind of Adam and his posterity, an idea of the divine method, by which the guilt of it was to be done away; a form of worship allusive to the great work, which the second person in the Godhead had covenanted to perform, was, at this time, instituted. For as the Gospel was published to Adam,

in the sentence denounced against the old serpent, that the "seed of the woman should bruise his head;" a religious service analagous to the Gospel, accompanied, it is to be presumed, the original publication of it.

A literal account of the circumstances which took place on this occasion, is not to be expected. For at this early period, and long after it, all knowledge, relative to spiritual and invisible things, were conveyed by emblematic representation. Indeed, after the use of letters had been established, the hieroglyphic mode of cloathing ideas was still retained. It was that language of the senses, by which, alone, any notion of things supernatural, and otherwise unintelligible, could be conveyed to the understanding. In allusion to which method of conveying spiritual knowledge, St. Paul observes, that "the invisible things of God are clearly seen from the creation of the world, being understood by the things which are made." Hence it is, according to the Apostle's words in another place, that " now, that is in this life, we see through a glass in an

enigma,"

enigma," the figures of visible things being made use of, for the purpose of reflecting

on our minds, some faint image of invisible things: but when we shall have attained to a state of perfection in a better world, we shall no longer see spiritual things by reflection, as it were from the glass of the creation, but we shall see them "face to face," as they are.

In conformity, then, with this mode of conveying spiritual knowledge, through the medium of visible objects, a certain emblematic representation, under the name of the Cherubim, was set up "at the east of the Garden of Eden," Gen. iii. 24. immediately after the Fall, for the purpose (as it is recorded) of keeping or preserving a way to the Tree of Life. This emblematic representation, which had probably been lost amidst the corruptions of Egypt, Moses, on coming out of that idolatrous country, was directed to make new, after a particular pattern delivered to him in the Mount, for the service of the Tabernacle. Exodus xxv. The same emblematic representation was afterwards made to be placed in the Holy of Holies

in the Temple, by the express direction of David to his son Solomon, according to the pattern delivered to Solomon for "the that purpose; which, David says, Lord had made him understand in writing by his hand upon him, even all the works of this pattern." 1 Chron. xxviii. 19. Before this emblematic representation,

set up in the holy places made with hands, which St. Paul expressly calls "the figures of the true," the blood of the sacrifice was, on the solemn day of atonement, sprinkled by the High Priest.

"Who

served (says the Apostle) unto the example and shadow of heavenly things;" Heb. viii. 5. Or as it may be translated, "who waited upon the exemplar, or emblematic representation of heavenly things; performing before it, that figurative typical service, which signified, and pre-figured that offering, which Christ made to God in heaven, when, by his own blood, he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us." Heb. ix. 12.

Though, therefore, (St. Paul says) "he cannot now speak particularly" on this subject;

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