III. THE Laws of Paradise were inforced by a very awful Sanction, viz. Life and Death: The one expressing something most terrible, the other implying somewhat vastly delightful. Threatnings were necessary Cautions in Paradise: How surprizing this! The first day of Man’s Life, Man was put in mind of Death, of which the Tree of Life was a Memento. If you eat the Fruit of it, you forfeit your Life, die you must without Remedy. This Menace of Death, in the Design of it, was to guard against Sin, as that which only could be the Cause of Death.
IN the day thou eatest thereof, dying thou shalt die; or, die the Death. Behold here! as in a Cloud, the first Alarm of Mortality, the first Institution of Funerals, and the melancholy Office of Grave-diggers. Bells from the Pinnacle of the Temple, proclaim it aloud to Man, Dust thou art, and unto Dust thou shalt return. In this paradisaical Scheme of Government, we find Death to be a near Neighbour to Life: Both the Trees grew near to one another.
Some have made this Tree of Life a Representation of Christ, and if so, here, as in a Glass, darkly Man saw his Saviour before he stood in need of him: The Tree of Life planted in the midst of Paradise, was to preserve Adam’s Life, and without doubt had done so, if he had not rebelled. According to a Learned Jew, the Tree of Life represents Piety; and that of Knowledge, Prudence[[345]]. Some of his Countrymen tell us ridiculous Stories about the Tree of Life, viz. That it was of prodigious Size, and all the Water of the Earth gush’d out at its Foot, &c.
[345]. Philo Judæus.
It is from the History of Paradise that pagan Poets took their Nectar and Ambrosia, which were said to be the Meat and Drink of the Gods; upon which some put this Construction, viz. Nectar signifies young; Ambrosia, Immortality; intimating, that in a State of Innocency, the Vigor of Youth would have been immortal.
The Heathen were not without some Idea of the Mosaic Creation, and Fall of Man, and of a Woman that brought Sorrow into the World; envying, that a Fire, which is the Light of Knowledge, was hid from them ... and also of Old-Age, brought in by the Counsel of a Serpent.——
Paradise, in Plato’s Symposium, is Jupiter’s Garden, and also is the Pattern of Alcinous’s Orchards, and the Hesperides: The Golden-Apples kept by a Dragon, were the forbidden Fruit in Paradise: The Fable of Hercules’s killing the Serpent of the Hesperides, is borrowed from the Seed of the Woman, breaking the Serpent’s Head.
What is Ovid’s In nova fert animus? but an imperfect Transcript of Moses’s Journal of the Creation, &c. ’Tis said by Moses, The Spirit of God moved on the Face of the Waters; hence Thales, makes Water to be the first Principle of all natural Bodies: His Reasons are deliver’d by Plutarch. Homer says, All things are made of the Ocean. The Chaos, whereof all things were made, according to Hesiod, was Water. Orpheus says, all things were generated of the Ocean[[346]]. Plato’s Atlanticus, what is it but a Fable? built upon Moses’s History of Noah, and the Flood, and the Causes that brought it upon the World.
[346]. ωκεανος—γενεσις παντευς τετυκται.
What is the Bacchus of the Heathen, but the Noah of Moses? formerly called Boachus, for Noachus, as might easily be, mistaking the Hebrew Letters B and N, which are not very much unlike. By Janus and Saturn, Noah is meant; and some take Jupiter to be Japhet, for tho’ Jovis, and the other oblique Cases are derived from Jehovah, yet Jupiter is another. The Fable of Heaven being stormed by the Giants, arose from what the Builders of the Tower of Babel said, viz. Let us build a City and a Tower, whose Top may reach unto Heaven.... But no Man imitates the Scriptures more than Homer, who was an inquisitive Traveller into all Countries. But to proceed to the Pagan Account of Paradise, and the Fall of Man: