Page:A Compendium of the Chief Doctrines of the True Christian Religion.djvu/20

16 chapter, from the 7th to the 17th verse, where man, being formed into the image and likeness of his Creator, is pronounced to be a living soul, and placed in the garden of Eden, which was well watered, and enriched with the choicest fruits of the earth. The garden itself, called also paradise, denotes the wisdom and intelligence of the man or men thus created anew, and made celestial: the trees pleasant to the sight, and good for food, denote their interior perceptions of truth and good: the tree of lives in the midst of the garden, denotes their love and wisdom derived solely from the Lord their Creator: and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, denotes faith or science capable of being derived from themselves, or from their own sensual principle, in an external way, contrary to divine order; on which account they were prohibited from eating of the fruit of this latter tree, but allowed to eat freely of the other trees.

The state of man, prior to the fall, widely differed from his present state. Before that period his will and understanding were perfectly united, and formed only one mind; insomuch that, as soon as ever any love or affection was in motion, it instantly produced it's proper science or thought, the one being inseparable from the other. In that happy age, called by way of eminence the golden age, men needed no external instruction, but obtained all necessary knowledge by an internal influx, like a dictate from heaven. Hence they had no written revelation, because divine truths were inscribed on their hearts: neither did they exercise any external worship, like that of succeeding times, because they needed no stimulus, no formal excitation, to the performance of duties, which to them were the constant and sweetest employment of their lives. They were born also into the