choice productions serviceable or delightful to man. The signification of the figure before us is the same, only with a spiritual application. The two sons of oil are evidently two subjects abundantly possessing and capable of supplying, adequately to the wants of the church, those divine and moral truths, which enlighten men's minds with the knowledge, and touch their hearts with the love, of God and of the things that are conducive to salvation. Now the two subjects, which above all others are copiously replenished with this saving knowledge and able to impart the same to others, are and can be no other, than the ministers of the christian religion, regarded as two bodies in respect to the analogy before mentioned. The sacred truths of the old and new testaments are the subjects of their daily study and of their nightly meditation. The knowledge of these is at once the object and the reward of their labours, and the delight and joy of their leisure. That which they have obtained by studious and long-continued research, they continually unfold to their flocks in diligent teaching and preaching, and to the world in instructive writings, casting around them at the same time the lustre of their sober, moral, and pious examples. Accordingly they are said to stand before the Lord of the whole earth, the whole territory of

Christendom, as ministers of his presence, protected by his providence, animated by the sense of his favour, strengthened by his might, ever ready to act or to suffer at his command; and as "stewards of his mysteries, scribes well instructed unto his kingdom," able and prepared on every occasion of need or of duty to do the part of the "wise householder, who bringeth forth out of his treasures things new and old."

It has been noticed, that the olive-trees appeared to shed out their oil at once through the two branches, preternaturally matured and produced without the intervention of ripened fruit*, or of expression. Those operations of nature and of the manual labour and skill are confined to certain seasons of the year; but in the symbolical trees the flux of juice being produced and poured forth without those media, is not limited to any particular seasons, but is perennial and perpetual. This is quite suitable to the nature of the subjects represented by them, which continually send forth their sacred stream of truth, without intermission or failure, in all places and

* I have before expressed my opinion, that the word baw would be more properly rendered bunches than branches, by analogy to its signification of ears of corn. If so rendered, certainly the oil could not be said to be produced "without the intervention of ripened fruit;" but still the human labour of expression would be wanting.

at all seasons and periods, through the hands and instruments appointed to convey the same.

Again, the two branches send out the oil through two oil gutters or spouts; such vessels, as are the proper and common means of conveying a fluid to its appointed reservoir, or to the place, where it is to be used. Those gutters or spouts must consequently represent the channels, as it were, through which the ministers of the divine dispensations convey the blessings of religious, saving truth. These are plainly those institutions, both of divine and of human origin, which afford to the ministry the most convenient and edifying means of making known and publishing the truth, to the conviction and conversion of infidels and sinners, and to "the building up of the household of God in their most holy faith." Such are the feast of the Lord's day, analogous to the Jewish sabbath, the sacrament of baptism, analogous to the right of circumcision, the sacrament of the Lord's supper, analogous to the ordinance of the passover, and the various opportunities, which either ecclesiastical authority or pious usage have established for the celebration of divine worship and for teaching and preaching the word of truth, whether in a public or private manner. By these

also we are to understand orthodox creeds and

confessions of faith, liturgies, rules of discipline and conduct; together with the oral and written instructions in sermons, catechisms, expositions, commentaries, and all the ways in which the truths of religion are communicated to mankind. The truth displayed in the influential lustre of a christian life, together with private advice and admonition, are not peculiar parts of the ministerial office, and so are not included in the symbol of the oil gutters. They are betokened by the light of the lamps.

Spouts and gutters are vessels or instruments intended for and adapted to the conveyance of fluids. These consequently must convey the oil some whither; but whither is not specifically expressed yet it is not difficult to attain to a certainty on this point. The candlestick had lamps, which needed to be fed with oil, a bowl to contain the oil, and pipes to convey it to the lamps, but not a word is said as to whence it came, how it was conveyed, or even whether there were any such thing. On the other hand, we have two olive-trees planted one on each side of the candlestick, with two remarkable boughs shedding forth a constant flux of oil, which is received and conveyed by two spouts or gutters; but whither is not mentioned. The silence in these two instances is evidently studied, and the

understanding of the reader is expected to supply the place of words, which it may well do with all the force and plainness of intuition. The proximity of the olive-trees to the candlestick, and the material adaptation of the gutters to convey, and of the bowl to receive, the oil, bespeak the symbols to be made for each other, or rather to be only harmonious and mutually adapted parts of one complex and magnificent symbol, in which the bowl is the appointed receptacle of the oil continually poured forth by the spouts.

The bowl then being the reservoir of all the oil poured forth from the two olive-trees, must necessarily signify something, which is the recipi ent of the whole body of truth made known by the two dispensations. Now such a recipient is no where to be found but in the body of the church universal. That, and that alone, continually receives and entirely contains all the narratives, doctrines, precepts, promises, threatenings, and various declarations, which are incessantly deposited in its bosom by the ministers of religion, deriving them from the legal and evangelical dispensations, and giving them out by their various edifying, persuasive, and authoritative administrations.