XIII. Types of the Holy Eucharist :

(i.) The Tree of Life.

GEN. II. 9. 'The Tree of Life also in the midst of the garden.'

Unlike all other systems of religion, such as the religions of the Heathen world, whether ancient or modern, the religion of JESUS Christ our LORD, Catholic Christianity, not only gives us certain commands, but also gives us 'grace and power faithfully to fulfil' those commands. And this help and strength and grace are chiefly conveyed to our souls in and through the Sacraments, especially by the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar, wherein we receive the Body and Blood of JESUS Christ our Lord and God.

Because we are weak in will, in resolution, in performance; sinful; ignorant; prone to fall; compassed with infirmities;

therefore we should come to the only Strong for strength, relying upon His promises :

'He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might He increaseth strength' (Isa. xl. 29);

They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength' (Isa. xl. 31); 'My Grace is sufficient for thee: for My strength is made perfect in weakness' (2 Cor. xii. 9): and hearkening to His Voice

'Arise and eat: because the journey is too great for thee' (1 Kings xix. 7). 'Come, eat of My Bread and drink of the Wine which I have mingled ' (Prov. ix. 5).

Be of good cheer then, O faint and weary Christian soul! arise, He calleth thee to eat and drink at His Table in His Kingdom.

It will be my endeavour in these Classes-[which will be held from time to time-on Friday afternoons at a quarter past three o'clock]-to bring before you some of the types of Holy Communion whereby It has been foreshadowed and foretold from the very beginning.

Almighty God was, and is, and is to come, unchangeably the same'I am the LORD, I change not' (Mal. iii. 6)—and being the I AM from everlasting to everlasting (Ex. iii.; Ps. xc.), the Same yesterday, to-day, and for ever (Heb. xiii. 8), from the very beginning He has been teaching mankind, calling them to Himself, instructing them gradually, here a little and there a little, filling in the bare, rough outline bit by bit, age after age, leading them on step by step, as they were able to bear it, and so revealing Himself—His Nature, His Truth, His Goodness, His Perfections-gradually.

Thus there was first the twilight of the Patriarchal dispensation; then the dawn of the Mosaic dispensation;

now we have the early sunlight of Christian times, when the Sun of Righteousness has risen upon us with healing in His wings.

Hereafter in Heaven itself there will be the full, unclouded splendour of noonday.

Through all the centuries of the world's history there has been a steady growth and progress, an unfolding and revelation of the Truth of God.

In early ages God revealed Himself by means of types and shadows. Now He comes to us in the Holy Communion, and veils His glory under the elements of Bread and Wine. Hereafter we shall see as we are seen, and know as we are known, and God will reveal Himself clearly to us, and show Himself unto His servants face to face (1 Cor. xiii. 12; Rev, xxii. 4).

Let us see how the Tree of Life is a type and a foreshadowing of JESUS our LORD, specially as He draws near to us and is offered for our reception, in the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar.

i. "How is it spoken of?

And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for fruit; the Tree of Life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil' (Gen. ii. 9).

'And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of Us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the Tree of Life, and eat, and live for ever: Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. So he drove out the man; 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" (Gen. iii. 22, 23, 24).

From which we gather that Adam and Eve might have eaten of the fruit of this Tree, and had they done so would have lived on for ever.

But to live on for ever in wickedness and sin, with unchanged hearts, is to be like devils. Hence God's mercy to mankind after the Fall was shown in His guarding of the Tree.

Thus we catch a glimpse of the Tree of Life in Paradise, and then it seems to fade away out of our sight, and we hear no more of it until we come to the Book of Revelation, where we have the promise, 'To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life which is in the midst of the Paradise of God' (Rev. ii. 7); and the description, 'In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river was there the Tree of Life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month; and the leaves of the Tree were for the healing of the nations' (Rev. xxii. 2).

But we shall, I think, be by no means wresting Holy Scripture if we apply to the Tree of Life other inspired words of God, whereby the Holy Ghost describes to us other great and noble trees: seeing that whatever of great, or good, or noble, or useful there was in them, must have been in so far a copy of the greatest, best, and most blessed of all trees, the Tree of Life.

At Marah (Ex. xv. 23, 25) the children of Israel found the waters so bitter that they could not drink of them; but God showed unto Moses a tree, which when he had cast into the waters, the waters were made sweet.

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In the Book of Canticles, the Bride, the Lamb's wife,' the Church (Ephes. v. 23, 24, 25) expressly likens her Beloved to a Tree, saying, 'As the Apple tree among the trees of the wood so is my Beloved among the sons. I sat down under His shadow with great delight, and His Fruit was sweet to my taste' (Cant. ii. 3).

Again, we may apply the description given in Ezek. xxxi. 3-10, to the Tree of Life, to whom art thou thus like in glory and in greatness among the trees of Eden?' (ver. 18). I have made him fair by the multitude of his branches: so that all the trees of Eden that were in the garden of God envied him.'

So Dan. iv. 10m, 11, 12 may help us to a right understanding of this blessed Tree, the glory of Paradise.

Then, too, does not the Parable of the grain of mustard seed (S. Matt. xiii. 31, 32; S. Mark iv. 31, 32) speak to us of Him Who is the 'Tree of Life to them that lay hold upon Him'? As regards His Humanity, 'the least of all seeds,' 'despised and esteemed not' (Isa. liii. 37); but after His Resurrection, and as regards His Divinity, a 'great Tree,' so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches of it.'

Again, our Blessed Lord calls Himself the True Vine (S. John xv. I-5); and the Holy Eucharist, this Fruit of the Vine' (S. Matt. xxvi. 29), is that which cheereth God and man' (Judg. ix. 13).

'Thus we read of a Tree of Life, which preserved life in Eden, and was lost; and of a Tree of Life restored to man, which quickens in earth and heaven, in the Church Militant and the Church Triumphant ; and the benefits are in all these cases alike obtained by eating the fruits' (Heygate, The Eucharist, its Types, etc., p. 4).

ii. T. What is this Tree? In one light the Cross is the Tree, and JESUS our Lord is the Fruit hanging on it, as the Hymn

'Faithful Cross! above all other,

One and only noble tree!
None in foliage, none in blossom,
None in fruit thy peers may be :
Sweetest Wood and sweetest Iron!
Sweetest weight is hung on thee.'

-Neale, Med. Seq., p. 3.

In another aspect our dear Lord Himself is the Tree of Life, and the Holy Eucharist the fruit of immortality, of which another Hymn—

'O Tree of Beauty! Tree of Light!
O Tree with royal purple dight!'

'With fragrance dropping from each bough,

Sweeter than sweetest nectar Thou.'

-Neale, Med. Seq., pp. 7, 8.

The two ideas are interwoven and combined. The Tree of Life also in the midst of the garden. A tree in the midst of the earth' (Dan. iv. 10). As in the midst of the Garden of Eden there was planted of old the Tree of Life, so now in the midst of the earth, in the midst of the ages, in the midst of His garden (Cant. iv. 16), the Church, God planted the Cross to be a true Tree of Life.

Yes! on Calvary, at Jerusalem, once supposed to be the very centre of the earth (N. and L., Ps. lxxiv. 13), were set up those three crosses whereon were crucified the two robbers, 'on either side one and JESUS in the midst.'

The height thereof was great (Dan. iv. 10). His height was exalted above all the trees of the field (Ezek. xxxi. 5), because like Jacob's ladder (Gen. xxviii. 12) His roots were on the earth speaking of His Humanity but His 'top shot up among the thick boughs' (Ezek. xxxi. 10), and the height thereof reached unto Heaven' (Dan. iv. 11), referring to His Divinity.

The leaves thereof were fair (Dan. iv. 12), ever green-for 'His leaf shall not wither' (Ps. i. 4)—healing, the leaves of the Tree were for the healing of the nations' (Rev. xxii. 2): by these leaves we may understand the wholesome words of JESUS Christ (cf. Prov. xv. 4f), which are helpful, healing, lifegiving (S. John vi. 637; Ps. cxix. 50/), which can never pass away. The Fruit thereof much (Dan. iv. 12), because however often the Holy Eucharist be celebrated, It never diminishes or grows less (cf. I Kings xvii. 14-16).

"Whoso of this Food partaketh,

Rendeth not the Lord, nor breaketh,
Christ is whole to all that taste:
Thousands are, as one, receivers,
One, as thousands of believers,

Eats of Him Who cannot waste.'

-Altar Hymnal, 109, ver. 8.

And in It was meat for all (Dan. iv. 12), for He knoweth our frame, He remembereth that we are but dust, He knoweth us altogether, and 'He will give Meat unto them that fear Him' (Ps. cxi. 5); so that the poor shall eat and be satisfied' (Ps. xxii. 26).

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Meat for all-whatever be the particular need of the soul at any given time, that God is ready to supply. The Holy Eucharist, like the Tree of Life in Rev. xxii. 2, bears twelve manner of fruits,' one for every month of man's sorrows, is able to content every man's delight, and agreeing to every taste,' 'and serving the appetite of the eater, tempereth Itself to every man's liking' (Wisd. xvi. 20, 21).

The beasts of the field had shadow under it, and the fowls of Heaven dwelt in the boughs thereof, and all flesh was fed of it (Dan. iv. 12), and under His shadow dwelt all great nations' (Ezek. xxxi. 6). This Tree of Life casts a cool, refreshing, and most blessed shadow in the weary wilderness of this world, burnt up with the fierce, hot rays of

temptation, lust, and passion; yes, this Tree is the only secure shelter and abode for the fowls of Heaven, even earnest Christian souls.

JESUS our Lord, the True Tree of Life, is our only Shadow from the heat (Isa. xxv. 4m), our only Refuge and defence and safe abode in the needful time of trouble (Isa. xxxii. 2; Ps. xxxii. 8, cxliii. 9).

'We have no shelter from our sin,

But in Thy Wounded Side.'

iii. Shall we not put forth our hands and take of the Fruit of the Tree of Life, the Holy Communion, and eat, and live for ever?

The Fruit is indeed sweet, for JESUS is the Tree of Life, and JEsus in the Holy Eucharist is the Fruit thereof; as He said, 'My Flesh is Meat indeed, and My Blood is Drink indeed ;''the Bread of God is He which cometh down from Heaven and giveth life unto the world;' 'I am the Bread of Life, he that cometh to Me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on Me shall never thirst;' 'except ye eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink His Blood, ye have no life in you.'

Let us determine, 'I will go up to the Palm Tree, I will take hold of the boughs thereof' (Cant. vii. 8); I will eat the Fruit of immortality and drink the Blood of the grape, in the Name of the LORD, to my soul's great and endless comfort!

XIV. Types of the Holy Eucharist;
(ii.) Melchisedec.

GEN. XIV. 18. 'And Melchisedec king of Salem brought forth bread and wine.'

When last we met I considered with you the Tree of Life, as one of the earliest types or foreshadowings of the Holy Eucharist, whereby, from the very beginning God has been leading men on, teaching them and preparing them rightly to receive that great mystery of the Gospel, the Holy Communion of our dear Lord's Body and Blood.

To-day I wish to bring before you another type of the Holy Communion, viz. the Bread and Wine brought forth by Melchisedec, Priest of the Most High God. And remember that this Bread and Wine were not the Holy Eucharist Itself, because our Blessed Lord had not yet instituted It, had not as yet taken our Flesh and become Incarnate.

1. T. Who was this Melchisedec? A mysterious personage-supposed by some to have been the patriarch Shem, or an Angel, or even our Blessed Lord Himself, though none of these suppositions seem