Here again we find the man, whom God first created, highly distinguished from the brutes; not only by the delightful spot in which God placed him, but also by the exalted privilege of a longer life, a life always continuing in the same state. Whereas the bodies of all other living creatures grow in youth and increase in strength, but in old age decay and perish. But the original condition of man was intended to be far different. Had he continued in his innocence he would have enjoyed his meat and his drink; a change of his meat and drink and a conversion of them into blood would have taken place in his body, but that commutation would not have been impure and foul as it is now. This tree of life moreover would have preserved him in perpetual youth, nor would he have experienced any of the afflictions or inconveniences of old age. His brow would have contracted no wrinkles, nor would his foot nor his hand nor any other part of his body have known weakness or languor. By the blessing of the fruit of this tree man's powers would have remained perfect for generation and for labor of every kind; until at length he should have been translated from this corporeal to his spiritual life. The other trees would have supplied him with food the most excellent and the most delicious; but this "tree of life" would have been as it were a general medicine which would have preserved his natural life and powers in perpetual and complete vigor. Some may here interpose the question, How could this corporeal food or natural fruit effect such a conservation of the body as to prevent it from being weakened or debilitated by time? The reply is easy and divine. "He spake, and it was done!" Ps. 33:9. For if God can make bread of a stone, why should he not be able to preserve the natural powers of man by a fruit? Even since the sin of the fall we see what powerful properties the smallest herbs and seeds possess. Look for a moment at our own bodies. Whence comes that peculiar property of their nature that bread, eaten by them, is by their natural heat digested and converted into blood, by the circulation of which the whole body is strengthened and confirmed? Now bring together all the fires and all the furnaces of the universe, you cannot produce by them all this one single effect, the conversion of bread into blood. But this mighty effect is produced by that small degree of heat, which our natural bodies contain. There is no room for wonder therefore that this tree should have become by the will of the Lord, its Planter and Maker, "The tree of life!" Adam possessed a natural and movable body, a body which generated, ate and labored. These exertions are considered to produce decay or at least some kind of change, by which at length man is naturally worn out and destroyed. But by this appointment of nature, "the tree of life," God provided a remedy, by the use of which man might have a long and sound life, without any diminution of his powers and in perpetual youth.