Note 49 — Quest XX.

The principal argument brought to prove this, is the application of that scripture, to this purpose, in Cant. viii. 5. I raised thee up under the apple tree; there thy mother brought thee forth, as if he should say, the church, when, fallen by our first parents eating the fruit of this tree, was raised up, when the Messiah was first promised. But, though this be a truth, yet whether it be the thing intended, by the Holy Ghost, in that scripture, is uncertain. As for the opinion of those who suppose it was a fig-tree, as Theodoret, [Vid. Quest, xxviii. in Gen.] and some other ancient writers; that has no other foundation, but what we read, concerning our first parents sewing fig leaves together, and making themselves aprons, which, they suppose, was done before they departed from the tree, their shame immediately suggesting the necessity thereof. But others think, that whatever tree it were, it certainly was not a fig-tree, because it can hardly be supposed but that our first parents, having a sense of guilt, as well as shame, would be afraid so much as to touch that tree, which had occasioned their ruin. Others conclude, that it was a vine, because our Saviour appointed that wine, which the vine produces, should be used, in commemorating his death, which removed the effects of that curse, which sin brought on the world: but this is a vain and trifling method of reasoning, and discovers what lengths some men run in their absurd glosses on scripture.