see that the LORD is good;” and in Matt. xvi. 28, “There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death;” and in the epistle to the Hebrews, chap. vi. 4, “And have tasted of the heavenly gift;” and at verse 5, “And have tasted the good Word of GOD, and the powers of the world to come;” and in the 2d epistle of Peter, chap. ii. 3, “If so be ye have tasted that the LORD is gracious:”—in all which passages, it is plain, that tasting is used in a sense superior to that of bodily feeling, and according to that sense is expressive of mental feeling.
From this view, then, of the subject it appears manifest, that in the constitution of man there are several degrees of taste, both natural and spiritual, both sensual and intellectual; and that, in the highest degree, GOD Himself is its object, together with His HOLY WORD, and the great realities of His eternal kingdom. The organs, therefore, of bodily taste may be regarded as the basis of the organs of taste in the higher degrees of mind, and in this character may be serviceable and beneficial to those higher degrees—in like manner as every other basis is a necessary support to the superstructure of which it is the basis. For I need not inform you, that the all of the material world which we inhabit, and particularly the all of our material bodies, is but a basis, on which the spiritual
