136 PLANTS IN SCRIPTURE 



agreeable unto that tree which is best propagated this 

 way ; not at all by surculation, as Theophrastus 

 observeth, 1 nor well by seed, as hath been observed. 

 Omne semen simile genus perfictt, prater oleam, oleastrum 

 enim generat, hoc est sylvestrem oleam, et non oleam 

 veram. 



" If, therefore, thou Roman and Gentile branch, 

 which wert cut from the wild olive, art now, by the 

 signal mercy of God, beyond the ordinary and commonly 

 expected way, grafted into the true olive, the church 

 of God ; if thou, which neither naturally nor by 

 human art canst be made to produce any good fruit, 

 and, next to a miracle, to be made a true olive, art now 

 by the benignity of God grafted into the proper olive ; 

 how much more shall the Jew, and natural branch, be 

 grafted into its genuine and mother tree, wherein pro- 

 pinquity of nature is like, so readily and prosperously, 

 to effect a coalition ? And this more especially by 

 the expressed way of insition or implantation, the olive 

 being not successfully propagable by seed, nor at all by 

 surculation." 



34. " And therefore, Israel said, carry down the 

 man a present, a little balm, a little honey, and myrrh, 



1 Geobortki lib. x 



