3. ufe of Pa ratels. Caufe ball a Man leave his Father and Mother, and hall be foyned unto his Wife, and they two fall be one Flesh, This is a great Mystery: But I speak concerning Christ and the Church. Here is the Parallel clofely carry'd on betwixt the Union ther is in our Marriages, and that much more Intimat Union in our Marriage with Christ, and in Him, with the whole Bleffed Trinity; which the Apostle calls the great Mystery. Therefor let none Defpife the ufe of Parallels, which are fo frequent in Holy Scripture. By thefe we are led to the Knowlege of God, and the great Mystery of our Redemption, and future Enjoyment of God. We fee indeed by these but as in a Glass, darkly. But without thefe we fhou'd know much lefs, and not be able to frame to our felves any Ideas of it at all, or any but what wou'd be much more Erroneous. And fince God in Holy Scripture has us'd this Method with us, no doubt it is moft proper, and the Best we can use. We must ascend to God by the Scale of His Creatures. We have no other way; For we cannot fee Him as He is. Hence our Partaking of the Nature of Chrift, is made Adam a lively to us by what we Know, that is, our Partaking Type of Chrift. of the Nature of our Parents, and fo up to Adam. Hence Rom. 5. 14. Adam is call'd The Figure of Him who was to Come. And the Parallel betwixt Him and Chrift is Carry'd on to the End of that Chapter. And 1. Cor. 15. 21. As in Adam all Die, even so in Christ shall all be made Alive. And ver. 45. The first Man Adam was made a living Soul, the last Adam was a Quickning Spirit. And ver. 47. The first Man is of the Earth, Earthly: The fecond Man is the Lord from Heaven. Tertullian infifts largely upon this Parallel, (de Refur. Carn. c. 6.) and go's through every Particular and Circumstance of the Formation of Adam, and fhews how it all Referr'd to Christ. He fays, Quodcunque enim Limus exprimebatur, Christus cogitabatur Homo futurus ita Limus Limus ille jam tunc Imaginem induens Chrifti futuri, nos tantum Dei opus erat, fed et Pignus. i. e. Whatever the Earth of Adam was made, Christ was Meant by it, who sbou'd become Man So the Earth then putting on the Image of Chrift to come in the Flefb, was not only God's Workmanfhip, but his Pledge. That is, that Christ fhou'd come in the Flefb. And Eve And as Adam was a Type of Chrict, fo was Eve of the Church, which fhou'd bring forth Children unto God. of the Church. And as the Church is Builded upon Christ her Rock and Particularly Foundation; fo was Eve made or Builded (as our Margin, in her Formaafter the Hebrew, reads Gen. 2. 22.) out of Adam. And as the Church has no Life but what he Derives from Christ, fo neither had Eve but what fhe Deriv'd from Adam, And as the Side of Christ was Open'd, after His Death, whence Iffu'd Water and Blood. Of which He has given us the Two Salutary Sacraments of Baptifm and the Lord's Supper. By the First we are Born again of Water and the Holy Spirit; and made Members of His Church, which is His Body: And by the Second we are Perpetually Nourish'd with His Blood into Eternal Life. Now these Flowed not out of Christ's fide, till after He was Dead. For till then He had not fully Paid the Price of our Redemption. The Confummatum est was not Pronounc'd but with His last Breath upon the Cross. For till His Death, all was not Finish'd. Then came out the Water and the Blood, which are the Life of His Church. And the Church, being then Perfectly Redeemed, may be faid to be Born, and taken out of His Dead Body. So it is faid Gen. 2. 21. The Lord God caufed a deep Sleep to fall upon Adam, and he Slept. And while he was in this nearest Image of Death (And we muft suppose it was more than an Ordinary Sleep which the Lord caus'd to fall upon him) his Side was Open'd, and Eve was taken out of him. God in Holy meant. And as it was faid of the firft Adam, That ther was no Help meet for him found among all the Inferior Crea. tures, therefor that God made an Help meet for him, out of his own Flesh and Blood: So was ther no Help meet for the fecond Adam among Birds, Fish or Fowl, but His Delight was with the Children of Men. And out of them He purchased a Church with His own Blood, to be an Holy Spoufe unto Him, and an Help meet for Him, to bring forth Children to Glory. It cannot Efcape any Bodies Obfervation, That the Male and Female of Man were not Created together, like thofe of the Birds, Fish and Fowl: But that the Man was Created alone, and afterwards his Female was Deduc'd out of him. And ther is more Circumstance and Particularities told of this Deduction of Eve out of Adam, than even of the Formation of Adam out of the Earth, or any other Part of the Creation. And in that very short History in Genefis of the Times before the Flood, it cannot be imagin'd fo much of it fhou'd be taken up with this, if it were not a matter of the Higheft Moment, and greatly to be Regarded by Us. And it appears the more to be fo, by the frequent Allufions made to it in the New Testament, not only with Relation to Man and Wife, but to Christ and His Church. XI. SOC. Come, to have done with your Allusions. If By the word Each of the three Perfons in your fuppos'd Trinity was Scripture the God, than the word God wou'd not in Scripture be Apwhole Bleffed ply'd to One of them more than to Another. But it is Trinity is evident that generally through the Scripture by the word God is meant God the Father, and Him only. As to thofe Particular Texts wherein you Alledge it is Apply'd to the other two Perfons, we fhall Examin them by and by. But it wou'd be Always apply'd to them, if Each of them were God, as you fay. Why not Always to them, as well as to the Father? CHR.. CHR. It is not Always given to the Father, as I fhall fhew you. But firft take my Direct Answer. That by the word God in Holy Scripture the whole Trinity of God is meant. And it must be fo. For if the three Perfons are of the Nature of the Godhead, which we have already Difcours'd, then the word God muft Imply them all. As when we fay the Soul of Man, the three Faculties, and Each of them, is certainly meant. SOC. But why then do you Attribute Creation to the Particular Father, Redemption to the Son, and Sanctification to the As Attribu Holy Ghoft? CHR. As we Attribute one Operation of the Soul to the Understanding, another to the Memory, and another to the Will. And yet they all three Act in Concert, and no One of them can Act without the Other. As has been plainly fhew'd before. And that thus it is in the Perfons of the Holy Trinity. And, to apply the Parallel to your prefent Objection, the Understanding, which is the Father Faculty, has the name of Soul given to it more commonly than either of the other two Faculties. For Example, when we Defcribe a Fool, a Man of no Understanding, it is common to fay, fuch an one has no Soul, or, as Chryfippus in Seneca faid of the Soul of a Swine, that it ferv'd only as Salt, to keep his Body from Stinking. But we fay not fo of an Obftinate Man, or one of a Perverfe Will. Or of a Man that has a Treacherous Memory. On the Contrary, it is a faying, That the greatest Wits have the fhorteft Me mories. The word guifh'd from Thus the word God may fometimes be us'd to Exprefs God fomeGod the Father. But generally fpeaking it means the times DiftinDeity. And fometimes it is us'd in Diftinction even from the Father. the Father. as Col. 2. 2. the Mystery of God, and of And the Dri ty Express'd by the Perfons the Father, and of Chrift. And the Godhead is fometimes Exprefs'd without the only. And the word God at all, only by the Perfons of the Godhead, word Father G 2 given to the as son. That the the Trinity, as as in the Form of Baptifm which Chrift Commanded, In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghoft. And fometimes the Term of Father is given to the Son, as Ifai. 9. 6. where Chrift is call'd the Everlasting Father. That was in Relation to Creatures. For by Him were all things made, Joh. 1. 3. XII. SOC. We will talk more of this, when we come to Heathen had Examin thefe Texts. But now, in the mean time, I must a Notion of call upon you for what you Promis'd Sect. viii. of the wenye Fecundity of God. Where you faid, That even Heathen Fews. Philofophers have Argu'd as you did. And had a Notion of a Trinity of Perfons in God, from the Fecundity of His Nature. CHR. This Notion of the Fecundity of God made them Describe God as Male and Female. Thus Damafcius repeats what old Orpheus taught of the Deity, apo evonu αυτὴν ὑπερήσατο, πρὸς ἔνδειξιν ο πάντων χυητικῆς ἐσιας. He made it Male and Female to fhew the Generative Power of all things, which they Deriv'd from it; or by which He made all things. And Proclus upon the Timaus, p. 95. Quotes this among other Orphick Verses, او Ζοὺς ἄρσην λύετο, Ζεὺς ἀμβρος. ἔπλετο νύμφη. Jupiter is a Man, Jupiter is also an Im-mortal Woman. It was very common among their Myftick Writers to Σὺ πατήρ, Σὺ 5, ἐστι Μάτηρ, Σὺ ἄρρω, Σὺ ἢ Θήλυς. Thou art Father, thou art Mother, SOC. |