In defence of this important ground I now take my position. I maintain then,—1. that the key of truth is a method demonstratively true and consistently applied. 1. That the key of inspired truth is the comparing of inspired words with one another, and consistency in applying particular intentions thereby ascertained to all parallel passages. III. That whenever this key passes all the wards of the lock without force, the discovery that it makes, is the truth of God itself. I proceed then to apply this method to the first chapter of Genesis, in the most perfect confidence that if I can demonstrate to a Christian that St. Paul has applied a most important part of this chapter, not in accommodation to his purpose, but as resting the most important doctrines of Christianity on the argument that the most proper and worthy meaning of the passage alluded to, however confessedly fulfilled in the letter on the sixth day of formation, is nevertheless hitherto NOT FULFILLED; if, I say, I can prove this,-CONSISTENCY requires that I should consider the rest of the chapter, not as applied in the New Testament in another intention besides the literal one fulfilled in the six days, after the method of accommodation, but after that of solid argument from types adapted to antitypes by GoD THE HOLY GHOST, from the foundation of the world. The passage which I select for the purpose of demonstrating that St. Paul argued from it as intending infinitely more than was fulfilled in the letter at the time, is the following one. In explaining to the Jews the spiritual intention of their law, he reverts to the foundation of the world in Hebrews, ch. 1., and tells them that the Son of God made the dispensations of the successive days of the aiwvwv (the very word used for the millenaries, as above mentioned), that He was the TRUE Light of the first day, as being by nature the radiance of the Father, and that image in TRUTH, according to which Adam was formed; He, not Adam, the true heir of all things, as èxalted far above the angels set over this visible earth in the beginning of time. And in ver. 6, that when the Light, the Creator, the image of God returns to renew man, as the Light formed on the first day came again into the world by the Sun, in this second system he should likewise have the pre-eminence. In ch. ii. 5., we arrive at my strong hold. In ver. 8. we read, 66 hast put all things in subjection under his feet. For inhou that he put all things in subjection under him, he left nothing that is not put under him: but now we see not all things yet put སྒྱུ under him," &c. Now if this be an argument from the type: of Adam, consistency requires that we apply the whole chapter accordingly, to which I now proceed. Critical Remarks on the three first chapters of Genesis. In the beginning Elohim created the heavens and the earth. The Literal or Typical sense. In the beginning. Heb. In the head, or, in the appointed. head. The Hebrew word Resh signifies a head, and Reshith, the word here used, means perhaps an appointed head (compounded of and ). For primitive roots are supposed to have been originally monosyllables. (Shukford.) This is St. Paul's explanation of the word, Col. i. 18, which I thus render. And the same is the head of the body, the church, who is the principle, first produced and first producing from the dead, that in all the same might precede. For all the plenitude was well pleased to sojourn, in Him." (See Kircheri Concordantia. N) In Heb. by or in. " God, Heb. Elohim, a plural noun used with a singular verb. It has been much questioned whether this verb has really a plural signification, because other nouns having also a plural termination do not appear to have a plural meaning; but let them all be translated in the plural number, and speak for themselves; otherwise, they are not a fac-simile of the original. "That a plural word is used with the design of intimating a plurality in the godhead, in some respect or other, it is strange that any one should doubt who has observed that it is used in places, in which if there be, in truth, no plurality in the godhead, the inspired writers must have been determined by the principles of their religion studiously to avoid the use of a plural." Bishop Horsley's Biblical Criticism, Vol. 1, p. 24. In general it is very obvious, that the word Elohim is expressive of relation." Ibid. p. 43. Perhaps Elohim signifies powers; for El signifies power; (Buxtorf.) and so may be a communicable name, denoting the powers which are communicated to the powers which are of God; agreeably to which supposition, Elohim is sometimes rendered in Greek by sol disposers. (See Romans xiii. 1., and John x. 35. compared with Psalm lxxxii. 6.) The Jews properly distinguished between the incommunica ble name of God, Jehovah, the self-existent, and the communicable name Elohim, the powers; and therefore the distinction should be preserved in the translation. And the neglect to do so may have caused many fatal mistakes respecting the divine essence, persons, and communicated powers. The heaven, Heb. The heavens. And the earth. The Hebrew word is the same as the English word earth. The Antitype, as revealed in Scripture. Beginning, signifies the second person in the Trinity. Col. i. 18. John i. 1. Revel. i. 11. 17. iii. 14. Created, gave spiritual life. John i. 4. 9. Heavens, the angels, as being inhabitants of heaven; who likewise are called principalities, powers, and thrones, because the heaven is over the earth. Hebrews xii. 26. 28. Job xv. 15. Heavens likewise may mean the gospel, as antecedent in order to the law of carnal or earthly ordinances. Earth, the inhabitants of the earth. Gen. xi. 1. Ver. 2. The first day. And the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the Spirit of Elohim moved upon the face of the waters. The Type. Was; that is, when God said, Let there be light. This may have been the state of the earth when it was first created, or after it had existed in one or more formations. The state here described resembles that to which the earth was reduced by the flood, which resolved it into this same state in which it was before the formation of the six days commenced. (See Jackson's Chronology, Vol. 1. chapter on the Creation.) Without form. The formation consequently of the six days had not yet commenced. Void: without production or inhabitant. Deep. This word signifies three things; viz. the sea, and the bottomless pit, and Hades, the habitation of all the dead. Romans x. 7. Luke viii. 31. Spirit, or wind. This word should be always rendered consistently; but as this is not the case, we should never forget that the literal sense of spirit is neither more nor less than wind, and that of wind neither more nor less than spirit. In Genesis viii. 1. the same word spirit is used with respect to the restoration, there described, of the heavens and the earth from death, or disorganization, the effect of the Fall, by which the heavens and the earth which were of old were destroyed through water 2 Pet. iii. 5, 6, may refer not only to the Flood, but probably to this very verse, as will further appear. Moved, Heb. fluttered or brooded, in allusion to the dove and other birds brooding over their nests.. The Antitype. The earth. The earthy substance of man, the flesh, called in Hebrew Adama. Jerem. xxii. 29. 1 Cor. xv. 47. Rom. ix. 21. Without form, deprived of the image of God through the fall. Jerem: iv. 22, 23. Void, deprived of the spirit of life, or fulness dwelling in Christ. John i. 16. Gen. ii. 17. iii, 19. vi. 5. Darkness Darkness The power of Satan. Eph. vi. 12. also imports that life and immortality were not brought to light, but that the invisible state was involved in obscurity. Rom. xvi. 25. 2 Tim. i. 10. Luke i. 79. Isaiah ix. 2. Was upon the face; that is, death by the serpent, opposed to life by the dove, was working in mankind till the spirit re-appeared in the form of the dove over the waters of baptism; and the second Adam or earth rose from the deep, to combat and conquer the old serpent in the wilderness, into which state Paradise had been reduced. Of the deep. In Revel. ii. 24, the depths of Satan are mentioned, and signify the mystery of iniquity. The deep also signifies the invisible state of which the depths of the the type. Jonah ii. 6. Revel. xiii. 1. Compare xvii. 8. Luke viii. 31. 33. The e sea are spirit or wind, a type of the Holy Spirit. Acts ii. 2. Johu iii. 8. 12. Rom. i. 20. Face or faces, person or persons, the word person meaning a face, and opposed to substance. Hebrews i. 3. Isaiah viii. 17. compared with vi. 3, 9. John xii. 41. Waters, kindreds, tongues, nations, and peoples. Revel. xvii. 15. The earth overwhelmed by waters, or a flood, denotes an insurrection of the people overwhelming the work of formation, or religion, social order, and morality. See Jude 13. Luke xxi. 25. and 2 Peter iii. 5, 6, 7. relating to the flood, probably a type both retrospective or relating to a formation antecedent to the six days of Genesis i. and prospective in relation to a flood of fire. |