Men because if I may say so these Dispensations were the Figures of the great Oeconomy of J. C. or rather of God the Father manifesting himself in the Flesh of his Son Therefore Irenaeus calls it the Dispensation which was from the Beginning You may see what Vossius saith in his Notes concerning these Allegories of Barnabas and the other Fathers It is known by all saith he how these first Christians interpreted the Scriptures after a mystic and superstitious manner I was like to say childish and foolish Cotelier saith almost the same and shews their Absurdities But take this along with you that these dull Allegories did not by far so much Mischief as that Christianity in Masquerade which some other Fathers borrowed from Plato It is of these you may more justly say than of the Allegorists according to one of our Criticks that the Day these good Fathers were writing so many philosophic Visions they voided a Purge Purgamentum aliquod cacasse Let us now come to Hermas who is as well stored with Visions and Parables as Barnabas At least his Method is the same In his Parable or Similitude the 9th § 12. he saith That the Rock is the Son of God now the Rock is of old because the Son of God is more antient than any Creature inasmuch as he assisted in the Council of his Father in order to form the Creature All this is said in a mystic and an allegoric sense to explain that the Father did all in regard to his Son and the new Creation The Author having said as much in his first Vision § 4. concerning the Church for asking of the Angel Why the Church of God is an old Woman the Angel answers because she was the first thing that was created and that it was by reason of her the World was made It is likely in the Greek it was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which the Translator rendered not per illam but propter illam You see then that this Father saith no more of J. C. than he doth of the Church and that these Words antiquior omni Creatura mean the same thing with anus prima omnium creata which are true only in a mystic sense but false in the Letter Consequently then J. C. is from the Beginning in the same sense that the Church is so I mean in the Decree and Design of God which the Author expresseth by his being in the Council of the Father which he borrowed manifestly from the Author of the Book of Wisdom I shall now produce a remarkable Instance of the Alteration that ensued as to the Tenent it self notwithstanding the Terms remained the same You see that Hermas saith here the Son of God is more antient than any Creature and that he speaks so allegorically Let us get over one Age or two and you shall see Origen making use of the same Expression but in an Arian sense The Holy Scriptures saith he Lib. 5. contra Cels discover the Son of God to us as the most antient of all the Creatures 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He means that he was created a little before the World but let us return to our Subject Justin Martyr who first taught the Pre-existence of the Word imitating the Notion of Hermas did teach the Pre-existence of Christians no less than that of Christ himself whilst Apol. 2. he saith That all those who were Partakers of the Word or Reason as well Greeks as Barbarians were Christians and consequently Christians did not commence yesterday or to day but were always and every where a principio saith he from the beginning attributing to them the very Prerogative of the Word it self These good Men turn'd themselves every way to ward off the Reâ—roach of Novelty wherewith Christianity was charged In like manner Eusehius endeavouring to prove that the Christian Religion was not new maintains that the Patriarchs profest it and that it was instituted from the beginning Hist Eccles Lib. c. 4. Thus much he cannot advance but in a mystic sense as he observes it himself because all those who acted justly and served that God who is above all were Christians Consequently then Christ could not converse otherwise with them but in the same manner as they professed Christianity which cannot be true but by way of Analogy and Accommodation Christ then pre-existed as the Christian Religion and Christians did pre-exist Let us return to Hermas It is manifest that he allegoriz'd even by his entituling his third Book where he speaks of the Pre-existence of J. C. Similitudes or Parables which carry on throughout spiritual and mystic senses as is evident by Similitude 5. where he explains the Parable of the Father of a Family in a theological manner in relation to the Father the Holy Ghost and the Son The Father in the Plan of his Allegory is the Landlord the Holy Spirit is the Son of the Houshold and he who out of Allegory is called the Son is but a Servant in the Allegory The Landlord saith he is the same who created all things the Son is the Holy Ghost and the Son of God is the Servant He goes on and adds a little after The Holy Ghost insinuated himself into the Body wherein God was to dwell and this Body whereinto the Holy Ghost did insinuate himself having served the Holy Ghost and having been faithful to him always did obtain the Approbation of God by his Labours and Obedience By the Holy Ghost cannot be meant here the second Person which is called the Divine Nature of J. C. as Dr. Bull pretends for who sees not that Hermas speaks here of that Spirit of Sanctification which prepared the Body of J. C. for Prophecy and consecrated it for a Temple for God to dwell in And seeing this Idea of the Holy Spirit 's being infus'd into the Body of J. C. is so conformable to what the Holy Scriptures deliver concerning it you must be very extravagant if you think that Hermas differed from it Besides what could he mean if his sense were the same with that Dr. Bull attributes to him Would he introduce two Sons of God so opposite one to the other The one who serves and obeys and the other who is served and obeyed and what is yet more strange two Sons of God in the self-same Person of J. C. our Lord. The Son saith Hermas is the Holy Spirit and the Son of God is the Servant Now if the Divine Nature of J. C. be denoted by the Spirit and that the Servant signifies the Human Nature you will have two Sons according to the very Letter Thus the Orthodox embroil all things to fish for Mysteries in Troubled Water whereas nothing is more clear than the meaning of Hermas He allegorizeth and would say By him whom the Parable calls the Son I mean nothing else but the Holy Spirit and by him whom the Parable calls a Servant I mean J. C. our Lord who out of the Parable is the proper Son of
a Million Dr. Bull himself owns some of them concerning the Holy Ghost how many would there be if we should collect those which they have misapply'd concerning the Word But what do I say That bad Interpreters may nevertheless be good Witnesses of the Faith of their Age Mons le Vassor in his Traité de l'Examen ch 1. p. 10. is not so ready to grant it he denys and I believe he 's in the right That any Advantage can be had from the Testimony of the Antients towards the Decision of the Points now controverted because of the Confusion which arose from their Philosophy Origen and St. Augustin says he have so perplex'd Theology one in the Eastern and the other in the Western Churches where they both had their Disciples and Admirers by endeavouring to adjust Christianity to Philosophy that we meet with a thousand Difficulties in determining what those two Authors and those who have follow'd their Steps really thought on several important points of Religion They give nothing but Allegorical Senses to the Texts of the Holy Scripture their Explications appear so very far distant from what the Sacred Writers meant that one knows not where to begin to disintangle the true Doctrine of the Apostles from the particular Speculations of the greatest part of those to whom we are sent as to irreproachable Witnesses of what was believ'd in their time If it be so I don't see that Justin and Irenaeus can be better Interpreters of the Scripture than Origen and St. Augustin they were not less corrupted by Philosophy nor less confus'd and perplex'd and consequently they cannot be good Witnesses of what was believ'd in their Time For how is it possible to distinguish the sound Doctrine of the Apostles in their Writings from their Platonick Speculations Let us therefore without hesitation rank all these fine contemplative Men as well Antient as Modern in the order of the Gnosticks and return to treat of them Lastly Clemens Alexandrinus Strom. l. 5. p. 587. Edit Lutet 1629. explaining that Text of St. John The only Son who is in the Bosom of the Father gives us plainly to understand what was the Language of the Valentinians St. John says he having called the invisible and unspeakable Excellencies of the Godhead the Bosom of the Father some have thence taken occasion to name him the Profound 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as containing all things in his Bosom and being impenetrable and infinite Novatian reciting the same Text de Trinit c. 26. quotes it twice in the same Chapter thus The Son hath revealed the Bosom of the Father to us Tertullian adv Prax. c. 8. did the same that is in the Valentinian manner That the Son hath revealed to us the impenetrable Depths of the Father Read the 51st Heresy of Epiphanius in the 22d and 28th Chapters where may be distinctly seen that Valentin's Fable of the thirty Aeons was allegorically taken from the Scriptures Some may perhaps wonder that they so dispos'd their Deitys by Couples They therein imitated the Heathens who attributed both Sexes to each of their false Gods Rep. des Lett. Tom. 1. p. 84. But however that be it ought not to seem strange to those who know that they allegoriz'd Sinesius tho a Christian and a Bishop made no scruple to call God Male and Female Hymno 2. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 tu Mas tu Femina an Opinion so much blam'd by Lactantius in Orpheus l. 4. c. 8. He calls him also That which brings forth and which is brought forth the Father of himself Son of himself and to conclude Father of the Aeons Valentin himself would not have said more His fourth Hymn is diverting He there sets the whole Trinity to work on the Begetting of the Son particularly the Holy Ghost whom he brings in as a mediating Power to be assistant to the Father and the Son For after having said to the latter I praise you with the Father and with you I praise that other Fruit which the Father could not hinder himself from putting forth when he intended to produce you He speaks to the Holy Ghost thus It is of you I speak secund Wisdom mediating Principal holy Respiration Center of the Father and also Center of the Son you may be called altogether Mother Sister and Daughter you came to the assistance of the Father who could not beget his Son without you obstetricata es abditam radicem For the Father designing to pour himself into the Son that pouring was the Bud of a Third who was a Medium between the Father and the Son You see Poets are not very scrupulous neither were their Imitators the Valentinians any more so than they Synesius was not without Company in expressing himself like the Valentinians If his Hymns are full of these Cabalistick Terms the Profound the Silence the Ineffable c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we find also the same Cant in many other Platonick Fathers Do they speak of the incomprehensible Nature of God you presently see the Profundity and the Silence Are they to say how God passed from that State of Silence to a State of Revelation You shall there see every where this inseparable Pair of Aeons the Internal Word and the Vttered-Word Clemens and Origen expresly distinguish the Word-God from another Word which was made Flesh In short nothing so much resembles the Gnoslick Heresy as Tertullian's two Gods the Rationalis and the Sermonalis the Rational God and the senerous and speaking God One may also range in the same Category the Verbum silens and the Verbum sonans of Marius Victorinus And many other chimerical Ideas of the Antients which tho they would be tolerable in a figurative and allegorical Stile yet become insupportable and worse than Valentine's Aeons by being personaliz'd and made Spirits distinct from the supreme God This is the Case Some Philosophers in endeavouring to avoid the Opinions of the Ebionites thereby fell into so ridiculous an extreme as to reject the God and the Messiah of the Jews They spake ill of the God who had given the Law and pretended Irenaeus l. 1. c. 25. that the Christ was the Son of another superiour God and therefore apply'd themselves to sublime Generations of the Substance of the most High God and to other such extravagant Conceits which the Orthodox greedily embracing out of hatred of the Jews and of Judaizing Hereticks at first they were only mystical senses to set off the Glory of Jesus Christ but afterwards these metaphorical Generations degenerated to real Generations and what had at first been conceiv'd only as Operations and Powers was converted into Hypostases and Personal Substances To conclude as I make no difference between the Jewish Cabals and the Valentinian Pleroma these two Systems are either equally ridiculous if examined according to the strict literal sense or equally rational if you seek in them the concealed sense which lies under the Bark of Allegory For 't was indeed
the Father because it is only a Breath an Emanation and a Ray. The Word is before all things because it was necessary that God should command before the Creature obeyed But all things are born together with it because God created the World by bringing forth and begetting the Word We should open our Eyes and see the Cabala of the Creation of the World through all these mysterious Generations So as Clement of Alexandria expounds it in brief Strom. lib. 5. The Word saith he coming out of God did cause the Creation that is to speak plainly God created the World by one single Word and seeing this great Maker made no use of any other Instrument hence it came to pass no doubt that this Word of his was called his Minister But let us return to immediate Generation As the Philosophers understood by Wisdom 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nothing else but the Universal Idea of the World which they called the first-born Son of God because it is the Plan of this sensible World So the Fathers being enur'd to this way of philosophizing conceiv'd also the Idea of the Messiah to be the first Idea in the Spiritual World and an Universal One and to be the Source and Seed of all the other Ideas In this sense Tertullian against Hermogenes makes Wisdom to be more antient than the Word meaning that this Wisdom did thrust the Word it self out of the Heart of God and together all the various Forms of existing things Which is a mere Allegory the meaning of which is that the Word brought forth and all other things were made according to the Plan and Idea of the internal Word which is the immediate Production of the Divine Understanding Hence it comes that Justin in his second Apology distinguisheth the Universal Reason 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the Primitive Seed which is nothing else but the Wisdom of God from Reason which is in every Man and which is only a Portion and Emanation of the Divine Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Philosophers consider'd these Seeds 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1. In God and then they differ not from Platonic Ideas which are not only the Forms of Creatures trac'd in the Divine Understanding but also are the Causes and the Origin of all Productions Marcus Antoninus made use of this Word in that sense lib. 4. § 10. 2. They considered these Seeds in things created designing to denote by them their Essences and Forms but especially that of Man who is as it were a Portion of the Wisdom of God This last is the sense of Justin But they distinguish'd among these Primitive Seeds the Idea of the Messiah as an immediate one and the first in the Divine Understanding for the sake of which God trac'd and form'd all the rest Hence arose that common Opinion that God created the World for the Messiah This Opinion whether true or false gave occasion to Mahomet to apply to himself this Prerogative of the Messiah that God would not have created the Heaven and the Earth had it not been for the Love he bare him apud Barthol Edessen in confut Agaren Furthermore if any will demand how it happened that so many of the Disciples of Plato both Christians and Pagans did so grosly follow the Letter of his three Principles made three Hypostases of them and changed his Cosmogony into a mere Theogony I answer as Mons Le Clerc doth concerning Idolatry on Exod. 20.4 It proceeded saith he from the Craft of Priests who in order to make Religion more August talk'd but very obscurely of its Mysteries whatever was clear was not convenient for them but every thing must be concealed under Symbols and Riddles and seeing that Symbolical Religion was purely arbitrary it came to pass that the true sense of those Symbols was effaced out of the Minds of Men nothing remaining for the Vulgar except what made an Impression upon their senses So that they believed at last that the Deity it self dwelt under those Figures At first they design'd to represent under the Symbolical Figure of an Ox only a King devoted to Husbandry but at last they came to believe that the Soul it self of that King deified did inhabit that Ox. No doubt but the Philosophers themselves were a part of the People The shrewder of them having found the Truth had some Reasons to cover it under Fictions thereby to disguise it to others Plato had his as we have seen already He having found the Father of the World to be the most good wise and powerful God and having found it dangerous to speak of him according to Truth he made three Hypostases and three Gods of the three Attributes which he conceived were in the Creator and spake of them Majestically under the Names of Good Reason and the Soul of the World or under some other Fictions that vary the Terms yet without altering the secret Doctrine contained in those Symbols This Symbolic Theology being arbitrary or rather a mere Fiction the Sense â—â—â—tained under that Shell dwindled away by little and little The Letter remaining alone they philosophized only on the indeterminate System of three Hypostases viz. of a First Second and Third God The Christians especially were not wanting to make a noise about this Mystery to render their Religion the more pompous But after all it was the gross Platonism that turned the Christian Doctrines into a mere Pag 〈…〉 Turns the best things degenerate but it was not so from the beginning CHAP XV. The Sentiment of the Moralists among the Jews concerning the Wisdom or the Word St. John hath imitated them I Know it is pretended that the Jews were not ignorant of the Mystery of the Platonic 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but in truth there is too much Weakness in what is alledged from the 8th of Proverbs and some other Places in their moral Books I am amazed to think that any body should not see this Chapter to be figurative and that Solomon speaks there of Wisdom in general such as it is in God or as he hath communicated it to Man but especially of that which shines forth and is to be admired in the Creation of the World as some of the Orthodox understood it in St. Jerom's time Hieron in cap. 2. Ephes Dr. Patrick now Bishop of Ely doth freely own in his Paraphrase on this Chapter that Solomon speaks here of nothing else but the wise Laws which God had given to the Israelites Arg. ver 21 22 c. This is expressed in such magnificent Language that tho Solomon I suppose thought of nothing but the wise Directions God had given them in his Word revealed to them by his Servant Moses and the Prophets yet the antient Christians thought his Words might be better applied to the Wisdom revealed unto us in the Gospel by the Son of God himself the Eternal Word and Wisdom of the Father Could he have expressed himself more clearly to give
to the Learned and the Philosophers with whom they convers'd 'T is this mischievous Policy that has brought so much confusion into the Christian Religion that there can be no appealing to pretended Antiquity the testimony whereof is become altogether useless and liable to great illusion One may think of having recourse to the Antients as to very good Witnesses but instead of that we meet with Oracles ambiguous and unintelligible A Person of good Abilitys in the last Age complains of this as well as I. Michael le Vassor Traite de l' Examen ch 1. p. 10. Since Philosophy says he was brought into Christianity the latter has so visibly degenerated from its primitive Simplicity that the Pagans themselves have taken notice of it The Men of thought believ'd it would be a great Service done to Religion to render it agreeable to the taste of the Philosophers they had a mind to reconcile our Mysteries with Plato's Principles which were extremely in fashion when the Gospel first went abroad into the World Origen and St. Austin afterwards have so embarass'd Theology the former in the East and the latter in the Western Churches where both had their Admirers and Disciples by endeavouring to adjust Christianity to that Philosophy that 't will cost one a world of pains to distinguish that which they and their Followers have said with any exactness of thought upon divers important points of Religion They give us none but allegorical Senses to divers Passages in the Holy Scriptures Their Expositions appear so wide from the Sense of the Sacred Authors that one knows not how to understand it so as to discern the true Doctrine of the Apostles from the particular Speculations of the major part of those Fathers to whom we are refer'd as to faithful Witnesses of the Faith of the Times they liv'd in But the Fathers were not content to accommodate their Doctrines to the Platonick Word or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but enquir'd further after another Pre-existence of Jesus Christ for the satisfaction of the Jews and they found it in the Angel that spoke to Moses and the other Patriarchs Tertullian in his Dispute against Marcion lib. 3. speaking of the State of Christ before the Revelation of the Gospel says that he was in that allegorical State of spiritual Grace c. These few Words seem to discover the whole Mystery of the Oeconomy of the Antients For they signify that Christ was not only represented in the Figures of the Law but as Origen speaks that he was substantially present in Moses and the Prophets Tract 26. in Mat. meaning thereby that Moses and the Prophets were if one may so speak substantial and personal Types of Christ to come or rather that Christ was then present in the Person of Moses and the Prophets who were his Types On the like ground may we not say that he was allegorically present in all the Angels who spoke from God to Men and that he was also allegorically present in that Word of God which created the World that powerful Word which said Let there be Light being a Type of this powerful Word which said by Jesus Christ Let the Light shine in the Hearts of Men. This allegorical Pre-existence of Christ is very agreeable with the Scriptures which say that of him which cannot belong to any thing but these Types as the Reproach of Christ the Spirit of Christ prophesying tempted of Christ and other Expressions of that kind which represent to us Jesus Christ in his allegorical State Those particular Commissions of Angels and Prophets being in some sort the Preludia of this universal and extraordinary Commission of Jesus Christ with regard to the whole World I ought not to pass over the Remark of Father Simon upon this Occonomy of the Antients Hist Crit. du N. T. Tom. 1. chap. 2. The mingling says he of the Platonick Philosophy with the Christian Religion was not intended to ruin the Orthodox Faith but the more easily to persuade the Greeks to embrace the Christian Religion The Fathers were in this for imitating the Apostles especially St. Paul who sometimes did stoop to the Infirmitys of the Weak becoming all things to all men Father Simon observes further that Clemens of Alexandria does sometimes carry this Occonomy too far that he applies himself intirely to Allegory it being fashionable in his time amongst the Christians especially with the Gnosticks who thought thereby to raise the Credit of the Scriptures that he is no ways behind 'em in point of Invention and Subtilty That this was the more excusable in him because he liv'd in a great City where 't is likely they affected those kind of Subtilties and that he believ'd 'em of use to establish the Christian Religion it being a prudent part in an able Master to adapt things to the capacity of them he is to instruct That his Paedagogus wherein he was to lay down nothing but plain Instructions was drawn up with this design and that in it he explains the Scriptures in the sublime and allegorical Sense He observes also Chap. 4. That those who had not these sublime Notions pass'd for plain weak Christians who knew not the design of Religion that the Gnosticks imagin'd themselves outdid all others in this kind of Knowledg and that it had been better if the Orthodox had not imitated them therein but had contented themselves with the literal Expositions of the Scriptures He goes forward to say that the Jews had mingled in their Religion divers Platonick Notions whereof one finds at this day not a few in their Cabalistick Writings This made some impression on the Minds of some of the first Christians who read with pleasure Books that treated of Angels and their Converse with Men. The same Author makes it appear That not only those who rejected the allegorical way were accounted illiterate but even pass'd for Hereticks too ibid. chap. 31. and that Theodorus of Mopsues who followed the literal Sense of the Bible according to the Method of his Master Diodorus and avoided the spiritual and allegorical Sense was reckoned for a Person who favour'd Judaism by his too literal Expositions For my part I make no doubt but 't was of that Set of Divines who imitated Theodorus that Pamphilus is speaking when he complains Apol. pro Orig. That they who charg'd Origen with so many Absurdities would not admit Allegory to be us'd in expounding the Holy Scriptures It may be conjectur'd from these words that the great reason why the Ebionites and Nazarenes were accounted plain simple People and poor in the Faith was this that they rejected the allegorical Theology of the Platonizing and Gnostick Christians The Word Ebionite which signifies poor and the other Word Gnostick which signifies knowing being directly oppos'd 'T is certain Origen calls the Ebionites poor in Spirit Philoc. c. 1. because they adher'd too much to the Poverty of the Letter or literal Sense and despis'd the rich and the sublime
have innovated He must know little of Plato who can believe that he could fall into so dull a Philosophy as that God did from all Eternity necessarily beget a Son a second God putting him forth out of himself with his proper Hypostasis which distinguisheth him from the Father and that he made use of him to create the World unless 't were perhaps to deceive the vulgar People But that God did voluntarily conceive a Design of creating the World that he did actually create it by his efficacious Word that that Word is his Son in an allegorical Sense because it was emanated from the Divine Understanding that it was in an allegorical sense the Creator because it was the Means and Instrument which the Wisdom of God made use of to give Life and Being to all things Then indeed I own literally Moses saying that God spake and the Creature obey'd then I shall own Plato's Allegory telling me the same thing with Moses but in the Stile of the Religion wherein he was born Then to conclude I own the good Divinity of Clemens Alexandrinus who assures me that the Word of the Father is not that which was begotten but supreme Goodness profound Wisdom and infinite Power manifesting it self in the Work of this Universe This is without doubt the true way of understanding Plato and we have a famous Platonist as our Warrant for it 't is Coelius Rhodoginus Lect. Antiq lib. 9. c. 12. For that Great Man very judiciously observes that one can never be a good Platonist if he do not reckon that Plato is to be understood allegorically Good Platonists like the Author of the Recognitions discover to us the Origin of this allegorical Philosophy by saying That from the first Will proceeded another Will and from this the World Lib. 1. c. 24. That is to say that from the first eternal and internally begotten Will proceeded at the beginning of all things a second Will externally begotten an express Command which spoken all things were made And this second Will is metaphorically the Son because proceeding from God himself and from the Invisibility which is proper to his Nature it is a kind of Generation producing his Image every Manifestation being the Image of God Irenaeus is also another of the good Platonists who allegoriz'd In many places of his Treatise against Heresies he supposes God not to have needed any more than his two Hands to create the World There 's no difficulty in perceiving his intention thro those Words Whereas the Hereticks maintain'd that all was made by Angels and that those Spirits had created the World Irenaeus in opposing that Doctrine flies into the opposite extreme viz. That God who had no need of Angels made use of no more than his two Hands his Word and his Spirit to do all things not that by those two Powers he understood two Hypostases but only personaliz'd them in opposition to the Aeons or to the Gnosticks Angels which were esteemed Persons And he meant nothing more than that God needed not any other than himself as he explains himself in the 19th Chapter of his first Book and in no wise any Power separate from him having an Hypostasis distinct from his This God says he is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ What do these words signify That God needed no other than himself if not that God had no need of any more than his Command and Power to operate what he will'd Now this Command and this Power are not two Hypostases separate and distinct from his which was the Opinion of those Hereticks but two Powers which he imploy'd as his two Hands Either let 's blind our selves or see Allegory in all this Again it 's by a common Figure that the Name the Qualities and even the Personality of the thing which ceaseth to be or which is rejected is given to that which takes its place tho it be of a different nature God rejecting Sacrifices gives the name of Sacrifice to the Obedience which he accepts There is nothing more natural says Dr. A. in his Manuscript concerning the Satisfaction than to give to a thing which supplies the place of another and which procures all the fruits of it the Name of that instead whereof it is substituted St. Paul observ'd this Rule in his Epistle to the Hebrews If he gave the Name of Sacrifice to the Obedience of Jesus Christ it was to sute his Expressions to the Ideas which prevail'd under the antient Dispensation wherein the principal Acts of Piety consisted in Sacrifices he applied those antient Sacrifices to the Death of Jesus Christ without intending any other Mystery in it Whereto may be added that Jesus Christ speaking of the Holy Ghost who was to teach the Truth by his Inspirations as he himself had taught it by Preaching speaks of him as of a Teacher as of a Person because he was to supply the absence of a Teacher and fill the place of a Person So as the Gnosticks spake of nothing but Angels who had created the World and govern'd the antient People and of Emanations and Generations from the Supreme Being Irenaeus answers The true Angels which created the World and taught the Prophets are the Word of God and his Spirit and that Word and Spirit are his true Emanations So making of a Manifestation and of a Communication God's Helpers his Coadjutors in the Creation his Ministers in the Government of the World making I say so many Hypostases of the Godhead of those Powers because he substitutes them in lieu of the Hypostases rejected by him It is by the fame method that Theophilus of Antioch made intirely allegorical Commentarys on the four Gospels Thus he allegorizes the first words of St. John The Beginning says he that is God The Word that is the Son of God Jesus Christ of whom the Voice of the Father saith in the Psalm My Heart hath uttered a good Word that is to say Christ by whom all things were made And without him nothing was made Nothing that is to say an Idol which as the Apostle saith is nothing in the World It is apparent by the Method of this Author who designs the explaining the Gospels allegorically and particularly by the allegorical Explanation he gives of the word Beginning and of that of Nothing that what he says of the Word is likewise allegorical The Word says he is the Son of God that is to say the Christ by whom all things were made Is not that saying that it is the Christ the Man whom God hath anointed who is the Son and the Word by whose Power all under the Gospel was made even the Idol which was made without him having been destroy'd and the World reform'd Let us deal plainly Christ is the Word only by virtue of an allegorical Sense which considers him as a second Word in as much as he is with respect to the spiritual World what the Word-God was with respect to the sensible World It