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true nature and cause of that union and relation, CHAP. which constitutes the different attributes in spiritual objects, wrong headed men have run into the inconsistency of ascribing distinct subsistencies or personalities to the Divine Majesty, and even to imagine that there were a plurality of Gods.

5. Thus they suppose that the Father is one intel ligent distinct subsistence; that the Son is as distinct a person, and that the Holy Ghost, the third, is distinct from both the former: whereas, those attributes are ascribed to God merely from the relation and correspondence that exists between visible objects, which natural men do not understand.

6. Hence the very existence of those distinct attributes depends upon created objects: take away every created object, and all those attributes cease; as the attributes of greater light and lesser light would end, if the sun and moon were annihilated: for it must be from a correspondence with the lesser, that the greater, receives its attribute of greatness; and so of the rest.

7. Therefore, if no Son or Daughter exist, there can be no Father or Mother, if no female, then no male; destroy the existence of the woman, and the attribute of the man ceases and falls into oblivion, and all the order, glory, and perfection in the visible creation of man, falls with it.

8. Upon these plain and self-evident principles, it follows that those attributes which men have ascribed to the Deity, are not in his Divine Essence, they are not eternal, but had a beginning, and necessarily arose from comparisons, drawn by the human mind, between corresponding objects in time; and by reason of human depravity, and the want of true light and revelation, those objects have been perverted, and with them every true attribute of deity.

9. As God is eternal, immortal and infinite; so the Divine Essence or Being is incomprehensible, and cannot be known but by the things that are made, and their correspondent relations. And as none of those corresponding attributes could exist but from a 'first cause; so it is proper to receive the knowledge and contemplate the glory of the invisible first cause through those corresponding objects that visibly exist.

CHAP,

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10. In the same sense that God received the attribute of Creator from the existence of creation; so the Creator, in the sense of mankind, received the attribute of Father, from the existence of the first man, who was called the Son of God. Nor could such an attribute as Saviour ever have existed in the mind of man, had not man become a lost creature.

11. Then as nothing can exist without its correspondent relation, and the attributes of God are so evident from the invariable union of things in the natural creation, and as the new and spiritual creation was intended to display the glory of God in a superior nanner; therefore it will be proper here, to consider the union and correspondence of the different parts of the new creation, by which the divine perfections are most eminently displayed.

12. It hath been observed, that the perfection and glory of the natural creation was not completed until the woman was taken out of the man, and placed in her proper order. Whatever essential glory man might have possessed, yet it could not have been declarative, so long as he existed alone; that is, it could not have been declared, revealed or manifested, without a suitable correspondent object, to increase or augment his glory. And therefore the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help according to that order which is before him.

13. Upon the same principle it was not good for Christ Jesus to be alone in the glory of his kingdom, and the perfection of that victory which he gained over the spirit and power of the fall. Nor could the true glory of what he gained ever have been declared, or made manifest without a correspondent object united to him in a joint relation.

14. Therefore, as the first man was not without the woman, nor the woman without the man in the natural creation; so neither is the man without the woman, nor the woman without the man in the Lord. Man cannot exist without woman, any more than father can exist without son. Christ Jesus in his first appearing did not exist without a woman. He was made of a woman, aud from the natural and visible

correspondence between man and woman, he receiv- CHAP. ed the attribute of man.

15. And as no higher order of woman existed than natural, he could be known only as a natural man; but as a spiritual man and one standing alone in the beginning of a new and spiritual creation, he could not be revealed or known, in reality, without a spiritual woman, any more than the first natural man could in reality have been declared as such, when God created male and female, two in one, and called their name Adam, in the day when he created them.

16. As the natural woman could not exist but from her correspondent union and relation to the first man; so neither could a spiritual woman exist but in a cor-' respondent union and relation to a spiritual man; and1 each must receive the distinguishing attribute of man or woman from its relation to the other.

17. Then as the natural woman was separated from the man, and placed in her distinct order before the glory and perfection of the man or the woman could be displayed; so it was necessary in the work of redemption, that woman should be taken out of man, and placed in her corresponding order, before the perfection and glory of the new creation could appear.

18. The man Christ Jesus, through the medium of a woman, took upon him, not the nature of angels, but the seed of Abraham, the nature of human depravity, with which he entered the world, and in all things was made like unto his brethren; yet he was,' in every sense, taken out of, separated from, and placed above every correspondent attachment to all, that was carnal in woman, which came by the fall.

19. And by the energy of that eternal Word, which he received from his Father, he overcame the spirit and power of human depravity, and was sanctified and set apart in the work of redemption, as the first born in the new creation. And by that Word which liveth and abideth forever, he was constituted the second Adam, an high priest forever over the household of God, after the order of Melchisedec, without beginning of days, or end of life.

20. And all who came into him, that is, not into the natural body of Christ Jesus, but into his divine

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CHAP.
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nature, were in him, and by him, through the energyTM of that same eternal Word, taken out of their cor respondent relation to the depravity of the fall, and constituted the spiritual body of the second Adam, comprehending male and female, as the body ofChrist. And this was the work of Christ in his first Eph. ii. appearing, to make in himself, of twain, (i. e. of man and woman) one new man; so making peace.

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21. Then the Church, which was the body of Christ in his first appearing, did constitute one new man, consisting of man and woman; but that body! alone could not increase and multiply, after the order of the new covenant, (any more than the body of the first male and female, while in the state in which God first created them when he called their name! Adam,) until the spiritual woman was taken out of the spiritual man, and placed in her own proper orderand correspondent relation to her spiritual head.

22. This was the grand reason why the apostle, speaking of Christ's second appearing, and of the Church's increase in that day, says, That day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, even the mystery of iniquity. Hence it follows beyond all contradiction, that the work of redemption was not yet complete.

23. Therefore the work of God, in the first Mother of the new creation, was to reveal the mystery of iniquity where it first entered, and to separate the woman from her correspondent relation in the flesh, after the order of the old covenant, and to place her in her proper order as a spiritual woman, according to the new covenant, in a correspondent relation to the first spiritual man.

24. As it was by the revelation of Christ, and the energy of that same eternal Word which liveth and abideth forever, that the woman was taken out of, and separated from her correspondent relation to the fallen state of man, and made a spiritual woman; 80 in her, and by her, the glory and perfection of the spiritual man Christ Jesus was revealed.

25. It was only by the spiritual man Christ Jesus, and her corresponding relation to him, that she could receive the attribute of spiritual woman. And it is

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only from the certain existence of sons and daughters, CHAP or spiritual children, that those who begat and brought them forth, can receive the attributes of father and mother, or spiritual parents. So that if the son has a corresponding relation in the new creation, so likewise has the daughter.

26. It is not to be understood in the spiritual work of God, that one natural body, either of man or woman, is either taken out of, or joined to another: but as man and woman are terms used to express the joint body and relation in the natural creation of man ; so they are used in regard to the spiritual work of God.

27. To this spiritual relation the apostle refers, and brings the natural as a figure of the spiritual, when he says, For this cause shall a man leave his father Eph. v. and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they 31,32. two shall be one flesh. And therefore, as the very es sence of male implies also the female, the same applies to the woman, to leave mother and father, and be joined to her corresponding relation in the same spiritual work.

28. This, saith the apostle, is a great mystery: but I speak in Christ and in the Church, To the same thing he refers, when he says, He that is joined to Cor. vi the Lord is one Spirit. And from such a union and 17. correspondence, arises the substance of all those spiritual attributes in the new creation, or work of redemption, such as the bridegroom-the bride the Lamb's wife-brethren and sisters, and the sons and daughters of God.

29. Hence the apostle, speaking of the final separation between Christ and Belial, light and darkness, the believer and the infidel, saith, Wherefore, come 1 Cor. out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the 17,18. Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty,

30. Then if the Church, which is called out, and separated from the unclean, is composed of sons and daughters, they must needs have both a father and mother, and these must be the first foundation pillars, and joint parentage of the Church.