[Footnote 1: A curious reason for this, in the minds of some, appears to
be that, when man was created, woman was included in him. For, they say,
in the first chapter of Genesis, and in the account of the sixth day,
before woman was made, the plural word _them_ is used: "male and female
created he them." They say that the blessing was pronounced on the man
and woman in Adam. For they think it improbable that Moses would
anticipate his history so much as to bring in woman, and, withal, her
blessing, too, at the sixth day, when the narrative teaches that she was
made some time afterwards. Hence, they say, it was that woman was for
ages treated as included in man. There is something pleasing in this
fancy, but it seems like one of Origen's allegories, he being the father
of allegorical interpretation. It had its origin in an ancient
Rabbinical sentiment.]
So I discoursed with my visitors till between ten and eleven o'clock,
and when they rose to go, we all stood up together and joined in
prayer. We commended Janette to her covenant-keeping God, whose name
had been inscribed upon her. We remembered the little boy who had been
the occasion of all this pleasant conversation, and prayed that his
consecration might be accepted, and the sign and seal of it be owned and
blessed to him and his parents. As I walked down to the gate with my
friends, I said to them, that, when God was covenanting with Abraham, he
bade him look up into the heavens, and count the stars, and told him
that his seed, like them, should be innumerable. So I told them
frequently to look up to those old heavens, and remember that the
covenant-keeping God is there, the same who, in blessing Abraham,
included his seed; and that, because Abraham was so good a man, God
calls his posterity "the seed of Abraham my friend." And so we said
good-night.
In reading over what I have written, there are a few things more which I
feel disposed to add, because I know that Percival will make good use of
them in talking with others in your congregation.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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