Church and State as Seen in the Formation of ChristendomAllies, T. W. (Thomas William)
Religion
Church and State as Seen in the Formation of Christendom
Allies, T. W. (Thomas William)
Church and state; Church history -- Primitive and early church, ca. 30-600; Religion and state
May we not then say with reverence, that from the council of the Triune
God, "Let us make man to our image and likeness," proceeds forth the
individual man, an earthly counterpart in his memory, understanding, and
will to the divine Creator, and likewise man, the family, a created image
of the primal mystery, the ineffable joy of the Godhead, the ever blessed
Trinity in Unity? And since the origin of creation itself is the free act
of God, it ought not to surprise us that the chief work of His hands in
the visible universe should reflect in the proportion of a creature the
secret life of the Divine Nature, the Unity and Trinity of the Godhead.
But next to this primal mystery, which is the source of all creation,
stands that unspeakable condescension, that act of sovereign goodness, by
which God has chosen to assume a created nature into personal unity with
Himself, and to crown the creation which He has made. As to this the
first Adam, in all his headship, with the privileges included in it, the
transmission to his family of original justice, and of that wonderful
gift of adoption superadded to it, is "the figure of Him who was to
come." But more also, St. Paul tells us, is indicated in the formation of
Eve out of Adam during the sleep divinely cast upon him. This was the
"great sacrament of Christ and of His Church" (Eph. v. 32), to which he
pointed in reminding his hearers of the high institution of Christian
marriage. And thus we learn that God, in the act of forming the natural
race, supernaturally endowed, was pleased to foreshadow by the building
of Eve, "the mother of all living," out of the first Adam, the building
of another Eve, the second and truer mother of a divine race, out of the
wounded heart of the Redeemer of the world asleep upon the cross. As then
in Adam's headship we have the figure of the Headship of Christ, so in
the issuing of Eve from him in his sleep we have the Passion of Christ
and the issuing forth of His Bride from it, when His work of redemption
was completed and His royalty proclaimed.
Thus the mysteries of the blessed Trinity, that is, of God the Creator,
and of the Incarnation and Passion of Christ, that is, of God the
Redeemer, lie folded up, as it were, in the Mosaic narrative of the mode
in which Adam was created, and in the headship of the race conferred upon
him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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