Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th CenturiesJones, Rufus M. (Rufus Matthew)
Religion
Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries
Jones, Rufus M. (Rufus Matthew)
Mysticism; Reformers
The literary style of _Divinity and Philosophy Dissected_ is unlike
that of Randall's known writings, and yet it is not impossible for him
to have written it.[83] The ideas which fill the little book are quite
similar to those which {262} Randall held and are in full accord with
those which prevailed in this general group of Christian thinkers. The
writer of the treatise, whoever he was, is fond of allegory and
symbolic interpretation. He turns Adam into a figure and makes the
Garden of Eden an allegory in quite modern fashion. "Doe you thinke,"
he writes, "that there was a materiall garden or a tree whereon did
grow the fruit of good and evill, or that the serpent did goe up in the
same to speake to the woman? Sure it cannot stand with reason that it
could be so, for it is said that all the creatures did come to Adam,
and he gave them names according to their natures: now it is contrary
to the Serpent's nature to speake after the manner of men, unlesse you
will alleadge that she understood the language of the beasts, and
thought them wiser than God, and resolved to be ruled by them, which to
me seems altogether against reason, that the woman should be so
ignorant and unrationall, who was created rationall after the image of
God to be ruler of all creatures: for at this day if a Serpent went up
into a tree, and did speake from thence to men and women, it would make
them afraid in so much that they would not doe what he bid them: or
dost thou thinke that in Mesopotamia (a great way off beyond the seas)
that there is a materiall garden wherein standeth the tree of life, and
the tree of knowledge of good and ill, both in one place, and an
angell, standing with a flickering sword to keep the tree of life from
the man!"[84]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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