A SCRIPTURAL ILLUSTRATION OF THE TWENTY-SIXTH AND TWENTY-SEVENTH VERSES OR, THE PURPOSE OF CHRIST'S INCARNATION DECLARED Before the Creation of the First Adam. "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created ADDRESSED TO MAN, BY A LAYMAN OF THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. PUBLISHED FOR THE AUTHOR BY FISHER, SON, & CO., NEWGATE-STREET, LONDON. ENTERED AT STATIONERS' HALL. INTRODUCTION. THE reader is here presented with a very singular work; being a Scriptural Illustration of the 26th and 27th verses of the First Chapter of Genesis, containing Jehovah's purpose of the Incarnation of God the Word made flesh, declared before the creation of the first Adam; to which the Fathers, in the early ages of the Church, have not assigned any definite meaning; and which, to this day, forms a portion of Scripture deemed incomprehensible. Did singularity constitute the only cause for publication, even one line of this book ought never to have been written; but if the omniscience of Jehovah is duly estimated, and the object eternally designed by the Incarnation of the divine Word, or Son of God-resulting in the salvation of mankind by the sacrifice of Christ is fully appreciated, agreeably to the entire volume of revelation, from the foundation of the world to the advent of Immanuel, God manifest in the flesh; it will then be found, that the 26th and 27th verses of the first chapter of Genesis, do, in their comprehensive and completed meaning, certainly infold the entire contents of the Law and the Gospel; and as such, that the very brief, but most amazingly significant history of the creation of man, forming the subject of this small treatise, may justly be regarded as an epitome of all sacred writ. In continuance, it may be observed, that notwithstanding those endless diversities of opinions which are entertained by different Trinitarian communities, yet in this work there will be found so entire an absence of all that asperity of feeling, the result of conflicting opinions--and of which infidels of our day avail themselves so largely, for the ultimate gratification of their sinister purposes-that even the openly avowed heretic may peruse and compare the views here advanced and advocated, without any actual cause of complaint. In the second place, attention to the work is earnestly invited, which certainly has a tendency rather to allay than increase the schisms existing in the church of Christ, because the writer believes that faith is more a matter for consideration between the Creator and his creature Man, than our fathers, probably with the best intentions, seem to have been aware of. In conclusion, comparison between the written word of God, and the arguments put forward |