The early spread of circumcision / By Sir George Henry Rose.

  • Rose, G. H. (George Henry), 1771-1855.
Date:
1846
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The early spread of circumcision / By Sir George Henry Rose. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Abraham that he was speaking and dealing figuratively, did really so act, whilst Abraham understood the compact to be literal, and literally fulfilled it, and yet was not warned by God of his mistake, if it was one ? Again, God told him that the covenant should be in his flesh,” and in his flesh he literally fulfilled it, also unwarned of error. The spiritualiser makes one party, and that party God, to speak literally, but to mean figuratively, whilst the other party speaks literally, and understands and acts literally. But again, did Abra¬ ham understand, at a far later period of his life, that the land of Canaan was literally given to him ? Consult his words, addressed to his eldest servant, when he sent him to seek for a wife for Isaac. “ The Lord God of heaven, which took me from my father’s house, and from the land of my kindred, and which spake unto me, and that sware unto me, saying, Unto thy seed will I give this land; he shall, &c.” (Genesis xxiv. 7.) In these words Abraham speaks of two lands, that “ of his kindred,” and that pro¬ mised to his seed by God under an oath, Palestine. He unquestionably speaks here of the land of his kindred in a physical sense, for we know that God removed him in the body from it; lie therefore, in all common sense and on all principles of reasoning, must be understood as having meant by the promised land that of Canaan, where he was living in the body, which thus stands as an inducement to the al¬ liance to be proposed, as a consideration in the contemplated marriage settlement. If our own senses, and the literal sense of words were not and are not our sure guides in a covenant, as to its interpretation, what other can we have ? I have that guid¬ ance, and the spiritualiser has no other than the opinions, the conjectures of men, which may vary ad infinitum. He means it not; but the truth of God is thus dishonoured by his conclusions There is another view of circumcision which should not