EX A M p LE s OF A SIMPLE ALLEGORY. Book!. Examples of a Meiolis, or Extenuation. 1. TO a rhetorical Meiojis belong fuch Things as are by any '!"rope extenuated, or ldfened, as Gen. xviii. 27· Behold now I have taken upon me to fpeak unto the Lord, which am but Dujl and Ajhes, that is, a moft low and abjeCt Creature. It is a Metaphor or a Metonymy, and alludes to the firfl: Creation of Man, out of the Earth. So to be exalted out of the Duft, denotes to raife one of the meanejl Sort of Men, to Honor, 1 Kings xvi. 2. Pfal. cxiii. 7, &c. 1 Sanz. xxiv. 15. Whom 'dojl thou purfue? After a dead Dog, after a Flea, as if he had faid, that it was beneath (or unworthy) fo great a King to purfue me, that am but weak and mean with fo great a Troop. Pfal. xxii. 6. But I ar>< a Worm and no Man, that is a moO: affiicted Man, trampled on by the Enemy, like a Worm, &c. So yob xxv. 6. lfa. xli. 14. 2. A local Meiojis is when for Extenuation Sake, a Comparifon is made with a very little '!"hing, as Numb. xiii . 34· We Jaw Men, and we were as Grajhoppers before them: that is, offmall Stature in Comparifon of thofe Giants. See Ifa. xl. 15, 17. Pfal. cxliv. 4· 3· Examples of agrammatical Meiojis, are 2 Kings xviii. 4· And he called it, (1I1!0MJ Nehujlan) Little Brafs, by a diminutive Word, by Way of Contempt of the brazen Serpent that was made an Idol, of thefe Diminutives there are many in the Hebrew Text, but we leave them for Critics. Some is put for agreatmany, Rom. iii. 3· 1 'l"im. iv. I. Some Body, is put for an eminent Man, ACis v. 36. Boajling bimfelffome Body, as ACis viii. 9· So Pi1ldarus fays, ·n eh Tl~; T' JE gJ'u~; o-x1M c11tte co·9ew7T~, that is, what is fame Body? What is Nobody? Man is the Dream of a Shadow. Sick is put for one dead in Sin, or dejper,Jtely bad in his fpirimal State, for thefe that are faid to be ungodly, and Verfe 8. Sinners, and Enemies, Verfe 10. Thefe few In– fiances of many we note for the Jllufl:ration of this Trope. C H A P. XX. Of an Allegory. AAAHfOPIA, an Allegory, with Refpett to its Etymology or Derivation, !ignifies that, when one 'J"hing is Jaid, another 'l"bing is underjlood. It is the Continuation of a '!"rope, efpecially of a Metaphor, and although Metonymies, Ironies and Synecdoches are likewife continued, yet not fo frequently, nor with that Empbajis, as in the other florid '!ropes, therefore we will in a particular Chapter neat of this continued Metapbor, not fo much to !hew the Fountains whence Allegories are taken, (for that I prefume is abundantly !hewn where we have treated of Metaphors) but to difcover and explain fome Difficulties in it, and !hew its peculiar Nature. Thefe Allegories we will difl:inguifh into Simpleand Allujive. The Simple we callfuch as are taken from any natural Things. The Allujiwwe call fuch as refpett other Thmgs, whether Words or FaCts, and are from thence deduced into a tranilated Defcription. Examples of a limplc Allegory. GEN. iii. 15. And I willput Enmity between thee (0 Serpent!) and (he Woman, and between thy Seed, and ber Seed; it jhall bruife th;· Jlead, and tbeu jha/1 bruife htS Heel. The fidt Promife of the Gofpel and the whole Myfl:ery of Redemption to come, is propofed by God himfelf in this Allegory. Here are almofl: all '!"1·opes in thefe W~rds, efpemlly
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