This mystery is great, but I speak concerning Christ and the Church." This passage exemplifies the connexion between Christ and the Church, by that which subsists between a man and his wife; and this Paul calls "a great mystery;" and it no doubt must be a very mysterious passage to all those who are unacquainted with the cabbalistic notion to which it alludes, and refers.

To illustrate the passage, and to prove that Paul raised his Cabbalism with his religion, I shall set down here the note of Dr.Whitby, the Christian Commentator, upon the text of Paul.
"The learned Dr.Allix saith, The first match between Adam and Eve, was a type of that between Christ and his Church; and in this, saith he, the Apostle follows the Jewish notions.

The Jews say, the mystery of Adam, is the mystery of the Messiah, who is the Bridegroom of the Church.

These two persons, therefore, confirm the observation of Munster, that the creation of the woman from the rib of the man, was made by the Jews to signify the marriage of the celestial man who is blessed, or of the Messiah, with the Church; whence the Apostle applies the very words which Adam said concerning Eve his spouse, to the Church, who is the spouse of Christ; saying, "for we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones." For the explanation of these words, take what follows:--"The profoundest of the Jewish Divines, whom they now call Cabbalists, having such a notion as this among them, that sensible things are but an imitation of things above, conceived from thence, that there was an original pattern of love and union, which is between a man and his wife in this world.

This being expressed by the kindness of Tipheret and Malchut, which are the names they give to the invisible Bridegroom and Bride in the upper world.