To the same purpose Origen[245] says, "That since the Law is a shadow of good Things to come, and writes sometimes of Marriages and of Husbands and Wives; we are not to understand it of Marriages according to the Flesh, but of the spiritual Marriage between Christ and his Church. As for Instance, Abraham had two Sons, &c. here we ought not to confine our Thoughts to carnal Marriages, and their Offsprings; but to extend them to the Mysteries here signified. And there are almost a thousand other places in Scripture about Marriages; but in every place (unusquisque Locus castum & divinum de Nuptiis continet Intellectum secundum Expositionem moralem) is to have a divine, moral, and mystical Construction put on't. Whoever therefore reads the Scriptures about Marriages, and understands no more by them, than carnal Marriages; he errs, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the Power of God." From hence may be easily concluded, what was Origen's opinion about this Marriage in Cana of Galilee, if there were no other Passages in him for a Confirmation of it. But to come closer to the Purpose.
St. Augustin[246] says, there is Mystery signified in the Story of this Marriage, as in all Jesus's Miracles, which it becomes us to open and search for; till, if possible, we are inebriated with the spiritual and invisible Wine, that Jesus made at this Feast. And again[247] says, Let us then consider the several Particulars of the Story, and what is meant by the six Waterpots; and the Water that is turn'd into Wine; and the Governor of the Feast; and who are the Bridegroom and the Bride; and who is the Mother of Jesus in a Mystery; and what is to be understood by the Marriage.
And again, says St. Augustin[248], there is Mystery in this Marriage, or Jesus upon no invitation had gone to it. The Bridegroom is our Lord himself, to whom it is said thou hast reserv'd the good Wine of the Gospel until now, that is, until the typified Time of the Celebration of this mystical Marriage, which according to St. Augustin[249] is to be on the sixth Age of the World, signified by the six Water-Pots, holding two or three Firkins apiece, that is, all Mankind, as they are divided into the two sorts of Jews and Gentiles, or into three, as they are descended of the three Sons of Noah.
And in another Place, the same St. Augustin interpreting this Story, says[250] thus; "Our Saviour is invited to a Marriage; what can that mean but that the Holy Spirit is courted and invocated by the Church, wishing to be espoused to him? Jesus comes with his Disciples, that is, into a holy Place of a Company of Saints. Mary the Mother of our Lord signifies to him, that they have no Wine; so the Church makes known to him, the Deficiency of the Spirit, which she waits for the Power of. And if Jesus calls Mary, a Woman; he means the Church, who by Transfiguration may be a Virgin, the Mother, the Spouse of Christ, and a Whore too."
And again St. Augustin explaining[251] what is meant by the Water, and the Wine that it wou'd be turn'd into, at the Time of the spiritual Celebration of this Marriage of Christ with his Spouse of the Church, says plainly enough, that by Water is meant the Letter of the Scriptures; and by the best Wine is to be understood spiritual Interpretations, which would transport the understandings of Men with divine knowledge; and warm their Hearts and Affections into a spiritual Inebriation; after the similitude of Wine natural.
St. Theophilus of Antioch, a most antient Greek Commentator (who according to Bishop Smalbroke should strictly adhere to the Letter) says[252], that by this Marriage is meant the Conjunction of Christ and his Church, as it is the Tradition of the Old and New Testament. And that Jesus himself is the Bridegroom; and Moses the Governor of the Feast.
Other Fathers, such as St. Cyril, St. Theophylact and St. Jerome are of the same mind about the mystical Interpretation of this Marriage, as might be prov'd by Passages out of them, if I had room here to cite them. But I must observe here, that according to the Fathers, the Story of this Marriage is but another Emblem of the Marriage of the Lamb with the Bride of the New Jerusalem, spoken of in the Revelations, to which all the Fowls of the Air will be invited, that is, spiritual and heavenly minded Christians, who[253] soar and fly aloft in their divine and sublime Contemplations on the anagogical Sense of the Scriptures, which will exhibit those intellectual Dainties, they are there to be entertain'd with.
What I have here said out of the Fathers to the Story of this Marriage, is enough to quicken our Divines to search for the like mystical Interpretation of the whole. The Part of it that's most difficult to be spiritually expounded, is that saying of Jesus to his Mother, Woman, what have I to do with thee? mine Hour is not yet come. For the clear interpretation of which, I own, I meet with little in the Fathers. But St. Augustin[254] assures us, there's latent Mystery in the words. How then shall we come at it? Why, if we cast away the Interrogation, and look upon the Sentence, as ellyptical, like an infinite number of prophetical ones, the Sense paraphrastically, and agreeably to the rest of the Mystery, arises thus: In answer to the Woman of the Church's Expectation of the Wine of the Spirit; Jesus will tell her or make her to understand of what importance it is to her (and himself) to be supply'd with that mystical Wine to her Edification, which it was not his time to pour forth upon the Church, till the Celebration of his Nuptials with her.
And thus have I done with the Miracle of Jesus's turning Water into Wine at a Marriage of Cana of Galilee. Whether it be not an absurd and offensive Story according to the Letter, let any one judge. If the supposed Jewish Rabbi has forced a worse Sense upon it, than it will naturally bear, our Clergy may expostulate with him for it, which they hardly will any otherwise than by Exclamations against him, without Reason and Authority. But in the mystical Operation of this Miracle at the Marriage of Christ with his Church, there will be the Wisdom and Power and Goodness of God visible. And it will be a demonstration of Jesus's Messiahship, in as much as the Water of the Letter of the Law and the Prophets can't be turn'd into the Wine of spiritual Interpretations, but we must discern how he is the Accomplisher and Fulfiller of them. And so I pass to an