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Wherefore just as that divine oracle to Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob, and all the other prophetic signs or sayings which are given in
the earlier sacred writings, so also the other prophecies from this
time of the kings pertain partly to the nation of Abraham's flesh,
and partly to that seed of his in which all nations are blessed as
fellow-heirs of Christ by the New Testament, to the possessing of
eternal life and the kingdom of the heavens. Therefore they pertain
partly to the bond maid who gendereth to bondage, that is, the earthly
Jerusalem, which is in bondage with her children; but partly to the
free city of God, that is, the true Jerusalem eternal in the
heavens, whose children are all those that live according to God in
the earth: but there are some things among them which are understood to
pertain to both, to the bond maid properly, to the free woman
figuratively.
Therefore prophetic utterances of three kinds are to be found;
forasmuch as there are some relating to the earthly Jerusalem, some to
the heavenly, and some to both. I think it proper to prove what I
say by examples. The prophet Nathan was sent to convict king David
of heinous sin, and predict to him what future evils should be
consequent on it. Who can question that this and the like pertain to
the terrestrial city, whether publicly, that is, for the safety or
help of the people, or privately, when there are given forth for each
one's private good divine utterances whereby something of the future
may be known for the use of temporal life? But where we read,
"Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make for the
house of Israel, and for the house of Judah, a new testament: not
according to the testament that I settled for their fathers in the day
when I laid hold of their hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt;
because they continued not in my testament, and I regarded them not,
saith the Lord. For this is the testament that I will make for the
house of Israel: after those days, saith the Lord, I will give my
laws in their mind, and will write them upon their hearts, and I will
see to them; and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a
people;", without doubt this is prophesied to the Jerusalem above,
whose reward is God Himself, and whose chief and entire good it is to
have Him, and to be His. But this pertains to both, that the city
of God is called Jerusalem, and that it is prophesied the house of
God shall be in it; and this prophecy seems to be fulfilled when king
Solomon builds that most noble temple. For these things both happened
in the earthly Jerusalem, as history shows, and were types of the
heavenly Jerusalem. And this kind of prophecy, as it were compacted
and commingled of both the others in the ancient canonical books,
containing historical narratives, is of very great significance, and
has exercised and exercises greatly the wits of those who search holy
writ. For example, what we read of historically as predicted and
fulfilled in the seed of Abraham according to, the flesh, we must
also inquire the allegorical meaning of, as it is to be fulfilled in
the seed of Abraham according to faith. And so much is this the
case, that some have thought there is nothing in these books either
foretold and effected, or effected although not foretold, that does
not insinuate something else which is to be referred by figurative
signification to the city of God on high, and to her children who are
pilgrims in this life. But if this be so, then the utterances of the
prophets, or rather the whole of those Scriptures that are reckoned
under the title of the Old Testament, will be not of three, but of
two different kinds. For there will be nothing there which pertains to
the terrestrial Jerusalem only, if whatever is there said and
fulfilled of or concerning her signifies something which also refers by
allegorical prefiguration to the celestial Jerusalem; but there will
be only two kinds one that pertains to the free Jerusalem, the other
to both. But just as, I think, they err greatly who are of opinion
that none of the records of affairs in that kind of writings mean
anything more than that they so happened, so I think those very daring
who contend that the whole gist of their contents lies in allegorical
significations. Therefore I have said they are threefold, not
two-fold. Yet, in holding this opinion, I do not blame those who
may be able to draw out of everything there a spiritual meaning, only
saving, first of all, the historical truth. For the rest, what
believer can doubt that those things are spoken vainly which are such
that, whether said to have been done or to be yet to come, they do not
be-seem either human or divine affairs? Who would not recall these to
spiritual understanding if he could, or confess that they should be
recalled by him who is able?
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