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| Of the Three-Fold Meaning of the Prophecies, Which are to Be Referred Now to the Earthly, Now to the Heavenly Jerusalem, and Now Again to Both.
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Chapter 3.—Of the Three-Fold
Meaning of the Prophecies, Which are to Be Referred Now to the
Earthly, Now to the Heavenly Jerusalem, and Now Again to
Both.
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.983
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;”984
—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 beseem
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?E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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