56. And we seriously admonish the reader not to contemn, scorn or deride at our exposition, it is the true ground. For when Isaac met his bride, he came from the well Lahai-roi [from the fountain of the living and seeing one], as Moses says (Gen. xxiv. 62). If any desire to understand our meaning and knowledge, he must then make towards this fountain, that so he may be received with Rebecca; and then he will see from what spirit this pen has written, and in what number and voice 1 it is arisen.
57. If any here see nothing, he may well blame himself for blind, and no man else. The Jews, and Turks, and also Babel, may here open their eyes wide, and look upon the figures of the Old Testament aright: they will even find them so.
1 Seal, vial or trumpet.
The Fifty-First Chapter
How Abraham took another wife, of whom he begat six Sons to which he gave gifts; and unto his Son Isaac he gave all his goods; but the others he sent away from his Son Isaac while he yet lived; and also how he died, and was buried by his Sons, Ishmael and Isaac; what hereby is signified unto us
1. MOSES says, Abraham took a wife, and her name was Keturah, and she bare unto him Zimran, Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbak and Shuah (Gen. xxv. 1,2), from whom sprang forth six generations. But of Sarah Abraham begat only one son, at which the whole history points; but of Keturah he begat six sons, concerning whom no peculiar or especial thing is mentioned, but only their families or generations.
This is thus to be understood in the inward figure:
Abraham and his Sarah must be first old, before he begat Isaac, to signify that Christ should be manifested in the flesh in the old age of the world.
2. Isaac was begotten and conceived of Abraham's nature, and of the ens of faith in an old and almost dead matrix, as to the human nature, that so the divine ens might have the pre-eminence. But when Sarah died, Abraham took unto him Keturah, and soon begat of her six sons. Keturah does in its name express the centre of nature. When we form the sensual uncompacted spirits of the letters in this word Keturah, then we understand that Keturah is a formed matrix of nature; which signifies to us, that Abraham, after he had begotten the type of Christ in the ens of faith, should now beget his own likeness as to Adam's nature, out of the six properties of the natural spirit's life, and also set forth and represent his own natural likeness ; and therefore he must also have such a vessel thereunto.
3. Sarah must bring forth but one son: to signify that the kingdom of mankind is given but to one; and that they all do belong to this one; and shoula in him become the same only one, as branches on one tree; which [one] should be Christ in all.
4. But here Abraham did now with Keturah beget six sons, according to the six properties of the formed nature, of the operation of the six days' works; and Isaac, that is, Christ, is the seventh, viz. the day of rest, or Sabbath, wherein the six sons should enter into rest; even as the six days of the creation, understand the six properties of the centre of nature (viz. the working spirit-life), do rest in the seventh: Thus the Spirit of God does represent the figure in Abraham.
5. And we have here a very excellent figure against the reasonwise, who say, That whosoever is not born by nature in the ens of faith [that is, naturally, as it were, begotten of the seed of the woman, which works only by a particular election of God, as they feign] the same is hardened, and cannot attain to the adoption of God, he is not drawn by God, that he should come to the new birth. This figure quite strikes down their fiction, and shows the true ground; and first, it sets forth Isaac, viz. Christ, and declares plainly that to him alone the kingdom of God is hereditary and peculiar, and that no man can have it any more for or from the right of nature; and how we are altogether cast out from thence with Adam, and have lost the same;
56. And we seriously admonish the reader not to contemn, scorn or deride at our exposition, it is the true ground. For when Isaac met his bride, he came from the well Lahai-roi [from the fountain of the living and seeing one], as Moses says (Gen. xxiv. 62). If any desire to understand our meaning and knowledge, he must then make towards this fountain, that so he may be received with Rebecca; and then he will see from what spirit this pen has written, and in what number and voice 1 it is arisen.
57. If any here see nothing, he may well blame himself for blind, and no man else. The Jews, and Turks, and also Babel, may here open their eyes wide, and look upon the figures of the Old Testament aright: they will even find them so.
1 Seal, vial or trumpet.
The Fifty-First Chapter
How Abraham took another wife, of whom he begat six Sons to which he gave gifts; and unto his Son Isaac he gave all his goods; but the others he sent away from his Son Isaac while he yet lived; and also how he died, and was buried by his Sons, Ishmael and Isaac; what hereby is signified unto us
1. MOSES says, Abraham took a wife, and her name was Keturah, and she bare unto him Zimran, Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbak and Shuah (Gen. xxv. 1,2), from whom sprang forth six generations. But of Sarah Abraham begat only one son, at which the whole history points; but of Keturah he begat six sons, concerning whom no peculiar or especial thing is mentioned, but only their families or generations.
This is thus to be understood in the inward figure:
Abraham and his Sarah must be first old, before he begat Isaac, to signify that Christ should be manifested in the flesh in the old age of the world.
2. Isaac was begotten and conceived of Abraham's nature, and of the ens of faith in an old and almost dead matrix, as to the human nature, that so the divine ens might have the pre-eminence. But when Sarah died, Abraham took unto him Keturah, and soon begat of her six sons. Keturah does in its name express the centre of nature. When we form the sensual uncompacted spirits of the letters in this word Keturah, then we understand that Keturah is a formed matrix of nature; which signifies to us, that Abraham, after he had begotten the type of Christ in the ens of faith, should now beget his own likeness as to Adam's nature, out of the six properties of the natural spirit's life, and also set forth and represent his own natural likeness ; and therefore he must also have such a vessel thereunto.
3. Sarah must bring forth but one son: to signify that the kingdom of mankind is given but to one; and that they all do belong to this one; and shoula in him become the same only one, as branches on one tree; which [one] should be Christ in all.
4. But here Abraham did now with Keturah beget six sons, according to the six properties of the formed nature, of the operation of the six days' works; and Isaac, that is, Christ, is the seventh, viz. the day of rest, or Sabbath, wherein the six sons should enter into rest; even as the six days of the creation, understand the six properties of the centre of nature (viz. the working spirit-life), do rest in the seventh: Thus the Spirit of God does represent the figure in Abraham.
5. And we have here a very excellent figure against the reasonwise, who say, That whosoever is not born by nature in the ens of faith [that is, naturally, as it were, begotten of the seed of the woman, which works only by a particular election of God, as they feign] the same is hardened, and cannot attain to the adoption of God, he is not drawn by God, that he should come to the new birth. This figure quite strikes down their fiction, and shows the true ground; and first, it sets forth Isaac, viz. Christ, and declares plainly that to him alone the kingdom of God is hereditary and peculiar, and that no man can have it any more for or from the right of nature; and how we are altogether cast out from thence with Adam, and have lost the same;
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