12. Afterwards there pressed forward the line of the Covenant, with the spiritual Leah, viz. the first created image out of the limus of the earth, wherein the five prints of the nails, the wounds of Christ, stood; they should be shown to the only God, that therein he should receive the handmaids' children, who all bowed themselves before God.
13. Then afterwards came Joseph with his mother, viz. the image of the heavenly world's substance, and bowed before the only God, which had been angry with him.
14. Men should not understand this in divided figures, types or images, but as the properties of the humanity are manifested before God through the suffering of Christ in one only image, viz. in Christ's humanity in the kingdom of the restoration or redemption, viz. in the kingdom of heaven. The reader should understand our sense properly: for we write here in the vision of all the three Principles, how it went, and still to this day goes, with the new birth.
Our exposition will not bear any dividing of the figure or creature: we understand it in one creature.
15. Our earnest and hearty consideration is this: That we may see and understand how we poor children of Eve were brought through Christ's suffering and death, and set before God's countenance, and how first the soul, with the body of sin, must pass through death, and in the resurrection come again with the body before God, where the body from the limus of the earth is esteemed strange in the presence of God. Therefore it is prefigured in the type in the condition of a handmaid, and then presently, in that body, the prints of the nails and the suffering of Christ is set before God. Out of which death of Christ the fair image created in Adam appears again; as the whole figure together of Jacob thus fairly typifies, and as the spirit has signified thereby.
16. And Esau said further to Jacob, What do you mean by all this herd which I met? He answered, That I might find grace in the sight of my Lord. Esau said, I have enough, my brother; keep what you have. Jacob answered, O no, if I have found grace in your sight, then receive my present at my hand: for I have seen your face, as if I had seen the face of God; and let it please you from me. Take, I pray you, the blessing from me which I have brought you; for God has bestowed it upon me, and I have enough. Thus he constrained him that he took it (Gen. xxxiii. 8-11). This now is the fair figure wherewith the spirit alludes, how Christ appears before God, with his Christendom, viz. with his purchased goods. Then says the Father to the Son, Whither will you go with these your children, who meet me daily, in that they come to me? And Christ says, O Lord, that I might find grace from you with them. And the Father says, They are your purchased goods, keep what you have, I have without them enough, even all things.
12. Afterwards there pressed forward the line of the Covenant, with the spiritual Leah, viz. the first created image out of the limus of the earth, wherein the five prints of the nails, the wounds of Christ, stood; they should be shown to the only God, that therein he should receive the handmaids' children, who all bowed themselves before God.
13. Then afterwards came Joseph with his mother, viz. the image of the heavenly world's substance, and bowed before the only God, which had been angry with him.
14. Men should not understand this in divided figures, types or images, but as the properties of the humanity are manifested before God through the suffering of Christ in one only image, viz. in Christ's humanity in the kingdom of the restoration or redemption, viz. in the kingdom of heaven. The reader should understand our sense properly: for we write here in the vision of all the three Principles, how it went, and still to this day goes, with the new birth.
Our exposition will not bear any dividing of the figure or creature: we understand it in one creature.
15. Our earnest and hearty consideration is this: That we may see and understand how we poor children of Eve were brought through Christ's suffering and death, and set before God's countenance, and how first the soul, with the body of sin, must pass through death, and in the resurrection come again with the body before God, where the body from the limus of the earth is esteemed strange in the presence of God. Therefore it is prefigured in the type in the condition of a handmaid, and then presently, in that body, the prints of the nails and the suffering of Christ is set before God. Out of which death of Christ the fair image created in Adam appears again; as the whole figure together of Jacob thus fairly typifies, and as the spirit has signified thereby.
16. And Esau said further to Jacob, What do you mean by all this herd which I met? He answered, That I might find grace in the sight of my Lord. Esau said, I have enough, my brother; keep what you have. Jacob answered, O no, if I have found grace in your sight, then receive my present at my hand: for I have seen your face, as if I had seen the face of God; and let it please you from me. Take, I pray you, the blessing from me which I have brought you; for God has bestowed it upon me, and I have enough. Thus he constrained him that he took it (Gen. xxxiii. 8-11). This now is the fair figure wherewith the spirit alludes, how Christ appears before God, with his Christendom, viz. with his purchased goods. Then says the Father to the Son, Whither will you go with these your children, who meet me daily, in that they come to me? And Christ says, O Lord, that I might find grace from you with them. And the Father says, They are your purchased goods, keep what you have, I have without them enough, even all things.
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