my bed, and defiled it with unchastity; you have used my concubine, viz. my formed Word, to your whoredom, and have made of the churches of my children a whore-house, and have defiled my marriagebed, which I have in the churches, where I beget my children.
43. This the spirit of God signifies clearly, by the declaration of the patriarch Jacob, where he says thus concerning these churches and their sacrifices: Reuben, you are my first son, you are my first power, and my first might, the chief in the offering, and the chief in the kingdom: unstable therein as water, you shall not be the chief; for you have climbed up upon your father's bed, and there have you defiled my bed by your climbing up (Gen. xlix. 3,4).
44. The spirit speaks clearly in this text: for Reuben signifies the ordinance of the first Church, viz. the power out of which it was built, that is, the first power of the Christian Church or congregation, and is God's concubine, by which he dwells. But their ministers are climbed up into God's marriage-bed, and have gotten the concubine to themselves, and taken her into their power, and have gotten her with child, with human fictions, fleshly honour and voluptuousness. And it says clearly, you are the chief in the offering, and in the kingdom: for so it must needs be, when the whoredom is not committed. But seeing Reuben exercises whoredom with the churches, it says thus, you shall not be the chief ;for he was unstable therein as water, and signifies thereby that he would give himself to fleshly lust and self-love, and that in unstability: and in that regard is rejected of God.
45. Thus the spirit signifies under this figure, how this concubine, viz. the Church, would be reproached with its first power, viz. of its own children; so that it will be said by the churches, It is a spiritual whore-house, which a man must distinguish from the temple of JESUS CHRIST. For the spirit says, you shall not be the chief; neither in the offering, nor in the kingdom: and thus she has lost the true divine power 2 by the whoredom of her ministers, and stands at present rightly as a deflowered one that is made a whore, which is despised of Israel for her unchastity, which is practised by her; which is cried out upon by almost everyone, each party crying out against the church of the other, for a whore-house, as is enough manifest; and all libraries are full of such a cry, and men at present are ready to storm and fall in upon the whore-house.
1 Holy men. 2 Jus Divinum.
my bed, and defiled it with unchastity; you have used my concubine, viz. my formed Word, to your whoredom, and have made of the churches of my children a whore-house, and have defiled my marriagebed, which I have in the churches, where I beget my children.
43. This the spirit of God signifies clearly, by the declaration of the patriarch Jacob, where he says thus concerning these churches and their sacrifices: Reuben, you are my first son, you are my first power, and my first might, the chief in the offering, and the chief in the kingdom: unstable therein as water, you shall not be the chief; for you have climbed up upon your father's bed, and there have you defiled my bed by your climbing up (Gen. xlix. 3,4).
44. The spirit speaks clearly in this text: for Reuben signifies the ordinance of the first Church, viz. the power out of which it was built, that is, the first power of the Christian Church or congregation, and is God's concubine, by which he dwells. But their ministers are climbed up into God's marriage-bed, and have gotten the concubine to themselves, and taken her into their power, and have gotten her with child, with human fictions, fleshly honour and voluptuousness. And it says clearly, you are the chief in the offering, and in the kingdom: for so it must needs be, when the whoredom is not committed. But seeing Reuben exercises whoredom with the churches, it says thus, you shall not be the chief ;for he was unstable therein as water, and signifies thereby that he would give himself to fleshly lust and self-love, and that in unstability: and in that regard is rejected of God.
45. Thus the spirit signifies under this figure, how this concubine, viz. the Church, would be reproached with its first power, viz. of its own children; so that it will be said by the churches, It is a spiritual whore-house, which a man must distinguish from the temple of JESUS CHRIST. For the spirit says, you shall not be the chief; neither in the offering, nor in the kingdom: and thus she has lost the true divine power 2 by the whoredom of her ministers, and stands at present rightly as a deflowered one that is made a whore, which is despised of Israel for her unchastity, which is practised by her; which is cried out upon by almost everyone, each party crying out against the church of the other, for a whore-house, as is enough manifest; and all libraries are full of such a cry, and men at present are ready to storm and fall in upon the whore-house.
1 Holy men. 2 Jus Divinum.
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