42. For here the old proverb was fulfilled: Where God erects a church, there also the devil builds a chapel. God had built a church of his covenant in Judah and David; close by also the devil in God's anger builds his chapel in man's lust: but the church of God always resisted the devil's chapel.
43. For here in this figure the seed of the woman presents itself, showing how it would break the head of the Serpent in man's impurity. And so the type of God's anger, and the type of grace, were represented in one figure, viz. Adam's fleshly whoredom with his Eve, and all her daughters; and then the woman's holy seed of the heavenly world's substance, which, with the Word of grace, mediated, interceded, and set itself in the middle.
44. A much more excellent figure we see in the most wise king Solomon, who stood just in the figure of Judah; as Judah was the son of Jacob, who received and embraced the promise, and Jacob stood wholly in the figure of Christ; so David also received and embraced the renewing of the Covenant of the first promise; and David begat this Solomon also of an unrighteous marriage; though he took her to wife, yet the unrighteousness and murder stood behind the door.
[ Lay under the green leaf]
45. This Solomon was endued with high divine wisdom, and the line of the Covenant pressed and passed through him. But at length he became such an insatiable luxurious person,l that the Scripture says of him, he had three hundred concubines, and seven hundred wives, and mixed himself with the daughters of heathenish kings, and took them to wife, and allowed his heathenish women to set up their idols' images for idolatry in the high places at Jerusalem (1 Kings xi. 1-8).
lUxorious luster after women, lecherous person.
46. In this eminent figure the spirit signifies that man is fallen away from God, and [is] merely idolatrous; that Adam and all his children, in their own nature, are such a bestial adulterous and idolatrous generation: and, in this, King Solomon represents the line of the Covenant subjoined with these heathenish idolatrous adulterous concubines, who in their own nature were but an abomination in the presence of God, to signify that Christ, out of this line of the Covenant, should set himself in the midst amongst the heathen, and tear idolatry out of their hearts, and convert them all to Christ.
47. Also to signify that God did bear with the wise heathen under the patience of the figure of Christ, and that he did represent by the Jews only a prefiguration or type of the temple of Christ; and that the Jews in their nature were but idolatrous adulterers, as well as the heathen, only that in their law they had the type and prefiguration of Christ in their sacrifices and offerings, at which the Covenant had respect, showing how God would redeem and purify both Jews and heathen from Adam's abominations and idolatry, and that the one people in his sight were as the other, and no whit better, but every one of them was the evil Adam. Therefore the spirit represents them perspicuously in the figure of Solomon in the line of the Covenant, that he may have mercy and compassion upon all (Rom. xi. 32), for Christ's sake who should fulfil and accomplish this line.
48. And hereby is signified to the teachers in Babel, part of whom account Solomon damned in regard of those heathenish idols, that they themselves lie under the veil, as the Jews did under the type of Christ, and do really understand the Scripture as little as the Jews, and stand in contentious idolatrous whoredom in the presence of God, as Solomon with his concubines did, and the Jews.
42. For here the old proverb was fulfilled: Where God erects a church, there also the devil builds a chapel. God had built a church of his covenant in Judah and David; close by also the devil in God's anger builds his chapel in man's lust: but the church of God always resisted the devil's chapel.
43. For here in this figure the seed of the woman presents itself, showing how it would break the head of the Serpent in man's impurity. And so the type of God's anger, and the type of grace, were represented in one figure, viz. Adam's fleshly whoredom with his Eve, and all her daughters; and then the woman's holy seed of the heavenly world's substance, which, with the Word of grace, mediated, interceded, and set itself in the middle.
44. A much more excellent figure we see in the most wise king Solomon, who stood just in the figure of Judah; as Judah was the son of Jacob, who received and embraced the promise, and Jacob stood wholly in the figure of Christ; so David also received and embraced the renewing of the Covenant of the first promise; and David begat this Solomon also of an unrighteous marriage; though he took her to wife, yet the unrighteousness and murder stood behind the door.
[ Lay under the green leaf]
45. This Solomon was endued with high divine wisdom, and the line of the Covenant pressed and passed through him. But at length he became such an insatiable luxurious person,l that the Scripture says of him, he had three hundred concubines, and seven hundred wives, and mixed himself with the daughters of heathenish kings, and took them to wife, and allowed his heathenish women to set up their idols' images for idolatry in the high places at Jerusalem (1 Kings xi. 1-8).
lUxorious luster after women, lecherous person.
46. In this eminent figure the spirit signifies that man is fallen away from God, and [is] merely idolatrous; that Adam and all his children, in their own nature, are such a bestial adulterous and idolatrous generation: and, in this, King Solomon represents the line of the Covenant subjoined with these heathenish idolatrous adulterous concubines, who in their own nature were but an abomination in the presence of God, to signify that Christ, out of this line of the Covenant, should set himself in the midst amongst the heathen, and tear idolatry out of their hearts, and convert them all to Christ.
47. Also to signify that God did bear with the wise heathen under the patience of the figure of Christ, and that he did represent by the Jews only a prefiguration or type of the temple of Christ; and that the Jews in their nature were but idolatrous adulterers, as well as the heathen, only that in their law they had the type and prefiguration of Christ in their sacrifices and offerings, at which the Covenant had respect, showing how God would redeem and purify both Jews and heathen from Adam's abominations and idolatry, and that the one people in his sight were as the other, and no whit better, but every one of them was the evil Adam. Therefore the spirit represents them perspicuously in the figure of Solomon in the line of the Covenant, that he may have mercy and compassion upon all (Rom. xi. 32), for Christ's sake who should fulfil and accomplish this line.
48. And hereby is signified to the teachers in Babel, part of whom account Solomon damned in regard of those heathenish idols, that they themselves lie under the veil, as the Jews did under the type of Christ, and do really understand the Scripture as little as the Jews, and stand in contentious idolatrous whoredom in the presence of God, as Solomon with his concubines did, and the Jews.
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