A cipher has two meanings.  When we find out an important letter in which we discover a clear meaning, and in which it is nevertheless said that the meaning is veiled and obscure, that it is hidden, so that we might read the letter without seeing it, and interpret it without understanding it, what must we think but that here is a cipher with a double meaning, and the more so if we find obvious contradictions in the literal meaning?  The prophets have clearly said that Israel would be always loved by God, and that the law would be eternal; and they have said that their meaning would not be understood, and that it was veiled.

How greatly then ought we to value those who interpret the cipher, and teach us to understand the hidden meaning, especially if the principles which they educe are perfectly clear and natural!  This is what Jesus Christ did, and the Apostles.  They broke the seal; He rent the veil, and revealed the spirit.  They have taught us through this that the enemies of man are his passions; that the Redeemer would be spiritual, and His reign spiritual; that there would be two advents, one in lowliness to humble the proud, the other in glory to exalt the humble; that Jesus Christ would be both God and man.

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Types.—­Jesus Christ opened their mind to understand the Scriptures.

Two great revelations are these. (1) All things happened to them in types:  vere Israelitae, vere liberi, true bread from Heaven. (2) A God humbled to the Cross.  It was necessary that Christ should suffer in order to enter into glory, “that He should destroy death through death."[257] Two advents.

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Types.—­When once this secret is disclosed, it is impossible not to see it.  Let us read the Old Testament in this light, and let us see if the sacrifices were real; if the fatherhood of Abraham was the true cause of the friendship of God; and if the promised land was the true place of rest.  No.  They are therefore types.  Let us in the same way examine all those ordained ceremonies, all those commandments which are not of charity, and we shall see that they are types.

All these sacrifices and ceremonies were then either types or nonsense.  Now these are things too clear, and too lofty, to be thought nonsense.

To know if the prophets confined their view in the Old Testament, or saw therein other things.

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Typical.—­The key of the cipher. Veri adoratores.[258]—­Ecce agnus Dei qui tollit peccata mundi.[259]

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Is. i, 21.  Change of good into evil, and the vengeance of God.  Is. x, I; xxvi, 20; xxviii, I. Miracles:  Is. xxxiii, 9; xl, 17; xli, 26; xliii, 13.

Jer. xi, 21; xv, 12; xvii, 9. Pravum est cor omnium et incrustabile; quis cognoscet illud? that is to say, Who can know all its evil?  For it is already known to be wicked. Ego dominus, etc.—­vii, 14, Faciam domui huic, etc.  Trust in external sacrifices—­vii, 22, Quia non sum locutus, etc.  Outward sacrifice is not the essential point—­xi, 13, Secundum numerum, etc.  A multitude of doctrines.