-xi, 13,
_Secundum numerum_, etc. A multitude of doctrines.

Is. xliv, 20-24; liv, 8; lxiii, 12-17; lxvi, 17. Jer. ii, 35; iv, 22-24;
v, 4, 29-31; vi, 16; xxiii, 15-17.

682

_Types_,--The letter kills. All happened in types. Here is the cipher
which Saint Paul gives us. Christ must suffer. An humiliated God.
Circumcision of the heart, true fasting, true sacrifice, a true temple.
The prophets have shown that all these must be spiritual.

Not the meat which perishes, but that which does not perish.

"Ye shall be free indeed."[260] Then the other freedom was only a type
of freedom.

"I am the true bread from Heaven."[261]

683

_Contradiction._--We can only describe a good character by reconciling
all contrary qualities, and it is not enough to keep up a series of
harmonious qualities, without reconciling contradictory ones. To
understand the meaning of an author, we must make all the contrary
passages agree.

Thus, to understand Scripture, we must have a meaning in which all the
contrary passages are reconciled. It is not enough to have one which
suits many concurring passages; but it is necessary to have one which
reconciles even contradictory passages.

Every author has a meaning in which all the contradictory passages
agree, or he has no meaning at all. We cannot affirm the latter of
Scripture and the prophets; they undoubtedly are full of good sense. We
must then seek for a meaning which reconciles all discrepancies.

The true meaning then is not that of the Jews; but in Jesus Christ all
the contradictions are reconciled.

The Jews could not reconcile the cessation of the royalty and
principality, foretold by Hosea, with the prophecy of Jacob.

If we take the law, the sacrifices, and the kingdom as realities, we
cannot reconcile all the passages. They must then necessarily be only
types. We cannot even reconcile the passages of the same author, nor of
the same book, nor sometimes of the same chapter, which indicates
copiously what was the meaning of the author. As when Ezekiel, chap, xx,
says that man will not live by the commandments of God and will live by
them.

684

_Types._--If the law and the sacrifices are the truth, it must please
God, and must not displease Him. If they are types, they must be both
pleasing and displeasing.

Now in all the Scripture they are both pleasing and displeasing. It is
said that the law shall be changed; that the sacrifice shall be changed;
that they sha