ek the creatures find them, but with many
contradictions, with a prohibition against loving them, with the command
to worship God only, and to love Him only, which is the same thing, and,
finally, that the Messiah came not for them; whereas those who therein
seek God find Him, without any contradiction, with the command to love
Him only, and that the Messiah came in the time foretold, to give them
the blessings which they ask.

Thus the Jews had miracles and prophecies, which they say fulfilled and
the teaching of their law was to worship and love God only; it was also
perpetual. Thus it had all the marks of the true religion; and so it
was. But the Jewish teaching must be distinguished from the teaching of
the Jewish law. Now the Jewish teaching was not true, although it had
miracles and prophecy and perpetuity, because it had not this other
point of worshipping and loving God only.

675

The veil, which is upon these books for the Jews, is there also for evil
Christians, and for all who do not hate themselves.

But how well disposed men are to understand them and to know Jesus
Christ, when they truly hate themselves!

676

A type conveys absence and presence, pleasure and pain.

A cipher has a double meaning, one clear, and one in which it is said
that the meaning is hidden.

677

_Types._--A portrait conveys absence and presence, pleasure and pain.
The reality excludes absence and pain.

To know if the law and the sacrifices are a reality or a type, we must
see if the prophets, in speaking of these things, confined their view
and their thought to them, so that they saw only the old covenant; or if
they saw therein something else of which they were the representation,
for in a portrait we see the thing figured. For this we need only
examine what they say of them.

When they say that it will be eternal, do they mean to speak of that
covenant which they say will be changed; and so of the sacrifices, etc.?

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 b