Sidenote: Hag. i. 4.
Sidenote: Ib. 2.
Sidenote: Ecclus. xxiii. 18.
1. AFTER I had finished my last letter and directed it to be conveyed
to you, the words which the Lord spake by the prophet Haggai came into
my mind, _Is it time for you, O ye, to dwell in your cieled houses?_
What is the meaning of this but that we ought to dwell on high, not
in low and subterranean abodes? For they who dwell beneath the earth,
cannot build the temple of God, but say, _The time is not come, the
time that the Lord’s house should be built_, because it is the mark
of sensual persons to seek underground dwellings, courting the cool
of summer, being enervated by indulgence and requiring shady retreats
to enable them to bear the heat, or because the slothful live at ease
beneath the earth, or lastly because dark and shady places suit them
best, concealing, (as they believe,) their crimes. _I am compassed
about with darkness, the walls cover me, what need I to fear?_ But in
vain do they hope for this, when God beholds the hidden depths of the
abyss, and discovers all things before they take place.
Sidenote: 1 Kings xvii. 19.
Sidenote: 2 Kings iv. 8, 10.
Sidenote: Ib. 16 et seq.
Sidenote: Acts x. 9.
Sidenote: 2 Sam. xviii. 17, 18.
Sidenote: 1 Kings xx. 23.
2. But neither Elijah nor Elisha dwelt in underground dwellings.
Moreover the former carried the dead son of the widow up into the
loft where he abode, and there raised him to life; and for the latter,
that _great woman_, the Shunamite, prepared a _chamber on the wall_,
and there she obtained the privilege of conceiving a son, for she was
barren, and there also she saw the miracle of his restoration to life.
And what shall I say of Peter who at the sixth hour went up upon the
house-top, and there learnt the mystery of the baptism of the Gentiles.
But the homicide Absalom had reared for himself a pillar in the King’s
dale, and then, after his death, he was cast into a great pit. So
then the saints ascend unto the Lord, the wicked descend to crime;
the saints are on the mountains, the wicked in the valleys; _For God
is the God of the hills, not of the plains_.
3. Those therefore who dwelt in the plain, where God dwells not, could
not have the house of God in themselves; for this is the house which
God required of them, that they should build up themselves, and should
erect within them the temple of God with the living stones of faith.
For it was not the erection of earthly walls nor of wooden roofs that
He required, for these, had they existed, would have been destroyed by
the enemies’ hand; but He sought for that temple which should be raised
in men’s minds, to whom it might be said, _Ye are the Temple of God_,
wherein the Lord Jesus was to dwell, and from whence He was to proceed
for the redemption of the world. Thus in the womb of a Virgin a sacred
chamber was to be prepared, wherein the King of heaven might dwell, and
the human Body might become the temple of God, Which also when It was
destroyed, was to be raised again in three days.
Sidenote: Hag. i. 4.
Sidenote: Jer. xxii. 13.
4. But such a house as this sensual persons, _they who dwell in cieled
houses_ and delight in chased silver, do not build. For as they despise
pure silver, so also they despise simple dwellings. They enlarge the
site of their houses, they add more and more, joining house to house
and farm to farm, they dig up the ground; so that the very earth itself
gives way to their habitations, and like sons of the earth they are
laid up within her womb, and hidden in her bowels. They surely are
those of whom Jeremiah says, _Woe unto him that buildeth his house in
unrighteousness_. For he who builds in righteousness, builds not on
earth but in heaven.
Sidenote: Ib. 14.
Sidenote: Cant. iv. 3.
5. _Thou hast built_, saith the Prophet, _a house, measure the upper
chambers of it, even airy chambers, furnished with windows, cieled
with cedar, and painted with vermilion_. Now he _measureth the upper
chambers_, who, having contemplated the judgment of God, judgeth the
judgment of the humble and the judgment of the poor. But he who seeks
after gain and the blood of the innocent builds not his chambers with
judgment, nor keeps the due measure, because he has not Christ, nor
looks for the breath of Divine grace upon him, nor does he desire the
brightness of full light, nor has he chambers painted with vermilion,
for it cannot be said to him, _Thy lips are like a thread of scarlet_.
Sidenote: Jer. xxii. 19. He shall be buried with the burial of
an ass. Engl. Vers.
6. _A man of this sort_, it is said, _shall not be buried_, for he
who has burrowed in the earth, and buried himself alive, so to speak,
in a tomb, has deprived himself when dead of the rest of burial. And
thus, laid in the pit of carnal pleasures, he has found no grave from
whence to rise. Such a man therefore builds no temple to God, because
he hath not known the time of his correction. How then can such men
build a temple, who like wild beasts betake themselves to dens and
hiding places, who like serpents bury themselves in ditches, and burrow
in the earth like crafty foxes?
Sidenote: 1 Tim. v. 6.
Sidenote: Ps. xlii. 5.
Sidenote: S. Matt. vii. 7.
7. Neither does he build a sepulchre for himself who dies before the
time, for _he is dead while he liveth_; and he hears not the voice of
Haggai, that is being interpreted, of the Feaster, for he enters not
the Tabernacle of God, _in the voice of praise and thanksgiving, the
sound of one feasting_. For how can he hear His voice, who sees not
His works? If he saw them, he would have heard the Word which has been
put in His Hand, rejoicing in His acts, whereby _He knocked and it
was opened to Him_, and He descended into his soul that He might feed
therein upon the food of sincerity and truth.
Sidenote: Hag. i. 8.
8. Now because he has not heard, the word of Haggai comes again to hand,
and says, Rise up from your _cieled houses_ that are weighed down by
wickedness, and _go up to the mountain_ of the heavenly Scriptures, and
_hew wood_, the wood of wisdom, the wood of life, the wood of knowledge;
and make straight your ways, direct your acts that they may keep their
due order which is useful and necessary for building the house of God.
Sidenote: Ib. 10.
9. For if ye do it not, the _heaven over you shall be stayed of her
dew_, that is, the heavenly Word, Which descends _as the dew upon the
grass_, shall not temper the fevered motions of your bodily passions,
nor extinguish the fiery darts of your various desires; and _the earth_,
that is, your soul, _shall be stayed from her fruit_, so that it shall
be dried up, unless fully watered by the Word of God, and sprinkled
with heavenly dew, even the fulness of spiritual Grace.
Sidenote: Hag. i. 14.
Sidenote: Ps. cxxvii. 1.
Sidenote: Col. i. 16, 17.
Sidenote: S. John vii. 37.
10. And as He knew how slothful they are who dwelt beneath the earth,
and in the dark abodes of pleasure, _I will stir up_, it is said, _the
spirit of Jerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, Governor of Judah_, and _the
spirit of Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest_, that they may
be stirred up to build the Divine house. For _except the Lord build
the house, their labour is lost that build it_. Now Zerubbabel means,
‘constant overflowing,’ like the Fountain of life, and the Word of God,
_by Whom and from Whom are all things and in Whom all things consist_.
Thus saith the overflowing Fountain, _If any man thirst, let him come
unto Me, and drink_; drink, that is, from the stream of the unfailing
flood. We read also of Zabulon, a nocturnal flood, that is to say
prophetic, but it also is now brightened by the intermixture of this
stream, whereby was swallowed up that flood of vanity typified by
Jezabel, which was opposed to truth and to the utterances of prophets,
and was so torn in pieces by dogs that not a trace of it remained,
but all its frame with every mark of its posterity was destroyed.
Zerubbabel therefore of the tribe of Judah, and Jesus the High Priest,
thus designated both by tribe and name seem to represent two persons,
though one only is meant; for He Who as Almighty is born from the
Almighty, as Redeemer is born of the Virgin, being the Same in the
diversity of His two divisible natures, hath fulfilled as the Giant
of salvation[166] the verity of the one Son of God.
Sidenote: Hag. ii. 6.
Sidenote: Exod. xiii. 21.
Sidenote: Ib. xiv. 22.
Sidenote: S. Luke xxiii. 44.
11. Now being about to raise from the dead holy Zerubbabel He says,
_Yet once, it is a little while, I will shake the heavens, and the
earth, and the sea, and the dry land_. Once before he had shaken these
things when He delivered his people from Egypt, when there was in
heaven a pillar of fire, dry land among the waves, a wall in the sea, a
path in the waters, when in the desert a daily supply of heavenly food
was produced, and the rock was melted into streams of water. But He
shook them also afterwards in the Passion of the Lord Jesus, when the
heaven was covered with darkness, the sun withdrew his light, the rocks
were rent, the tombs opened, the dead raised, the Dragon, vanquished
on his own waves, saw the fishers of men not only sailing, but even
walking on the sea without danger.
Sidenote: Ps. xix. 4.
Sidenote: Is. liv. 1.
Sidenote: Ib. xxxv. 1.
Sidenote: Rom. xi. 5.
12. The _dry land was also shaken_ when the barren Gentile nations
began to ripen with the harvest of devotion and faith, and the desert
and the Gentiles were so much shaken, that the preaching of the
Apostles, whom He sent to call the Gentiles, was so loud and vehement,
that _their sound went out into all lands, and their words unto the
ends of the world_. So greatly, indeed, was the desert shaken that
_more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married
wife_, and _the desert blossomed as a rose_, the elect of the Gentiles
entered in to the remnant of the people, that the _remnant might be
saved according to the election of grace_.
Sidenote: Hag. ii. 7, 8.
Sidenote: Ps. xii. 7.
13. _And I will fill_, it is said, _this house with My silver and gold_,
with the heavenly oracles, which are as _silver tried in the fire_, and
in the brightness of the true light, glistening like spiritual gold in
the secret hearts of the saints. These riches He confers on His Church,
riches whereby spiritual treasures are increased, and the glory of the
house is exalted above the former glory which the elect people enjoyed.
Sidenote: Phil. iv. 7.
Sidenote: S. Matt. xxiv. 35.
Sidenote: Heb. iv. 12.
Sidenote: Zech. ix. 10.
14. For peace and tranquillity of the soul is above all glory of
any house; for _peace passeth all understanding_. This is that peace
above all peace which shall be granted after the third shaking of the
heaven, the sea, the earth and the dry land, when He shall destroy all
Principalities and Powers. For _heaven and earth shall pass away_, and
all the fashion of this world; and every man shall rise up against his
brother with the sword, that is, with the word _piercing the marrow
of the soul_, that whatever opposes itself, the _chariot from Ephraim_
and _the horse from Jerusalem may be cut off_, as Zechariah says. And
thus there will be peace over all, the passions of the body offering no
resistance, and the unbelieving mind no obstacle, that _Christ may be
all in all_, offering in subjection to the Father the hearts of all men.
Sidenote: Hagg. ii. 23.
Sidenote: Cant. vi. 13.
Sidenote: 1 Cor. xv. 48.
Sidenote: Ib. 49.
15. Wherefore to Him alone is it mystically said, _I will take thee,
O Zerubbabel, and will make thee as a signet, for I have chosen thee_.
When our mind shall have become peaceful so that it may be said to her,
_Return, return, o Shulamite_, which signifies ‘peaceful,’ or, to use
your own name, Irenice, then shall she receive Christ like a signet on
herself, that is, the Image of God, that she may be according to that
Image, for _as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly_.
And it behoves us _to bear the image of the heavenly_, that is, peace.
Sidenote: Cant. viii. 6.
16. And that we may know the truth of this, it is said in the Canticles
to the soul now fully perfect, that which may the Lord Jesus say to you
also, _Set me as a seal upon thine arm_; that peace may shine in your
heart and Christ in your works, and that wisdom and righteousness and
redemption may be formed in you. Farewell, my son: love me for I love
you.