There are in the Scripture, allegories, apologues, parables, but all of them so plainly, evidently, and professedly such, and so unavoid- ably requiring a figurative exposition from the nature of the things themselves (as where stones are said to hear, and trees to speak), that there is no danger of any mistake about them, nor difference concerning their figurative acceptation. And the only safe rule of ascribing a figurative sense unto any thing or expression in the Scripture, is when the nature of things will not bear that which is proper; "as where the Lord Christ calls himself a door and a vine, and says that bread is his body. But to make allegories of such discourses as this, founded in the fiction of persons, is a ready way to turn the whole Bible into an allegory,—which may be done with as much ease and probability of truth. He further excepts:—
“Quod secundo loco contendunt, hic nihil figurate, sed omnia proprie dici, nimis absurdum est. Nam etiamsi daremus hic sa- pientiam esse personam quandam, quam ipsi Aéyov appellant; tamen certum esset illum tempore Solomonis in plateis non clamasse, nec
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cum hominibus hilariter conversatum esse, nec domum eedificasse, excidisse septem columnas, victimas obtulisse, miscuisse vinum, et extera que hic recitantur proprie fecisse. Alias debuerunt fateri, Christum ab eterno fuisse incarnatum, quando quidem hee actiones proprie non possunt nisi homini jam nato competere. Itaque et impudentis et indocti est negare hanc orationem Solomonis esse figuratam.”
He names not who they are who say no expressions in this dis- course are figurative. Neither doth this follow upon a denial that the whole is founded in the fiction of a person; for a true and real person may speak things figuratively, and sometimes it is necessary ° that so he should do. These men will not deny God to be a person, nor yet that he often speaketh of himself and his works figuratively. The same doth Wisdom also here, in the declaration of some of his works. But that which animates this exception is a false supposi- tion, that the eternal Word cannot be said to do or act any thing but what he doth immediately in his own person, and that as in- earnate. What God doth by the ministry of others, that he also doth himself. When he gave the law by the ministry of angels, he gave the law himself; and when he speaks by the prophets, he is everywhere said to speak himself. That, therefore, which was done in the days of Solomon by the command, appointment, authority, and assistance of Wisdom, was done then by Wisdom itself. And so all things here ascribed unto it, some properly, some figuratively, were done by the Word in the means by him appointed. In the ministry of the priests, Levites, prophets, teachers of the law, in- viting all sorts of persons'unto the fear of the Lord, he performed the most of them; and the remainder of the things intended he effected in his ordinances and institutions of divine worship. Besides, there is a prophetical scheme in these words. It is here declared not only what Wisdom then did, but especially what it should do, namely, in the days of the gospel; for the manner of the prophets is to express things future as present or past, because of the cer- tainty of their accomplishment. And these things they spake of the coming of Christ in the flesh. See 1 Pet. i, 11, 12, iii, 19.
But utterly to remove this pretence of prosopopeias andpfigures, it need only to be observed, which none will deny, that the Wis- dom that speaks here, chap. viii, is the same that speaks, chap. i, from verse 20 unto the end. And if Wisdom there be not a person, and that a divine person, there is none in heaven ; for to whom or what else can those words be ascribed which Wisdom speaks, verses 23-26, 28: “Turn you at my reproof: behold, I will pour out my Spirit unto you, I will make known my words unto you. Be- cause I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand,
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and no man regarded ; but ye have set at nought all my counsel, and would none of my reproof: I also will laugh at your calamity; _ I will mock when your fear cometh. Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me.” If these things express not a person, and that a divine person, the Scripture gives us no due apprehension of any thing whatever. Who is it that pours out the Holy Spirit? Whom is it that men sin against in refusing to be obedient? Whom is it that in their distress they call upon, and seek early in their trouble? The whole Scripture declares unto whom, and unto whom alone, these things belong and may be ascribed.
After an interposition of some things nothing unto the purpose, he yet puts in three more exceptions unto this testimony to the eternal personal existence of this Wisdom; as,—
“ Preeterea heec sapientia de qua agit Solomon, loquitur, docet, instituit homines. At Jesus Christus postremis tantum diebus, teste apostolo ad Heb. 1, locutus est hominibus; ergo non etate Solo- monis.”