Symbolism

I quote Thomas Scott quoting:

With respect to the figurative language of the poetical and prophetical books, the following observations may be given from the work of W. Jones on that subject.

�From the difficulty we are under of comprehending such things as are above natural reason, the manner of the scripture is as extraordinary as its matter; and it must be so from the necessity of the case. Of all the objects of sense we have ideas, and our minds and memories are stored with them. But of invisible things we have no ideas till they are pointed out to us by revelation; and as we cannot know them immediately, such as they are in themselves, after the manner in which we know sensible objects, they must be communicated to us by the mediation of such things as we already comprehend. For this reason, the scripture is found to have a language of its own, which does not consist of words, but of signs or figures taken from visible things. It could not otherwise treat of God who is a Spirit, and of the spirit of man, and of a spiritual world; which no words can describe. Words are the arbitrary signs of natural things; but the language of revelation goes a step further, and uses some things as signs of other things; in consequence of which, the world which we now see becomes a sort of commentary on the mind of God, and explains the world in which we believe. [Compare Aquinas’ beautiful statement on this point. -RZ]

�It being the the professed design of the scripture to teach us such things as neither see nor know of ourselves, its style and manner must be such as are no where else to be found. It must abound with figurative expressions: it cannot proceed without them: and if we descend to an actual examination of particulars, we find it assisting and leading our faculties forward, by an application of all visible objects to a figurative use, from the glorious orb which shines in the firmament, to a grain of seed that is buried in the earth.��

�To one or other of these five heads, the spiritual language of the scripture may be reduced, and from them the matter of it borrowed: 1. From the images of nature, or visible things as representations of things invisible. 2. From the institutions of the law, prefiguring the things of the gospel. 3. From the persons of the prophets, as types of the great Prophet and Saviour that was to come. 4. From the history of the church of Israel as an ensample to the Christian world. 5. From the miraculous acts of Moses, Christ, and others, as signs of the saving power of God towards the souls of men. All these things compose the figurative language of the bible; and that interpretation which opens and applies them to the objects of faith, is called a spiritual interpretation; as being agreeable to that testimony of Jesus, which is the spirit of prophecy.��