Re: Freeware Software

684. 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. 20., Says that man will not
live by the commandments of God and will live by them.

685. 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 shall be without law, without a prince, and without a sacrifice; that a
new covenant shall be made; that the law shall be renewed; that the precepts
which they have rece