A New Preface to the Prophet Ezekiel
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Likewise the living creatures go, on round feet, toward the four quarters of
the world and need not turn. Here is no axle, pole, frame, pin, rack, wagon,
rope, or trace, but the Scripture drives it all surely from within. Above is
heaven, like a saddle-cloth, and in it a throne for a saddle, and on it God,
that is, Christ, sits.
The four wheels go alike, for all churches in the four corners of the earth,
that is, in the whole world, have an equal, single, harmonious gait, in faith,
hope, love, the Cross, and all spiritual things, and are not driven from
without, by doctrines of men, but from within, by one Spirit (Romans 8:9, 1
Corinthians 12:5, Ephesians 4:4).
And the four beasts also go with the wheels, or rather the wheels with
them, forward, backward, upward, and to both sides; for the apostles, or
preachers, the Word of God, baptism, sacrament, keys and all that belongs
to the spiritual government of the Church are also alike and in agreement
throughout the world. And the beasts and the wheels hold fast together, so
that the chariot is one, without external binding, fastening, or bracing. Thus
everything is fourfold, — four beasts, four faces to a beast, four feet to a
beast, four hands to a beast, four wings to a beast, four wheels, and four
spokes to a wheel. That signifies, as said, that Christendom, or the kingdom
of Christ, is to go to the four corners, that is, into all the world.
This vision, however, signifies the end and destruction of the synagogue, or
of Judaism, that is, of the priesthood, the worship, and the organization
given and instituted by Moses, all of which were instituted for no longer
time than until the coming of Christ, as St. Paul says in Romans 8:3 and 2
Corinthians 3:6, and Christ Himself in Matthew 11:13. The Epistle to the
Hebrews also deals fully with this subject and the Jews take terrible offense
at it, and it is a stumbling-block to them, even to the present day.
In opposition to the blindness of the Jews, it should be known especially
that all the prophecies which say that Israel and Judah shall return again to
their lands and possess them in a bodily way forever, are long since fulfilled,
and that the hopes of the Jews are utterly vain and lost. For this prophecy