Coronis (An Appendix to True Christian Religion) #55
55. But what vastation is, and whence it arose with the people of the Israelitish church, may be gathered from the passages in the Prophets where it is mentioned, which shall, therefore, be adduced therefrom in abundance. It must be premised, that, in the following and the subsequent passages from the Word, by "land" is signified the Church, because the land of Canaan is meant, in which the Church was; by "Zion," the Church as to the Word; by "Jerusalem," the Church as to doctrine from the Word; by the "cities" in that land, doctrinals; by the "mountains," "hills," "valleys," and "rivers," the formalities of the Church; and by the territories there, the general things of the Church, and these according to the representation of the tribe by which they were possessed.
Isaiah 17:9-14
9
In that day, their strong cities will be like the forsaken places in the woods and on the mountain top, which were forsaken from before the children of Israel; and it will be a desolation.
10
For you have forgotten the God of your salvation, and have not remembered the rock of your strength. Therefore you plant pleasant plants, and set out foreign seedlings.
11
In the day of your planting, you hedge it in. In the morning, you make your seed blossom, but the harvest flees away in the day of grief and of desperate sorrow.
12
Ah, the uproar of many peoples, who roar like the roaring of the seas; and the rushing of nations, that rush like the rushing of mighty waters!
13
The nations will rush like the rushing of many waters: but he will rebuke them, and they will flee far off, and will be chased like the chaff of the mountains before the wind, and like the whirling dust before the storm.
14
At evening, behold, terror! Before the morning, they are no more. This is the portion of those who plunder us, and the lot of those who rob us.
