80 ARCHITECTURE AND PAINTING

of distorted judgment, since God had used them as emblems of spiritual sweetness and healing. And how, then, will you evade the conclusion, that there must be joy, and comfort, and instruction in the literal beauty of architecture, when God, descending in His utmost love to the distressed Jerusalem, and addressing to her His most precious and solemn promises, speaks to her in such words as these: “Oh, thou afflicted, tossed with tempest, and not comforted,”-What shall be done to her?-What brightest emblem of blessing will God set before her? “Behold, I will lay thy stones with fair colours, and thy foundations with sapphires; and I will make thy windows of agates, and thy gates of carbuncles, and all thy borders of pleasant stones.” Nor is this merely an emblem of spiritual blessing; for that blessing is added in the concluding words, “And all thy children shall be taught of the Lord, and great shall be the peace of thy children.”¹

¹ [The Bible references in § 56 are Psalms cxli. 5, cxix. 103; Jeremiah viii. 22; Isaiah liv. 11, 12, 13.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]