Tractatio verborum domini, in domo patris mei mansiones multae sunt, &c. ex XIIII. cap. Evang. secundum Ioannem

TREATISE ON THE WORDS OF THE LORD: IN MY FATHER'S HOUSE ARE MANY MANSIONS.

in these dogmas, it seems certainly that not only is the general sense of the Lord to be explained, but also those things which lie hidden in the words are to be inquired into, and through the collation of other places of Scripture, which the grace of the Lord has granted, they are to be brought forth for the utility of the listeners. Therefore, since the Lord says from the beginning, In my Father's house are many mansions, we are commanded above all to ask what that house of God the Father is, and where it is.

What is the house of God and where is it? The temple of Jerusalem is called the house of God in the Scriptures, because God had promised that He would be present there and would hear the prayers of the faithful, and because He had chosen that house for Himself as a workshop of true worship, and because in it the people of God were gathered, who are the true and living temple of God, the true house of God, which God inhabits through His Spirit. And before the temple was built and the tabernacle erected, the patriarch Jacob called Bethel the house of God for a similar reason. For in that place God had appeared to him, and had spoken with him quite familiarly: in which place he himself, having returned from Mesopotamia, gathered and celebrated sacred assemblies, calling upon and glorifying the name of the Lord. But it is certain that the house