Joshua 10:16

For if the armed host of the Lord was represented by the trumpets of the priests, we may see in Jericho a type of the overthrow of the world by the preaching of the gospel. And to pass over endless details (for it is not my purpose now to unfold all the mysteries of the Old Testament), five kings who previously reigned in the land of promise and opposed the gospel army were overcome in battle with Joshua. I think it is clearly to be understood that before the Lord led his people from Egypt and circumcised them, sight, smell, taste, hearing, and touch had the dominion, and that to these, as to five princes, everything was subject. And when they took refuge in the cave of the body and in a place of darkness, Jesus entered the body itself and killed them, that the source of their power might be the instrument of their death.

But let us also see what this is, that it says there were five kings and that these "fled into the caves." We have often said that the warfare of Christians is twofold. For the perfect, and such as Paul was and the Ephesians, as the Apostle himself says, "there was for them no warfare against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, and the spiritual wickednesses in the heavenly places." But for the lower and not-yet-perfect the warfare is still waged "against flesh and blood," for those who are still assailed by carnal vices and frailties. Which I think is indicated also in this passage; for we said that war was declared against the Gibeonites by the five kings, whose figure I said is in those who are imperfect. These therefore are assailed by the five kings. And the five kings signify the five bodily senses — sight, hearing, taste, touch, and smell; for through some one of these each person must needs fall into sin. These five senses are compared to those five kings who overpower the Gibeonites, that is, who overpower carnal men. And that they are said to have "fled into the caves," this can perhaps be indicated because a cave is a place dug down into the depth of the earth. Therefore these senses too, of which we spoke above, when, placed in the body, they have plunged themselves into earthly acts and have done nothing for the work of God but everything for the service of the body, are said to have "fled into the caves."

Yet it must be known that these very kingdoms, whose kings are now conquered by Jesus and "flee to the caves," afterward come into the lot of the saints and are called the Lord's portion, as the kingdom of Jerusalem, or of Lachish, or of Hebron. In which I think this is indicated, that even these five senses, which we expounded above, placed in the body, when they have been vanquished through Jesus — so that unfaithfulness and unbelief may be driven out from them, and when the sins die in this, that they cease from the service of sin — the soul afterward uses these very same as ministers for working the righteousness of God; and so it comes about that in Jerusalem, in which a wicked and most evil king reigned before, afterward David mighty in hand, or peaceable Solomon, reigns in it. For upon these very bodily senses of men, of which we spoke, there also sit malign powers, which incite them to evil desires and to furnishing foul services to the soul. And if the faith of Christ has overcome these malign powers, and they have been hung up "on the wood of his cross," so that he may "triumph over them on the wood of his cross," these being slain and driven from their kingdom, then the soul is made into God's portion, then Jerusalem is made the kingdom of God and a temple is built in it to the Lord. Or did not that man perceive this about himself, who said that: "we too were once senseless, unbelieving, going astray, serving desires and various pleasures"? For it is nothing other than this, that Jerusalem is written to have been once under king Adonibezek, or other cities under others.