By a similar allusion, which, however, the Jews chose wilfully to misunderstand, Christ declared, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." And the beloved disciple, who records the conversation, does not allow us to doubt of the Saviour's meaning. "Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days? "But he spake of the temple of his body." [202] In more than one place the apostle Paul has fondly dwelt upon this metaphor. Thus he tells the Corinthians that they are "God's building," and he calls himself the "wise master builder," who was to lay the foundation in his truthful doctrine, upon which they were to erect the edifice.[203] And he says to them immediately afterwards, "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?" In consequence of these teachings of the apostles, the idea that the body was a temple has pervaded, from the earliest times to the present day, the system of Christian or theological symbolism. Indeed, it has sometimes been carried to an almost too fanciful excess. Thus Samuel Lee, in that curious and rare old work, "_The Temple of Solomon, pourtrayed by Scripture Light_," thus dilates on this symbolism of the temple:-- "The _foundation_ of this temple may be laid in humility and contrition of spirit, wherein the inhabiter of eternity delighteth to dwell; we may refer the _porch_ to the mouth of a saint, wherein every holy Jacob erects the _pillars_ of God's praise, calling upon and blessing his name for received mercies; when songs of deliverance are uttered from the _doors_ of his lips. The _holy place_ is the renewed mind, and the _windows_ therein may denote divine illumination from above, cautioning a saint lest they be darkened with the smoke of anger, the mist of grief, the dust of vain-glory, or the filthy mire of worldly cares. The _golden candlesticks_, the infused habits of divine knowledge resting within the soul. The _shew-bread_, the word of grace exhibited in the promises for the preservation of a Christian's life and glory. The _golden altar_ of odors, the breathings, sufferings, and groanings after God, ready to break forth into Abba, Father. The _veiles_, the righteousness of Christ. The _holy of holies_ may relate to the conscience purified from dead works and brought into a heavenly frame." [204] And thus he proceeds, symbolizing every part and utensil of the temple as alluding to some emotion or affection of man, but in language too tedious for quotation. In a similar vein has the celebrated John Bunyan, the author of the "_Pilgrim's Progress_" proceeded in his "_Temple of Solomon Spiritualized_" to refer every part of that building to a symbolic meaning, selecting, however, the church, or congregation of good men, rather than the individual man, as the object of the symbolism.