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In the preceding book we said, that in the promise of God to Abraham
two things were promised from the beginning, the one, name ly, that
his seed should possess the land of Canaan, which was intimated when
it was said, "Go into a land that I will show thee, and I will
make of thee a great nation;" but the other far more excellent,
concerning not the carnal but the spiritual seed, by which he is the
father, not of the one nation of Israel, but of all nations who
follow the footsteps of his faith, which began to be promised in these
words, "And in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed."
And thereafter we showed by yet many other proofs that these two things
were promised. Therefore the seed of Abraham, that is, the people
of Israel according to the flesh, already was in the land of promise;
and there, not only by holding and possessing the cities of the
enemies, but also by having kings, had already begun to reign, the
promises of God concerning that people being already in great part
fulfilled: not only those that were made to those three fathers,
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and whatever others were made in their
times, but those also that were made through Moses himself, by whom
the same people was set free from servitude in Egypt, and by whom all
bygone things were revealed in his times, when he led the people
through the wilderness. But neither by the illustrious leader Jesus
the son of Nun, who led that people into the land of promise, and,
after driving out the nations, divided it among the twelve tribes
according to God's command, and died; nor after him, in the whole
time of the judges, was the promise of God concerning the land of
Canaan fulfilled, that it should extend from some river of Egypt even
to the great river Euphrates; nor yet was it still prophesied as to
come, but its fulfillment was expected. And it was; fulfilled
through David, and Solomon his son, whose kingdom was extended over
the whole promised space; for they subdued all those nations, and made
them tributary. And thus, under those kings, the seed of Abraham
was established in the land of promise according to the flesh, that
is, in the land of Canaan, so that nothing yet remained to the
complete fulfillment of that earthly promise of God, except that, so
far as pertains to temporal prosperity, the Hebrew nation should
remain in the same land by the succession of posterity in an unshaken
state even to the end of this mortal age, if it obeyed the laws of the
Lord its God. But since God knew it would not do this, He used
His temporal punishments also for training His few faithful ones in
it, and for giving needful warning to those who should afterwards be in
all nations, in whom the other promise, revealed in the New
Testament, was about to be fulfilled through the incarnation of
Christ.
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