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While, therefore, these things now shine forth as clearly as they
were loftily foretold, still some one may not vainly be moved to ask,
How can we be confident that all things are to come to pass which are
predicted in these books as about to come, if this very thing which is
there divinely spoken, "Thine house and thy father's house shall
walk before me for ever," could not have effect? For we see that
priesthood has been changed; and there can be no hope that what was
promised to that house may some time be fulfilled, because that which
succeeds on its being rejected and changed is rather predicted as
eternal. He who says this does not yet understand, or does not
recollect, that this very priesthood after the order of Aaron was
appointed as the shadow of a future eternal priesthood; and therefore,
when eternity is promised to it, it is not promised to the mere shadow
and figure, but to what is shadowed forth and prefigured by it. But
lest it should be thought the shadow itself was to remain, therefore
its mutation also behoved to be foretold.
In this way, too, the kingdom of Saul himself, who certainly was
reprobated and rejected, was the shadow of a kingdom yet to come which
should remain to eternity. For, indeed, the oil with which he was
anointed, and from that chrism he is called Christ, is to be taken in
a mystical sense, and is to be understood as a great mystery; which
David himself venerated so much in him, that he trembled with smitten
heart when, being hid in a dark cave, which Saul also entered when
pressed by the necessity of nature, he had come secretly behind him and
cut off a small piece of his robe, that he might be able to prove how
he had spared him when he could have killed him, and might thus remove
from his mind the suspicion through which he had vehemently persecuted
the holy David, thinking him his enemy. Therefore he was much afraid
test he should be accused of violating so great a mystery in Saul,
because he had thus meddled even his clothes. For thus it is written:
"And David's heart smote him because he had taken away the skirt of
his cloak." But to the men with him, who advised him to destroy
Saul thus delivered up into his hands, he saith, "The Lord forbid
that I should do this thing to my lord, the Lord's christ, to lay
my hand upon him, because he is the Lord's christ." Therefore he
showed so great reverence to this shadow of what was to come, not for
its own sake, but for the sake of what it prefigured. Whence also
that which Samuel says to Saul, "Since thou hast not kept my
commandment which the Lord commanded thee, whereas now the Lord would
have prepared thy kingdom over Israel for ever, yet now thy kingdom
shall not continue for thee; and the Lord will seek Him a man after
His own heart, and the Lord will command him to be prince over His
people, because thou hast not kept that which the Lord commanded
thee," is not to be taken as if God had settled that Saul himself
should reign for ever, and afterwards, on his sinning, would not keep
this promise; nor was He ignorant that he would sin, but He had
established his kingdom that it might be a figure of the eternal
kingdom. Therefore he added, "Yet now thy kingdom shall not
continue for thee." Therefore what it signified has stood and shall
stand; but it shall not stand for this man, because he himself was not
to reign for ever, nor his offspring; so that at least that word "for
ever" might seem to be fulfilled through his posterity one to another.
"And the Lord," he saith, "will seek Him a man," meaning
either David or the Mediator of the New Testament, who was figured
in the chrism with which David also and his offspring was anointed.
But it is not as if He knew not where he was that God thus seeks Him
a man, but, speaking through a man, He speaks as a man, and in this
sense seeks us. For not only to God the Father, but also to His
Only-begotten, who came to seek what was lost, we had been known
already even so far as to be chosen in Him before the foundation of the
world. "He will seek Him" therefore means, He will have His own
(just as if He had said, Whom He already has known to be His own
He will show to others to be His friend). Whence in Latin this
word (quaerit) receives a preposition and becomes acquirit
(acquires), the meaning of which is plain enough; although even
Without the addition of the preposition quaerete is understood as
acquirere, whence gains are called quaestus.
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