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Just as in that psalm also where Christ is most openly proclaimed as
Priest, even as He is here as King, "The Lord said unto my
Lord, Sit Thou at my right hand, until I make Thine enemies Thy
footstool." That Christ sits on the right hand of God the Father
is believed, not seen; that His enemies also are put under His feet
doth not yet appear; it is being done, [therefore] it will appear at
last: yea, this is now believed, afterward it shall be seen. But
what follows, "The Lord will send forth the rod of Thy strength out
of Sion, and rule Thou in the midst of Thine enemies," is so
clear, that to deny it would imply not merely unbelief and mistake,
but downright impudence. And even enemies must certainly confess that
out of Sion has been sent the law of Christ which we call the gospel,
and acknowledge as the rod of His strength. But that He rules in the
midst of His enemies, these same enemies among whom He rules
themselves bear witness, gnashing their teeth and consuming away, and
having power to do nothing against Him. Then what he says a little
after, "The Lord hath sworn and will not repent," by which words
He intimates that what He adds is immutable, "Thou art a priest for
ever after the order of Melchizedek," who is permitted to doubt of
whom these things are said, seeing that now there is nowhere a
priesthood and sacrifice after the order of Aaron, and everywhere men
offer under Christ as the Priest, which Melchizedek showed when he
blessed Abraham? Therefore to these manifest things are to be
referred, when rightly understood, those things in the same psalm that
are set down a little more obscurely, and we have already made known in
our popular sermons how these things are to be rightly understood. So
also in that where Christ utters through prophecy the humiliation of
His passion, saying, "They pierced my hands and feet; they counted
all my bones. Yea, they looked and stared at me." By which words
he certainly meant His body stretched out on the cross, with the hands
and feet pierced and perforated by the striking through of the nails,
and that He had in that way made Himself a spectacle to those who
looked and stared. And he adds, "They parted my garments among
them, and over nay vesture they cast lots." How this prophecy has
been fulfilled the Gospel history narrates. Then, indeed, the other
things also which are said there less openly are rightly understood when
they agree with those which shine with so great clearness; especially
because those things also which we do not believe as past, but survey
as present, are beheld by the whole world, being now exhibited just as
they are read of in this very psalm as predicted so long before. For
it is there said a little after, "All the ends of the earth shall
remember, and turn unto the Lord, and all the kindreds of the nations
shall worship before Him; for the kingdom is the Lord's, and He
shall rule the nations."
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