CHAPTER VI.02

II. Therefore God never showed himself propitious to his ancient people, nor afforded them any hope of his favour, without a Mediator. I forbear to speak of the legal sacrifices, by which the faithful were plainly and publicly instructed that salvation was to be sought solely in that expiation, which has been accomplished by Christ alone. I only assert, that the happiness of the Church has always been founded on the person of Christ. For though God comprehended in his covenant all the posterity of Abraham, yet Paul judiciously reasons, that Christ is in reality that Seed in whom all the nations were to be blessed;743 since we know that the natural descendants of that patriarch were not reckoned as his seed. For, to say nothing of Ishmael and others, what was the cause, that of the two sons of Isaac, the twin-brothers Esau and Jacob, even when they were yet unborn, one should be chosen and the other rejected? How came it to pass that the first-born was rejected, and that the younger obtained his birthright? How came the majority of the people to be disinherited? It is evident, therefore, that the seed of Abraham is reckoned principally in one person, and that the promised salvation was not manifested till the coming of Christ, whose office it is to collect what had been scattered abroad. The first adoption, therefore, of the chosen people, depended on the grace of the Mediator; which, though it is not so plainly expressed by [pg 308] Moses, yet appears to have been generally well known to all the pious. For before the appointment of any king in the nation, Hannah, the mother of Samuel, speaking of the felicity of the faithful, thus expressed herself in her song: “The Lord shall give strength unto his king, and exalt the horn of his anointed.”744 Her meaning in these words is, that God will bless his Church. And to this agrees the oracle, which is soon after introduced: “I will raise me up a faithful priest, and he shall walk before mine anointed.” And there is no doubt that it was the design of the heavenly Father to exhibit in David and his posterity a lively image of Christ. With a design to exhort the pious, therefore, to the fear of God, he enjoins them to “kiss the Son;”745 which agrees with this declaration of the gospel: “He that honoureth not the Son honoureth not the Father.”746 Therefore, though the kingdom was weakened by the revolt of the ten tribes, yet the covenant, which God had made with David and his successors, could not but stand, as he also declared by the Prophets: “I will not rend away all the kingdom, but will give one tribe to thy son, for David my servant's sake, and for Jerusalem's sake which I have chosen.”747 This is repeated again and again. It is also expressly added, “I will for this afflict the seed of David, but not for ever.”748 At a little distance of time it is said, “For David's sake did the Lord his God give him a lamp in Jerusalem, to set up his son after him, and to establish Jerusalem.”749 Even when the state was come to the verge of ruin, it was again said, “The Lord would not destroy Judah, for David his servant's sake, as he promised him to give him alway a light, and to his children.”750 The sum of the whole is this—that David alone was chosen, to the rejection of all others, as the perpetual object of the Divine favour; as it is said, in another place, “He forsook the tabernacle of Shiloh; he refused the tabernacle of Joseph, and chose not the tribe of Ephraim; but chose the tribe of Judah, the mount Zion, which he loved. He chose David also his servant, to feed Jacob his people, and Israel his inheritance.”751 Finally, it pleased God to preserve his Church in such a way, that its security and salvation should depend on that head. David therefore exclaims, “The Lord is their strength, and he is the saving strength of his anointed;”752 and immediately adds this petition: “Save thy people, and bless thine inheritance;” signifying that the state of the Church is inseparably connected with the government of Christ. In the same sense he elsewhere says, “Save, Lord; let the king hear us when [pg 309] we call.”753 In these words he clearly teaches us that the faithful resort to God for assistance, with no other confidence than because they are sheltered under the protection of the king. This is to be inferred from another psalm: “Save, O Lord! Blessed be he that cometh in the name of the Lord;”754 where it is sufficiently evident that the faithful are invited to Christ, that they may hope to be saved by the power of God. The same thing is alluded to in another prayer, where the whole Church implores the mercy of God: “Let thy hand be upon the man of thy right hand, upon the Son of man whom thou madest strong for thyself.”755 For though the author of the psalm deplores the dissipation of all the people, yet he ardently prays for their restoration in their head alone. But when Jeremiah, after the people were driven into exile, the land laid waste, and all things apparently ruined, bewails the miseries of the Church, he principally laments that by the subversion of the kingdom, the hope of the faithful was cut off. “The breath of our nostrils, the anointed of the Lord, was taken in their pits, of whom we said, Under his shadow we shall live among the heathen.”756 Hence it is sufficiently evident, that since God cannot be propitious to mankind but through the Mediator, Christ was always exhibited to the holy fathers under the law, as the object to which they should direct their faith.