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| Of the Prophetic Age.
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Chapter 1.—Of the Prophetic
Age.
By the
favor of God we have treated distinctly of His promises made to
Abraham, that both the nation of Israel according to the flesh, and
all nations according to faith, should be his seed, and the City of
God, proceeding according to the order of time, will point980
out how they
were fulfilled. Having therefore in the previous book come down
to the reign of David, we shall now treat of what remains, so far
as may seem sufficient for the object of this work, beginning at
the same reign. Now, from the time when holy Samuel began to
prophesy, and ever onward until the people of Israel was led
captive into Babylonia, and until, according to the prophecy of
holy Jeremiah, on Israel’s return thence after seventy years, the
house of God was built anew, this whole period is the prophetic
age. For although both the patriarch Noah himself, in whose days
the whole earth was destroyed by the flood, and others before and
after him down to this time when there began to be kings over the
people of God, may not underservedly be styled prophets, on account
of certain things pertaining to the city of God and the kingdom of
heaven, which they either predicted or in any way signified should
come to pass, and especially since we read that some of them, as
Abraham and Moses, were expressly so styled, yet those are most and
chiefly called the days of the prophets from the time when Samuel
began to prophesy, who at God’s command first anointed Saul to be
king, and, on his rejection, David himself, whom others of his
issue should succeed as long as it was fitting they should do so.
If, therefore, I wished to rehearse all that the prophets have
predicted concerning Christ, while the city of God, with its
members dying and being born in constant succession, ran its course
through those times, this work would extend beyond all bounds.
First, because the Scripture itself, even when, in treating in
order of the kings and of their deeds and the events of their
reigns, it seems to be occupied in narrating as with historical
diligence the affairs transacted, will be found, if the things
handled by it are considered with the aid of the Spirit of God,
either more, or certainly not less, intent on foretelling things to
come than on relating things past. And who that thinks even a
little about it does not know how laborious and prolix a work it
would be, and how many volumes it would require to search this out
by thorough investigation and demonstrate it by argument? And
then, because of that which without dispute pertains to prophecy,
there are so many things concerning Christ and the kingdom of
heaven, which is the city of God, that to explain these a larger
discussion would be necessary than the due proportion of this work
admits of. Therefore I shall, if I can, so limit myself, that in
carrying through this work, I may, with God’s help, neither say
what is superfluous nor omit what is necessary.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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