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| That the Law of Moses Must Be Spiritually Understood to Preclude the Damnable Murmurs of a Carnal Interpretation.
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Chapter 28.—That the Law of Moses
Must Be Spiritually Understood to Preclude the Damnable Murmurs of
a Carnal Interpretation.
In the succeeding words,
“Remember the law of Moses my servant, which I commanded to him
in Horeb for all Israel,”1468
the prophet opportunely mentions
precepts and statutes, after declaring the important distinction
hereafter to be made between those who observe and those who
despise the law. He intends also that they learn to interpret the
law spiritually, and find Christ in it, by whose judgment that
separation between the good and the bad is to be made. For it is
not without reason that the Lord Himself says to the Jews, “Had
ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me; for he wrote of
me.”1469
For by
receiving the law carnally without perceiving that its earthly
promises were figures of things spiritual, they fell into such
murmur
ings as audaciously to say, “It is vain to serve God;
and what profit is it that we have kept His ordinance, and that we
have walked suppliantly before the face of the Lord Almighty? And
now we call aliens happy; yea, they that work wickedness are set
up.”1470
It was
these words of theirs which in a manner compelled the prophet to
announce the last judgment, in which the wicked shall not even in
appearance be happy, but shall manifestly be most miserable; and in
which the good shall be oppressed with not even a transitory
wretchedness, but shall enjoy unsullied and eternal felicity. For
he had previously cited some similar expressions of those who said,
“Every one that doeth evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and
such are pleasing to Him.”1471
It was, I say, by understanding
the law of Moses carnally that they had come to murmur thus against
God. And hence, too, the writer of the 73d Psalm says that his
feet were almost gone, his steps had well-nigh slipped, because he
was envious of sinners while he considered their prosperity, so
that he said among other things, How doth God know, and is there
knowledge in the Most High? and again, Have I sanctified my heart
in vain, and washed my hands in innocency?1472
He goes on to say that his
efforts to solve this most difficult problem, which arises when the
good seem to be wretched and the wicked happy, were in vain until
he went into the sanctuary of God, and understood the last
things.1473
For in
the last judgment things shall not be so; but in the manifest
felicity of the righteous and manifest misery of the wicked quite
another state of things shall appear.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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