2.

"Hearken ye," He saith, "My people, to My law" (ver. 1). Whom may we suppose to be here speaking, but God? For it was Himself that gave a law to His people, whom when delivered out of Egypt He gathered together, the which gathering together is properly named a Synagogue, which the word Asaph is interpreted to signify. Hath it then been said, "Understanding of Asaph," in the sense that Asaph himself hath understood; or must it be figuratively understood, in the sense that the same Synagogue, that is, the same people, hath understood, unto whom is said, "Hearken, My people, unto My law"? Why is it then that He is rebuking the same people by the mouth of the Prophet, saying, "But Israel hath not known Me, and My people hath not understood"? ¹ But, in fact, there were even in that people they that understood, having the faith which was afterwards revealed, not pertaining to the letter of the law, but the grace of the Spirit. For they cannot have been without the same faith, who were able to foresee and foretell the revelation thereof that should be in Christ, inasmuch as even those old Sacraments were significants of those that should be. Had the prophets alone this faith, and not the people too? Nay indeed, but even they that faithfully heard the Prophets, were aided by the same grace in order that they might understand what they heard. But without doubt the mystery ² of the Kingdom of Heaven was veiled in the Old Testament, which in the fulness of time should be unveiled in the New. ³ "For," saith the Apostle, "they did drink of the Spiritual Rock following them, but the Rock was Christ." ⁴ In a mystery therefore theirs was the same meat and drink as ours, but in signification the same, not in form; ⁵ because the same Christ was Himself figured to them in a Rock, manifested to us in the Flesh. "But," he saith, "not in all of them God was well pleased." ⁶ All indeed ate the same spiritual meat and drank the same spiritual drink, that is to say, signifying something spiritual: but not in all of them was God well pleased. When, he saith, "not in all:" there were evidently there some in whom was God well pleased; and although all the Sacraments were common, grace, which is the virtue of the Sacraments, was not common to all. Just as in our times, now that the faith hath been revealed, which then was veiled, to all men that have been baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, ⁷ the Laver of regeneration is common; but the very grace whereof these same are the Sacraments, whereby the members of the Body of Christ are to reign ⁸ together with their Head, is not common to all. For even heretics have the same Baptism, and false brethren too, in the communion of the Catholic name.