time of the Lord’s Incarnation. But what saith Jeremiah of these Babylonians, to those who
were passing over to them? “For in their peace shall be your peace.”1727 When Israel then
passed over also into Babylon by Christ and the Apostles, that is, when the Gospel came
unto the Gentiles, what saith the Apostle, as though by the mouth of Jeremiah of old? “I
exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks
be made for all men. For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet
and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.”1728 For they were not yet Christian kings,
yet he prayed for them. Israel then praying in Babylon hath been heard; the prayers of the
Church have been heard, and the kings have become Christian, and you see now fulfilled
what was then spoken in figure; “In their peace shall be your peace,” for they have received
the peace of Christ, and have left off to persecute Christians, that now in the secure quiet
of peace, the Churches might be built up, and peoples planted in the garden 1729 of God,
and that all nations might bring forth fruit in faith, and hope, and love, which is in Christ.
15. The carrying away into Babylon took place of old by Jechonias, who was not permitted
to reign in the nation of the Jews, as a type of Christ, whom the Jews would not have reign
over them. Israel passed over unto the Gentiles, that is, the preachers of the Gospel passed
over unto the people of the Gentiles. What marvel then, that Jechonias is reckoned twice?
for if he were a figure of Christ passing over from the Jews unto the Gentiles, consider only
what Christ is between the Jews and Gentiles. Is He not that Corner-stone? In a corner-stone
you see the end of one wall, and the beginning of another; up to that stone you measure one
wall, and another from it; therefore the corner-stone which connects both walls is reckoned
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twice. Jechonias then as prefiguring the Lord was, as it were, a type of the corner-stone; and
as Jechonias was not permitted to reign over the Jews, but they went unto Babylon, so Christ,
“the stone which the builders rejected, is made the head of the corner,”1730 that the Gospel
might reach unto the Gentiles. Hesitate not then to reckon the head of the corner twice, and
you have at once the number written: and so there are fourteen in each of the three divisions,
yet altogether the generations are not forty-two, but forty-one; for as when the order of the
stones runs in a straight line, they are all reckoned but once, but when there is a deviation
from the straight line to make an angle, that stone at which the deviation begins must be
reckoned twice, because it belongs at once to that line which is finished at it, and to that
other line which begins from it; so as long as the order of the generations continued in the
Jewish people, it made no angle in the regular division of fourteen; but when the line was
turned that the people might pass over into Babylon, a sort of angle as it were was made at
1727 Jer. xxix. 7.
1728 1 Tim. ii. 1, 2.
1729 Agricultura.
1730 Ps. cxviii. 22.
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Of the agreement of the evangelists Matthew and Luke in the generations…