Israel went out of Egypt, whereas it is four hundred and thirty.1802 And so here the one generation, which exceeds the fortieth, does not take away the predominance of that number. Now this number signifies the life wherein we labour in this world, as long as we are absent 258 from the Lord, during which the temporal dispensation of the preaching of the truth is ne- cessary. For the number ten, by which the perfection of blessedness is signified, multiplied four times, because of the fourfold divisions of the seasons, and the fourfold divisions of the world, will make the number forty.1803 Wherefore Moses and Elias, and the Mediator Himself, our Lord Jesus Christ, fasted forty days, because in the time of this life, continence from the enticements of the body is necessary. Forty years also did the people wander in the wilderness.1804 Forty days the waters of the flood lasted.1805 Forty days after His resur- rection did the Lord converse with the disciples, persuading them of the reality1806 of His risen body,1807 whereby He showed that in this life, “wherein we are absent from the Lord”1808 (which the number forty, as has been already said, mystically figures), we have need to celebrate the memory of the Lord’s Body, which we do in the Church, till He come.1809 Forasmuch, then as our Lord descended to this life, and “the Word was made flesh, that He might be delivered for our sins, and rise again for our justification,”1810 Mat- thew followed the number forty; so that the one generation which there exceeds that number, either does not hinder its predominance—just as those thirty years do not hinder the perfect number of four hundred—or that it even has this further meaning, that the Lord Himself, by the addition of whom the forty-one is made up, so descended to this life to bear our sins, as yet, by a peculiar and especial excellency, whereby He is in such sense man, as to be also God, to be found to be excepted from this life. For of Him only is that said, which never has been or shall be able to be said of any holy man, however perfected in wisdom and righteous- ness, “The Word was made Flesh.”1811 33. But Luke, who ascends up through the generations from the baptism of the Lord, makes up the number seventy-seven, beginning to ascend from our Lord Jesus Christ Himself through Joseph, and coming through Adam up to God. And that is, because by this 1802 Gen. xv. 13; Acts vii. 6. 1803 Deut. ix. 9; 1 Kings xix. 8; Matt. iv. 2. 1804 Num. xxxii. 13. 1805 Gen. vii. 4. 1806 Veritatem. 1807 Acts i. 3. 1808 2 Cor. v. 6. 1809 1 Cor. xi. 26. 1810 Rom. iv. 25. 1811 John i. 14. 552 Of the agreement of the evangelists Matthew and Luke in the generations…