JOHN CALVIN
Calvin_Response
Calvin_Response
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58<br />
exile the termination of that ruin; but since they predict the restoration of the kingdom no<br />
otherwise than they do that of the temple and the priesthood, it is necessary that the whole<br />
period, from that liberation to the advent of Christ, should be comprehended. The crown,<br />
therefore, was cast down, not for one day only, or from one single head, but for a long time, and<br />
in various methods, until God placed it on Christ, his own lawful king. And truly Isaiah<br />
describes the origin of Christ, as being very remote from all regal splendor:<br />
“There shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots.”<br />
(Isaiah 11:1.)<br />
Why does he mention Jesse rather than David, except because Messiah was about to proceed<br />
from the rustic hut of a private man, rather than from a splendid palace? Why from a tree cut<br />
down, having nothing left but the root and the trunk, except because the majesty of the kingdom<br />
was to be almost trodden under foot till the manifestation of Christ? If any one object, that the<br />
words of Jacob seem to have a different signification; I answer, that whatever God has promised<br />
at any time concerning the external condition of the Church, was so to be restricted, that, in the<br />
mean time, he might execute his judgments in punishing men, and might try the faith of his own<br />
people. It was, indeed, no light trial, that the tribe of Judah, in its third successor to the throne,<br />
should be deprived of the greater portion of the kingdom. Even a still more severe trial<br />
followed, when the sons of the king were put to death in the sight of their father, when he, with<br />
his eyes thrust out, was dragged to Babylon, and the whole royal family was at length given<br />
over to slavery and captivity. But this was the most grievous trial of all; that when the people<br />
returned to their own land, they could in no way perceive the accomplishment of their hope, but<br />
were compelled to lie in sorrowful dejection. Nevertheless, even then, the saints, contemplating,<br />
with the eyes of faith, the scepter hidden under the earth, did not fail, or become broken in spirit,<br />
so as to desist from their course. I shall, perhaps, seem to grant too much to the Jews, because I<br />
do not assign what they call a real dominion, in uninterrupted succession, to the tribe of Judah.<br />
For our interpreters, to prove that the Jews are still kept bound by a foolish expectation of the<br />
Messiah, insist on this point, that the dominion of which Jacob had prophesied, ceased from the<br />
time of Herod; as if, indeed, they had not been tributaries five hundred years previously; as if,<br />
also, the dignity of the royal race had not been extinct as long as the tyranny of Antiochus<br />
prevailed; as if, lastly, the Asmonean race had not usurped to itself both the rank and power of