[Prophecies.—The promise that David will always have descendants. Jer. xiii, 13.]
717
The eternal reign of the race of David, 2 Chron., by all the prophecies, and with an oath. And it was not temporally fulfilled. Jer. xxiii, 20.
718
We might perhaps think that, when the prophets foretold that the sceptre should not depart from Judah until the eternal King came, they spoke to flatter the people, and that their prophecy was proved false by Herod. But to show that this was not their meaning, and that, on the contrary, they knew well that this temporal kingdom should cease, they said that they would be without a king and without a prince, and for a long time. Hosea iii, 4.
719
Non habemus regem nisi Cæsarem.[271] Therefore Jesus Christ was the Messiah, since they had no longer any king but a stranger, and would have no other.
720
We have no king but Cæsar.