And so grace itself is but the figure of glory, for it is not the ultimate end. It was symbolised by the law, and itself symbolises grace, but it is the figure of it, and the origin or cause.
The ordinary life of man is like that of the saints. They all seek their satisfaction, and differ only in the object wherein they place it; they call those their enemies who hinder them, etc. God then has shown the power which he has to give invisible possessions, by the power which he has shown over things visible.
And yet this covenant, made to blind some and enlighten others, marked in those very men whom it blinded the truth which should be recognised by others. For the visible possessions which they received from God were so great and so divine that it certainly appeared he was able to give them those which are invisible, as well as a Messiah.
For nature is an image of grace, and visible miracles are the image of the invisible. Ut sciatis, tibi dico: Surge.
Isaiah, li., says that Redemption will be as the passage of the Red Sea.
God then has shown by the deliverance from Egypt, and from the sea, by the defeat of the kings, by the manna, by the whole genealogy of Abraham, that he was able to save, to send down bread from heaven, etc., so that the people at enmity with him is the type and the representation of the very Messiah whom they know not, etc.
He has then shown us at last that all these things were only types, and what is true freedom, a true Israelite, true circumcision, true bread from heaven, etc.
In these promises each man finds what he chiefly desires, temporal possessions or spiritual, God or the creatures; but with this difference, that those who therein seek the creatures find them, but attended by many contradictions, with a prohibition against loving them, with the injunction to worship God only, and to love him only, which is the same thing, and finally that the Messiah came not for them; whilst on the contrary those who therein seek God find him, without any contradiction, with the injunction to love him only, and that the Messiah came in the time foretold, to give them the possessions which they ask.
Thus the Jews had miracles and prophecies, of which they saw the accomplishment, and the teaching of their law was that they should love and worship God alone; it was also perpetual. Thus it had all the marks of the true religion, as indeed it was, but we must distinguish between the teaching of the Jews, and the teaching of the Jewish law. Now the teaching of the Jews was not true, although it had miracles and prophecy and perpetuity, because it had not this further point, the worship and love of God only.
The reason of types.