the mouth of God’ (Matt. 4:4). These marks, and especially the Gospel, were, in my opinion, in olden times prefigured by Solomon when the ends of the staves by which the ark was borne were seen in the holy place before the oracle and were not seen from outside (1 Kings 8:8). By that the Holy Spirit meant to signify that only through the clear and public preaching of the Gospel may we know where the church and the mystery of the kingdom of heaven are to be found. For just as through the protruding