Hast thou not heard long ago, [how] I have done it; [and] of ancient times, (r) that I have formed it? now have I brought it to pass, that thou shouldest be to lay waste fortified cities [into] ruinous heaps.
(r) Signifying that God did not make his Church to destroy it, but to preserve it: and therefore he says that he formed it of old, even in his eternal counsel which cannot be changed.