1 Samuel 9:13

For the people will not eat until he comes, etc. For the unlearned masses, they say, cannot taste the sweetness of heavenly life, from which they have been exiles for so long, with hope, until he comes who testifies that the kingdom of heaven is near to those who repent. For he himself first washes by baptizing those who desire to become the living sacrifices of God, with their former errors chastised, and subsequently persuades them to rejoice in the hope of eternal inheritance.

But since we have begun to explain these things spiritually, this can fittingly be understood as spoken concerning the simple. For in the city, one who appears a stranger is thought to be able to address Samuel, but on the high place he is not thought so: because those whom we believe to be simple, we consider to need plain, not lofty instruction. Therefore they ought to hear the holy preachers when they speak plain things to the simple, which they understand: not when they say lofty things, which they can in no way understand. They say therefore: "Hurry now, today he has come to the city, because there is a sacrifice of the people on the high place." Which is as if one were to say: Because there are many who desire to hear the highest things, now you ought to hurry, when he appears to be instructing the simple like yourself. The sacrifice of the people is indeed the devotion of the chosen people. Which devotion, assuredly, because it is aroused in the hearts of the elect by the word of preaching, is as it were accomplished by Samuel. But the sacrifice of the people is on the high place when the hearts of faithful subjects eagerly desire to hear devoutly the lofty words of holy preaching. Whence it is also aptly said: "Because the people do not eat unless Samuel first blesses the sacrifice": because the more perfect hearers, while they desire to attain the summit of the perfection of virtues, await with great longing the word of knowledge, through which they may arrive at what they desire. In this passage it should be noted that the sacrifice had not yet been offered, and yet it says: "There is a sacrifice of the people on the high place." For if a sacrifice does not exist before it begins to be offered, how was there a sacrifice that did not exist? But because we are pursuing spiritual meanings, the sacrifice did not yet exist, and yet it did: because when the faithful elect desire to be instructed in loftier things, they already indeed have a great devotion for hearing, which, after the preaching has been heard, they have much greater. The sacrifice has therefore not yet been offered: because that greatness of devotion which is born in the heart of the elect from the word of preaching does not exist in the heart before the preacher's word. And yet the sacrifice is indeed on the high place: because from the expectation of the word, there is already a great…