Psalms 47:4

The God of all, who subjected kings to us and gave us control of all the nations, and in addition to that entrusts the beauty and excellence of Jacob to us—not all the Jewish people, who are named for Jacob, in fact, but "the beauty of Jacob," the excellence and the elite of Jacob, those adorned with faith, who accepted the message without delay, who submitted to the sweet yoke of the Savior. These, you see, he both "chose" and "loved," and to them he entrusted the apostolic governance.

Someone may be bewildered and uncertain, and say, "So how is it that the Jews do not believe today?" … Listen to what follows; he added, "the beauty of Jacob, which he loved." Here in fact he seems to me to be referring to the believers, as Paul indicated in saying, "It is not, however, as though the word of God had failed: not all of Israel belong to Israel; … it is not the children of the flesh who are children of God, but the children of the promise who are counted as descendants." Now, the believers are rightly spoken of as the people's beauty; what could be more appealing, after all, than those who have come to faith?

But what does it profit me, if the seed of Abraham, "which is Christ," should possess "the cities of his enemies for an inheritance" and should not possess my city? If in my city, that is, in my soul, which is "the city of the great king," neither his laws nor his ordinances should be observed? What does it profit me that he has subjected the whole world and possesses the cities of his enemies if he should not also conquer his enemies in me, if he should not destroy "the law that is in my members fighting against the law of my mind and that leads me captive in the law of sin"? So, therefore, let each one of us do what is necessary that Christ may also conquer the enemies in his soul and in his body, and, subjecting and triumphing over them, may possess the city even of his soul.