ever.

CHAPTER II.

THE COVENANT PROMISES GIVEN TO ABRAHAM.

Definition of covenant. The promises to Abraham. Their relation to Abraham personally. Their relation to his seed particularly. Their relation to the land for Their testimony of Jesus and the resurrection. The covenant with Isaac and Jacob. This world's hope. The long-hidden mystery now revealed. The hope of the promise to the fathers is the resurrection. The beauty and glory of this interpretation.

Those parts of a prophecy which look to events near at hand, and those more important which look to events afar off, are so intermingled as not to be separable. Divine Providence so orders things proximate and the events ultimate that one set of words is applicable to both, and capable of describing and foretelling both. When the first or proximate event is truly accomplished, and literally, the prophetic word is not exhausted. Distant hints and dark discoveries of an event more remote, more grand and glorious yet remain in the prophecy.-Labaugh's Irving, 104 (see "Two Horizons," chapter 8.)

COVENANT DEFINED.

A COVENANT is a mutual agreement between two or more persons, in which, for a consideration received, the party of the first part promises to give and convey to the party of the second part certain rights, privileges and inheritances specified in the Deed. To every covenant, therefore, two parties are essential. And the title does not pass, except the receipt of the consideration is acknowledged in the Deed.

The holy covenants have the eternal God for the party of the first part and the individual man for the party of the second part. The consideration on man's part is obedience, which, being duly paid, the Lord's part is to confer the rights, privileges and immunities promised for an everlasting inheritance. Man in the faith of the holy covenant passes the time of his sojourning in

this world obedient to the Divine law, and thus having fulfilled his part of the covenant, goes in the end of his pilgrimage to receive his promised possessions at the hand of God in the eternal world.

Every covenant promise of God, like every holy prophecy yet future, has a proximate fulfillment for the time in which it was given, by which its truth may be known and identified, while its ultimate fulfillment takes effect in eternity, and can in this life be seen and embraced by faith alone. The covenant promises and holy prophecies were not given for those alone who first received them, but for all those also that by faith accept them to the end of time. The things promised are described, and are called by names of symbols in the current time, ever to be received in this world by faith, but the covenant promises are still of the future while the world stands. They will be possessed and enjoyed in the resurrection with Jesus in eternal life.

Keeping in mind these laws of the covenant promises and the duty of interpreting them according to the analogy of faith, we proceed to examine some of the everlasting covenants. Beginning with Abraham's, we look through and beyond the proximate and temporal to the ultimate and eternal fulfillment in the regeneration (Matt. xix. 28-30); also through and beyond the natural to the promised seed; beyond the son of Sarah to the Son of the Virgin Mary; beyond the seed of the flesh to the seed of faith; through and beyond the visible Canaan to a better country, even an heavenly; and thus we find in all the eternal covenants their testimony of Jesus, of his people and of their promised bliss, with the resurrection from the dead in his promised kingdom.

THE CALLING AND PROMISES OF ABRAHAM.

The calling as well as the covenant of Abraham is addressed to all believers. The Lord hath said, "Get thee out of thy country and from thy kindred and from thy father's house, unto a land which I will show thee." If there be a man not mortal,

to him this holy calling and everlasting covenant is not addressed and presented. But to every child of Adam journeying whither our Forerunner and forefathers have gone, this calling of the Eternal to Abraham is the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. So, likewise, are the holy promises to Abraham-precious promises to all believers in all ages and of all nations: "Fear not, Abraham, I am thy shield and thy exceeding great reward." Gen. xv. 1.

THE PROMISES TO ABRAHAM

Were made at six different times and places under different circumstances.

1st. The first was made before he came into Canaan: "By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out of his country into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed, and he went out not knowing whither he went." Heb. xi. 8. And God said: "I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and will make thy name great, and thou shalt be a blessing; and in thee all the families of the earth shall be blessed." Gen. xii. 1-3. Part of this is fulfilled, and a larger part is yet to be fulfilled.

2d. The second time God appeared to Abraham in Shechem, and said: "Unto thy seed will I give this land." Gen. xii. 7. This has been fulfilled in the temporal sense, and remains to be fulfilled in the eternal sense to the immortal race.

3d. The third time the Lord said unto Abraham: "Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art northward and southward and eastward and westward. For all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever. And I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth; so that if a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered. Arise, walk through the land in the length of it and in the unto thee." Gen. xiii. 14. Abraham waits yet to receive the possession. Acts vii. 5; Heb. xi. 39. His seed waits also.

breadth of it; for I will give it

4th. The fourth time God appeared unto Abraham, promised him an heir, and said: "I am the Lord that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give thee this land to inherit it. And he said, Lord God, how shall I know that I shall inherit it?" Gen. xv. And the Lord replied in the most solemn form of a holy oath for the confirmation of Abraham's faith, and ours also, "that by two immutable things in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation who have fled for refuge to lay hold on the hope set before us, which hope we have as an anchor of the soul." Heb. vi. 18. Neither he nor we receive the promised inheritance in this evil world.

5th. The fifth time the Lord appeared to Abraham, and said: "I am the almighty God; walk before me and be thou perfect, and I will make my covenant between me and thee, and I will multiply thee exceedingly." And he promised him Isaac, and instituted the rite of circumcision. Gen. xvii.

6th. The sixth time the Lord spake to Abraham after the offering up of Isaac, and said: "In blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed, as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the seashore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies. And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice." Gen. xxii. 17.

THE TESTIMONY OF JESUS IN THESE PROMISES.

In seeking for this testimony according to the proportion of faith, the promises may be considered in three relations: I. In relation to Abraham personally.

II. In relation to his seed particularly.

III. In relation to the inheritance of the land for ever.

These heads embrace the main points.

I. In relation to Abraham personally, the proximate fulfillment of all these promises according to the Scriptures is manifest in his biography. He was a blessing, and he was greatly blessed

in his generation. He had eight sons, from whom sprang many nations. He sojourned in the land of promise to a great age, and falling asleep, he was buried in it. Following the proximate and visible fulfillment of Abraham's promises down through time, we find Isaac, Jacob and the twelve tribes of Israel his natural offspring, and "Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham," the seed of the woman, and the Saviour of the world. These are proximate and visible events under the promises, though they occurred long after the days of Abraham. Likewise, the children of Abraham's faith are a visible seed multiplied exceedingly on the face of the wide earth, in whom the proximate meaning of the promises is further fulfilled. Many of Abraham's seed, both of the faith and of the flesh, sojourned and were buried in the land. Thus there was a proximate and temporal fulfillment of the promises to Abraham in their three principal features and relations-personally, and in his natural seed, and in the earth.

The ultimate sense of these covenant promises remains to be fulfilled, in respect to Abraham's personal possession of the earth for ever with his seed, which is Christ, in whom all the families of the earth shall be blessed. This eternal sense of Abraham's promises remains to be fulfilled. Accordingly, we search for their testimony of Jesus in the measure of faith, and we find that in the beginning was the promise of a Saviour, the seed of the woman; and that Enoch by faith prophesied, saying, "Behold he cometh with ten thousand of his saints to execute judgment upon all" the ungodly, especially upon the prince of this world; and that he cometh a second time without sin unto salvation, to crush the serpent's head and to destroy the stronghold of his power; to make restitution of all things which God hath spoken; to set death's prisoners free; and he cometh to present the faithful, "who are looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life, faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy." Jude 14, 21, 24. Such is their ultimate sense.

It is plain that "to Abraham and his seed were the promises