Chapter 1: The Restoration of Theology After the Fall

Theology corrupted by degrees, restored by degrees — Theology in the abstract, divine doctrine — The degrees of revelations — The origin of supernatural theology — The first degree in the promise of the seed of the woman — In that promise a new covenant given, entered into, and established — The force of the word [Hebrew term] — The nature of the covenant between God and men (Genesis 3:15) explained — Christ promised as Mediator — The Lamb slain — The chief heads of the new theology — What the Targumists and Paul, Epistle to the Hebrews 2:14, adduce concerning Genesis 3:15 — Who are the last days — Christ the seed of the woman — The malice of the more recent Jews — The excuse-making of the Socinians

— The well-known blunder of the Vulgate translator — The blasphemy of certain commentators — The madness of Fabricius Boderianus — Adam's repentance and act of thanksgiving — The precepts of the new theology, what and of what kind — The institution of sacrifices — Concerning their origin, the triflings of the Pontificians, the Socinians, and Episcopius — The opinion of Smalcius refuted — That of Porphyry examined — A summary of Adamic theology after the fall.

I. What pertains to the general notions of theology, we set forth in the preceding book. We also showed the origin, use, and unfolding of original theology, or the theology of the innocent state. Concerning the institution of another, succeeding theology in its historical progression, we must now proceed further. But since neither that corrupted natural theology was corrupted all at once, nor this new theology which we are undertaking was restored all at once and in a single act, but both underwent corruption and attained perfection gradually and in many stages, I have judged it necessary to set forth in brief the more notable degrees of each. II. We showed previously that theology may be taken either in the abstract (as they say) for divine doctrine, or in the concrete for the habit of mind in theologians, that is, for the faculty of discerning between good and evil (Hebrews 5:14). So Aristotle on astronomy: "Astronomy is called both the discipline itself concerning heavenly things, and the sailors' practical knowledge of those matters." For the term astronomer was in ancient times the same as astronomer in the scientific sense. One who predicts the effects of the stars — I know not what effects — is now so called. But all post-lapsarian theology of any true name is of the same kind. Having been renewed only objectively at various degrees of revelation. The habit of mind, therefore, by which that doctrine is comprehended and perceived, is absolutely the same in all theologians of all ages. But since we will have much to say about it in the consideration of properly so-called Christian theology, we have judged it right to refer all its doctrine there. Concerning the various degrees and progress of supernatural revelation, or the new theology, we will speak briefly in the first place. The apostle alludes to all this doctrine in Hebrews 1:1. And since the primitive theology obtained degrees of corruption nearly equal to those, they too must be mentioned.

III. After the entrance of sin, and the consequent ruin and destruction of natural theology, from the infinite grace, wisdom, and philanthropy of the divine abyss, the Adamic antediluvian theology came forth — that is, the promissory gospel compact. Here supernatural theology established its first footprint; here was its origin and its first degree. This revelation, therefore, of the mind and grace of God, must be set forth first; and then how the corruption of theologians overtook its progress, followed by universal apostasy and dreadful destruction of all true religion. We showed previously that all true theology rests upon some divine covenant. Now, although the Hebrew word sometimes signifies a bare promise, and is used in that sense first in the Scriptures (Genesis 6:18, Exodus 34:10, Isaiah 59:21), yet, since a promise of this kind exhibits some good thing that requires a reciprocal stipulation of duties — that is, a pledge of good conscience toward God (Jeremiah 31:33) — we may declare that every divine covenant has its own precepts and promises. When, therefore, we say that God entered into a new covenant with fallen Adam, we understand a new prescription of obedience, secured by gracious promises. Nothing more than this is required for the establishment and confirmation of a covenant between God and men. Now we say that covenant was a covenant of grace, because it was founded in another — that is, in a freely-given Mediator. For whatever covenant could have been entered into directly with men, even if it required obedience with equity and without strictness, it would still have been a covenant of works. This new covenant, therefore, was a covenant of grace, because it was founded in another who was obligated to fulfill all its conditions. And this new theology consisted in the promises and precepts of that covenant.

IV. The foundation and nature of this covenant may be contemplated in that most celebrated promise of the victorious seed (Genesis 3:15), "And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel." Here Christ was first promised; from where He was afterward called the Word — that is, He concerning whom that saving word of God, or the word of promise, was made. For the word is very often used absolutely for a promise; as we say in English, "I will give you my word for it; and I will make good my word; that is my promise" — as observed by the most learned Cartwright in his Harmony of the Gospels. In this promise also, that Lamb was slain — to be slain, indeed, with respect to the actual event, yet already slain with respect to its saving effect, namely, from the very foundation of the world. This, I say, is the sum of the new theology. Here indeed the river of paradise (if I may so speak) divides into four heads: namely, that righteousness, and, by virtue of it, gracious acceptance, is here first revealed — no longer to be sought at home and in obedience to be rendered by native powers, but to be received freely from another who would ward off the danger of eternal death. Concerning death, the desert of sin, and the justification of sinners before God, God was already dealing with the first-formed man. He calls Adam to give account in verse nine; in verse eleven He charges him with sin and carries the indictment through; He pronounces death upon the guilty in verse nineteen; for He shows by that most solemn expostulation, "Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?", that Adam had utterly made void the covenant of works, and had thereby cut himself off from all communion with God. The renewal of that communion through another is therefore the subject here. For it had been made most clear that a sinful man had no hope residing in himself. Then He declares that this Savior, that other one through whom all salvation was henceforth to be expected, must be brought into the world by becoming incarnate — made, namely, of a woman (Galatians 4:4). Hence He is here called the seed of the woman; which introduction the apostle calls the bringing of the Firstborn into the inhabited world (Hebrews 1:6), and He is said to come into the world (ch. 10:5). Just as, therefore, through the persuasion and instigation of the serpent, sin entered the world through the woman, so God promises that the remedy will also come through her. Third, in order that He might exist as the perfect Liberator, He must both suffer and conquer the serpent; for the bite of the heel by the serpent inflicts a mortal wound. God therefore foretells that the Liberator from the seed of the woman will taste death for sin and for sinners (Hebrews 2:9). And since Satan was intent on pursuing and exercising the victory he had recently won over the human race to bring about the eternal destruction of all, God promises that that seed will not only wrest victory from his hands and divide the spoils with that strong one (Isaiah 53:12), but will also defeat Satan himself and overthrow his works. In the last place, that this best Savior and supreme Victor, along with that eternal righteousness — everlasting righteousness (Daniel 9:24) — which He was to bring back, must be apprehended by faith. Both the nature of the matter and the mode of revelation require this. For when all salvation is announced to lost and accursed sinners as to be sought and expected from another, absolutely nothing more is required than that they trust in Him and, denying themselves, place all their hope in Him, so that they may become partakers of that salvation. The mode of revelation consisted in a promise, which also demands faith; for it cannot be understood how anyone would prepare himself to obtain what is promised, except by giving faith to the promise itself. Now it would be easy to prove that under these heads is contained — however obscurely — all the doctrine concerning the person and office of the Mediator, concerning free justification, concerning repentance, concerning eternal death, life, and reward, and concerning the resurrection of the flesh.

V. Now that this promise referred to the Messiah, the more ancient Jews acknowledged, while the more recent deny it. Targum Jonathan Ben Uzziel: "They shall apply a remedy to the heel [Aramaic text], in the days of the King Messiah." Targum of Jerusalem: "May they provide safety to the heel [Aramaic text], at the end of the extremity, in the days of the King Messiah"; and it says, "It shall be remembered against you" — or the expression is the voice of one threatening; as we say in English, "Remember this," by which we threaten retaliation. Moreover, both paraphrasers teach that the wound of the serpent will be incurable. Paul, dealing with the Jews in the same sense and expounding this promise from their common faith of that time, writes (Hebrews 2:14), "Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death He might destroy the one who has the power of death" — ver. 15, "and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery." What else do these words say but that a medicine, or remedy, was prepared by the Messiah for the bite of the serpent? That this was accomplished in these last days — that is, in the days of the Messiah — the apostle also asserts elsewhere, namely ch. 1:2. Moreover, that the remedy was not prepared for the serpent — which both Targums plainly affirm — the same apostle teaches, ch. 2:16, "For surely it is not angels that He helps, but He helps the offspring of Abraham." So also in the Midrash Tehillim, on Ps. 1: "All things shall be healed in the age to come except the serpent." That the apostle argues in the Epistle to the Hebrews from principles once conceded among the Jews, we will demonstrate in our commentaries on that epistle (God willing). The more recent Jews, out of hatred for Christ, hold a different opinion. Fagius rightly says: "Hence we may see that there was greater sincerity among the ancient Hebrews in the interpretation of the Scriptures than there is today among the more recent Jewish writers, who frequently, with deliberate intent, corrupt the clearest and most important passages of Scripture and maliciously twist them to their own meaning." Josephus long ago clung to the surface of the words, lib. i. cap. 3. I do not know what allegories Philo invents. The Socinians deny that any promise concerning Christ is found here. "If we deny that there is a promise there, but rather a curse — and that a temporal one, like all other curses, which signifies the enmity between humans and serpents, since there was none before — what would Carolus adduce, by which to confirm that the Word is promised there?" Johann Commer against Petrus Carolus, lib. ii. cap. iii. fol. 73. Hence, in their exposition of the degrees of the revelation of the divine will, Volkel, De Vera Religione, lib. i. cap. viii. p. 13, 14, and Simon Episcopius, who follows in his footsteps, lib. i. Instit. Theol. cap. xi, pass over this passage in perpetual silence. Expressly so Valentinus Smalcius, Refutation of the Theses of Frantz, disputation iv. p. 94: "That the gospel took its beginning immediately in paradise," he says, "are the words of Frantz, confirmed by no authority of sacred letters, by no reason. If he says that those words, 'The seed of the woman shall bruise the head of the serpent,' can be understood of Christ and of the victory He won over Satan — which is the only thing urged by everyone and which can be drawn out of these words — I answer that this does nothing to prove the point. For many statements exist in sacred Scripture spoken concerning other matters, which afterward under the new covenant can be referred to Christ and to those things that pertain to the new covenant. But to hold them as prophecies and promises belongs to those who have no means to prove their opinions openly. And certainly if the beginnings of the gospel had started in paradise, it seems scarcely credible that not a single writer of the sacred books of the new covenant would have cited that prophecy even once — yet that this has never happened is clearer than light itself." We have seen what this man's opinion is concerning this prophecy and evangelical promise. He denies that it pertains directly to Christ — and that boldly — or that any mention of it is made in the New Testament. But not all are of the same opinion. Jeremias Felgenhauer calls Christ "that seed of the woman, promised by God in paradise to fallen man, who would crush the head of the infernal serpent," Demonstrat. Evangel. p. 17. Moreover, Smalcius denies far too shamelessly that any mention of this promise is made in the New Testament. The serpent is the devil (2 Corinthians 11:3; Revelation 12:9, 14; 20:2); the wicked are a brood of vipers (Matthew 3:7); they are of their father the devil (John 8:44); who was a murderer from the beginning (ch. 8:44); and has sinned from the beginning (1 John 3:8); through the seduction of the common parents of humanity, by which he kills all.

Then, the seed of the woman is Christ (Hebrews 2:14; Galatians 3:16, 4:4). That He Himself crushed the head of that serpent, the Socinians will not deny, I think. See John 12:31, 14:30; Luke 10:18; 1 Corinthians 15:54; Hebrews 2:14; 1 John 3:8; but of these things elsewhere. The Vulgate translator has ipsa conteret — "she shall bruise" — and from this the commentators babble I know not what blasphemy concerning the blessed virgin, with thoroughly asinine stupidity. The grammatical gender of the word is masculine; the pronoun ipse corresponds to it. Therefore, although the ancient translators render the Hebrew word by the Greek word for "seed" rather than for "offspring," yet in place of the Hebrew word they have the Greek autos — "he" — attending to the matter itself and not to the words, after the manner of the ancients. So the Comedian: "Where is the villain who destroyed me?" The same figure of speech is by no means unusual in the New Testament: "Make disciples of all nations, baptizing them" (Matthew 28:19); and the opposite form, "O namely [illegible]

Homer — "He has a way beside the road, and the birds of heaven devoured it" (Luke 8:5); and, "I am writing to you no new commandment, which is true in Him and in you" (1 John 1:8); and Revelation 17:16, "And the ten horns which you saw and the [illegible]

beast — these shall hate the harlot" — why? Because those horns were in truth kings, masculine gender. Jerome rejects that reading as contrary to the Hebrew truth, Traditions Hebraicae on Genesis. Detestable, therefore, is the audacity of Guido Fabricius Boderianus, a man indeed learned but prone to superstitions, who in the Plantin interlinear edition attempted to substitute one Hebrew reading for another. That there is no trace of a variant reading here is apparent in the most careful investigator of such variations, Ludovicus Cappellus, Critica Sacra, lib. v. cap. xi. sect. 4; yet in place of the correct reading, either through the care of someone wishing to make the falsehood known, or through the carelessness of printers, another form crept in which is not a Hebrew word. Now that Adam, upon receiving this promise, repented and was freed from sin, the author of the book entitled the Wisdom of Solomon (ch. 10:1) demonstrates: Wisdom — that is, Wisdom — "protected the first-formed father of the world, who was created alone, and rescued him from his own transgression." And the Targum on the Song of Songs (ch. 1:1) affirms from Jewish tradition that Adam, after the forgiveness of his sin, on the Sabbath day offered a thanksgiving song to God. Through this new revelation of grace, redemption, and the forgiveness of sins, to be obtained by the death of the Mediator, the entire special nature of the theology of sinful men was utterly changed. The ultimate end, indeed, remained common to all theology — namely, the eternal enjoyment of God. But that an innovation was made not only in doctrines, but also in principles and means, a fuller account of evangelical theology will demonstrate.

VI. The precepts pertaining to this new theology were of two kinds. For first, all the moral precepts by which the natural theology largely consisted were transferred to the use of this new theology. That native light, which directs moral operations, which God implanted in the mind of the first man at creation itself — we have shown above more fully that this light, by virtue of God's gracious economy, remained in all his posterity even after the Fall, though corrupted and weakened, in part.

Embraced by faith, God did not cease to foster day by day through His Spirit. Hence, although those precepts were not yet at that time confirmed by the prophetic word, they nevertheless became a perfect rule of obedience — faith supplying them with a new use, and the theologians with a new light.

VII. No other precepts were given to Adam as a rule of life, beyond the remnants of natural light, which distinguishes the honorable from the base. Those remnants, aroused and directed by faith, sufficed for that end. And many examples of obedience rendered according to this law before the Flood are extant (Genesis 4:4, 6, 7; 6:1, 2). The matter of the seven precepts, which some affirm were delivered to Adam, and others to Noah, must be treated later. This much is most certain: every human duty rests upon the precepts of God.

VIII. And indeed that natural light, or the innate theology, extends to all the precepts of the Decalogue. But as it pleased God to explain and confirm the second commandment — by which His will concerning the manner of common worship is established forever — in the very state of integrity through an arbitrary command concerning not eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, accommodated to that state; so likewise, after the entrance of sin and the promise of the restoration of sinners through the seed of the woman, it pleased Him to confirm that same commandment with a new command, accommodated to this state, through obedience to which and through faith exhibited to the promise they could express the new use of the natural law. This was the institution of sacrifices, which completes the whole of the post-lapsarian Adamic theology.

IX. The Pontificians assign the origin of sacrifices to natural light, and contend that this rite of worshipping God would have had its place and use even in the state of innocence. See Greg. de Valent., De Sacrif. Miss. lib. i. cap. iv.; Bellar. lib. i. de Miss. cap. xxiv.; Lessius, De Justit. et Jur. lib. i.; Suarez in iii. p. Th. distin. xxi. sect. 8. This fiction, along with the mass itself, stands in need of it; the mass itself being the most monstrous fiction of all. The Socinians suspect that this rite derived its origin from right reason, by which man concludes that he ought to worship God with the best things that are in his possession; and so does the Arminian Episcopius: "Abel," he says, "led by faith alone, by no divine precept — that is, by the instinct of right reason alone — judged that God ought to be worshipped with the best things he had in his possession; that is, with sacrifices of the firstlings of his flocks and of their fat," Instit. Theol. lib. i. cap. viii. sect. 3. Absurd! As if anyone could do anything from faith with no divine precept to move him? Or as if acting from faith and acting from right reason without any precept were the same thing? Or as if there could be any faith that did not have respect both to a precept and to a promise? Or as if God had indulged creatures the freedom to devise new modes of worshipping Him? Or as if the whole ground of Abel's sacrifice were that he determined to worship God with the best things he had in his possession? All of these conclusions are plainly absurd. Episcopius, investigating the origin of this rite elsewhere also, boldly restates this opinion: "Without danger," he says, "it can be believed that this rite of sacrificing was introduced

From the very beginning of the world, out of a certain great zeal and devotion for propitiating and honoring God by that singular act and service, whereby the best, most beloved, and most precious things were devoted to the honor of God — and thus it was publicly demonstrated that all these things were owed by greater right to God than to men, whose daily use, consumption, and pleasure they served. But God, even if this rite did not perhaps appear the best (for it is not credible that God delights in the blood and slaughter of innocent animals — which reason also perhaps suffices for us to believe that this rite was not commanded by God Himself), yet, because it proceeded from so religious a spirit, wished to accept it as pleasing, and by His benevolence permitted it to continue in perpetual use; and thereafter at last even enjoined it and prescribed it to His dearest people — nothing forbids this. Nothing forbids it, you say, Episcopius? On the contrary, everything that can be known of God by nature, everything that He Himself has revealed of Himself and His will in the Scriptures, forbids us from giving credence to this most absurd fable. For what? Is it equitable to make the wisdom and will of God so subservient to the wisdom and will of miserable sinners, that what they invented in His worship — though it was neither the best that could have been invented nor pleasing to Him — He would not only graciously permit and accept, but also most strictly enjoin upon His whole church for two thousand years under penalty of death and destruction? Will the knowledge of God, which declares that nothing but what is supremely perfect is to be ascribed to God, allow us to believe this? Will Scripture allow this, where God Himself so often rejects and condemns all human inventions in His worship? Was there nothing in the ancient sacrifices besides the devotion of offering the best and most beloved things to God? Did they have no reference to Christ and His sacrifice? Was there no specimen of divine wisdom and goodness in them, except that He permitted mortals to persist in their own ways — which He does only as a great curse? Was no divine instruction, no support for faith in the coming Messiah, established in them? But it is shameful to linger over trifles of this kind.

X. We know what the human race is, and what manner of persons compose it; nor is it difficult to conjecture what would have become of divine worship if even the smallest part of it had been left to human discretion. Nor is it right to judge that this solemn rite — by which it pleased God to set forth the whole mystery of the death and merit of His only-begotten Son — derived its origin from any other source than the counsel of His own will. When the new covenant was established, the forgiveness of sins was made. But the apostle teaches that without the shedding of blood this cannot come to pass (Hebrews 9:22). Therefore, by sacrificial blood (perhaps of cattle, from whose skins God fashioned tunics for the first parents) that covenant was ratified by God's institution.

XI. Among the philosophers, Porphyry alone undertook by deliberate effort to investigate the origins of sacrifices. I am therefore pleased to set forth his opinion in passing, especially since it contains certain things whose knowledge may shed some light on certain passages of sacred Scripture. In the second book of his work On Abstinence from Killing Animals, he addresses this subject. He first assigns the origin of all sacrifices to the grateful disposition of men and their intention to worship the gods with the best things in their possession. He says: "Benefactions must be repaid and thanks rendered, each in a different way according to the worthiness of the benefit, and the greatest thanks to those who have most deserved of us — and especially if they themselves are the authors of those best things to us. Now the best and most precious things with which the gods benefit us are the fruits of the earth; from these therefore it is fitting to make the gods full." What he affirms is true and sufficiently congruent with sacred Scripture. See Proverbs 3:9. He proceeds to confirm at length that the rite of sacrificing had this origin. For, he says, "just as toward good men, so also toward them (that is, toward the gods) we consider it right to render the firstfruits of our possessions." He teaches that the Egyptians practiced this custom from time immemorial, and elsewhere that all other peoples from the beginning did the same, sect. 5. He affirms moreover that this religious worship demanded right reason and, from it, due observance toward the best benefactor; and he shows that certain Christians hold the same opinion. Furthermore, being drawn to Cain's side in the dispute about not eating flesh, he contends that only the fruits of the earth should be offered in sacrifice. He relates that from the beginning of the world and of the nations, sacrifice was made from herbs, grain, and flowers — not mixed with myrrh or cassia or frankincense, but pure, just as the earth brought them forth — and that offerings from any other sources were not made until many centuries later, as error grew by degrees. The most ancient people, he says, the Egyptians, first began to offer to the heavenly gods the firstfruits not of incense or frankincense or things mixed with spiced wine, nor of these things beforehand, but simply of whatever living nature they could touch with their hands, sect. 5. This opinion he narrates and confirms through the greater part of that book. He further contends that the use of animals or blood in sacrifices was introduced only very late, when wickedness, impiety, and superstition had greatly prevailed — and this he confirms from many oracles that disapproved of that worship and permitted it only after much deliberation. Let the following oracle, he says, be considered, in which he who inquires of the gods whether he should cease from sacrificing animals is bidden to approach the deity with much caution, for the oracle speaks thus:

It is not lawful to slay the divine race of living beings; but he who willingly consents to this — the offspring of the god-sent — let him appease with a bloodless rite and innocent offerings of justice.

"To the inspector of sacred rites who was from the family of prophets, when he wished to offer firstfruits from his sheep, the oracle is said to have granted permission, but with great caution; for these are its words: 'It is not lawful for you to slaughter animals, sprung

From prophets; but if any animal consents of its own accord to death, you may slay it in the sacred rites, with hands washed.' And that caution was plainly contrary to divine ordinances, by which everything that died of its own accord was entirely unclean. Moreover, persisting in his principle, he teaches that there is some supreme deity which, since it is good and holy, does nothing and can do nothing except what is good, and what is pleasing and useful to men. He judged this to be natural to it, from which it is impossible to depart. 'It is impossible for these immortal beings,' he says (sect. 38), 'to supply both benefits and at the same time to be authors of harm' — meaning the good gods. To these he reckons good geniuses or angels, as intermediaries between gods and men, bearing our prayers to the gods as to judges. He argues, furthermore, that the worship of the best and greatest deity, or of the good gods, must be performed not by sacrifices, but by the laying aside of passions, by the abstraction of the mind from bodily things, by the contemplation of heavenly things, and by the love and pursuit of those things which reason, not imagination, dictates. He also maintains that there are evil and harmful spirits or daemons who, dwelling in the air nearest to the earth, are the authors and causes of all evils — namely, of diseases, famine, plagues, earthquakes, and wars. These he holds to be liars and proud, eagerly seeking to occupy the place and role of the best and greatest God among the human race. 'Lying is their own characteristic,' he says, 'for they all desire to be taken for gods, and that power which stands over all the rest would wish to be deemed the greatest God.' These things he himself drew from the sacred books, which no one among the ancient philosophers unrolled more diligently, or with a mind more occupied by malice. Indeed, that very statement — that lying is characteristic of them — most plainly reflects the words of our Lord Jesus Christ (John 8:44), where the devil, speaking of his own, is both a liar and the father of lying. The rest derived from the same source are diverted into the Platonic swamps. He teaches that it is necessary to offer sacrifices to these daemons, who are given over to bodily and earthly things of which they themselves are masters, and devoted to corrupt passions: 'For,' he says, 'as the theologians say, for those who are bound to external things and cannot restrain their own passions, it is necessary to turn away the power or envy of these geniuses; otherwise they will never be free from troubles.' And he argues at length that animal sacrifices have been offered to these and to no others, being fattened by their smoke and

vapor — that is, what is ethereal in them and closest to corporeal substance — as he contends at length. 'The one who is devoted to piety,' he says, 'sacrifices nothing animate to the gods, but to daemons and other divine powers, whether good or evil' — that is: 'The studious of piety sacrifices nothing animate to the gods, but to daemons and to other divine beings, both good and evil.' Here we have the defendant confessing: that the nations offered sacrifices not to God but to daemons — which wickedness the Apostle Paul had earlier rebuked them for in nearly the same words (1 Corinthians 10:20): 'What they sacrifice,' he says, 'they sacrifice to daemons and not to God.' Accordingly, this testimony is used against the nations by Eusebius, Prepar. Evang. lib. iii; Augustine, de Civit. Dei, lib. x; Theodoret, Therapeut. serm. iii. So much so that Holstenius, in his Life of Porphyry, rightly pronounced: 'That no one among those outside the church has furnished readers of the church with more or stronger weapons with which to cut down the manifold error of the pagans than this Porphyry.' Such is the power of truth, consistent with itself in every direction, and inserting its own particles through all the windings of error, so that it often escapes from those unwilling to hold it.

XII. And this was the sum of post-lapsarian Adamic theology. All the theology of sinners consists in these three parts which we have set forth. What followed was only a variation in degrees. The foundation of the whole is placed in the promise, which, having been drawn out through various increments of light for the use of the church, the gospel at last exhibited and fully expounded. The norm of obeying God, that is, the natural law, was expressed in the Decalogue, established in due time; whose nature and use the prophets expounded. The pattern of external or ceremonial worship, and of the divine good pleasure, was established in the institution of sacrifices; and in all external worship it was solemnly consecrated: that no worship is acceptable to God unless instituted by Him.