Part 1: On Abrahamic Theology

The state and condition of godly theologians after the Babylonian apostasy — Abraham entangled in superstitions before his calling (Joshua 24:2) — Jewish fables concerning Ur of the Chaldeans, and Abraham cast into the fire — The calling of Abraham: how it occurred, and when — The enlargement of Noachic theology — The renewal of the divine covenant — The institution of circumcision — The new and complete separation of the church from the world.

I. In the preceding dissertation we examined the Babylonian, or Nimrodic, apostasy — its origin, progress, and fatal outcome — and investigated the beginnings of idolatry; and in this way we dispatched natural theology according to our present design. It is evident from the outcome that the apostate church had become nearly universal. Noah indeed, when the tower of Babel

was being built, was still alive, and he survived the dispersion of his rebellious grandchildren. For this proud defection occurred in the seven hundred and second year of Noah's life, and he survived it by two hundred and forty-eight years, or thereabouts; and Shem survived it by far more. To suspect that they ever fell away from the true worship of the true God would be impious. While Noah was still living, therefore, many without doubt — especially those among whom the knowledge and use of the primitive language remained — adhered to God the Creator of all things in the promised Redeemer, and persevered in His holy worship. As is the custom of witnesses to the truth in every universal apostasy, they appear to have lived a toilsome life on earth, scattered here and there, held in hatred, and exposed to the persecutions of the ungodly. When divine and human affairs had been reduced to this state, and as idolatry was growing and multiplying day by day, and the impiety and wickedness of men were increasingly prevailing, with all hope of ecclesiastical reformation or of recalling the human race to a better course having been abandoned, God resolved to raise up a new church, equipped with a new theology. But this could not be accomplished except through a visible separation of some from the rest. This was accordingly brought about in the calling of Abraham (which is recorded in Genesis chapters eleven and twelve), by which God accomplished this design of His.

II. From the renewal of the church in the family of Noah after the flood — through the enlargement of post-lapsarian Adamic theology in the explicit covenant pact — until the apostasy and curse of Ham, forty years intervened, or thereabouts. For so long did the church, freshly restored after the flood, remain pure. From that reformation which was accomplished in the expulsion of Ham and his family from the assemblies and communion of the godly, until the Babylonian defection, there were sixty-two years. In so brief a span of time, that reformed church defected from the worship of the true God in a dreadful manner. Between that defection and the separation of Abraham — and in his calling, the institution of the new church — three hundred and twenty-four years intervened. Therefore the entire span of time during which Noachic theology was the rule and norm of divine worship and of obedience due to God amounted to four hundred and twenty-six years.

III. That Abraham himself, before his solemn calling, was to some degree contaminated by the contagion of the Babylonian defection and wickedness, Scripture records at Joshua 24:2: "Beyond the river" (Joshua is addressing the Israelites) "your earliest fathers dwelt — Terah the father of Abraham, and the father of Nahor — and they served other gods." All the Jews deny that Abraham himself is intended here — that proud and obstinate race of men, eager to ascribe everything to themselves and to their fathers according to the flesh, and nothing to divine grace and mercy. The whole of that people claimed paternal lineage from Abraham, and maternal lineage from Nahor. But God charges the founders of the entire Israelite stock with this wickedness for no other purpose than to show them that whatever they have obtained above other mortals, they obtained only by the benefit of His mere grace. For He foreknew how great would be the pride with which that stiff-necked people, puffed up with the glorious name of the fathers and the title of children of Abraham, would despise His justice in the promised Seed and His mercy. Nor is the Holy Spirit attempting only in this passage to draw them back from the vain persuasion of their own righteousness. To this very day, scattered throughout the whole world, they clamor on — boasting of nothing but the merits and obedience of the fathers and their own righteousness — miserably perishing in their opposition to the grace of the gospel.

IV. But in order to lend some color to this vain and opinionated boasting, they invented a most foul fable concerning Ur of the Chaldeans — from which place the sacred page attests that God called Abraham. The Targum attributed to Jonathan Ben Uzziel, on Genesis 11:28, narrates the matter thus: "Now it came to pass, when Nimrod cast Abram into the furnace of fire because he would not worship his idol, that the fire had no power to burn him; and therefore doubt arose, with Haran saying: If Nimrod prevails, I will stand on his side, but if Abram prevails, I will be on

His side. But when all the peoples who were there saw that the fire had no power over Abram, they said among themselves: Is not Haran, the brother of Abram, full of divinations and auguries? Surely he enchanted the fire so that it would not burn his brother. Immediately fire fell from the high heavens and consumed him, and Haran died before his brother's face, when he was burned in the land of his birth in the furnace of fire that the Chaldeans had made for his brother. Such is that most inept stitcher-together of fables, after his manner. He interprets Ur as meaning fire — which is indeed the meaning of the word — though it is plainly a place name. And the Hebrew word signifies "while his father was still living and surviving, in the presence of his father." Others, as was said above, trifle by saying that Haran died before his father as a punishment, because he was a maker of idols. Everyone can see that the lying Jews seized upon the story of Nebuchadnezzar casting the three holy men into the furnace of fire for refusing to worship the idol he had erected — which is recorded in Daniel 3 — as a pretext for this fable. Maimonides, in More Nevuchim pt. 3, ch. 29, reports from the traditions of the Sabians that Abraham was punished by the king of the Chaldeans not with fire but with exile for his refusal to worship idols. The teachers of the Jews in Bereshit Rabbah, ch. 38, put the story together somewhat differently: they allege that Abraham broke the images of his father, and that on this account he was accused before King Nimrod by his own father; by whom, after various disputations, he was cast into the fire and rescued by an angel. I have no doubt that a very great wrong was done to the memory of Terah — a man who appears to have been godly and holy — by these fabulists. Maimonides himself, in the first book, On the Worship of the Stars, recounts at length that the king of the Chaldeans wished to put him to death on account of his disputations against idols and the violence he had done to the images. And the fable is ancient enough; for Jerome mentions it in his Quaestiones Hebraicae in Genesim. And long before him, Josephus, in Antiquities bk. 1, ch. 7: "When the Chaldeans and the rest of the Mesopotamians rose up against him, he resolved to migrate, and relying on the will and favor of God he occupied the land of Canaan." Nor is it at all unlikely that, once he had been instructed in the true knowledge of God, the impious idolaters rose up against him. As for the dispute of Abraham with his father Terah over the making and worship of images, virtually none of the ancient Christians doubted it. So says John of Antioch Malalas, that unedited trifler, in the Bodleian Library, bk. 2: "But Abraham, having come to the knowledge of God and having reflected that the images his father Terah made were those of dead men, and therefore that they — being dust and ashes — ought not to be worshiped as heavenly gods, dared to rebuke him with such words as these: Why do you lead mortals into error for the sake of base profit? For there is but one heavenly God, who formed all these visible things. And without delay he broke all the images, and leaving his father behind, he directed his journey toward Mesopotamia."

But the fable betrays itself in depicting Terah not only as a maker of images but also as a seller of them. Apollonius, as cited by Philostratus, bk. 5, ch. 7, said to a sculptor selling images of the gods: "The ancient sculptors did not traffic in the gods, nor did they travel from city to city to sell them; for it is in such a manner that one deals with Hyrcanian and Scythian slaves, not with gods as is fitting." But Ur, as we have said, was the name of a place, whatever the word itself may mean.

Maimonides (Rambam) indeed admits that Abraham was ensnared in the worship of idols until his forty-eighth year, and that upon reaching that year of his life he abandoned all communion with them. He was called by God in the seventy-fifth year of his age (Genesis 11:4), or perhaps one year earlier, when he departed Ur and arrived in Haran. Between his renunciation of idolatrous worship and his calling, therefore, at least twenty-six years intervened. Why so? Evidently so that we might know that God chose and called Abraham not of His mere grace, but on account of his righteousness and obedience and love of himself, and the merits of his former life. In this way these little men constantly seize every opportunity to champion their own righteousness against the grace of God.

I freely admit that most of the ancients, deceived by the Jews, believed that Abraham had attained the knowledge of the true God through the contemplation of the stars, before he was called. Suidas narrates the fable at length under the entry "Abraam"; all of these things are the dreams of boastful Jews, which the Arabs imitate, as may be seen in Abrah. Eccel. Hist. Arab. p. 125.

With a purpose not unlike this, Simon Episcopius forges a fiction of nearly the same kind in his Institutiones Theologicae, lib. 2, cap. 4: "He writes that it is credible that Abraham, before his calling, was a man of upright life and a serious lover of uprightness, even though he was devoted to the worship of idols." Why, I ask, would it not be credible? What does it seem to follow from that? "Minds of this kind," he says, "are not only capable, but also receptive; and as soon as some great light shines upon them, they are illuminated and affected by it."

There was therefore no need of the irresistible grace of the Calvinists to beget

faith or obedience in Abraham. But what, I ask, is the meaning of serving

foreign gods, if this be not it? Concerning the uprightness and integrity of Abraham before his calling, we read not even a syllable in Holy Scripture.

He is said to have served foreign gods for so long. But the purpose of the Holy Spirit and of this man appear to be opposite. The former proclaims the grace of God everywhere; the latter, the uprightness and integrity of men destitute of divine grace. The former sets forth those things that serve to exalt the glory of divine mercy; the latter carves out those things that serve to praise capable and receptive minds. But this is the custom of certain men: they think they have accomplished nothing unless they have said much to the reproach of the grace of God.

X. Furthermore, nothing prevents us from believing that Abraham retained at least some knowledge of the true God even in the midst of idol worship. For not only is he said to worship foreign gods who, having cast aside all reverence for the true divine being, takes other gods as the object of his worship; but also those who either wished to join other gods with Him in any order whatever, or who seemed to themselves to worship Him in images and idols.

XI. Moreover, this solemn calling of Abraham, since it was accomplished through an oracle, or a certain external word, proceeded from the efficacious and heart-turning operation of the Holy Spirit — in that he who had lain in such great darkness, and was exposed to such great temptations as could have arisen from the close bond of kinsmen and household, and from fear of a long journey with no human help at hand, should so readily and willingly present himself as obedient to the word, and submit himself to the command of God. This calling, moreover, had regard both to the internal holiness of heart and life in the renewal of the whole man, and to the external separation to the worship of the true God; for it is counted as praise to Abraham not only that he worshiped God with a renewed rite and solemnly called upon Him, but also that he was faithful, a friend of God, that he received the promises, that he was justified by faith, and that he showed himself a most constant lover of God. God, therefore, intending to erect a new church through visible separation from the world and from all the mixtures and corruptions of false religion, laid its foundations in the true faith, holiness, and obedience of those called, upon the promised Messiah Himself.

XII. Abraham having been called in this manner to the will of God, in the rule of worship and of life, God delivered and entrusted to him the Noachian theology, explained and enlarged by new revelations. So great and so illustrious an exposition of the divine will and of the mysteries of grace was produced by that explanation of post-lapsarian theology, that the dispensation of a single revelation scarcely obtained a richer yield, until He should come to whom all things were reserved. For, first, a clearer and fuller explanation of the ancient promise was given to him, and that promise was repeated on various occasions (Genesis 12:3, 7; 12:15, 16; 15:1, 5, 6; 17:1, 2, 9; 22:17, 18).

XIII. Christ now began to look forth through the windows, and to show Himself through the lattices (Canticles 2:9); yes, to hasten and liken Himself to a roe or to the young of the harts upon the mountains of spices (cap. 8:14) — that is, to manifest Himself openly and sweetly to the faith, love, and desire of the elect. For the promise of the victorious and blessed seed is renewed at least seven times. Next, second, to this explanation of the promise there was added a fuller declaration of the covenant of grace, consisting in promise and stipulation. For God not only introduces an express mention of the covenant where He treats with Abraham concerning obedience, as had previously been done with Noah, but also sets forth the express nature of the covenant, joining the promise with the stipulation of universal and sincere obedience of faith (Genesis 17:1) — I am God Almighty; walk before My face, and be perfect. This solemn transaction He calls a covenant (ver. 7), and He also explains what the sense of those words, I AM GOD ALMIGHTY, was — namely, that He being such, in Himself, and undertaking His omnipotence, care for him, would deal well with him forever through the promised seed: I will establish My covenant between Me and you as an everlasting covenant, and I will be your God. The promise of the Seed, the foundation of all grace, having been set forth, God graciously promises that He will be to him in that Seed a God who spares, sanctifies, justifies, and preserves, freely and immutably, demanding faith and new obedience from him in return. Furthermore, third, for the comfort of Abraham himself, a certain appropriation of the covenant to his family is given, so that no one, except from that family, or by virtue of the blessing annexed to that family, would attain blessedness (Genesis 12:3). Thus he is constituted the father of the faithful. Fourth, circumcision is instituted as a sign of the covenant (Genesis 17:10, 11). And fifth, the communication of the privileges of the covenant and of the church to infant offspring (after which the church, having begun to be in God's care in a special manner, never utterly failed) is granted (Genesis 17:7). Nor, finally, was it the least part of the theology of Abraham that God took him into friendship, and by repeated revelations thereafter made him so familiar to Himself, that he proved to be upright, just, godly, and most abundantly instructed, beyond what can be expressed, in all divine wisdom and the mysteries of faith. But concerning these things, since they are particular matters and therefore do not immediately pertain to our present purpose, this is not the place to speak.

XIV. Now from the year of the world 2083, this illustrious exposition of theology began; and it lasted, as the apostle testifies, 430 years (Galatians 2:17). For Abraham received the promise when he was 76 years old, or at the beginning of that year, when having already departed from Haran he had arrived in the land of Canaan. From the giving of this promise, It came to pass at the end of four hundred and thirty years, that on that very same day all the hosts of the Lord went out from the land of Egypt (Exodus 12:41). The law, moreover, which was given on Mount Sinai, and which gave the beginning to Mosaic theology, was promulgated in the third month after that departure from Egypt (cap. 19:1).

This administration of theology, then, continued precisely four hundred and thirty years and three months; concerning which span of time and its epochs as rightly determined, let the reader consult Ussher's Chron. Sac., chap. viii, ix.

XV. Called, therefore, separated, and instructed in the will of God, Abraham — through the benefit and power of the renewed and enlarged theology — established a new church in his own household, and observed the solemn worship of God separately from all who had been defiled by the superstitions of the apostate church. For he built an altar to the Lord between Bethel and Ai, "and called upon the name of the Lord" (Genesis 12:8). Those words — to call upon the name of the Lord — are the same as those used in the account of the reformation of the church of Enosh and the restoration of divine worship (Genesis 4:26), on which we have treated more fully above. Moreover, all acknowledge that every external worship of God, even the sacrifices themselves, is contained under "the invocation of the name of God."

XVI. But neither did this state of the church endure without notable corruption, so that it stood in need of reformation long before the appointed end of its administration, as designated by God, had arrived. For beyond the fact that several descendants of Abraham utterly departed from the true church — namely, Ishmael and Esau along with the sons of Keturah — superstition also crept into the very household of Jacob, where the solemn worship of God was customarily performed, through his Syrian wives. For Rachel would not have stolen her father's teraphim (concerning which more later) unless she had been to some degree held by a perverse superstition. For the explanations which the Rabbis fabricate here are absurd — namely, that she took the household gods of her father so that, by consulting them, he might not learn of Jacob's flight; for we shall see that the teraphim were employed in auguries and divinations. But how far superstition had crept in and spread through the household of the most holy patriarch remains uncertain. Yet that it had taken hold there is evident from the solemn reformation he instituted. This is found in Genesis 35:1-4: "Then God spoke to Jacob, Arise, go up to Bethel and dwell there; and make there an altar to that mighty God who appeared to you when you fled from the face of Esau your brother. Therefore Jacob said to his household and to all who were with him, Remove the foreign gods that are among you..... So they gave to Jacob all the foreign gods which were in their hands, and the earrings which were in their ears; and Jacob hid them under the oak which was near Shechem." The most holy man understood by the oracle that he was called to reform the church and to restore the solemn worship of God, which had been too much neglected amid tumults, dangers, and wanderings. Obedient, therefore, to the word of God, he set about the reformation, and piously admonished the whole household — wives, children, and acquired servants alike — concerning the work enjoined upon him by God. It appears, moreover, that not a few had been defiled by idolatrous worship, and that idols of more than one kind had found a place in his household. For of several it is said that "they brought forth counterfeit gods and earrings" — that is, things consecrated to the name of some false god. All these things he buried in the ground, where without doubt the household gods of Laban perished. And this was the distinctive and previously unexampled manner of instituting reformation — directed not against persons, but against the very objects dedicated to false worship — a manner which God here approved for the use of all ages. Now this reformation of the church in the household of Jacob occurred after its establishment in the family of Abraham by 190 years, that is, in the 105th year of Jacob's life, or thereabouts, 4 or 5 years after he had departed from Mesopotamia.