Ant. What followed then?

Evan. Why, then, the promise was turned into a covenant with Abraham and his seed, and oftentimes repeated, that in his seed all nations should be blessed, ¹ (Gen 12:3, 18:18, 22:18); which promise and covenant was the very voice itself of the gospel, it being a true testimony of Jesus Christ; as the apostle Paul beareth witness, saying, The Scripture foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles through faith, preached before the Gospel unto Abraham, (Gal 3:8), saying, "In thee shall all the nations of the earth be blessed." And the better to confirm Abraham's faith in this promise of Christ, it is said, (Gen 14:19), that Melchisedec came forth and met him, and blessed him. Now, says the apostle, (Heb 7:1-3, 6:20), "This Melchisedec was a priest of the most high God, and king of righteousness, and king of peace, without father and without mother; and so like unto the Son of God, who is a priest for ever, after the order of Melchisedec"; and both king of righteousness and king of peace, (Jer 23:6, Isa 9:6); yea, and without father as touching his manhood, and without mother as touching his godhead. Whereby we are given to understand, that it was the purpose of God that Melchisedec should, in these particulars, resemble the person and office of Jesus Christ, the Son of God; and so, by God's own appointment, be a type of him to Abraham, to ratify and confirm the promise made to him and his seed, in respect of the eternal covenant, ² namely, that he and his believing seed should be so blessed in Christ, as Melchisedec had blessed him. ³ Nay, let me tell you more, some have thought it most probable, yea, and have said, if we search out this truth without partiality, we shall find that this Melchisedec, which appeared unto Abraham, was none other than the Son of God, manifest by a special dispensation and privilege unto Abraham in the flesh, who is therefore said to have "seen his day and rejoiced." ⁴ (John 8:56). Moreover, in Genesis 15, we read that the Lord did again confirm this covenant with Abraham; for when Abraham had divided the beasts, God came between the parts like a smoking furnace and a burning lamp, which, ⁵ as some have thought, did primarily typify the torment and rending of Christ; and the furnace and fiery lamp did typify the wrath of God which ran between, and yet did not consume the rent and torn nature. And the blood of circumcision did typify the blood of Christ; ⁶ and the resolved sacrificing of Isaac on Mount Moriah, by God's appointment, did prefigure and foreshow, that by the offering up of Christ, the promised seed, in the very same place, all nations should be saved. Now this covenant, thus made and confirmed with Abraham, was renewed with Isaac, (Gen 26:4), and made known unto Jacob by Jesus Christ himself; for that man which wrestled with Jacob was none other but the man Christ Jesus; for himself said, that Jacob should be called Israel, a wrestler and prevailer with God; and Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, because he had "seen God face to face," (Gen 32:28,30). And Jacob left it by his last will unto his children in these words, "The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, till Shiloh come," (Gen 49:10); that is to say, of Judah shall kings come one after another, and many in number, till at last the Lord Jesus come, who is King of kings, and Lord of lords; or, as the Targum of Jerusalem and Onkelos do translate it, until Christ the Anointed come.

Nom. But, sir, are you sure that this promised seed was meant of Christ?

Evan. The apostle puts that out of doubt, (Gal 3:16), saying, "Now unto Abraham and to his seed were the promises made. ⁷ He says not—and to seeds, as of many, but as of one, and to thy seed, which is Christ." ⁸ And so no doubt but these godly patriarchs did understand it.

Ant. But, sir, the great promise that was made to them, as I conceive, and which they seemed to have most regard to, was the land of Canaan.

Evan. There is no doubt but that these godly patriarchs did see their heavenly inheritance [by Christ] through the promise of the land of Canaan, as the apostle testifies of Abraham, (Heb 11:9,10), saying, "He sojourned in a strange country, and looked for a city having foundations, whose builder and maker is God." "Whereby it is evident," says Calvin, [Instit. p. 204,] "that the height and eminency of Abraham's faith was the looking for an everlasting life in heaven." The like testimony he gives of Sarah, Isaac, and Jacob, saying, "All these died in the faith," ⁹ (Heb 11:13); implying that they did not expect to receive the fruit of the promise till after death. And, therefore in all their travails they had before their eyes the blessedness of the life to come; and which caused old Jacob to say at his death, "Lord, I have waited for thy salvation," (Gen 49:18). The which speech the Chaldee paraphrase expounds thus, "Our father Jacob said not, I expect the salvation of Gideon, son of Joash, which is a temporal salvation, nor the salvation of Samson, son of Manoah, which is a transitory salvation, but the salvation of Christ, the Son of David, who shall come, and bring unto himself the sons of Israel, whose salvation my soul desireth." And so you see that this covenant, made with Abraham in Christ, was the comfort and support of these and the rest of the godly fathers, until their departure out of Egypt.

Ant. And what followed then?

Evan. Why, then, Christ Jesus was most clearly manifested unto them in the passover lamb; for, as that lamb was to be without spot or blemish, (Exo 12:5), even so was Christ, (1 Peter 1:19). And as that lamb was taken up the tenth day of the first new moon in March, even so on the very same day of the same month came Christ to Jerusalem to suffer his passion. And as that lamb was killed on the fourteenth day at even, just then, on the same day, and at the same hour, did Christ give up the ghost; and as the blood of that lamb was to be sprinkled on the Israelites' doors, (Exo 12:7), even so is the blood of Christ sprinkled on believers' hearts by faith, (1 Peter 1:2) And their deliverance out of Egypt was a figure of their redemption by Christ, ¹⁰ their passing through the Red Sea was a type of baptism, ¹¹ when Christ should come in the flesh, and their manna in the wilderness, and water out of the rock, did resemble the sacrament of the Lord's Supper; and hence it is that the apostle says, (1 Cor 10:2- 4), "They did all eat the same spiritual meat, and did all drink the same spiritual drink; for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ." And when they were come to Mount Sinai, the Lord delivered the ten commandments unto them.

[Back] [1] The ancient promise given to Adam was the first gospel, the covenant of grace; for man, by his fall, "having made himself incapable of life by the covenant of works, the Lord was pleased to make a second, commonly called the covenant of grace," (Gen 3:15). Westm. Confess. chap. 7, art. 3. When that promise or covenant, in which the persons it respected were not expressly designed, was renewed, Abraham and his seed were designed expressly therein; and so it became a covenant with Abraham and his seed. And the promise being still the same as to the substance of it, was often repeated, and in the repetition more fully and clearly opened. So Jesus Christ, revealed to Adam only as the seed of the woman, was thereafter revealed to Abraham as Abraham's own seed; and thus was it believed and embraced unto salvation in the various revelations thereof. "God did seek Adam again, call upon him, rebuke his sin, convict him of the same; and, in the end, made unto him a most joyful promise, viz: that the seed of the woman should break down the serpent's head; that is, he should destroy the works of the devil; which promise, as it was repeated, and made more clear from time to time, so was it embraced with joy, and may constantly [i.e. most steadfastly] be received of all the faithful, from Adam to Noe, and from Noe to Abraham, from Abraham to David, and so, forth to the incarnation of Christ Jesus." Old Confess. art. 4.

[Back] [2] That passed betwixt the Father and the Son from everlasting.

[Back] [3] Melchisedec was unto Abraham a type, to confirm him in the faith, that he and his believing seed should be as really blessed in Christ, as he was blessed by Melchisedec.

[Back] [4] This seems to me to be a more than groundless opinion, as being inconsistent with the Scripture account of Melchisedec, (Gen 14:18, Heb 7:1-4); howbeit it wants no patrons among the learned; the declaring of which is no just ground to fit it on our author, especially after his speaking so plainly of Christ and Melchisedec as two different persons, a little before. The text, (John 8:56), alleged by the patrons of that opinion, makes nothing for their purpose: "for all [we mean the faithful fathers under the law] did see [viz: by faith] the joyful day of Christ Jesus, and did rejoice." Old Confess. art. 4.

[Back] [5] Namely, the passing of the furnace and burning lamp between the pieces.

[Back] [6] (Heb 9:22), "And almost all things are by the law purged with blood: and without shedding of blood is no remission." Compare Genesis 17:14, "The uncircumcised man-child shall be cut off from his people: he hath broken my covenant."

[Back] [7] Namely, the promises of the everlasting inheritance, typified by the land of Canaan: the which promises see in Genesis 12:7, and 13:15.

[Back] [8] That is, Christ mystical, Christ and the Church, the head and the members; yet so as the dignity of the head being still reserved—he is to be understood here primarily, which is sufficient for our author's purposes; and his members secondarily only.

[Back] [9] That these three, together with Abraham, are here meant by the apostle, and not these mentioned in the first seven verses of the chapter, if it is considered, that of them he spoke last, (verse 9,11). To none before them was the promise of Canaan given; and they were the persons who had opportunity to have returned to the country whence they came out, (verse 15).

[Back] [10] That is, the deliverance of the Israelites out of Egypt was a figure of the redemption of believers by Christ.

[Back] [11] Not that it prefigured or represented baptism as a proper and prophetical type thereof, though some orthodox divines seem to be of that mind; but that, as the author expresses himself, in the case of the manna and the water out of the rock, it resembled baptism, being a like figure [or type] thereunto, as the apostle Peter determines, concerning Noah's ark with the waters of the deluge, (1 Peter 3:21), even as the printer's types of the letters impressed on the paper, both signifying one and the same word. For the ancient church is expressly said to have been "baptized in the sea," (1 Cor 10:1,2), and as the rock, with the waters flowing from it, did not signify the Lord's Supper, but the thing signified by that New Testament Sacrament, namely, Christ, (verse 4), so their baptism in the sea did not signify our baptism itself, but the thing represented thereby. And thus it was a type or figure answering to and resembling the baptism of the New Testament-church; the one being an extraordinary sacrament of the Old Testament, and the other an ordinary sacrament of the New, both representing the same thing.