stand accursed (without revocation or appeal) by God the Father: for God the Father hath tied himself to conformity of sentence with this seed of Abraham. Unto whom this seed (now made King and Priest, and placed at the right hand of God) shall award this sentence, (which he will award as Judge to all that shall be placed on his right hand,) Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world, they shall be blessed by God the Father with everlasting and immortal bliss. And unto whom he shall pronounce that other sentence, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels, they shall stand accursed likewise by God the Father, by an irrevocable and everlasting curse.

CHAP. XVII.

The League between God and Abraham did eminently contain the most accurate Solemnities that were used betwixt Prince and Prince, or Nation and Nation.

As this league here mentioned betwixt God and Abraham was for its conditions of the highest rank of league, ut eosdem haberent et hostes et socios; so it was as solemnly concluded and subscribed unto by both parties as any league betwixt man and man was ever concluded and solemnized. Albeit the manner of concluding or making leagues of amity betwixt man and man, or people and people, was in ancient times (specially amongst the eastern nations) most formal and remarkably solemn; and the manner or solemnity did vary or differ according to the variety of customs usual amongst diverse nations. The Macedonians for confirmations of leagues with others, did divide a quantity of bread between the parties consociating, giving 989

the one half to the one party, and the other to the other. So Xenophon describes the solemn league of amity between Alexander the Great and Cohortanus. And though Xenophon expresseth it not, it is very probable that they used such solemn imprecations as were usually made in other leagues concluded with the like solemnity or sacrifice; and that was, that so God would divide or smite him or them that should break the league, or violate the conditions agreed upon, as they did divide the bread, or smite the sacrifice by which the league was concluded. Other leagues of amity or association (as the same Xenophont tells us) were concluded between party and party, which had formerly been at variance and hostility, by mutual delivery of the same weapons, as of lances, pikes, or other offensive weapons, now consecrated by this solemn delivery to be instruments or pledges of peace, or not to be used save in their mutual defence, or in offence to them who should prove enemies to their mutual peace. But those leagues were more solemn which were concluded with blood, either of the parties which entered league, or with the blood of beasts sacrificed for making peace between men. So Tacitusu

eo

t Interrogante illo, respondent se Macrones esse, quære igitur inquit Xenophont. cur aciem adversus nos instruxerint, et cur hostes nostri esse velint? Respondent illi, Quia vos etiam nostrum solum ingressi estis. Et responderi duces jubent, id non factum, ut vos ullo damno afficiamus, sed posteaquam adversus regem bellum gessimus, redire jam in Græciam cupimus, et ad mare pergere. Quærunt illi num de eo fide data sibi cavere velint; velle se Græci et dare fidem et accipere inquiunt:

post hæc Macrones hastam barbaricam Græcis tradunt, et ipsis Græci vicissim Græcam, quod hoc pacto fidem dari apud se dicerent.- -Lib. 4. de Expeditione Cyri, p. (267.) 340.

u Qua necessitate Mithridates diem locumque fœderi accepit, castelloque egreditur. Ac primo Rhadamistus in amplexus ejus effusus, simulare obsequium, socerum

ac parentem appellare. Adjicit jusjurandum, non ferro, non veneno vim allaturum: simul in lucum propinquum trahit, provisum illic sacrificium

tells, it was the custom amongst some eastern kings, when they entered a league, to clutch their hands and fingers, and to tie their thumbs so hard, until the blood did rise in the pulp or fleshy part, and afterwards to let them both so much blood by a gentle touch, that each party might suck other's blood: Id foedus arcanum habetur quasi mutuo cruore sacratum: "This kind of league," saith Tacitus, "was accounted sacred, as being confirmed by mutual blood." But how sacred or secret soever this league was, (for the word arcanum importeth both,) it was pro illa vice, "for that turn," both openly and shamefully violated by Radamistus. Xenophon likewise describes another league between the Grecians and the people of Asia, concluded by the blood of sacrifices which they mutually killed. The Grecians dipped their swords, and the Asiatics their lances, in the blood of the sacrifices, (which were a bull, a bear, a wolf, and a ram,) being first mingled together in a shield or target; as if they had sought to have made peace between these offensive weapons of war, by making them pledge each other in a common cup. For so the most solemn manner of plighting faith betwixt some nations was, for the one to take up the same cup from the other's hand, and to pledge him

X

imperatum dictitans, ut diis testibus pax firmaretur. Mos est regibus, quotiens in societatem coeant, implicare dextras, pollicesque inter se vincire, nodoque præstringere: mox, ubi sanguis in extremos artus se effuderit, levi ictu cruorem eliciunt atque invicem lambunt. Id fœdus arcanum habetur, quasi mutuo cruore sacratum.-Lib. 12. Annal. c. 47.

* Quumque armatorum acies instructa esset, Græcorum imperatores, et serierum ductores apud Ariæum conveniunt, et

JACKSON, VOL. VIII.

quum Græci, Ariæus, cum aliis apud ipsum dignitate præstan.tissima viris juramento confirmant, non prodituros se mutuo, sed in societate constanter permansuros, addentibus hoc sacramentum barbaris, sine fraude se itineris duces fore. Hæc sacramenta quum præstarent, aprum, taurum, lupum, arietem mactabant, Græcis gladium, barbaris hastam in scutum tingentibus.Lib. 2. de Expeditione Cyri, pag. (217.) 276.

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in it; or in case no cup or wine could be presently had, they were to lick the dust of the earth at each other's hands.

2. The manner of solemnizing this present league betwixt God and Abraham, at the first draught of it, was muchwhat the same with that which Tacitus reports of the eastern kings. It was solemnized on Abraham's part by the effusion of his own and his son Isaac's blood, and so continued throughout the 990 generations of their posterity, by cutting off the foreskin of their flesh. And inasmuch as circumcision was the sign or solemn ceremony of this mutual league between God and Abraham and Abraham's seed, it is necessarily implied by the tenor of the same mutual covenant, that God should subscribe or seal the league after the same manner, and receive the same sign of circumcision in his flesh which Abraham and his seed hath done.

3. This covenant, which was first entered by circumcision, was afterwards renewed on God's part, as on Abraham's part, by mutual and solemn sacrifice. The manner of God's treaty or process with Abraham in this covenant is worthy of serious observation; and Abraham's demeanour in all this business is the most lively pattern and most exquisite rule for all our imitation, who desire the assurance of faith or hope concerning our present or future estate in this gracious league or covenant. Though it be most true, (which hath been often intimated before,) that no man can deserve any thing at God's hand, because no man can give him any thing which he hath not received from him; seeing no man can bestow upon God, or convey unto him any title or right of propriety which he hath received from him, which God had not before man received it from him, or enjoyed it by him; yet if we

be content sincerely to renounce our own title or interest in the creatures which we have received from him, or in ourselves, (who are likewise his, whose very being is the free gift of his goodness,) he still rewards us for every such service, or act of our bounden duty, with a larger measure of his bounty than any deservings of man from man can pretend unto. And thus he rewarded Abraham always in kind; always according to the quality or specifical nature of his work or service; but for quantity far beyond all proportion of any gift or service which Abraham could present unto his God, though it had been the sacrifice of himself or of his son. The first remarkable service which God expressed or required of Abraham was, to forsake his kindred and his father's house, Gen. xii. 1. And in lieu of that interest which Abraham renounced in these, (those being not the ten thousandth part of the country wherein he lived,) God gives him a just title or interest to the whole land of Canaan, and promiseth to make a mighty nation of his seed; to erect more than one or two kingdoms out of it. And yet all this is but the pledge or earnest of a far better patrimony prefigured by it, and bequeathed with it as an inheritance conveyed by delivery of the terrar. The spiritual blessing enveiled under this great temporal blessing was, that God would be a God unto Abraham and to his seed, and that they should be unto him a people. people. And to be God's peculiar people was so much greater than to be lords and kings over the whole earth, as the temporal inheritance which God here promised Abraham (that was the whole kingdom of Canaan) was greater than the private temporal patrimony which Abraham for God's service had left in Chaldea or Mesopotamia.

4. The next service which God requires of Abraham