and I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth," Gen. xiii. 15, 16. "Look now toward heaven and tell the stars if thou be able to number them; and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be," Gen. xv. 5. "As for me behold my covenant is with thee, and thou shalt be a father of many nations and I will give unto thee and to thy seed after thee the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God," Gen. xvii. 4-8. Ishmael, however, the son of Abraham, was not to be included in the covenant, which was made exclusively with Isaac and his posterity. “ And God said, Sarah thy wife shall bear thee a son indeed; and thou shalt call his name Isaac, and I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant and with his seed after him. As for Ishmael, I have heard thee, covenant will I establish with Isaac." Gen. xvii. 19-21. "For in Isaac shall thy seed be called," Gen. xxi. 12. As Ishmael had been rejected, so was Esau the son of Isaac, Gen. xxvii. 27, 33; Mal. i. 2, 3; and then the covenant was renewed to Jacob thus, "I am the Lord God of Abraham thy father, the land whereon thou liest to thee will I give it and unto thy seed; and thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth," Gen. xxviii. 13, 14. This covenant was afterwards renewed to the twelve tribes at Horeb, Exod. ii. 23–25; iii. 6-8; iv. 22, 23; vi. 2-8; Ps. cv. 8-10, 11, 12.

but my

From these passages we see that all the sons of Jacob, with all their posterity, were the objects of

this national covenant. The magnitude and the perpetuity of the blessings granted under it were made to depend upon the obedience of the people to the law of God; but the title to a place within the covenant was simply a descent from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Ignorant or instructed, godly or ungodly, all the children of Israel were, by their relationship to Abraham, the covenanted nation. The brothers who conspired the murder of Joseph, Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, who perished in their sins, all those who died in the wilderness through their disbelief and rebellion, the multitudes who fell into idolatry during the rule of the judges, those of whom the Almighty said in a later period of their history, "I have nourished and brought up children and they have rebelled against me," those who were driven to Babylon for their sins, and those who, after rejecting Christ, continued "to fill up their sins alway because wrath was come upon them to the utmost" (1 Thess. ii. 16), were all of them within the provisions of the national Abrahamic covenant. From this brief statement it is evident how little similarity there was between the Jewish nation and the Church of Christ. The Church is composed of "saints and faithful brethren . . . sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be saints," (Col. i. 2; 1 Cor. i. 2; xv. 28); the nation included multitudes of unregenerate persons who were members by birth. The Church is the body of Christ and his bride (Eph. i. 22; Col. i. 18, 24); the Jewish nation crucified him. The Church is subject to Christ

and to God (Eph. v. 24); the nation was rebellious against the divine authority, Isaiah, i. 4. The Church is a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a peculiar people, bought with the blood of God (1 Pet. ii. 9; Acts, xx. 28); the nation was left in its sins, Rom. ix. 32; John, viii. 24. The Church was typified by Sarah the free-woman, and its members by Isaac the child of promise (Gal. iv. 26-28); the nation by Hagar the bondwoman, and its members by Ishmael the outcast, Gal. iv. 24, 25, 29, 30. The Church is the general assembly of the children of God, whose names are written in heaven, and who are all as the firstborn, because all are heirs of God (Heb. xii. 23 Rom. viii. 14-17); to the chief members of the nation, Jesus said, "Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do," John, viii. 44. The Church is the object of Christ's unchangeable love (Eph. v. 25); the nation was the object of his wrath, 1 Thess. ii. 16; Luke, xix. 27. The Church is kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation, and the counsels of hell cannot prevail against it (1 Pet. i. 5; Matt. xvii. 18); the nation was judicially hardened and then cast away, Isaiah, vi. 10; John, xii. 39, 40; Matt. xxi. 43.

3;

Instead of being the Church, the Jewish nation is frequently represented as the world in contrast with the Church, John, i. 10; vii. 7; viii. 23; xiii. 1; xiv. 17, 19, 22; xv. 19; xvi. 20; xvii. 6, 14.

There is no force in the objection that the nation of Israel was termed by the martyr Stephen "the Church, ixxλncía, in the wilderness," Acts, xii. 38.

So a tumultuous crowd of idolaters at Ephesus was termed by the Evangelist Luke ixxλŋoía, the church, Acts, xix. 32, 41. And the one was no more like the Church of God than the other. The idolaters at Ephesus were called a church, or assembly, simply because they were assembled in the theatre; and the rebellious Israelites at Sinai were termed the church, or assembly, because they were assembled at the foot of the mountain and if the one civil assembly was not the Church of God, so neither was the other. When was the nation of Israel, after it ceased to be an assembly by occupying the land of Canaan, called a church ?-Never. Nor was Israel any more the Church because it was called to be holy. God said unto them, "If ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure to me above all people; for all the earth is mine, and ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation," Exod. xix. 5, 6. "Ye shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy," Lev. xix. 2. But these commands and promises did not make them the Church. England and France, no less than Israel, are commanded to obey the commands of God, and so are India and China. But England and France, and India and China, are not therefore the Church of Christ. And these nations have promises as great as those which were given to Israel; for if they would keep God's covenant of grace, they would become also portions of his Church. But just as modern nations who will not believe and obey the gospel are, therefore, no

portions of the Church of Christ, so Israel, which would not obey God nor keep his covenant, never was to him a kingdom of priests nor a holy nation. There was a church of God within that nation, as there are churches of Christ within England, France, India, and China; but Israel itself was no more the Church than these nations are.

"The covenant made with Abraham was made first with himself; 2. with his household generally; 3. with his servants by name, whether born in his house or bought with money; 4. with his infant children, afterwards limited particularly to the descendants of Isaac, and afterwards again to the descendants of Jacob; 5. to their descendants as a people; 6. to their little ones, or infants, in every generation; 7. to their servants universally; and 8. to the strangers who dwelt in their nation.”. Dwight, v. 325.

From this enumeration it is plain that the covenanted nation was not the Church of God, and that the "Abrahamic church" is only a scriptural or true expression when it denotes the elect people of God, the true believers within the nation, not the nation itself; the spiritual children of Abraham, not his natural descendants: and when a proselyte and his children were admitted into that national covenant, they were no more admitted into the Church of God than a Turk and his family would be by becoming naturalized in this country.

II. The Nature of the Abrahamic National Covenant. In the passages already cited we have seen