Part 11 (2/2)

299. The verb _yikra_, he called, is in the masculine gender, by which you are to understand that it was the father who gave this name to his son. In the former case the verb was feminine, because Eve gave to her son Seth his name. The expression in each case is different, which difference of gender in a verb the Latin language does not indicate.

Enosh signifies a man afflicted or full of calamity. ”What is man that thou art mindful of him,” Ps 8, 4. Seth, accordingly, intimates that at that time there was some persecution or affliction of the Church.

That ”old serpent,” who had cast man out of paradise and had killed Abel, the man beloved of G.o.d, was neither asleep nor idle. Therefore, upon the consolation enjoyed in the birth of Seth there soon follows another trial or tribulation, which the G.o.dly parents Adam and Eve signalize by giving the name Enosh to their son. The names thus given are by no means to be considered accidental. They were either prophetical or commemorative of some particular event.

V. 26b. _Then began men to call upon the name of Jehovah._

300. The rabbins understand this as having reference to idolatry. They think that about this time the name of Jehovah began to be given to creatures: to the sun, the moon, etc. But Moses is not here speaking of what the generation of Cainites did, but what the G.o.dly generation of Adam did. The sacred historian is testifying that after the birth of Enosh there began the true wors.h.i.+p of G.o.d, the calling upon the name of Jehovah.

301. Here Moses most beautifully defines what it is to wors.h.i.+p G.o.d, to call upon the name of Jehovah; which is, as it were, the work of the first table and concerns the true wors.h.i.+p of G.o.d. Now, calling upon the name of Jehovah embraces the preaching of the Word, faith, or confidence in G.o.d, confession, etc. Paul beautifully joins these things together in the fourteenth verse of the tenth chapter of his Epistle to the Romans. True, the works of the second table also belong to the wors.h.i.+p of G.o.d, but these works do not refer directly and only to G.o.d as do the works of the first table.

302. After the confusion made in the house of Adam by Cain, the generation of the G.o.dly began to multiply by degrees and a little Church was formed, in which Adam as the high priest governed all things by the Word and by sound doctrine. Moses here affirms that this took place about the time of the birth of Enosh. Although this name implies that the Church had been overwhelmed by some terrible disaster, yet G.o.d raised her up again by his grace and mercy, and added the great spiritual blessing of G.o.dly a.s.semblage in a particular place, with preaching, prayer and the offering of sacrifices, blessings which had hitherto perhaps been either hindered or forbidden by the Cainites. We have here, then, another evidence of the promised seed warring with the serpent and bruising its head.

303. Furthermore, as Moses does not say: Jehovah began to be called upon, but the name of Jehovah, the reference to Christ recommends itself to our approval, since also in other pa.s.sages the Schem Jehovah (the name of Jehovah) is so to be understood. This expression, ”then men began to call upon the name of Jehovah,” contains a meaning most important. It signifies that Adam, Seth, and Enosh taught and exhorted their posterity to expect redemption and to believe the promise concerning the seed of the woman, and to overcome by that hope the snares, the crosses, the persecutions, the hatred and the violence of the Cainites, and not to despair of salvation, but rather to give thanks unto G.o.d, a.s.sured that he would at some time deliver them by the seed of the woman.

304. What could Adam and Seth teach greater or better than that the great deliverer, Christ, was promised to their posterity? And this is quite in keeping with the proper principle to be observed in religious instruction. The first care should ever be directed to the first table. When this table is well understood, the right understanding of the second table will soon follow; yea, it is then easy to fulfil the latter. For how is it possible that, where pure doctrine is taught, where men rightly believe, rightly call upon the name of Jehovah, and rightly give thanks unto G.o.d, the second and inferior fruits can be wanting?

305. In this manner did it please G.o.d at that time to comfort the afflicted church of the G.o.dly and to prevent their despair concerning the future. We see throughout the pages of sacred history a perpetual succession and change of consolations and afflictions. Joseph in Egypt keeps alive his parents and his brethren when divinely visited by famine. After this, when these people were oppressed by wicked kings, they were again delivered from their cruel bondage. And Cyrus delivers them when captives in Babylon. When G.o.d permits his own people to be oppressed by the violence and guile of the devil and the world, he always lifts them up again and gives them prophets and G.o.dly teachers to restore his sinking church, and to break for a while the fury of Satan.

306. Furthermore, it is the intention to lay down a logical definition when it is claimed that the wors.h.i.+p of G.o.d does not consist in ceremonies devised and transmitted by men, in the erection of statues, or the performance of other sport suggested by reason, but in calling upon the name of Jehovah. Wors.h.i.+p in its truest meaning, well-pleasing to G.o.d, and subsequently made mandatory in the first commandment, embraces the fear of G.o.d, trust in G.o.d, confession, prayer and preaching.

307. The first commandment of the Law demands faith, that we believe G.o.d is the only helper in time of need, Ps 9, 9. The second commandment demands confession and prayer, that we call upon the name of Jehovah in times of peril and give thanks unto G.o.d. The third commandment requires that we teach the truth, and that we guard and defend sound doctrine.

These are the true and appropriate acts of the wors.h.i.+p of G.o.d, and they are those which G.o.d requires. He requires not sacrifices nor money nor anything of the kind. As regards the first table, he requires that we hear, consider and teach the Word; that we pray to G.o.d and fear him.

308. Where these things exist, the observances and works required by the second table follow, as it were, of their own accord. It is impossible that he who does the works and performs the wors.h.i.+p of the first table should not do and perform those of the second table also.

David saith: ”His delight is in the law of Jehovah; and on his law doth he meditate day and night. And he shall be like a tree planted by the stream of water; that bringeth forth its fruit in its season, whose leaf also doth not wither.” Ps 1, 2-3. These things are evident consequences of the right wors.h.i.+p of G.o.d, according to the commandments of the first table. He who believes G.o.d, who fears G.o.d, who calls upon G.o.d in tribulation, who praises G.o.d and gives thanks unto him for his mercies, who gladly hears the Word of G.o.d, who continually contemplates the works of G.o.d, and who teaches others to do the same things--do you think that such a one will harm his neighbor, or disobey his parents, or kill, or commit adultery?

309. The first table, therefore, is to be set forth first of all, and instruction as regards the true wors.h.i.+p is to receive precedence to all else. This means, first to make the tree good on which good fruit is to grow. Now, our adversaries take the diametrically opposite course; they want to have the good fruit before they have even the tree.

310. Moreover, I believe that about this time there was added some visible ceremony of divine wors.h.i.+p, for G.o.d is ever wont thus to do.

He always joins with the Word some visible sign. When Abel and Cain presented their offerings G.o.d showed by a visible sign from heaven that he had respect unto Abel and his offering, but not unto Cain and his offering. And so, in all probability, it was in this case and at this time. When the Church began to flourish and the Word of G.o.d was publicly taught with considerable success, G.o.d added also some visible sign, that the Church might a.s.suredly know that she pleased G.o.d.

311. But whatever that sign was, whether fire from heaven or something else, G.o.d withheld it until the third generation, that men might learn to be content with the Word alone. Afterwards, when men had comforted themselves by the Word alone against the Cainites, in all tribulations, G.o.d of his great mercy added to the Word some visible sign. He established a place and appointed persons and ceremonies to which the Church might gather for the exercise of faith, for preaching and prayer. By means of these things, the Word or the first table and then a visible sign ordained of G.o.d, a Church is const.i.tuted, in which men undergo discipline through teaching, hearing, and the partaking of the sacraments. Then upon these things will a.s.suredly follow the works of the second table, which are acceptable, and acts of wors.h.i.+p, only on the part of those who possess and practice the first table.

312. This gift of G.o.d, Moses sets forth in the few short words of the text before us, when he says, ”Then began men to call upon the name of Jehovah.” For this beginning to call upon the name of Jehovah was not on the part of the Cainites, as the Jews explained the pa.s.sage, but on the part of the G.o.dly posterity of Adam, which alone was then the true Church. If any of the posterity of Cain were saved, it must of necessity have been by joining this Church.

313. The sum of the first four chapters of Genesis is that we are to believe in a resurrection of the dead after this life, and a life eternal through the Seed of the woman. This is the blessed portion of the G.o.dly, of them that believe, who in this life are filled with afflictions and subject to injuries at the hands of all men. To the wicked, on the contrary, are given, as their portion, the riches and power of this world, which they use against the true Church of G.o.d.

In the first chapter it is shown that man was created unto immortality, because he was created ”in the image of G.o.d.”

The teaching also of the second chapter sets forth the same thing, ”In the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die.” It follows that the first created man and woman could not have died if they had not eaten of that fruit. By their sin of eating they fell from immortality to mortality, and they begat an offspring like unto themselves.

In the third chapter immortality is set forth anew, as restored by the promise of the Seed of the woman.

In the fourth chapter we have an especial example of immortality set before us in Abel, who, after he had been slain by his brother, was received into the bosom of G.o.d, who testified that the voice of the blood of Abel cried unto him from the ground.

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