{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/102/1020465.htm","path":"chr/ecf/102/1020465.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/102/1020465.htm","text":"Chapter 16.\u2014Of the Order and Nature of the Promises of God Which Were Made to Abraham.\nGod\u2019s promises made to Abraham are now to be considered; for in these the oracles of our God, 901 that is, of the true God, began to appear more openly concerning the godly p. 321 people, whom prophetic authority foretold. The first of these reads thus: \u201cAnd the Lord said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father\u2019s house, and go into a land that I will show thee: and I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee and magnify thy name; and thou shall be blessed: and I will bless them that bless thee, and curse them that curse thee: and in thee shall all tribes of the earth be blessed.\u201d 902 Now it is to be observed that two things are promised to Abraham, the one, that his seed should possess the land of Canaan, which is intimated when it is said, \u201cGo into a land that I will show thee, and I will make of thee a great nation;\u201d but the other far more excellent, not about the carnal but the spiritual seed, through which he is the father, not of the one Israelite nation, but of all nations who follow the footprints of his faith, which was first promised in these words, \u201cAnd in thee shall all tribes of the earth be blessed.\u201d Eusebius thought this promise was made in Abraham\u2019s seventy-fifth year, as if soon after it was made Abraham had departed out of Haran because the Scripture cannot be contradicted in which we read, \u201cAbram was seventy and five years old when he departed out of Haran.\u201d But if this promise was made in that year, then of course Abraham was staying in Haran with his father; for he could not depart thence unless he had first dwelt there. Does this, then, contradict what Stephen says, \u201cThe God of glory appeared to our father Abraham, when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Charran?\u201d 903 But it is to be understood that the whole took place in the same year,\u2014both the promise of God before Abraham dwelt in Haran, and his dwelling in Haran, and his departure thence,\u2014not only because Eusebius in the Chronicles reckons from the year of this promise, and shows that after 430 years the exodus from Egypt took place, when the law was given, but because the Apostle Paul also mentions it.\nVarious reading, \u201cof our Lord Jesus Christ.\u201d\n321:902 321:903","title":"Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Vol. II: City of God: Cha...","type":"page"}