By faith Abraham offered by Isaac when he was proued, and offered hym being his only begotten sonne, in whom he had receiued the promisses. And to hym it was sayd: •••• Isaac shall thy sede be called: for he considered that God was hable to rayse hym up agayn from death. Therefore receiued he hym also for an ensample of the resurreccy on. By faith dyd Isaac blesse Iacob and Esau, concernynge thynges to come.
Was not this also a notable exaumple of fayth in Abraham? that when God tryeng howe vnfaynedly he trusted hym, commaunded hym to offre vp in sacrifice his sonne Isaac, where as he was hys onely sonne, and he in whose name the posteritie was promysed (for these were the wordes of the promyser: Thy sede shall be called in Isaac) yet he without further delaye dyd as he was cōmaūded to do, not reasonyng here with himselfe on this wise: Of whom shal I haue posteritie if I sley hym in whom onely resteth all the hope of my poste∣ritie? But he consydered this in his mynde, that God who made the promyse coulde not lye, and that he was able yf it pleased hym, to reyse his deade sonne the multiplier of his stocke euen from death: And because he beleued the resur∣rection of the dead, it was therfore gyuen him to bryng home his sonne againe with him beyng as it were, restored to lyfe, notwithstādyng he was as much as in the father laye, dead, who euen then represented by a certayne figure the re∣surrection of Iesu Christe to come. This was also a manyfest example of a mynde hauyng a great confidence in God, that when Isaac saye on hys death bedde, and had not as yet receyued the felicitie promysed of God, yet was he bolde to promyse the same to Iacob and Esau his sonnes, when he blessed thē both, foreseyng both theyr lyues, and the contrarie rewarde that eche of them shoulde haue. So quycke of syght is faith, that she seeth euen those thinges as present whiche are farre distant from the bodely senses.