to Adam after his fall, when God
spake to the serpent: "I will put enmity between thee and the
woman, between her seed and thy seed: she shall crush thy head;
and thou shalt lie in wait for her foot." [Gen. 3:15] [4] In
these words, however obscurely, God promises help to human
nature, namely, that by a woman the devil shall again be
overcome. This promise of God sustained Adam and Eve and all
their children until the time of Noah; in this they believed, and
by this faith they were saved; else they had despaired. [Gen. 9:9
f.] In like manner, after the flood, He made a covenant with Noah
and his children, until the time of Abraham (Genesis xii), whom
He summoned out of his fatherland [Gen. 12:1, 3], and promised
that in his seed all nations should be blessed [Gen. 18:18]. This
promise Abraham believed and obeyed, and thereby was justified
and became the friend of God. [Gen. 22:18; 15:6] In the same book
this promise to Abraham is many times repeated, enlarged and made
more definite, until Isaac is promised him, who was to be the
seed from which Christ and every blessing should come. In this
faith upon the promise Abraham's children were kept until the
time of Christ, although in the mean time it was continually
renewed and made more definite by David and many prophets This
promise the Lord in the Gospel calls "Abraham's bosom," [Luke
16:22, 23] because in it were kept all who with a right faith
clung thereto, and, with Abraham, waited for Christ Then came
Moses, who declared the same promise under many forms in the Law.
[Ex. 3:6, 7, 8] Through him God promised the people of Israel the
land of Canaan, while they were still in Egypt; which promise
they believed, and by it they were sustained and led into that
land.

[Sidenote: God's Promise in the Mass--the Testament]

8. In the New Testament, likewise, Christ has made a promise or
solemn vow, which we are to believe and thereto come to godliness
and salvation. This promise is the word in which Christ says:
"This is the cup of the New Testament." [Luke 22:20] This we
shall now examine.

Not every vow is called a testament, but only a last irrevocable
will of one who is about to die, whereby he bequeaths his goods,
allotted and assigned to be distributed to whom he will. Just as
St. Paul says to the Hebrews that a testament must be made
operative by death, and avails nothing while he still lives who
made the testament. [Heb. 9:16, 17] For other vows, made for this
l