s 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 worship, for God is ever wont thus to do.
He always joins with the Word some visible sign. When Abel and Cain
presented their offerings God 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 God was
publicly taught with considerable success, God added also some visible
sign, that the Church might assuredly know that she pleased God.

311. But whatever that sign was, whether fire from heaven or something
else, God 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, God 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 God, a Church is constituted, in which
men undergo discipline through teaching, hearing, and the partaking of
the sacraments. Then upon these things will assuredly follow the works
of the second table, which are acceptable, and acts of worship, only
on the part of those who possess and practice the first table.

312. This gift of God, 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 passage, but on
the part of the godly 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 godly, of them that believe, who in this life are filled with
afflictions and subje