Exposition of the Epistle to the Hebrews

Tue general concernments of this Epistle, have all of them been discussed and cleared in the preceding Exercitations and Discourses. The things and matters confirmed in them, we therefore here suppose, and take for granted. And some of these are of such a nature, that without a demonstration of them, a genuine and perspicuous declaration of the design of the author, and of the sense of the Epistle, cannot be well founded or carried on. Unto them therefore we must remit the reader, who desires to peruse the ensuing Exposition with profit and advantage. But yet, because the manner of the handling of things in those Discourses, may not be so suited to the minds of all who would willingly inquire into the Exposition itself, I shall here make an entrance into it, by laying down some such general principles and circumstances of the Epistle, as may give a competent prospect into the design and argument of the apostle, in the whole thereof.

First. The first of these concerns the persons whose instruction and edification in the faith is here aimed at. These in general were the Hebrews, the posterity of Abraham, and the only church of God before the promulgation of the gospel, who in those days were distributed into three sorts, or parties,

Ist. Some of them believing in Christ through the gospel, were perfectly instructed in the liberty given them from the Mosaic law, with the foundation of that liberty, in the accomplishment of that law, in the person, office, and work of the Messiah, Acts τι. 41, 42.

2d. Some with their profession of faith in Christ as the promised Messiah, retained an opinion of the necessity of observing the Mosiac rites; and these also were of two sorts.

1. Such as from a pure reverence of their original institutions, either being not fully instructed in their liberty, or by reason of prejudices, not readily admitting the consequences of that truth wherein they were instructed, abode in the observance of them without seeking for righteousness or salvation by them, Acts xxi. 20.

2. Such as urged their observance as indispensably necessary to our justification before God, Acts xv. 1; Gal. 11. 4. The first sort of these the apostles bore with in all meekness; yea, and using the liberty given them of the Lord, to avoid offending of them, joined with them in their practice, as occasion did require, Acts xvi. 3,ch. xxi. 23, 24, 26, ch. xxvil. 9; 1 Cor. ix. 20. Whence for a long season, in many places, the worship of the gospel, and the synagogue worship of the law, were observed together, James 11. 2, though in process of time many disputes and differences were occasioned thereby, between the Gentile and Jewish worshippers, Rom. xiv. The other sort they opposed, as perverters of the gospel which they pretended to profess, Acts xv. 5; Gal. 11. 13—16, ch. iv. 9—11, ch. v. 2. And of these, some afterwards apostatized to Judaism; others abiding in a corrupt mixture of both professions, separated themselves from the church, and were called Nazarenes and Ebionites.

3d. Others, far the greatest number of the whole people, persisted in their old church-state, not receiving the salvation that was tendered unto them in the preaching of the gospel; and these also were of two sorts. 1. Such as, although they had not embraced the faith, yet were free and willing to attend to the doctrine of it, searching the Scriptures for a discovery of its truth, and in the meantime instantly serving God, according to the light of the Old Testament which they had received, and in these was the essence of the Judaical church preserved to its final dissolution, Acts xvii. 11, ch. xxviii. 22—24. 2. Such as being hardened in their infidelity, blasphemed, scoffed at, and persecuted the gospel, with all that professed it, Acts xiii, 45, 50, ch. xiv. 19, ch. xvii. 5; 1 Thess. ii. 15, 16; Rom. xi.7—10, whom, not long after, the ven= geance of God overtook in their total destruction.

Now our apostle, vehemently thirsting after the salvation of the Hebrews in general, Rom. ix. 1, ch. x. 1. having all these several sorts or parties to deal with, so frames his Epistle unto them, that it might be suited to the good of all, in their conversion, instruction, edification and establishment, as their several conditions did require; the latter sort only excepted, who being under judicial blindness,. were cast out of the care of God, and of the apostle, Acts xii.46, 51. Hence in part is that admirable contexture of this epistle, which Peter ascribes to his eminent wisdom, 2 Pet. 11. 18. As it is indeed evident from the story, that he did excel in applying himself to the various principles, capacities and prejudices, of them with whom he had todo. The Lord Christ having set him forth as a great example of that diligence, zeal and prudence, which he requires in the dispensers of the gospel. Divine reasonings, instructions, exhortations, promises, threats and arguments, are so interwoven in this epistle from the beginning to the end, that all to whose handsor hearing it should come, might everywhere meet with that which was of especial and immediate concern to themselves, unto which of the sorts before mentioned soever they did belong. And this principle we must have respect unto, in that intermixture of arguments to prove the truth of the gospel, with exhortations to constancy in the profession of it, which we shall meet with. The several conditions of those to whom the apostle wrote, required that way of procedure. Hence no one chapter in the Epistle is purely dogmatical, the first only excepted, nor purély parenetical; forthough the design that lies in view, and is never out of sight, be exhortation, yet far the greatest part of the Epistle is taken up in those doctrinals, wherein the foundations of the exhortations do lie, and both are interwoven together, somewhat variously from the method of the same apostle in all his other Epistles, as hath been observed; that to the Galatians, which is of the like nature with this, only excepted.

Secondly. A second thing to be previously observed is, that although those to whom the apostle wrote, were of the several sorts before mentioned, yet they centred in this, that they were Hebrews by birth and religion, who all agreed in some common principles relating to the subject about which he treated with them. These he makes use of unto them all; for though the unbelieving Jews did deny, or did not yet acknowledge, that Jesus was the Christ, yet they also consented to, or could not gainsay, what in the Old Testament was revealed concerning the person, office, dignity and work of the Messiah, when he should come, that being the faith whereby they were saved before his appea~ rance, Acts xxvi. 6, 7. Upon these general principles wherein they also agreed, and which were the general persuasion of the whole Judaical church, the apostle lays the foundation of all his arguments. And hence he oft-times takes that for granted, which, without this consideration, should we look on any of those to whom he writes under the general notion of unbelievers, would seem to be the thing principally in question. And therefore have we at large already manifested what in those days was the avowed profession of the sounder part of the Judaical church concerning the Messiah, which the apostle here and elsewhere, in dealing with the Jews, built upon, Acts xxvi. 22, 23. 27, ch. xxviii. 23, ch. xiii. 16, 17; &c. which the reader must have constant respect to.

Thirdly. In urging testimonies out of the Old Testament, he doth not always make use of those that seem to be most perspicuous and apposite to his purpose; but oftentimes takes others more abstruse, obscure, and which at first view seem to be of less evident consequence. And that upon a double account. First, that he might instruct the believers amongst them in the more abstruse prophecies of the Old Testament, and thereby incite them to the further search after Christ under the Mosaic veil, and prophetical allegories, whereby he is therein expressed, aiming to lead them on towards perfection, ch. v. 12, vi. 1.

- Secondly, because most of the testimonies he makes use of, were generally granted by the Jews of all sorts to belong to the Messiah, his kingdom and offices; and his design was to deal with them chiefly, upon their own concessions and principles. As we have some few other helps remaining to acquaint us with what was the received sense of the Judaical church concerning sundry passages in the Old Testament relating unto the promised Christ, so the paraphrases of Scripture that were either at that time in use amonest them, as was the Greek translation amongst the Hellenists; or about that time composed, as the Targums, at least some parts of them, will give us much light into it. What of that ancient sense appeareth yet in the corrupted copies of those translations which remain, being considered, will much evince the reason and suitableness of the apostle’s quotations. And this is needful to be observed, to refute that impiety of some (as Cajetan) who not being able to understand the force of some testimonies cited by the apostle as to his purpose in hand, have questioned the authority of the whole epistle; as also the mistake of Hierome, who in his epistle to Pammachius, rashly affirmed that Paul did quote Scriptures that were not indeed to his purpose, but out of design to stop the mouths of his adversaries, as he himself had dealt with Jovinian; which was very far B 2 from him whose only design was a\nSevew ev ayary, to promote the truth in love.

Fourthly. He takes it for granted in the whole epistle, that the Judaical church-state did yet continue, and that the worship of it was not yet disallowed of God; suitably to what was before declared concerning his own and the other apostle’s practice. Had that churchstate been utterly abolished, all observance of Mosaic rites, which were the worship of that church as such, had been utterly unlawful, as now it is. Neither did the determination recorded Acts xv. abolish them as some suppose, but only free the Gentiles from their observance, Their free use was yet permitted unto the Jews, Acts xxi. 20, 22, 26, xxvil. 9, and practised by Paul in particular, in his Nazaretical vow, Acts xxi. 26, which was attended with a sacrifice, Numb. vi. 13. Nor was Mosaic worship utterly to cease, so as to have no acceptance with God until the final ruin of that church, foretold by our Saviour himself, Matt. xxiv., by Peter, 2 epist. i, by James also, v. 6—9, and by our apostle in this epistle, x. 37, xil,25—27, was accomplished.

Hence it is that our apostle calls the times of the gospel, the world to come, ch. 11. 5, vi. 5, the name whereby the Jews denoted the state of the church under the Messiah, proper unto it only whilst the legal administrations of worship did continue. Thus as de facto he had showed respect unto the persen of the high priest, as one yet in lawful office, Acts xxiii. 5; so doctrinally he takes it for granted, that that office was still continued, Hebrews vii. 4, 5, with the whole worship instituted by Moses, ch. xii. 11,12. And this dispensation of God’s patience being the last trial of that church, was continued in a proportion of time answerable to their abode in the wilderness upon its first erection; which our apostle reminds them of, ch. iii, iv.

The law of Moses then was not actually abrogated by Christ, who observed the rules of it in the days of his flesh; nor by the apostles, who seldom used their liberty from it, leaving the use of it to the Jews still. But having done the work whereunto it was designed, and its obligation expiring, ending, and being removed, or taken away in the death and resurrection of Christ, and in the promulgation of the gospel that ensued thereupon, which doctrinally declared its avwgeAtav or uselessness; God in his providence put an end unto it, as to its observance, in the utter and irrecoverable overthrow of the temple, the place designed for the solemn exercise of its worship; so did it decay, wax old, and vanish away, ch. viii. 13.

And this also God ordered in his infinite wisdom, that their temple, city, and nation, and so consequently their whole church-state, should be utterly wasted by the Pagan Romans, before the power of the empire came into the hands of men professing the name of Christ; who could neither well have suffered their temple to stand as by them abused, nor yet have destroyed it, without hardening them in their impenitence and unbelief.

Fifthly. That which is proposed unto confirmation in the whole epistle, and from whence all the inferencesand exhortations insisted on do arise, and are drawn, is the excellency of the gospel, and’ the worship of God therein revealed and appointed, upon the account of its manifold relation to the person and offices of Christ the mediator, the Son of God. Now, because some of those to whom it is directed, did, as hath been declared, adhere to Mosaic ceremonies and worship, in conjunction with the gospel, others with a preference of them above the gospel, and some to the relinquishment of the gospel, especially when they once found its profession obnoxious to persecution; the apostle institutes, and at large prosecutes a comparison between the law of Moses and the gospel, as to their usefulness and excellency, in reference unto men’s acceptance with God, by the one and the other; as also of the spirituality, order, and beauty of the worship severally required in them. And, herein, though he derogates in no respect from the law that which was justly due unto it, yet on the accounts before mentioned, he prefereth the gospel before it; and not only so, but also manifests, that as Mosaic institutions were never of any other use, but to prefigure the real mediatory work of Christ, with the benefits thereof, so he being exhibited, and his work accomplished, their observance was become needless, and themselves, if embraced to a neglect or relinquishment of the gospel, pernicious.

This comparison, (wherein also the proof of the positive worth and excellency of the gospel is included,) omitting for weighty reasons (intimated by James, Acts xxi. 21, and by himself Acts ix. 25, ch. xxii. 19—21,) all prefatory salutations, he enters upon in the first verses of the epistle; and having thereby occasion to make mention of the Messiah, from whose person and office, the difference he was to insist upon did wholly arise, he spendeth the residue of the chapter in proving the divine excellency of his person, and the eminence of his office, as the only king, priest, and prophet of his church; on all which the dignity of the gospel, in the profession whereof he exhorts them to persevere, doth depend.

He then that would come to a right understanding of this epistle must always bear in mind, 1. To whom it was written, namely, the Jews of the several sorts before mentioned. 2. To what end it was written, even to prevail with them to embrace the gospel, and to persist in the profession of it; without any mixture of Mosaic observances. 3. On what principles the apostle deals with them in this argument, which are no other, for the most part, than what were granted by the Jews of all sorts. 4. What testimonies out of the Old Testament he insists on to prove his purpose, namely such as were commonly received in the Judaical church to belong to Messiah and his office. 5. What he labours to instruct them in, as to the general use of all sorts amongst them, which is the nature and use of the Mosaic rites. 6. The main argument he insists on for the ends before mentioned, which is the excellency of the gospel, the worship instituted therein, and the righteousness manifested thereby, upon the account of its author and subject, the principal efficient cause of its worship, and only procurer of the righteousness exhibited in it, even Jesus Christ, the Messiah, the Mediator, the Eternal Son of God. Unless these things are well borne in mind, and the case of the Jews particularly heeded, our Exposition will, it may be, seem oft times to go out of the way, though it constantly pursue the design and scope of the apostle.

Sixthly. Though this epistle was written to the Hebrews, and immediately for their use, yet it is left on record in the canon of the Scripture by the Holy Ghost, for the same general end with the other parts of the Scripture, and the use of all believers therein to the end of the world.

This use in our Exposition is also to be regarded, and that principally m the parenetical or hortatory part of it. That then which is dogmatical, and the foundation of all the exhortations insisted on, may be two ways considered.

1. Properly, as to the special and peculiar tendency of the principles and doctrines handled, and so they specially intend the Jews, and must be opened with respect to them, their principles, traditions, opinions, objections; all which must therefore be considered, that the peculiar force and efficacy of the apostle’s reasonings with respect to them, may be made manifest. And from the doctrinal part of this epistle so opened, the exhortations that arise do chiefly respect the Jews, and are peculiarly suited unto their state and condition.

2. Again, the doctrines treated on by the apostle may be considered absolutely and abstractedly from the special case of the Jews, which he had in his eye, merely as to their own nature, and so they are many.of them of the chief fundamental principles of the gospel. In this respect they ave grounds for the application of the exhortations in the Epistle, to all professors of the gospel to the end of the world. And this must guide us in our Exposition. Having to deal with the Jews, the doctrinal parts of the Epistle must be opened with special respect to them, or we utterly lose the apostle’s aim and design; and dealing with Christians, the hortatory part shall be principally insisted on, as respecting all professors; yet not so, but that im handling the doctrinal part, we shall weigh the principles of it, as articles of our evangelical faith in general, and consider also the peculiar respect that the exhortations have to the Jews.

Now whereas, as was said, many principles of the Jews are partly _ supposed and taken for granted, and partly urged and insisted on to his own purpose by the apostle, we must in our passage make some stay in their discovery and declaration, and shall insert them under their proper heads, where they occur, even as many of them as are not already handled in our prolegomena.

Tue general scope and design of the apostle in this whole Epistle, hath been before declared, and needs not here_be repeated. In this first chapter, he fixeth and improveth the principal consideration that he intends to insist on throughout the Epistle, to prevail with the Hebrews unto constancy and perseverance in the doctrine of the gospel. And this is taken from the immediate author of it, the promised Messiah, the Son of God. Him therefore in this chapter he at large describes; and that two ways. 1. Absolutely, declaring what he is in his person and offices, as also what he hath done for the church. And, 2. Comparatively, with respect unto other ministerial revealers of the mind and will of God, especially insisting on his excellency and preeminence above the angels; as we shall see in the explication of the several parts and verses of it.

Many of these words being variously rendered, their true grammatical sense and importance is to be considered, before we open the meaning of the whole, and the aim of the apostle in them; in which way we shall also proceed throughout the whole Epistle.

mada. Dp ya. Syr. ab initio, from the beginning; Olim, the Latin translations, of old, formerly, in times past; πάλαι is olim, quondam, pridem, jamdudum; any time past that 15 opposed, τῳ αρτι; or νυν, to that which is present; properly, time some good while past, as that was whereof the apostle treats, having ended in Malachi four hundred years before.

ev buy, aS before in the prophets; not by his Son, but in the Son. The emphasis of the expression is necessarily to be retained, as the opening of the words will discover.

τους; alwvac, mundos, secula: ovadyn. Syr. the ages, times, worlds. In the remaining words there is no difficulty, as to the grammatical signification: we shall then read them.

Ver. 1, 2—By sundry parts, and in divers manners, God having formerly (or of old) spoken unto the fathers in the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us in the Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all, by whom also he made the worlds.

The apostle intending a comparison between the Mosaic law and the gospel, referreth it unto two heads. First, To their revelation and institution, whence the obligation to the observance of the one and the other did arise; and, secondly, To their whole nature, use and efficacy. The first he enters upon in these words, and premising that wherein they did agree, he distinctly lays down the several things wherein the difference between them doth consist; both which were necessary to complete the comparison intended.

That wherein they agree, is the principal efficient cause of their revelation, or the prime Author from whom they were. This is God. He was the Author of the law, and of the gospel. He spake of old in the prophets, he spake in the last days in the Son. Neither of them were from men: not one from one principle, and the other from another; both have the same divine original. See 2 Tim. iii. 16; 2 Pet. i. 16—21. Herein they both agree.

Their difference in this respect, namely of their revelation, he refers to four heads, all distinctly expressed, saving that some branches of the antithesis, on the part of the gospel, are only included in the opposite expressions that relate unto the law.

First. They differ in respect of the manner of their revelation, and that in two particulars. 1. The revelation of the will of God under the law was given out by divers parts; that under the gospel at once, or in one dispensation of grace and truth. 2. That in divers manners; this one way only, by the Spirit dwelling in the Lord Christ in his - fulness, and by him communicated to his apostles. |

Secondly. The times and seasons of their revelation: that of the law was made of old, formerly, in times past; this of the gospel, in these last days.

Thirdly. The persons to whom the revelation of them was made, That was to the fathers, this to us.

Fourthly, and principally. The persons by whom these revelations were made. That was by the prophets, this by the Son. God spake then in the prophets; now he hath spoken in the Son.

The whole stress of the apostle’s argument resting on this last instance, he omits the prosecution of all the other particulars, and enters on the further description of this immediate revealer of the gospel in whom God spake, the Son, and lays down in general,

2. The ground and equity of committing that great power and trust to him, in those words, ‘‘ by whom also he made the worlds,” And thus he opens his way to the farther declaration of his divine and incomparable excellencies, wherein he is exalted far above all, or any that were employed in the revelation or administration of the law of Moses, and the holy worship instituted thereby.

All these particulars must be opened severally, that we may see the intention of the apostle, and the force of his argument in the whole. And some of them must necessarily be somewhat largely insisted on, because of their influence upon the ensuing discourse.

First. That wherein the law and gospel do both agree is, that God ὁ Θεος,; was the author of them both. About this, there was no difference, amongst the most of them with whom the apostle treated. This, therefore, he takes for granted. For the professing Jews did not adhere to Mosaic institutions, because God was their author, and not the author of the gospel, but because they were given from God by Moses, in such a manner as never to be changed or abrogated. This the apostle lays down as an acknowledged principle with the most, that both law and gospel, received their original from God himself; proving also, as we shall see in the progress of our discourse, to the conviction of others, that such a revelation as that of the gospel, was foretold and expected, and that in particular the gospel which was preached to them, was the revelation which had been promised by God.

Now God being here spoken of in distinction from the Son expressly and from the Holy Ghost by evident implication, it being He by whom he spake in the prophets, that name is not taken ουσιωδως; substantially, to denote primarily the essence or being of the Deity, and each person as partaking in the same nature, but ὑποστατικως, denoting primarily one certain person, and the divine nature only as subsisting in that person. This is the person of the Father; as elsewhere the person of the Son is so signified by that name, Acts xx. 28; John i. 1, 2; Rom. ix. 5; 1 Tim.in. 16; 1 John iii. 19, v. 20; as also the person of the Holy Spirit, Acts v. 3, 4; 1 Cor. xi. 7, 11; Col. ii. 2. So that God.

even the Father, by the way of eminency, was the peculiar author of both law and gospel, of which afterwards. And this observation is made necessary from hence, even because he immediately assigns divine properties and excellencies to another person, evidently distinguished from him whom he intends to denote by the name God in this place, which he could not do, did that name primarily express, as here used by him, the divine nature absolutely, but only as it is subsisting in the person of the Father.

From this head of their agreement the apostle proceeds to the instances of the difference that was between the law and the gospel, as to their revelation from God, of which a little inverting the order of the words, we shall first consider that which concerns the times of their being given out, sundry of the other instances being regulated thereby.

For the first, or the revelation of the will of God under the Old Testament, it was of old, God spake waa, ‘ formerly,’ or “ of old.’ Some space of time is denoted in this word, which had then received both its beginning and end; both which we may inquire after. Take the word absolutely, and it comprises the whole space of time from the giving out of the first promise, to that end which was put to all revelations of public use under the Old Testament. Take it as relating to the Jews, and the rise of the time expressed in it, is the “ oiving of the law by Moses” in the wilderness. And this is that which the apostle hath respect to. He had no contest with the Jews about the first promise, and the service of God in the world built thereon; nor about their privilege, as they were the sons of Abraham; but only about there then present church privilege and claim by Moses’ law. The proper date then and bound of this raAa, “ οἵ old,’ | is from the giving out of the law of Moses, and therein the constitution of the Judaical church and worship, to the close of public prophecy in the days of Malachi. From thence to the days of John the Baptist, God granted no extraordinary revelation of his will, for the standing use of the whole church. So that this dispensation of God’s “speaking in the prophets,” continued for the space of twenty-one jubilees, or near eleven hundred years. That it had now ceased for a long time, the apostle intimates in this word, and that agreeably to the confessed principles of the Jews, whereby also he confirmed his own of the coming of the Messiah, by the reviving of the gift of prophecy, as was foretold, Joel ii. 28, 29.

And we may by the way a little consider their thoughts in this matter; for, as we have observed and proved before, the apostle engageth with them upon their own acknowledged principles. ‘ The Jews then generally grant unto this day, that prophecy for the public use of the church, was not bestowed under the second temple after the days of Malachi; nor is to be expected until the coming of Elias. The delusions that have been put upon them by impostors, they now labour all they can to conceal; and are of late by experience made incredulous towards such pretenders, as in former ages they have been brought tomuch misery by. Now as their manner is to fasten all their conjectures, be they true or false, on some place, word, or letter of the Scripture, so have they done this assertion also, Observing or supposing the want of sundry things in the second house, they pretend that want to be intimated, Hag, i. 7, 8; where God, promising to glorify himself in that temple, the word 25x, ‘I will glorify,’ is written defectively, without 7, as the Keri notes. That letter being the numeral note of five, signifies as they say, the want of five things in that house. The first of these was DAN) PON the ark and cherubim. The second was mmwnmjow, the anointing oil. The third was m>TyaT sy, the wood of disposition, or perpetual fire. The fourth was ovamons, Urim and Thummim. The fifth was mm wipr, the Holy Ghost, or spirit of prophecy. They are not indeed all agreed in this enumeration; the Talmud in yay Joma, cap. 5, reckons them somewhat otherwise: 1. The ark with the propitiation and Cherubim. 2. The fire from heaven, which answers the third, or wood of disposition in the former order. 3. The divine majesty, in the room of the anointing oil. 4. The Holy Ghost. 5. Urim and Thummim. Another order there is according to the Rabbi Bechai, Comment. in Pentateuch, sectione 1; who places the anointing oil distinctly, and confounds the n>, or divine majesty with wpm mm, the Holy Ghost, contradicting the Gemara. The commonly approved order is that of the author of Aruch; in the root, 725.

wart Dvawi 19 wn, fire from Heaven, the fifth thing. But as this argument is ridiculous, both in general, in wire-drawing conclusions from letters deficient or redundant in writing, and in particular in reference to this word, which in other places is written as in this, as Numb. xxiv. 12; 1 Sam. ii. 20; Isa. Ixvi.5; so the observation itself of the want of all these five things in the second house, © is very questionable, and seems to be invented to give countenance to the confessed ceasing of prophecy, by which their church had been planted, nourished and maintained, and by the want of which it was signified that their church was now near expiration. For although I will grant that they might offer sacrifices with other fire, than that which was traduced from the flame descending from heaven, though Nadab and Abihu were destroyed for so doing, because the law of that fire attended the giving of it, whence upon its providential ceasing, it was as lawful to use other fire in sacrifice, as 1t was before its giving out; yet as to the ark, the Urim and Thummim, the matter is more questionable; and as to the anointing oil, out of question, because it being lawful for the High Priest to make it at any time, it was no doubt restored in the time of Ezra’s reformation. I know Abarbinel on Exod. xxx., see, swn, affirms that there was no high priest anointed with oil under the second house, for which he gives this reason; mmwam yaw m2 MT ἼΞΞ 55, because ‘the anointing oil was now hid;? >wypPr OAT Nw Dy wwe mw, ‘for Josiah had hid it with the rest of the holy things: a Talmudical figment; to which he adds, smwyd mw ond mm xd), ‘and they had no power to make it;’ I will not much contend about matter of fact, or what they did; but that they might have done otherwise, is evident from the first institution of it; for the prohibition mentioned, Exod. xxx. 31, 32, respects only private persons. And Josephus tells us, that God ceased to give answer by Urim and Thummim two hundred years before he wrote, lib. iii. cap. 12, which proves they had it.

«It is indeed certain, that at their first return from Babylon, they had not the Urim and Thummim, Ezra ii. 63. There was no priest with Urim and Thummim; yet it doth not appear that afterwards that jewel, whatever it were, was not made upon the prophecies of Haggai and Zechariah, whereby the restoration of the temple, and the worship belonging thereunto, was carried on to perfection. Especially considering the vision of Zechariah, about “clothing the high priest. with the robes of his office,” ch. iii, after which time it seems they were made and in use, as Josephus shows us, lib. xi. cap. 8, treating of the reverence done by Alexander the Great to the name of God, engraven in the plate of gold on the high-priest’s forehead. And Maimonides, Tractat. Saned. cap. 10, sect. 10, says expressly, that all the eight robes of the high-priest were made under the second temple, and particularly the Urim and Thummim; howbeit, as he says, they inquired not of God by them, because the Holy Ghost was not on the priests. Of the ark, we shall have occasion to treat afterwards, and of its fictitious hiding by Jeremiah, or Josiah, as the Jews fancy. This we may observe for the present, that it is certain that it was carried away by the Babylonians amongst other vessels of gold belonging to the temple, either amongst them that were taken away in the days of Jehoiakim, 2 Chron. xxxvi. 7, or those taken away with Jehoiachin his son, ver. 11, or when all that were left before, great and small, were carried away in the days of Zedekiah, ver. 18. And it may be supposed, that it was restored by Cyrus, of whom it is said, that ‘“‘ he returned all the vessels of the house of the Lord, that Nebuchadnezzar brought from Jerusalem,” Ezra 1. 6. And it is uncertain to what end the solemn yearly entrance of the high priest into the most holy place was observed, to the very destruction of the second house, if neither ark nor mercy-seat were there. Neither is this impeached by what Tacitus affirms, Hist. lib. 5, that when Pompey entered the temple, he found nullas Deum effigies, vacuam sedem, et inania arcana; for as he wrote of the Jews with shameful negligence, so he only intimates that they had no such images as were used among other nations, nor the head of an ass, which not many lines before, he had affirmed to be consecrated in their sanctuary. For aught then that appears to the contrary, the ark might be in the second house, and be carried thence to Rome with the book of the law, which Josephus expressly mentions. And therefore the same Abarbinel, in his Comment on Joel, tells us, that Israel, by captivity out of his own land, lost mp>s ΤΡ ΤῚ om mw oF ὙΠ Monn my, ‘ three excellent gifts, prophecy, miracles, and divine knowledge,’ Ps. ' Ixxiv. 9, all which he grants were to be restored by the Messiah; without mention of the other things before recited. And they confess this openly in Sota distinc. Egla hampha. oxa27 nwa

Syqwa wp mn mpdnpa soxdn Mat at wan, ‘after the death } of the latter prophets, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, the Holy | Spirit was taken away from Israel.’

“Tt is then confessed that God ceased to speak to the church in prophets, as to their oral teaching and writing, after the days of Malachi; which reason of the want of vision, though continuing four hundred years and upwards, is called by Haggai, chap. 11. 6, now vy, unum pusillum, ‘a little while,’ in reference to the continuance of it from the days of Moses. Whereby the Jews may see that they are long since past all grounds of expectation of its restoration, all prophecy having left them double the time that their church enjoyed it, which cannot be called wy nn ‘a little while, in comparison thereof.” To return,

This was the παλαι, these the times, wherein God spake in the prophets; which determines one instance more of the comparison, namely, the fathers, rove πατρασι, to whom he spake in them, which | were all the faithful of the Judaical church, from the days of giving | the law, until the ceasing of prophecy in the days of Malachi.

Most expositors suppose that this expression, “the last days,” is a periphrasis for ‘the times of the gospel.’ But it doth not appear, that they are any where so called; nor were they ever known by that name among the Jews, upon whose principles the apostle proceeds. Some seasons indeed under the gospel, in reference to some churches, are called the last days, 1'fim, iv.1; 2 Pet. mi. 3; 1 John ii. 18:) Jude 18. For,:

1. As we before observed, the apostle takes it for granted, that the Judaical church-state did yet continue, and proves that it was drawing to its period, chap, viii. ult., having its present station in the patience and forbearance of God only, without any necessity as to its worship, or preservation in the world. And hereunto doth the read-~ | ing of the words in some copies, before intimated, give testimony, ἢ ἐπ᾿ ἐσχατου των ἥἡμερων τουτων» “ in the end or extremity of these days,’ which, as the event hath proved, can no way relate to the times of the gospel.

2. The personal ministry of the Son, whilst he was on the earth in the days of his flesh, is here eminently, though not solely intended. “ For as God of old spake in the prophets, so in these last days, he spake in the Son:” that is, in him, personally present with the church, as the prophets also were in their several generations, chap. il. 8. Now as to his personal ministry, he was sent “ to the lost sheep of the house of Israel,’ Matt. xv. 24, (to whom also none in his own days he sent his apostles, Matt. x. 5, 6,) and is therefore said to have been a ‘minister of the circumcision for the truth of God,” Rom. xv. 5, being in the last place sent to the same vineyard, to which the prophets were sent before, Matt. xxi, 37. The words there used, “last of all he sent unto them his Son,” are exegetical of these, “ he spoke in the Son in the last days.”

} 3. This phrase is signally used in the old Testament to denote the ἰ last days of the Judaical church. So by Jacob, Gen. xlix. 1, “I will tell you what shall, befal you, bya mmx, in the last days,” which words the LXX. rendered, ex’ ἐσχάτων τῶν ἥμερων, the words here used by the apostle; the days pointed to by Jacob being those wherein the Messiah should come, before Judah was utterly deprived of sceptre and scribe. Again by Balaam the same words are used to signify the same time, Num. xxiv. 14, where they are rendered ἐπ᾽ ἐσχάτου των ἡμερων; ‘in the end of the days,’ as many copies read in this place. And in all the prophets this is the peculiar notation of that season, nya mons, Micah iv. 1; Isa. ii. 1, “in the latter or last days,’ and my-tr xz, the He hajediah prefixed, noteth that course of days that were then running. As Deut. xxxi. 29, “ Evil will overtake you, Dva7 momna, in the end of those days,” and the promise of the conversion of some of the Jews to David their king is annexed to the same season, Hos. iii. 5. From these places is the expression here used taken, denoting the last times of the Judaical church, the times immediately preceding its rejection and final ruin. Hence Manasseh, lib. 3, de Resurrect. cap. 3, telis us out of Moses Gernudensis, mwynn mva> ΝῪΤ DoT Mona 13 TaN Dip 59, ‘in every place that mentions the latter days, the days of the Messiah are to be understood,’ which saying of his is confirmed by Manasseh himself, though attended with a gloss abominable and false, that is purely judaical. The days of the Messiah, and the days of the end of the Judaical church, are the same. And these words are expressly also used by R. D. Kimchi. Comment. in Isa. 11, 2, who honestly refers all the words of that prophecy to the Messiah.

It is not for nothing that the apostle reminds the Hebrews, that the season then present was the last days, whereof so many things were foretold in the Old Testament. Many of their concernments lay in the knowledge of it, which, because they give great light to the whole cause as stated then between him and them, must be opened and considered. The sum is, that the end of their church and state, being foretold to be a perpetual desolation, Dan. ix. 27, the last days being now come upon them, they might understand what they were shortly to expect and look for. The end of the Jews, being a people, a church and a kingdom, was to bring forth the Messiah, whose coming and work must of necessity put an end to their old station and condition. Now because herein is enwrapped the most infallible demonstration that the Messiah is long since come, the apostle mentioning the last days to intimate that upon necessity he must be come in them, I shall further open his design in this matter; but having been large on this head in our Prolegomena, I shall briefly review the subject for their sakes, who by any difficulties may be deterred from the consideration of them.

‘God having from the foundation of the world promised to bring forth the “ seed of the woman,” to work out the redemption of his elect in the conquest of Satan, did, in the separation of Abraham from the rest of the world, begin to make provision of a peculiar stock, from whence the seed of the woman should spring. That this was the cause and end of his call and separation is evident from hence, that immediately thereupon God assures him that “in his seed all the kindreds of the earth should be blessed,” Gen. xii. 1—3, xxii. 18, which is all one as if he had expressly said to him, For this cause have I chosen and called thee, that in thee I might lay a foundation of bringing forth the promised seed, by whom the curse is to be taken away, and the blessing of everlasting life procured, as Gal. iii. 13, 14. For this cause was his posterity continued in a state of separation from the rest of the world, that he might seek a holy seed to himself, Num. xxiii. 9; Mal. ii. 15. For this cause did he raise them into a civil, regal and church state, that he might in them typify and prefigure the offices and benefits of the promised Messiah, who was to gather to himself the nations that were to be blessed in the seed of Abraham, Gen. xlix. 10; Psal. xlv; Hos. iii. 5; Ezek. xxxiv. 23. And all their sacrifices did but shadow out that great expiation of sin, which he was to make in his own person, as hath been already proved. ‘ Things being thus disposed, God promised to them that there civil political state, their condition as a peculiar nation and people, should be continued until the coming of the Messiah, Gen, xlix. 10; Ezek, xxi. 27. And this was made good to them, notwithstanding the great oppositions of those mighty empires, in the midst of whose devouring jaws they were placed, with some such short intercisions of the actual administration of rule amongst them, as being foretold, impeached not the promise. They lost not their civil state, until he came, to whom was “the gathering of the nations.” After that, though many of the individuals obtained mercy, yet their being a nation or people, was of no peculiar use as to any special end of God. Therefore was it immediately destroyed, and irrecoverably exterminated. From that day, God in a wonderful manner blasted and cursed all their endeavours, either for the preservation of what they then had, or for its recovery and restoration when lost. No means could ever retrieve them into a people or nation on the old account. What may be hereafter on a new, God knows. The end of the days was come, and it was to no purpose for men to endeavour to keep up that which God would lay aside. After having accomplished the utmost of his design by it and upon it. And this season was fully evidenced to all the world, by the “oathering of the people to Shiloh,” or the coming in of the nations to partake in the “ blessing of faithful Abraham,” Micah iv. 1, 2. ‘Of their church-state there were two principal parts: the temple itself, and the worship performed in it. The first of these, namely, the temple, and also the tabernacle, was set up to typify him in whom the fulness of the “ Godhead should dwell bodily,” and the worship prefigured the same person as he was to be the great High Priest and the sacrifice. Both these also were to be continued until the coming of the Messiah, but by no endeavours could be continued afterwards. Hence was that promise of the glory of the second house, built after the captivity, and restored by Herod, because of his coming to it who was signified by it, Hag. ii. 9; Mal. iii. 1. He was to come whilst that temple was standing, after which it was to be of no more use. And therefore Ezekiel describes a third spiritual temple to succeed in the room thereof. The condition of their sacrifices was the same. Therefore Daniel, foretelling the coming of the Messiah four hundred and ninety years after the captivity, adds, that upon his death the “daily sacrifice must cease for ever,” and a total desolation ensue, of all the things that were used. for the Old Testament worship, as the end had been accomplished, Dan. ix. 24—27. The nation, state, temple, sacrifices, being set apart, set up and designed for no other end but to bring him forth, he was to come whilst they were standing and in use, after which they were none of them to be allowed a being upon their old foundation. This is that which the apostle pointed at in mentioning the last days, that they might consider in what condition the church and people of the Jews then were.

‘To discover the evidence of this demonstration, as confirmed in our Prolegomena, I shall here also briefly add some considerations of the miserable entanglements of the Jews in seeking to avoid the argument here intimated to them by the apostle. It is a common tradition among them, that all things were made for the Messiah, whereby they do not intend, as some have imagined, the whole old creation, but all things of their church, state, and worship. So the Targum, Psal. xl. 8, in the person of the Messiah, “1 shall enter into life eternal when I study in the volume of the Law, sn>wex xa‘nsnn7, that was written for my sake.” By the law they understand their αἱ. All depended on their Messiah, all was written for him, They see by experience that there was a coincidence of all these things in the last days when Jesus came. No sooner had he done his work, but sceptre and scribe departed from Judah. They ceased to be a church and nation. The temple which the Lord whom they formerly sought came to, was destroyed, their sacrifices wherein they trusted caused to cease, and the nations of the earth were gathered into the faith of Abraham. From that time they have no more been a people, nor have had any distinction of tribes or families, temple, priesthood or sacrifice, nor any hope of a restoration to their pristine condition. Let us then see what course they have taken, or do take, to countenance themselves in their infidelity. Two ways to relieve themselves they have fixed on.

‘1. Granting that the Messiah was to come to their government and worship, they laboured to keep them up, and to restore them when cast down, that so they might prolong their expectation of that as to come, which was indeed already past. This in the righteous and holy providence of God, proved the means of their ruin. For their endeavour to maintain their liberty, rule and government, after the coming of the Messiah, was the cause of the utter overthrow of all rule, authority, and public worship amongst them, by Vespasian, and Titus his son. Their endeavour to restore themselves into a state and people under their false Messiah, Barcosbi, was the means of their utter desolation from all hopes of being a people and nation any more, by Adrian; as also for their extermination for ever out of that country, wherein they had been separated from all nations, for that end which God appointed to them. After this, once more, still to avoid the thoughts that the Messiah was come, and had put an end to their former condition, they endeavoured, and were encouraged by Julian the emperor, to rebuild their temple and restore their sacrifices, And this attempt also God turned to their further confusion. For whereas in former days in the building of the temple, he encouraged and supported them against all difficulties and oppositions; beimg now upheld and strengthened by the favour and wealth of the Roman empire in the same work, he sets himself agaist them, and scatters them with no less indignation than he did the builders of Babel of old. When he would have a temple amongst them, he punished them with famine, for building their own houses, and suffering his to lie waste, Hag. ii. 8—11. Now, they may build houses for themselves where they please; but if they take in hand to build a temple, God is against them. In this state they have now continued for sixteen hundred years, and were not blindness come upon them to the utmost, they could not but see,-that it is not the will of God that they should be a people, state, or church, on the former account, any more. What then is become of their Messiah, who was to come unto them whilst they were a state and church, seeing they were so, by their own confession, only for his sake? This puts their later masters to their last miserable shifts. For,

‘2. Contrary to the evident nature of all things relating to them from the appropriating of the promise to the family of Abraham, contrary to the whole design of the Scripture, and to the express testimonies of it before mentioned, with many other to the same purpose, they deny that their Messiah was to come to them, or at least to abide with them for the work whereunto he was destined, whilst their state, temple, and sacrifices, continued. In the management of this shift of unbelief, they are wofully divided amongst themselves.

41. For the continuance of their state, until the coming of the Messiah, Gen. xlix. 11, some say, that by Shiloh the -Messiah is not intended; who are confuted by their own Targums, all rendering the word Messiah, and by the constant tradition of the elder doctors. Some say, that by the sceptre and scribe, the rod of affliction and instruction only are intended; which is a gloss evidently contrary to the design of the prophecy, to the use of the words in all places where their sense is not restrained by evident circumstances, to the Targums, and to all old writers; asserting that which was not peculiar to Judah, nor true in itself; that tribe having for so long a season enjoyed as flourishing a condition as any people in the world, as good as the Jews look for under the Messiah. This state then is utterly gone, and their Messiah as it seems not come.

‘2. What say they unto their temple, that second house whereunto he was to come, and so render the glory of it greater than that of the former. Hag. 11; Mal. iii. Of old they unanimously agreed, that he was born whilst the temple stood, or that day that it was destroyed, as Aben Ezra confesseth on Isa. lili. Many stories out of them might be told to this purpose; where he was born, how, and of whom; to whom it was revealed by the 5p na who saw him, where he was disposed of, where he is; but these being all the fancies of idle curious heads, and unbelieving hearts, which St. Paul calls εβηλους και ypa- ὠδεὶς μυθους, 1 Tim. iv. 7, profane and old wives ’ fables, we shall not trouble the reader with them. Abarbinel, who in corrupting the prophecies concerning the Messiah, hath a reach beyond his fellows, affirms that Haggai speaks not ‘of the second, but of a third temple to be built under the Messiah; but this is nothing but a bold contradiction of the prophet, who three or four times signally declares that he spake of that house which was then building, which their eyes saw, and which so many contemned as not to be compared with the former, ch. i. 4, this house, ch. ii. 7, this house, ver. 8, this house, so ver. 18. Others say, that the glory of that house did not consist in the coming of the Messiah unto it, but in its duration and continuance; for it stood ten years longer than the former. But this also is contrary, 1. To the catholic persuasion of their forefathers, Targums, Talmuds, and all ancient doctors. 2. To experience; for what could the miserable languishing of ten years by that house, whilst it was by their own confession a den of thieves, contribute unto it to enable it to vie for glory with that wonder of the world the temple of Solomon, in comparison whereof, their forefathers thought it no more than some of them of old thought themselves when compared to the sons of Anak. 3. To the truth; affirming that the glory of that house was to consist in the coming of the Lord, whom they sought, the desire of all nations, unto it: all which things are vindicated in our Prolegomena.

3. Their temple being utterly destroyed, as well as their state, and their Messiah not yet come, what think they of their sacrifices? Daniel tells them that he was to come, and to be cut off, before the ceasing of the daily sacrifices. But they must confess, that all sacrifices are long since utterly ceased; for surely their offering of a cock to the devil on the day of expiation, is no continuance of them. Some say, that the Messiah intended by Daniel, was king Agrippa, whom Vespasian slew at Rome. But this obstinacy i is intolerable. Thata semi-pagan, as Agrippa was, should be their Messiah, so honourably foretold, is a figment which, whatever they pretend, they themselves believe not. Nor was Agrippa slain, or cut off, but lived in peace to the day of his death. The most of them know not what to say, but only object that the computation of Damiel is dark and obscure, which Christians themselves are not agreed about: concerning which, I must refer the reader to our Prolegomena; as also for the full and large handling of the things here by the way only touched upon.’

This makes it evident who the persons were who were spoken to in these last days, To US, ἧμιν; that is, tothe members of the Judaical church, who lived in the days of the personal ministry of Christ, and afterwards under the preaching of the gospel to that day, ch. 11. 3. The Jews of those days were very apt to think, that if they had lived in the times of the former prophets, and had heard them delivering their message from God, they would have received it with a cheerful obedience; ‘their only unhappiness they thought was, that they were born out of due time.as to prophetical revelations. This is intimated of them, Matt. xxii. 30, The apostle meeting with this persuasion in them, minds them that in the revelation of the gospel, God had spoken to themselves, the things they so much desired, not questioning but that thereon they should believe and obey. If this word then they attend not unto, they must needs be self-condemned. Again, that care and love which God manifested towards them, in speaking immediately unto them, required the same obedience; especially considering the manner of it, so far excelling that which before he had used towards the fathers; of which afterwards.

And these are two instances of the comparison instituted, relating unto times and persons.

TloAvpepwe, by many parts, and so consequently at sundry times. The gradual discovery of the mind and will of God, by the addition of one thing after another, at several seasons, as the church could bear the light of them, and as it was subserving to his main design of reserving all pre-eminence to the Messiah, is that which is intended in this expression. How all this is argumentative to the apostle’s purpose, will instantly appear. Take the expression absolutely to denote the whole progress of divine revelation from the beginning of the world, and it compriseth four principal parts or degrees, with those that were subservient unto them.

The first of these was made to Adam, in the promise of the Seed, which was the principle of faith and obedience to the fathers before the flood; and unto this were subservient all the consequent particular revelations made to Seth, Enos, Enoch, Lamech, and others before the flood.

The second to Noah after the flood, in the renewal of the covenant, and establishing the church in his family, Gen. viti. 21, ch. ix. 9, 10, whereunto were subservient the revelations made to Melchisedec, Gen. xiv. 18, and others before the calling of Abraham.

The third to Abraham in the restriction of the promise to his seed, and fuller illustration of the nature of it, Gen. xii. 1—4, ch. xv. 11, 12, xvii. 1, 2, confirmed in the revelations made to Isaac, Gen. xxvi. 24; Jacob, Gen. xlix; Joseph, Heb. xi. 22, and to others of their posterity.

The fourth to Moses in the giving of the law, and erection of the Judaical church in the wilderness, unto which there were three principal heads of subservient revelations:

1. To David, which was peculiarly designed to perfect the revelation of the will of God concerning the Old Testament worship, in those things that their wilderness condition was not capable of, 1 Chron. xxii, 25—28, ch. xxvii. 11—19. To him we may join Solomon, with the rest of the prophets of their days.

2. To the prophets, after the division of the kingdem until the captivity, and during the captivity; to whom it was peculiar to be

3. To Ezra, with the prophets that assisted in the reformation of the church after its return from Babylon, who, in an especial manner, excited the people to an expectation of the coming of the Messiah.;

These were the principal parts and degrees of the revelation of the will of God from the foundation of the world, until the coming of Christ in his fore-runner John the Baptist. And all this I have fully handled and unfolded in my discourse of the rise, nature, and progress of Scripture divinity or theology.

But as I showed before, if we attend unto the special intention of the apostle, we must take in the date of these revelations, and begin with that to Moses, adding to it those other subservient ones now mentioned, which were peculiar to the Judaical church, which taught and confirmed the worship that was established amongst them.

This then is that which in this word the apostle minds the Hebrews of; namely, that the will of God concerning his worship and our obedience, was not formerly revealed all at once to his church, by Moses or any other; but by several parts and degrees, by new additions of light, as in his infinite wisdom and care he saw meet. The close and last hand was not to be put unto this work before the coming of the Messiah. He, they all acknowledged, was to reveal the whole counsel of God, John iv. 25, after that his way had been prepared by the coming of Elias, Mal. iv. Until that time they were to attend to the law of Moses, with those expositions of it which they had received, ver. 4, 5. That was the time appointed, pm onnd wan, fo seal, complete and finish, viston and prophet; as also ΓΊΝΩ onm>, to seal up sin, or as we render it, to make an end of sin, or the controversy about it, which had long been held in agitation by sacrifices, that could never put an end to that quarrel, Heb. lee Ae.

Now in this very first word of his epistle, doth the apostle clearly convince the Hebrews of their mistake in their obstinate adherence unto Mosaic institutions. It is as if he had bidden them consider the way whereby Ged revealed his will to the church hitherto. Hath it not been by parts and degrees? Hath he at any time shut up the progress of revelation? Hath he not always kept the church in expectation of new revelations of his mind and will? did he ever declare that he would add no more unto what he had commanded, or make no alteration in what he had instituted? What he had revealed was to be observed, Deut. xxvii. 29, and when he had revealed it: but until he declare that he will add no more, it is folly to account what is already done, absolutely complete and immutable. Therefore Moses, when he had finished all his work in the Lord’s house, tells the church, that God would raise up another prophet like unto him; that is, who should reveal new laws and institutions as he had done, whom they were to hear and obey on the penalty of utter extermination, Deut. xviii. 18.

‘ And this discovers the obstinacy of the modern Jews, who from the days of Maimonides, who died about the year of our Lord 1104, have made it one of the fundamental articles of their religion, which they have inserted in their prayer-books, that the law of Moses is never to be changed, and that God will never give them any other law, or rule of worship. And as they further ground that article in Ezrim Vearba, printed in the end of Bomberg’s Bibles, they affirm, that ‘ nothing can be added unto it, nothing taken away from it, and that no alteration in its obligation can be admitted;’ which is directly contrary both to the truth and to the confession of all their predecessors, who looked for the Messiah, as we shall afterwards declare.’

In opposition to this gradual revelation of the mind of God under the Old Testament, the apostle intimates, that now by Jesus the Messiah, the Lord hath at once begun and finished the whole revelation of his will, according to their own hopes and expectation. So, Jude 3, the faith ‘was once delivered unto the saints;’ not in one day, not in one sermon, or by one person, but at one season, or under one dispensation, comprising all the time from the entrance of the Lord Christ upon his ministry, and the closing of the Canon of Scripture, which period was now at hand. This season being once past and finished, no new revelation is to be expected to the end of the world. Nothing shall be added unto, nor altered in the worship of God any more. God will not do it; men that attempt it, do it on the price of their souls.

2. God spake in the prophets, πολυτροπως; after divers sorts or manners. Now this respects either the various ways of God’s revealing himself to the prophets, by dreams, visions, inspirations, voices, angels, every way with an equal evidence of their being from God; or the ways of his dealing with the fathers by the prophets, by promises, threats, gradual discoveries of his will, special messages and prophecies, public sermons, and the like. The latter, or the various ways of the prophets delivering their messages to the people from God, is principally intended, though the former be not excluded, it being that from whence this latter variety did principally arise and flow.

In opposition hereunto, the apostle intimates, that the revelation of God and his will by Christ was accomplished povedwe, in one onl way and manner, by his preaching the gospel who was anointed with the Spirit without measure.

Now these prophets in whom God spake of old, were all those who were divinely inspired and sent to reveal his will and mind, as to the duty of the church, or any special concernment of his providence in the rule and government thereof, whether they declared the inspirations they had, or revelations they received, by word of mouth, or by writing. ‘The modern Jews make a distinction between the gift of prophecy and the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, following Maimonides in his More Nebuchim, part ii. cap. 32. His opinion, which he calls the opinion or sentence of the law, about prophecy in general, is the same with that of the Gentile philosophers, as he professeth. In one thing only he differs from them; namely, that prophecy doth not so necessarily follow after due preparation, as that a man cannot but prophesy who is rightly prepared. But the gift of prophecy he asserts wholly to depend on the temperature of the brain, natural and moral exercises for the preparing and raising of the imagination, upon which divine visions will succeed; a brainsick imagination, confounding divine revelation with fanatical distempers. But in the eleven degrees of prophecy which he assigns, and attempts to prove by instances out of Scripture, he placeth that of inspiration by the Holy Ghost in the last and lowest place. And therefore by the late masters is the book of Daniel cast into this latter sort, though eminently prophetical, because they are so galled with his predictions and calculations; no other reason of that disposition readily occurs. And this is the ground of their disposition of the books of the Scripture, into rmn, the law, or the five books of Moses, given in the highest way and degree of prophecy; D2, of two sorts, DWI and ὈΣΥΤΝ prophets, first (or books historical) and the latter; and pains, or ΡΤ mm, ‘books written by inspiration of the Holy Ghost. Of the ground of which distinction, see Kimchi in his preface to the Psalms. Their mistake lies in this, that prophecy consists principally in, and is distinguished into several degrees, by the manner of revelation; as by dreanis, visions, appearances of angels or men, and the like. But as x, a prophet, and N22, prophecy, are of a larger signification than that pretended, as appears from Num. xi. 29; 1 Sam. x. 5; 1 Chron. xxv. 1—3,; so that which made any revelation to be prophecy in that sense, as to be an infallible rule for the guidance of the church, was not the means of communicating it to the prophets, but that inspiration of the Holy Ghost which implanted in their minds, and gave forth by their tongues or pens, that which God would utter in them, and by them, 2 Pet. i. 20, 21.

- In answer unto this speaking of God in the prophets, it is asserted, that in the revelation νοῦ the gospel, God spake in his Son, εν tw. This is the main hinge on which all the arguments of the apostle in the whole epistle do turn; this bears the stress of all the inferences afterwards by him insisted on. And _ therefore having mentioned it, he proceeds immediately unto that description of him, which gives evidence to all that he draws from this consideration, Now because no one argument of the apostle can be understood, unless this be rightly stated, we must of necessity insist somewhat largely upon it; and unto what we principally intend, some previous observations must be premised.

1. I take it at present for granted, that the Son of God appeared unto the prophets under the Old Testament. Whether ever he spake unto them immediately, or only by the ministry of angels, is not. so certain. It is also granted, that there was in vision sometimes signs or representations of the person of the Father, as Dan. vii. But that the Son of God did chiefly appear to the fathers under the Old Testament, is acknowledged by the ancients, and is evident in Scripture: see Zech. i. 8—11. And he it was who is called the angel, Exod. xxiii. 20, 21. The reason that is pleaded by some, that the Son of God was not the angel there mentioned, namely, because the apostle says, that “ To none of the angels was it said at any time, Thou art my Son, this day I have begotten thee,” which could not be affirmed if the Son of God were that angel, is not of any force. For notwithstanding this assertion, yet both the ancient Jews and Christians generally grant, that it is the Messiah that is called the angel of the covenant, Mal. ii. 1, though the modern: Jews foolishly apply that name to Elias, whom they fancy to be present at circumcision, which they take to be the covenant; a privilege, as they say, granted him upon his complaint, that the children of Israel had forsaken the covenant, 1 Kings xix. 14, that is, as they suppose, neglected circumcision. The apostle therefore speaks of those who were angels by nature, and no more, and not of him who being Jehovah the Son, was sent of the Father, and is therefore called his angel or messenger, being so only by office. And this appearance of the Son of God, though not well understanding what they say, is acknowledged by sundry of the Post-talmudical Rabbins. ‘To this purpose very considerable are the words of Moses Gernudensis, on

Exod. xxiii. Iste Angelus si rem ipsam dicamus, est Angelus Redemptor, de quo scriptum est, quoniam nomen meum in ipso est. Ille nquam Angelus qui ad Jacob dicebat, Ego Deus Bethel. Ille de quo dictum est, et vocabat Mosen Deus de rubo. Vocatur autem Angelus, quia mundum gubernat. Scriptum est enim, eduxit nos ex /Egypto. Preterea scriptum est, et Angelus faciei salvos fecit eos. Nimirum ille Angelus qui est Dei facies; de quo dictum est, facies mea preibit et efficiam ut quiescas; denique ille Angelus est de quo vates, subito veniet ad templum suum Dominus quem vos queritis, » Angelus fcederis quem cupitis. ‘The angel, if we speak exactly, is the angel the Redeemer, of whom it is written, my name is in him; that angel which said unto Jacob, I am the God of Bethel. He of whom it is said, God called unto Moses out of the bush. And he is called the angel, because he governeth the world. For it is written, “Jehovah brought us out of Egypt;” and elsewhere, ‘‘ He sent his angel, and brought us out of Egypt.” And again, it is written, “ And the angel of his presence (face) saved them; namely, the angel which is the presence (face) of God; of whom it is said, my presence (face) shall go before thee, and I will cause thee to rest:” lastly, that angel of whom the prophet speaks, “the Lord whom you

seek shall suddenly come to his temple, the angel of the covenant whom you desire.” ‘To the same purpose speaks the same author on Exod. xxxii. 14.“ My presence shall go before thee;” Animadverte attente quid ista sibi velint. Moses enim et Israelite semper optaverunt Angelum primum; ceterum, quis ille esset vere intelligere non potuerunt. Neque enim ab aliis percipiebant, neque prophetica notione satis assequebantur. Atqui facies Dei ipsum significat Deum— And again, Facies mea precedet, hoc est, Angelus fcederis quem vos cupitis. ‘Observe diligently what is the meaning of these words; for Moses and the Israelites always desired the principal angel, but who he was they could not perfectly understand: for they could neither learn it of others, nor attain it by prophecy, but the presence of God is God himself. ‘* My presence (face) shall go before thee; that is, the anget of the covenant whom ye desire.” Thus he: to which

purpose others also of them do speak; though how to reconcile these things to their unbelief in denying the personality of the Son of God they know not. This was the angel whose ps4, Moses prayed for on Joseph, Deut. xxxii. 16, and whom Jacob made to be the same with the “ God that fed him all his days,” Gen. xlviii. 15, 16, whereof we have treated largely before. The Son of God having from the foundation of the world undertaken the care and salvation - of the church, he it was who immediately dealt with it in things which concerned its instruction and edification. Neither doth thus hinder but that God the Father may be, or that in this place he is asserted to be, the fountain of all divine revelation.

2. There is a difference between the Son of God revealing the will of God in his divine person to the prophets, of which we have spoken, and the Son of God as incarnate, revealing the will of God immediately to the church. This is the difference here insisted on by the apostle. Under the Old Testament the Son of God in his divine person instructed the prophets in the will of God, and gave them that spirit on whose divine inspiration their infallibility did depend, 1 Pet. i. 11; but now in the revelation of the gospel, taking his own humanity, or our nature hypostatically united unto him, in the room of all the axternuncit or prophetical messengers he had made use of, he taught it immediately himself.

There lies a seeming exception unto this distinction in the giving of the law; for as we affirm, that it was the Son by whom the law was given, so in his so doing he spake immediately to the whole church, Exod. xx. 29, The Lord said, “I have talked with you from heaven.” The Jews say, that the people understood not one word of what was spoken, but only heard a voice, and saw the terrible appearances of the majesty of God, as ver. 18; for immediately upon that sight, they removed and stood afar off; and the matter is left doubtful in the repetition of the story, Deut. v. 4. It is said indeed, “ The Lord talked with you face to face in the mount;” but yet neither do these words fully prove that they understood what was spoken, and as it was spoken, but only that they clearly discovered the presence of God delivering the law: for so are those words expounded in ver. 5; “1 stood,” saith Moses, “between the Lord and you at that time, to show you the word of the Lord, for you were afraid by reason of the fire, and went not up into the mount;” that is, you understood not the words of the law, but as I declared them unto you; and it being so, though the person of the Son caused the words to be heard, yet he spake not immediately to the whole church, but by Moses. But secondly, we shall afterwards show, that all the voices then heard by Moses or the people, were formed in the air by the ministry of angels, so that they heard not the immediate voice of God. Now in the last days did the Lord take that work into his own hands, wherein from the foundation of the world he had employed angels and men.

3. Though the apostle’s argument arise not immediately from the different ways of God’s revealing himself to the prophets, and to Christ; but in the difference that lies in his immediate speaking unto us in Christ the Son, and his speaking unto the fathers in the prophets, yet that former difference also is intimated by him, in his affirming, that he spake to them variously or diversly, as hath been declared, and thereforé we must consider that also; and herein we are to obviate the great Judaical prejudice against the gospel, to which end observe,

1. That though the apostle mentions the prophets in general, yet it is Moses whom he principally intends. This is evident in the application of this argument which he makes in particular, ch. 111. 3, where he expressly prefers the Lord Jesus before Moses by name, in this matter of ministering to the church in the name of God. For whereas, as was before intimated, the apostle manages this thing with excellent wisdom in this epistle, considering the inveterate prejudices of the Hebrews in their adhering unto Moses, he could not mention him ~ In particular, until he had proved him whom he preferred above him to be so excellent and glorious, so far exalted above men and angels, that it was no injury to the reputation of Moses to be esteemed inferior to him.

2. That the great reason why the Jews adhered so pertinaciously unto Mosaic institutions, was their persuasion of the unparalleled excellency of the revelation to Moses. This they retreated unto, and boasted of, when they were pressed with the doctrine and miracles of Christ, John ix. 28, 29. And this was the main foundation in all their contests with the apostles, Acts xv. 1, xxi. 28. And this at length they have made a principal root or fundamental article of their faith, being the fourth of the thirteen articles of their creed; namely, that Moses was the most excellent and most sublime among the prophets, so far above that excellency, that degree of wisdom and honour which men may attain unto, that he was equal to angels. This Maimonides, the first disposer of their faith into fundamental articles, expounds at large, More Nebuch. p. 2, cap. 39. Declaravi-

mus, saith he, quod prophetia Mosis doctoris nostri ab omnium aliorum prophetiis differat; dicemus nunc quod propter solam illam apprehensionem ad legem vocati sumus; quia nempe vocationi illi qua Moses nos vocavit similis neque antecessit ab Adamo primo ad ipsum usque, neque etiam post ipsum apud ullum prophetam secuta est; sic undamentum Legis nostre est quod in eternum finem non sit habi-

tura vel abolenda, ac propterea, etiam ex sententia nostra, alia lex nec unquam fuit, nec erit preeter unicam hanc Legem Mosis doctoris nostri. ‘ We have declared that the prophecy of Moses our master, differeth from the prophecies of all others; now we shall show that upon the account of this persuasion alone, (namely of the excellency of the revelation made to Moses,) ‘ we are called to the law. For from the first Adam to him, there was never any such call’ (from God) ‘as that wherewith Moses called us, nor did ever any such ensue after him. Hence it is a fundamental principle of our law, that it shall never have an end, or be abolished, and therefore, also, it is our judgment that there was never any other (divine) law, nor ever shall be, but only this of our master Moses.’ This is their present persuasion,

it was so of old. The law and all legal observances are to be continued for ever: other way of worshipping God there can be none: and this upon the account of the incomparable excellency of the revelation made to Moses.

To confirm themselves in this prejudicate apprehension, they assign a four-fold pre-eminence to the prophecy of Moses above that of other prophets, and these are insisted on by the same Maimonides, in his explication of cap. x. Tractat. Sanedr. and by sundry others of them.

1. The first they fix on is this, ‘That God never spake to any prophet immediately, but only to Moses,’ to him he spake without angelical mediation. For so he affirms that he spake to him, 7D 5x ΠΏ; ““mouth to mouth, Numb. xii. 8.

2. * All other prophets,’ they say, ‘ received their visions either in their sleep, or presently after their sleep, but Moses in the day time standing between the cherubims,’ Exod. xxix. 42. And,

3. ‘That when other prophets received their visions or revelations, although it was by the mediation of angels, yet their nature was weakened by it, and the state of their bodies, by reason of the consternation that befel them, Dan. x. ὃ, but Moses had no such perturbation befalling him when the Lord spake to him, but it was with him, as when “a man speaks unto his friend.” ’

4. ‘That other prophets had not inspirations and answers from God at their own pleasures, but sometimes were forced to wait long, and pray for an answer before they could receive it. But Moses was wont when he pleased to say, “Stay and I will hear what God will command you,” Num. ix. 8.’ So they.

And to reconcile this to what 15 elsewhere said, that he could not see the face of God and live, they add, that he saw God not immediately but s»>paoxa, in speculo or speculari, (a word formed from the Latin,) ‘in a glass,’ an expression which the apostle alludes to 1 Cor. xiii. 12, only they add oxn OXY NT AMDpEDS yon TNR, ‘other prophets saw through nine perspectives,’ N>ppD ana ANT TMA nnx ‘ but Moses saw through one only,’ Vaiikra Rabba. sec. 1, whereunto they add that his speculum was clear and lucid, theirs spotted.

It must be granted that Moses, being the lawgiver and first revealer of all that worship, in the observance whereof the Judaical church state and privilege of that people did consist, had the pre-eminence above the succeeding prophets, whose ministry chiefly tended to instruct the people in the nature, and keep them to the observance of his institutions. But that all these things by them insisted on, were peculiar to him, it doth not appear, nor if it did so, are the most of them of any great weight or importance.

The first is granted, and a signal privilege it was. God spake to him D2» dx Ὁ, ‘ face to face,’ Exod. xxxin. 11, and mp 5x mp, ‘mouth to mouth,’ Num. xii. 8; and this is mentioned as that which was peculiar to him above the prophets which should succeed him in the ministry of that church. But that Moses saw the essence of God, which the Jews contend from these words, is expressly denied in the text itself. For even then when it was said, that God spake to him face to face, it is also affirmed that he did not, nor could see the face of God, Exod. xxxiii. 20; see John i. 17, 18. Both these expressions intend only that God revealed himself to him in a more clear and familiar way than he had done to other prophets, or would do while that administration continued. For although the things he revealed to and by other prophets, were more clear, evident, and open to the understanding of believers, than they were in the revelation made to Moses, (they being intended as expositions of it,) yet in the way of the revelation itself, God dealt more clearly and familiarly with Moses, than with any other prophet of that church whatever.

The second difference assigned is vain. Of the times and seasons wherein the prophets received their visions there can be no determinate rule assigned. Many of them were at ordinary seasons, whilst they were waking, and some about the employment of their callings, as Amos vil. 15.

The third also, about that consternation of spirit which befel other prophets, is groundless. Sometimes it was so with them, as the instance of Daniel proves, chap. viii. 28, x. 8; and so it befel Moses himself, Heb. xii. 21, which, if we attain to that place, we shall prove the Jews themselves to acknowledge. Ordinarily it was otherwise, as with him so with them, as is manifest in the whole story of the prophets.

There is the same mistake in the last difference assigned. Moses did not so receive the spirit of prophecy, as that he could at his own pleasure reveal those things which were not discoverable but by that spirit, or speak out the mind of God infallibly m any thing for the use of the church without actual inspiration as to that particular; which is evident from the mistake that he was under as to the manner of his government, which he rectified by the advice of Jethro, Exod. xviii. 19. And likewise in other instances did he wait for particular answers from God, Num. xv. 34. To have a comprehension at once of the whole will of God concerning the obedience and salvation of tlie church, was a privilege reserved for “him who in all things was to have the pre-eminence.” And it seems that Maimonides himself in his exaltation of Moses excepted the Messiah. For whereas in the Hebrew and Latin copies of More Nebuch. part 2. cap. 45. there are these words, dx>w» s8y> naa 13 Dam, which Buxtorf renders, ‘est gradus hic etiam prestantissimorum consiliariorum Israelis,—this is the degree (in prophecy) of the counsellors of Israel:’ the Arabic or original hath, ‘And this also is the degree of the Messiah of Israel, who goeth before, or excelleth all others,’ that is, in point of prophecy.

Not to follow them in their imaginations, the just privileges of Moses above all other prophets lay in these three things:

1. That he was the lawgiver and mediator by whom God gave that law, and revealed that worship, in the observance whereof the very being of the Judaical church did consist.

2. That God in the revelation made to him, dealt in a more familiar and clear manner, as to the way of his outward dealing, than with any other prophets.

3. In that the revelation made to him concerned the ordering of the whole hou&e of God, when the other propliets were employed only about particulars built on his foundation.

In these three things consisted the just and free pre-eminence of Moses, which, whether it were such as would warrant the Jews in their obstinate adherence to his institutions upon their own principles, shall be inquired into. But before we manifest that indeed it was not, the revelation of the mind of God in and by the Son, which is compared with, and preferred before and above this of Moses, must be unfolded, and this we shall do in the ensuing observations.

1. The Lord Jesus Christ, by virtue of the union of his person, was from the womb filled with a perfection of gracious light and knowledge of God and his will. An actual exercise of that principle of holy wisdom wherewith he was endued, in his infancy, as afterwards, he had not, Lukeii. 52. Nor had he in his human nature an absolutely infinite comprehension of all individual things past, present, and to come, which he expressly denies, as to the day of judgment, Mat. xxiv. 36, Mark xiii. 32. But he was furnished with all that wisdom and knowledge which the human nature was capable of, both as to principle and exercise, in the condition wherein it was, without destroying its finite being, and variety of conditions from the womb. The Papists have made a vain controversy about the knowledge of the human soul of Christ. Those whom they charge with error in this matter, affirm no more than what is expressly asserted in the places of Scripture above mentioned; and by their answers to those places, it is evident how little they care to what scorn they expose the Scripture and all religion, if they may secure their own mistakes. But this wisdom, whatever it were, is not that whereby God so revealed his mind to him, as thereby to be said to speak to us in him. He had it by his union, and therefore immediately from the person of the Son, sanctifying that nature by the Holy Ghost which he took into subsistence with himself. But the revelation, by which God spake in him to us, was in a peculiar manner from the Father, Rev.i. 1, and as we have showed, it is the person of the Father that is here peculiarly spoken of. And hence the inquiry of some on this place, how the second person revealed himself to the human nature, is not to the purpose of it. For it is the person of the Father that is spoken of. So that,

2. The commission, the mission and the furnishing of the Son as incarnate and as Mediator, with abilities for the declaration of the mind and will of God to the church, were peculiarly from the Father.

For the whole work of his mediation, he received command of the Father, John x. 18, and what he should speak, John xii. 49, according to which commandment he wrought and taught, John xiv. 31. Whence that is the common periphrasis whereby he expressed the person of the Father, ‘he that sent him, as also ‘he that sealed and anointed him.’ And on that account he testified, that his doctrine was not his, his own, that is, primarily or originally as Mediator, but his that sent him, John vii. 16. It was from the Father that he heard the word, and learned the doctrine that he declared to the church. And this is asserted wherever there is mention made of the Father's sending, sealing, anointing, commanding, teaching him; of his doing the will, speaking the words, seeking the glory, obeying the commands of him that sent him. See John viii. 26, 28, 40, xiv. 10. xv. 15, Rev. i. 1; and in the Old Testament, Zech. ii. 8, Isa. xlviii. 15—17, chap.1.4. That blessed tongue of the learned whereby God spake in and by him, the refreshing word of the gospel, to poor weary sinners, was the gift of the Father. z

3. As to the manner of his receiving the revelation of the will of God, a double mistake must be removed, and then the nature of it must be declared.

1. The Socinians, to avoid the force of those testimonies which are urged to confirm the deity of Christ, from the assertions in the gospel that he who spake to the disciples on earth was then also in heaven, John iii. 13, vi. 35, 51, vil. 32, 33, 41, 42, 57, 58, vii. 29, have broached a Mahometan fancy, that the Lord Christ, before his entrance on his public ministry, was locally taken up into heaven, and there instructed in the mystery of the gospel, and the mind of God which he was to reveal, Catech. Raccov. cap. 3. de Offic. Ch. Prophet. Quest. 4, 5. Smalcius de Divinitat. Christi, cap. 4. Socin. Respons. ad Paren. Vol ii. p. 38, 39.

But, 1. There was no cause of any such rapture of the human nature of Christ, as we shall evidence in manifesting the way whereby he was taught of the Father, especially after his baptism. 9. This imaginary rapture is grounded solely on their towrov ψευδος, that the Lord Christ in his whole person was no more than a mere man. 3. There is no mention of any such thing in the Scripture, where the Father’s revealing his mind and will to the Son is treated of, which, had it been, ought not to have been omitted. 4. The fancy of it is expressly contrary to Scripture; for, 1. The Holy Ghost affirms, that Christ entered once into the holy place, and that after he had obtained eternal redemption, Heb.ix. 12, which should have been his second entrance, had he been taken thither before in his human nature, so that coming of his into the world, which we look for at the last day, is called “his second coming,” his “‘coming again,” because of his first entrance into it at his incarnation, Heb. ix.28. 2. He was to suffer before his entrance into heaven and his glory therein, Luke xxiv. 26. And 8. As to the time of his ascension which these men assign, namely, the forty days after his baptism, it is said expressly that he was all that time “in the wilderness amongst the wild beasts,’ Mark i. 13. So that this figment may have no place in our inquiry into the way of the Father’s speaking in the Son.

2. Some lay the whole weight of the revelation of the will of God to Christ, upon the endowments of the human nature by virtue of its personal union with the eternal Word; but this is wholly inconsistent with the many testimonies before rehearsed, of the Father’s revealing himself to him after that union. Wherefore, to declare the nature of this revelation, we must observe further,

4, That Jesus Christ in his divine nature, as he was the eternal Word and Wisdom of the Father, not by a voluntary communication, but eternal generation, had an omniscience of the whole nature and will of God, as the Father himself hath, because the same with that of the Father; their will and wisdom being the same. This is the blessed συμπεριχωρησις; or ‘in-being of each person,’ the one in the other, by virtue of their oneness in the same nature: thus, as God, he had an absolute omniscience. Moreover, the mystery of the gospel, the especial counsel and covenant of it concerning the redemption of the elect in his blood, and the worship of God by his redeemed ones, being transacted between Father and Sor from all eternity, was known to him as the Son, by virtue of his own personal transactions with the Father in the eternal counsel and covenant of it. See what we have elsewhere delivered concerning that covenant.

5. The Lord Christ discharged his office and work of revealing the will of the Father, in and by his human nature, that nature wherein he dwelt among us, John 1.14. For although the person of Christ, God and man, was our Mediator, Acts*xx. 28; John i. 14.18, yet his human nature was that wherein he discharged the duties of his office, and the principium quod of all his mediatory actings, 1 Tim. 11. 5.

6. This human nature of Christ, as he was in it “made of a woman made under the law,” Gal iv. 4. was from the instant of its union with the person of the Son of God, a “holy thing,” Luke 1. 35, “Holy, harmless, undefiled, separated from sinners,” and radically filled with all that perfection of habitual grace and wisdom, which was or could be necessary to the discharge of that whole duty which as a man he owed to God, Luke ii. 40, 49, 52; John vill. 46; 1 Pet. 11.22. But,

7. Besides this furniture with habitual grace for the performance of all holy obedience to God, as a man made under the law, there was a peculiar endowment with the Spirit, without and beyond the bounds of all comprehensible measures, that he was to receive as the great Prophet of the church, in whom the Father would speak and give out the last revelation of himself. This communication of the Spirit to him, was the foundation of his sufficiency for the discharge of his prophetical office, Isa. xi. 2,3, xlviii. 16, Ixi. 1—3, Dan.ix.24. As to the reality and being of this gift of the Spirit, he received it from the womb, whence in his infancy he was said to be πληρουμενος σοφίας, Luke ii. 40. “filled with wisdom,” wherewith he confuted the doctors to amazement, ver. 47. And with his years were these gifts increased in him; προέκοπτε σοφίᾳ και ἡλικίᾳ Kat yagurt, ‘he went forwards in wisdom, and stature, and favour, ver.52. But the full communication of this Spirit, with special reference to the discharge of his public office, with the visible pledge of it in the Holy Ghost descending on him in the shape of a dove, he was made partaker of in his baptism, Matt. iii. 16, when also he received his first public testimony from heaven, ver. 17; which when again repeated, received the additional command of hearing him, Mat. xvii. 5, designing the prophet that was to be heard on pain of utter extermination, Deut. xviii. 18,19. And therefore he was thereupon said to be πνευματος ayiov πληρης, Luke iv. 1. “full of the Holy Ghost,” and sealed to this work by the sign foretold of God, John 1. 33. (

This was the foundation of the Father’s speaking in the Son as incarnate. He spake in him by his Spirit, so he did in the prophets of old, 2 Pet.i.21. And herein in general the prophecy of Christ and theirs did agree. It remaineth then to show wherein his pre-eminence above them did consist, so that the word spoken by him 15 principally and eminently to be attended to, which is the argument of that which the apostle hath in hand in this place.

8. The pre-eminencies of the prophecy of Christ, above that of Moses, and all other prophets, were of two sorts, 1. Such as arose from his person who was the prophet. 2. Such as accompanied the nature and manner of the revelation made to him.

1. They arise from the infinite excellency of his person above theirs. This is that which the apostle from the close of this verse insists upon to the very end of the chapter, making his discourse upon it the basis of his ensuing exhortations. I shall therefore remit the consideration of it, unto its proper place.

2. There were sundry excellences that attended the very revelation itself, made unto him, or his prophecy as such. _ For,

1. “Receiving the Spirit not by measure,” John iii. 34, as they all did, he had given unto him altogether, a comprehension of the whole will and mind of God, as to whatever he would have revealed of himself, with the mystery of our salvation, and all that obedience and worship which in this world he would require of his church. “ It pleased the Father, that in him all fulness should dwell,” Col. 1. 19, that is, ‘‘of grace and truth,” John i. 17, not granting him a transient irradiation by them, but a permanence and a constant abode of them with him in their fulness; all “treasures of wisdom and knowledge being hid in him,” Col. ii. 3, as their home and proper abiding place; which made him of “ quick understanding in the fear of the Lord,” Isa. xi. 3. All the mysteries of the counsel between the Father. and _ the eternal Word for the salvation of the elect, with all the ways whereby it was to be accomplished through his own blood, were known unto him; as also were all the bounds, the whole extent of that worship which his church was. to render unto God, with the assistance of the Spirit that was to be afforded unto them for that end and purpose. Hence, the only reason why he did not at once reveal unto his disciples the whole counsel of God, was not because all the treasures of it were not committed unto him, but because they could bear no other but that gradual communication of it, which he used towards them, John xvi. 19. But he himself dwelt in the midst of those treasures, seeing to the bottom of them. All other prophets, even Moses himself, receiving their revelation by transient irradiations of their minds, had no treasure of truth dwelling in them, but apprehended only that particular wherein they were enlightened, and even that not clearly in its fulness and perfection, but in a measure of light accommodated unto the age wherein they lived, 1 Pet.i. 11,12. Hence the Spirit is said to rest on him, Isa. xi. 2, 3, and to abide on him, Matt. iii. 16, who did only in a transient act affect the minds of other prophets; and by an actual motion, which had not an habitual spring in themselves, cause them to speak or write the will of God; as an instrument of music gives forth a sound according to the skill of him that strikes it, and that only when it is so stricken or used. Hence,

2. The prophets receiving their revelations, as it were, by number and tale from the Holy Ghost, when they had spoken or written what in particular at any season they had received from him, could not add one word or syllable of the same infallibility and authority with what they had so received. But the Lord Christ having all the treasures of wisdom, knowledge, and truth hid and laid up in him, did at all times, in all places, with equal infallibility and authority give forth the mind and will of God, even as he would; what he so spake, having its whole authority from his speaking of it, and not from its consonancy unto any thing otherwise revealed.

3. The prophets of old were so barely instrumental in receiving and revealing the will of God, being only servants in the house, Heb. ii. 4, for the good of others, 1 Pet. i. 11, that they saw not to the bottom of the things by themselves revealed; and did therefore both diligently read and study the books of them that wrote before their time, Dan. ix. 2, and meditated upon the things which the Spirit uttered by themselves, to obtain an understanding in them, 1 Pet. i. 10—12. But the Lord Jesus, the Lord over his own house, had an absolutely perfect comprehension of all the mysteries revealed to him and by him, by that divine wisdom which always dwelt in him.

4. The difference was no less between them in respect of the revelations themselves made to them, and by them. For although the substance of the will and mind of God concerning salvation by the Messiah was made known unto them all, yet it was done so obscurely to Moses and the prophets that ensued, that they all came short in the light of that mystery of John the baptist; and he did not rise up ina clear and distinct apprehension of it, unto the least of the true disciples of Christ, Matt. xi. 11, whence the giving of the law by Moses to instruct the church in that mystery, by its types and shadows, is opposed to that grace and truth which were brought by Jesus Christ, John i. 17, 18. See Ephes. iti, 8B—11; Col. i. 26,27; Tit. i. 11; 2 Tim. i. 10,

In these and sundry other things of the like importance, had the Father’s speaking in the Son the pre-eminence above his speaking in Moses and the prophets; for which cause the apostle placeth this consideration in the head of his reasonings and arguments, for attendance unto and observance of the things revealed by him. For even all these things have influence into his present argument, though the main stress of it be laid on the excellency of his person, of which at large afterwards.

6. We must yet further observe, that the Jews, with whom the apostle had to do, had all of them an expectation of a new signal and final revelation of the will of God, to be made by the Messiah in the last days, that is, of their church-state, and not, as they now fondly imagine, of the world. Some of them indeed imagined that great prophet promised Deut. xviii. to have been one distinct from the Messiah,* Ὁ John i. 21, but the general expectation of the church for the full revelation of the will of God, was upon the Messiah, John iv. 25. Of the same mind were their more ancient doctors, that retained any thing of the tradition of their fathers; asserting that the law of Moses was alterable by the Messiah, and that in some things it should be so. Maimonides is the leader in the opinion of the eternity of the law; whose arguments are answered by the author of Sepher Ikkarim, lib. 111. cap. 13, and some of them by Nachmanides. Hence it is laid down as a principle in Neve Shalom, mya xwn prmann Drs Mn 737 mowrt ΘΝ Ὁ maz ‘ Messiah the king shall be exalted above Abraham, be high above Moses, yea, and the ministering angels.’ And it is for the excellency of the revelation made by him, that he is so exalted above Moses. Whence Maimonides himself acknowledgeth, Tractat. de Regibus, that at the coming of the Messiah, ovatnan Dam Wr 355 ods osprnyrn ‘hidden and deep things, (that is, of the counsel of God,) shall be revealed or laid open unto all.’ And this persuasion they built on the promise of a new covenant to be made with them, not “like the covenant made with their fathers,” Jerem. xxxi. 32, 33. Whence the author before mentioned concludes, that it was the judgment of the ancient doctors, that they should receive a new covenant from the mouth of God himself; and all their worship being annexed and subservient unto the covenant that was made with them in Horeb, upon the removal of that covenant, there was of necessity a new kind of worship, subservient thereunto, to ensue.