2. The whole creation receiveth a real advancement and honour in the Son's being made "the first-born of every creature;" that is, the especial heir and lord of them all. Their being brought into a new dependence on the Lord Christ is their honour, and they are exalted by becoming his possession. For after that they had lost their first original dependence on God, and their respect unto him, grounded on his pronouncing of them exceeding good,—that is, such as became his wisdom and power to have made,-they fell under the power of the devil, who became prince of this world by sin. Herein. consisted the vanity and debasement of the creature; which it was never willingly or of its own accord subject unto. But God setting up the kingdom of Christ, and making him the first-born, the whole creation hath a right unto a new, glorious lord and master. And however any part of it be violently for a season detained under its old bondage, yet it hath grounds of an "earnest expectation" of a full and total deliverance into liberty, by virtue of this primogeniture of Christ Jesus.

3. Angels and men, the inhabitants of heaven and earth, the principal parts of the creation, on whom God hath in an especial manner stamped his own likeness and image, are hereby made partakers of such inestimable benefits as indispensably call for rejoicing in a way of thankfulness and gratitude. This the whole gospel declares, and therefore it needs not our particular improvement in this place.

And if this be the duty of the whole creation, it is easy to discern in what a special manner it is incumbent on them that believe, whose benefit, advantage, and glory, were principally intended in this whole work of God. Should they be found wanting in this duty, God might, as of old, call heaven and earth to witness against them. Yea, thankfulness to God for the bringing forth of the first-born into the world is the sum and substance of all that obedience which God requires at the hands of believers.

IV. The command of God is the ground and reason of all religious worship. The angels are to worship the Lord Christ, the mediator; and the ground of their so doing is God's command. He saith, "Worship him, all ye angels."

Now the command of God is twofold:-1. Formal and vocal, when God gives out a law or precept unto any creature superadded to the law of its creation. Such was the command given out unto our first parents in the garden concerning the "tree of the knowledge of good and evil;" and such were all the laws, precepts, and institutions which he afterwards gave unto his church, with those which to this day continue as the rule and reason of their obedience. 2. Real and interpretative, consisting in an impression of the mind and will of God upon the nature of his creatures, with respect unto

that obedience which their state, condition, and dependence on him requireth. The very nature of an intellectual creature, made for the glory of God, and placed in a moral dependence upon him and subjection unto him, hath in it the force of a command, as to the worship and service that God requireth at their hands. But this law in man being blotted, weakened, impaired, through sin, God hath in mercy unto us collected, drawn forth, and disposed all the directions and commands of it in vocal formal precepts recorded in his word; whereunto he hath superadded sundry new commands in the institutions of his worship. With angels it is otherwise. The ingrafted law of their creation, requiring of them the worship of God and obedience to his whole will, is kept and preserved entire; so that they have no need to have it repeated and expressed in vocal formal commands. And by virtue of this law were they obliged to constant and everlasting worship of the eternal Son of God, as being created and upheld in a universal dependence upon him. But now when God brings forth his Son into the world, and placeth him in a new condition, of being incarnate, and becoming so the head of his church, there is a new modification of the worship that is due to him brought in, and a new respect unto things, not considered in the first creation. With reference hereunto God gives a new command unto the angels, for that peculiar kind of worship and honour which is due unto him in that state and condition which he had taken upon himself.

This the law of their creation in general directed them unto, but in particular required not of them. It enjoined the worship of the Son of God in every condition, but that condition was not expressed. This God supplies by a new command; that is, such an intimation of his mind and will unto them as answers unto a vocal command given unto men, who by that means only may come to know the will of God. Thus, in one way or other, command is the ground and cause of all worship: for,

1. All worship is obedience. Obedience respects authority; and authority exerts itself in commands. And if this authority be not the authority of God, the worship performed in obedience unto it is not the worship of God, but of him or them whose commands and authority are the reason and cause of it. It is the authority of God alone that can make any worship to be religious, or the performance of it to be an act of obedience unto him.

2. God would never allow that the will and wisdom of any of his creatures should be the rise, rule, or measure of his worship, or any part of it, or any thing that belongs unto it. This honour he hath reserved unto himself, neither will he part with it unto any other. He alone knows what becomes his own greatness and holiness, and what tends to the advancement of his glory. Hence the Scripture

abounds with severe interdictions and comminations against them who shall presume to do or appoint any thing in his worship beside or beyond his own institution.

3. All prescriptions of worship are vain, when men have not strength to perform it in a due manner, nor assurance of acceptance when it is performed. Now, both these are and must be from God alone, nor doth he give strength and ability for any thing in his worship but what himself commands, nor doth he promise to accept any thing but what is of his own appointment; so that it is the greatest folly imaginable to undertake any thing in his worship and service but what his appointment gives warrant for.

And this should teach us, in all that we have to do in the worship of God, carefully to look after his word of command and institution. Without this all that we do is lost, as being no obedience unto God; yea, it is an open setting up of our own wills and wisdom against him, and that in things of his own especial concernment; which is intolerable boldness and presumption. Let us deal thus with our rulers amongst men, and obey them not according to their laws, but our own fancies, and see whether they will accept our persons? And is the great and holy God less to be regarded? Besides, when we have our inventions, or the commands of other men, as the ground and reason of our doing it, we have nothing but our own or their warranty for its acceptance with God; and how far this will secure us it is easy to judge.

We might hence also further observe,

V. That the Mediator of the new covenant is in his own person God blessed for ever, to whom divine or religious worship is due from the angels themselves. As also that,

VI. The Father, upon the account of the work of Christ in the world, and his kingdom that ensued it, gives a new commandment unto the angels to worship him, his glory being greatly concerned therein. And that,

VII. Great is the church's security and honour, when the head of it is worshipped by all the angels in heaven. As also that,VIII. It can be no duty of the saints of the new testament to worship angels, who are their fellow-servants in the worship of Jesus Christ.

VERSE 7.

Having in one testimony from the Scripture, expressing the subjection of angels unto the Lord Christ, signally proved his main design, the apostle proceedeth to the further confirmation of it in the same way, and that by balancing single testimonies concerning the nature and offices of the angels with some others concerning the same things in the Lord Christ, of whom he treats. And the first of these, relating unto angels, he lays down in the next verse:-

Ver. 7.-Καὶ πρὸς μὲν τοὺς ἀγγέλους λέγει Ο ποιῶν τοὺς ἀγγέλους αὑτοῦ πνεύματα, καὶ τοὺς λειτουργοὺς αὐτοῦ πυρὸς φλόγα.

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There is not much of difficulty in the words. Пpos ayyiλous," unto the angels." Syr., NE," of" (or "concerning") "the angels." is often used for, and on the contrary, and πρός for περί; so that πρὸς τοὺς ἀγγέλους, “ to the angels," is as much as Tepí twv dyywy, “of" (or "concerning")" the angels:" "But as concerning the angels," (or, "and of the angels,")" he saith;" for these words are not spoken unto the angels, as the following words are directly spoken unto the Son. He is the person as well spoken to as spoken of; but so are not the angels in the place from whence this testimony is taken, wherein the Holy Ghost only declareth the providence of God concerning them.

Aéy, "he saith;" that is, God the Father saith, or the Holy Ghost in the Scripture saith, as was before observed.

Tous RETOUрyous. Aroupyós is "minister publicus," "a public minister," or agent; from Tos, which is the same with dauórios, as Hesychius renders it, public." He that is employed in any great and public work is λroupyós. Hence, of old, magistrates were termed λroupyol Oɛãy, as they are by Paul, diXOVO Oй, Rom. xiii. 4, "the ministers of God." And, chap. viii. 2 of this epistle, he calls the Lord Jesus, in respect of his priestly office, rv áyláv KelToupy, "the public minister of holy things;" and himself, in respect of his apostleship, Toupyo 'Ingoй Xpiatoй, Rom. xv. 16, "a minister of Jesus Christ." So the name is on this account equipollent unto that of angels; for as that denoteth the mission of those spirits unto their work, so doth this their employment therein. This testimony is taken from Ps. civ. 4, where the words are to the same pur

The translation now in the Greek is the

same with that of the apostle, only for upòs Choya, "a flame of fire," some copies have it up Qhéyov, “ a flaming fire,”— -more express to the original; and the change probably was made in the copies from this place of the apostle. Symmachus, up hάpov, "a devouring fire."1

Ver. 7.-But unto [of] the angels he saith, Who maketli his angels spirits, and his ministers a flame of fire, [or, flaming fire.]

The apostle here entereth upon his third argument to prove the pre-eminence of the Lord Christ above angels, and that by comparing them together, either as to their natures or as to their employments, according as the one or the other is set forth, declared,

1 EXPOSITION.—Ποιῶν, κ. τ. λ. "Who maketh his angels that serve him the ministers of his will, as the winds and the lightning are.' The angels are employed simply in a ministerial capacity, while the Son is lord of all.—Stuart. Angels are ministering elements of nature; the Son is everlasting king. IIpós, like?, turned towards; i. e., " in respect of."-Tholuck. IIpós is to be rendered, not "to," but "respecting." The angels are regarded as dvvάuus of God, through whom God works wonders in the kingdom of nature.-Ebrard. God's angels are employed by him in the same way as the more ordinary agents of nature,winds and lightnings.-Turner.

Calvin, Beza, Bucer, Grotius, Limborch, Lowth, Campbell, Michaëlis, Knapp, and others, translate the Greek words as equivalent to the Hebrew. Luther, Calov, Storr, Tholuck, and others, interpret the Hebrew according to the Greek. The Hebrew, it is alleged, must from the context be rendered, "He makes the

and testified unto in the Scriptures of the Old Testament. And this first place which he refers unto angels we shall now explain and vindicate; and in so doing inquire both who they are of whom the psalmist speaks, and what it is that he affirmeth of them.

There is a threefold sense given of the words of the psalmist, as they lie in the Hebrew text:

1. The first is that of the modern Jews, who deny that there is any mention made of angels, affirming the subject that the psalmist treats of to be the winds, with thunder and lightning, which God employs as his messengers and ministers to accomplish his will and pleasure. So he made the winds his messengers when he sent them to raise a storm on Jonah when he fled from his presence; and a flaming fire his minister, when by it he consumed Sodom and Gomorrah, And this opinion makes nim, which it interprets "winds," and , "a flaming fire," to be the subjects of the proposition, of which it is affirmed that God employs them as his messengers and ministers.

That this opinion, which is directly contradictory to the authority of the apostle, is so also to the design of the psalmist, sense of the words, consent of the ancient Jews, and so no way to be admitted, shall afterwards be made to appear.

2. Some aver that the winds and meteors are principally intended, but yet so as that God, affirming that he makes the winds his messengers, doth also intimate that it is the work and employment of his angels above to be his messengers also; and that because he maketh use of their ministry to cause those winds and fires whereby he accomplisheth his will. And this they illustrate by the fire and winds caused by them on mount Sinai at the giving of the law.

But this interpretation, whatever is pretended to the contrary, doth not really differ from the former, denying angels to be intentionally spoken of, only hooking in a respect unto them, not to seem to contradict the apostle, and therefore will be disproved together with that which went before.

winds his messengers,” etc. To the former view it is justly objected, that the Greek rendering would have been, Ο ποιῶν ἀγγέλους αὐτοῦ τὰ πνεύματα. To the latter, that the analogy of the context requires us in the Hebrew psalm to understand winds as the messengers of God, even as light is his garment, the heaven his tent, and the clouds his chariot. Tholuck, Stuart, and Turner hold that the Hebrew psalm leads to the opposite conclusion, from the natural order of the words, from the connection of angels with natural causes, and from the real scope of the context," Who maketh the clouds his chariot." The former, says Storr, like angels and ministers, must be understood literally, and the latter (chariot), like winds and lightnings, figuratively for agents of his will. The translation adopted by the New Testament from the Septuagint has the sanction also of the Chaldee and Syriac versions.

TRANSLATIONS. Y, X. T. λ. Who maketh his angels winds.- Stuart, Craik, Ebrard. Who maketh winds his messengers, and flaming fire his ministers.-Campbell on Gospels, Dissert. viii. part iii. sect. 10.-ED.