the Deity, and each person as partaking in the same nature, but Tarixas, 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; Rom. ix. 5; 1 Tim. iii. 16; !!! 1 John iii. 16, v. 20;-as also the person of the Holy Spirit, Acts v. 3, 4; 1 Cor. xii. 6, 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 unto 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 giving out, sundry of the other instances being regulated thereby.

Πάλαι.

For the first, or the revelation of the will of God under the old testament, it was, "of old." God spake ráha, "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 unto that end which was put unto 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 giving of the law by Moses in the wilderness. And this is that which the apostle hath respect unto. 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 their then present church privilege and claim by Moses' law. The proper date, then, and bound of this ráλa, "of old," is from the giving out of Moses' law, and therein the constitution of the Judaical church and worship, unto the close of public prophecy in the days of Malachi. From thence to the days of John Baptist God granted no extraordinary revelation of his will, as to the standing use of the whole church. So that this dispensation of God speaking in the prophets continued for the space of twenty-one jubilees, or near eleven hundred years. That it had been 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 they are of late, by experience, made incredulous towards such pretenders as in former ages they have been brought to much 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 72, 'I will glorify,' is written defectively, without л, 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, D', the ark and cherubim;' the second, пnon p,-'the anointing oil;' the third, nayon yy,-'the wood of disposition,' or 'perpetual fire;' the fourth, Din Ds,-Urim and Thummim;' the fifth, p,-'the Holy Ghost,' or 'Spirit of prophecy.' They are not, indeed, all agreed in this enumeration. The Talmud in D, Joma, cap. v., reckons them somewhat otherwise:-1. The ark, with the propitiatory 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 Rabbi Bechai, Comment. in Pentateuch., sect. ; who places the anointing oil distinctly, and confounds the , or 'divine Majesty,' with pп m, 'the Holy Ghost,' contradicting the Gemara. The commonly approved order is that of the author of Aruch, in the root

",-'the ark, propitiatory, and cherubim, one.' "the divine Majesty, the second thing.'

“ pп,-the Holy Ghost, which is prophecy, the third.'

"N,-Urim and Thummim, the fourth thing.' “"WIDA D'DWM JD VN,—'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 Num. xxiv. 11, 1 Sam. ii. 30, Isa. lxvi. 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 now, by its want, was signified to be 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 it 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 Abarbanel, on Exod. xxx. sec. Nun, affirms that there was no high priest anointed with oil under the second house; for which he gives this

Because the anointing oil was ,לפי שכבר היה נגנז שמן המשחה,reason for Josiah had hid it, שגנזו יאשיהו עם שאר הדברים הקדושים ;now hid

.and they had no power to make it ולא היה להם רשות לעשותו,adds

with the rest of the holy things;' a Talmudical figment, to which he

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, book iii. chap. viii.; 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, chap. iii.; after which time it seems they were made and in use, as Josephus shows us, book xi. chap. viii., 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. Sanhed. cap. x. 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 as 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, verse 10; or when all that was left before, great and small, was carried away in the days of Zedekiah, verse 18: so it may be supposed to be restored by Cyrus, of whom it is said that he returned the vessels of the house of the LORD, which Nebuchadnezzar had brought forth out of Jerusalem,' Ezra i. 7. And it is uncertain to what end was the solemn yearly entrance of the high priest into the most holy place, 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. v., that when Pompey entered the temple, he found 'nullas Deûm 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 himself, not many lines before, had affirmed to be consecrated in their sanctuary. For aught, then, 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 Abarbanel, in his commentary on Joel, tells us that Israel by captivity out of his own

-three ex - שלשה מתנות שתיו הם נבואה ומפתים וידיעת אלהית land lost

cellent gifts, prophecy, miracles, and divine knowledge,' Ps. lxxiv. 9; all which he grants were to be restored by the Messiah, without mention of the other things before recited. And they confess this

משמתו הנביאים האחרונים חני :openly in Sota Distinc Egla Hampha After the death of the latter ; זכריה ומלאכי נסתלקה רוח הקודש מישראל

prophets, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, the Holy Spirit was taken away from Israel.""

It 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 season of the want of vision, though continuing four hundred years and upwards, is called by Haggai, chap. ii. 6, n Dy, '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 by ns, a little while,' in comparison thereof." To return.

This was the ráha, these the times, wherein God spake in the prophets: which determines one instance more of the comparison, namely, "the fathers," to whom he spake in them; which Τοῖς πατράσι. 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.

In answer to this first instance, on the part of the gospel, the revelation of it is affirmed to be made in these last days, 'Er' irxáruv "Hath spoken in these last days;" the true stating of prowhich time also will discover who the persons were to whom it was made, " Hath spoken to us."

των.

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 anywhere 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 Tim. iv. 1, 2 Tim. iii. 1 ; but the whole time of the gospel absolutely is nowhere so termed. It is the last days of the Judaical church and state, which were then drawing to their period and abolition, that are here and elsewhere. called "The last days," or "The latter days," or "The last hour," 2 Pet. iii. 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 unto its worship or preservation in the world. And hereunto doth the reading of the words in some copies, before intimated, give testimony, 'E' ixáтoυ Twν nμεрã TOUTW," 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 upon 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. ii. 3. Now, as to his personal ministry, he was sent to "the lost sheep of the house of Israel," Matt. xv. 24 (to whom also alone 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. 8, being in the last place sent to the same vineyard unto 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 spake in the Son in the last days."

3. This phrase of speech is signally used in the Old Testament to denote the last days of the Judaical church. So by Jacob, Gen. xlix. 1, “I will tell you that which shall befall you '' '89," "in the last days:" which words the LXX. render, 'Er ioxárov Tuv up, the words here used by the apostle; the days pointed unto by Jacob being those wherein the Messiah should come, before Judah was utterly deprived of sceptre and scribe. Again, by Balaam