translation intimates; yet so that a diversity of parts and degrees, rather than of times and seasons, is intended.

xai modvrgonws. 11D7 4221. Syr. in all forms. Multisque modis, Vulg. Eras. A. Montan. Beza, many ways; or as our's, in di

vers manners.

Tarai. `p in. Syr. ab initio, from the beginning; Olim, the Latin translations, of old, formerly, in times past; ara is olim, quondam, pridem, jamdudum; any time past that is opposed, T ag, or, 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.

TOIS TUTęuoi. 117 D. Syr. with our fathers; to the fa

thers.

EY TOIS TROPATAIS. translations, in prophetis.

. Syr. in the prophets; so all the Latin

those last days; ultimis diebus hisce; ultimis diebus istis ; in these last days; novissime diebus istis, Vulg. last of all in these days. Some Greek copies have επ' εσχατου των ημερων τέτων, in extremo dierum istorum, in the end of these days, the reason of which variety we shall see afterwards.

sy, 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.

whyn.

Tys alavas, mundos, secula: . 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.

о

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,

1. The authority committed to him, "God made him heir of all."

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 Gods, 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 gos

pel, 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.

This

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, substantially, to denote primarily the essence or being of the Deity, and each person as partaking in the same nature, but iσTTING, denoting primarily one certain person, and the divine nature only as subsisting in that person. 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. iii. 16. 1 John iii. 16. v. 20. As also the person of the Holy Spirit, Acts v. 3, 4. 1 Cor. xii. 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 waλas, 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 compris es 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 "giving 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

6

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 ah, of 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 agree ably 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.

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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 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 2, I will glorify, is written defectively, without , 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 1 1178 the ark and Cherubim. The second was non pw, the anointing oil. The third was y

, the wood of disposition, or perpetual fire. The fourth was

the רוח הקדש Urim and Thummim. The fifth was אורים ותומים

Holy Ghost, or spirit of prophecy. They are not indeed all agreed in this enumeration; the Talmud in 82 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 Rabbi Bechai, Comment. in Pentateuch, sectione who places the anointing oil distinctly, and confounds the 700,

;

or divine majesty with

pnn, the Holy Ghost, contradicting the Gemara. The commonly approved order is that of the author of Aruch; in the root, 725.

one.

18, The Ark, propitiatory, and Cherubim,

wow, the divine majesty, the second thing.

-the Holy Ghost, which is pro רוח הקדוש שהוא נבואה שלישי

phecy, the third.

in, Urim and Thummim, the fourth thing.

WIDA O'DWN JW, fire from Heaven, the fifth thing. But as this argument is ridiculous, both in general, in wiredrawing 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. 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 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 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 Abarbinel on Exod. xxx. sec. x, affirms that there was no high priest anointed with oil under the second house, for which he gives this reason;

because the anointing oil cas לפי שכבר היה נגנו שמן המשחה for Josiah, שגנזו יאשיהו עם שאר הדברים הקדושים ; now hid

and they had no ולא היה להם רשות לעשותו,to which he adds

had hid it with the rest of the holy things; a Talmudical figment;

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