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evil to lie in pride, vanity and fleshliness, and the tendency of it to be unto false worship, superstition and idolatry, Col. ii. 18. Neither is there any thing more averse from right reason, nor more condemned by wise men of former times, than a curious humour of prying into those things wherein we are not concerned; and for whose investigation we have no certain, honest, lawful rule or medium. And this evil is increased where God himself hath given bounds to our inquiries, as in this case he hath.

2. This alone will bring us unto any certainty and truth. While men indulge their own imaginations and fancies, as too many in this matter have been apt to do, it is sad to consider how they have wandered up and down, and with what fond conceits they have deceived themselves and others. The world hath been filled with monstrous opinions and doctrines about angels, their nature, offices and employments: some have worshipped them, others pretended I know not what communion and intercourse with them; in all which conceits there hath been little of truth, and nothing at all of certainty. Whereas if men, according to the example of the apostle, would keep themselves to the word of God, as they would know enough in this matter for the discharging of their own duty, so they would have assurance and evidence of truth in their conceptions, without which pretended high and raised notions, are but a shadow of a dream, worse than professed ignorance.

II. We may hence observe, That the glory, honour and exaltation of angels, lies in their subserviency to the providence of God. It lies not so much in their nature, as in their work and service. The intention of the apostle is to shew the glory of angels and their exaltation, which he doth by the induction of this testimony, reporting their serviceableness in the works wherein they are employed by God. God hath endowed the angels with a very excellent nature; furnished them with many eminent properties of wisdom, power, agility, perpetuity; but yet what is thus glorious and honourable herein, consists not merely in their nature itself, and in its essential properties, all which abide in the horridest and most to be detested part of the whole creation, namely, the devils; but in their conformity and answerableness unto the mind and will of God, that is in their moral, not merely natural endowments. These make them amiable, glorious, excellent. Unto this their readiness for and compliance with the will of God, that God having made them for his service, and employing them in his work, their discharge of their duty therein, with cheerfulness, alacrity, readiness and ability, is that which renders them truly honourable and glorious. Their readiness and ability to serve the providence of God, is their glory.

1. The greatest glory that any creature can be made partaker of, is to serve the will, and set forth the praise of its Creator. That is its order and tendency towards its principal end, in which two, all true honour consists. It is glorious even in the angels to serve the God of glory; what is there above this for a creature to aspire to? what that its nature is capable of? Those among the angels, who, as it seems, attempted somewhat farther, somewhat higher, attained nothing but an endless ruin in shame and misery. Men are ready to fancy strange things about the glory of angels, and do little consider, that all the difference in glory that is in any of the parts of God's creation, lics merely in willingness, ability and readiness to serve God

their Creator.

2. The works wherein God employs them in a subservience to his providence, are in an especial manner glorious works. For the service of angels, as it is intimated unto us in the Scripture, it may be reduced to two heads. For they are employed either in the communication of protection and blessings to the church, or in the execution of the vengeance and judgments of God against his enemies. Instances to both these purposes may be multiplied; but they are commonly known. Now these are glorious works. God in them eminently exalts his mercy and justice, the two properties of his nature, in the execution whereof he is most eminently exalted; and from these works ariseth all that revenue of glory and praise which God is pleased to reserve to himself from the world; so that it must needs be very honourable to be employed in these works.

3. They perform their duty in their service in a very glorious manner, with great power, wisdom, and uncontrollable efficacy. Thus one of them slew 145,000 of the enemies of God in a night; another destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah with fire from heaven. Of the like power and expedition are they in all their services; in all things to the utmost capacity of creatures answering the will of God. God himself, it is true, sees that in them, and in their works, which keeps them short of absolute purity and perfection, which are his own properties; but as to the capacity of mere creatures, and for their state and condition, there is a perfection in their obedience, and that is their glory.

Now, if this be the great glory of angels, and we poor worms of the earth are invited as we are into a participation with them therein, what unspeakable folly will it be in us, if we be found negligent in labouring to attain thereunto. Our future glory consists in this, that we shall be made like unto angels; and our way towards it is to do the will of our Father on earth, as it done by them in heaven. O in how many vanities doth vain man place his glory! Nothing so shameful that one or other hath not gloried in, while the true and only glory of do

ing the will of God, is neglected by almost all. But we must treat again of these things upon the last verse of this chap

ter.

VER. 8, 9.-HAVING given an account of what the Scripture teacheth and testifieth concerning angels, in the following verses he sheweth how much other things, and far more glorious, are spoken to and of the Son, by whom God revealed his will in the gospel.

VER. 8, 9.—Προς δε τον υιον. Ο θρόνος σου, ὁ Θεός, εις τον αιώνα του αιωνος· ῥαβδος ευθυτητος ή ράβδος της βασιλειας σε Ηγάπησας δικαιοσυνην, και εμίσησας ανομίαν, δια τέτο έχρισε σε ὁ Θεός, ὁ Θεός σου, ελαιον αγαλλιάσεως παρά τους μετόχους σου. Μ. S. T. ἡ ῥαβδος ευθυτυτος ; and for ανομιαν αδικιαν.

Пgos de Tov voy, but unto the Son. Syr. 8 17 x2 by, but of the Son he saith; which is necessarily supplied as to the apostle's design. In the Psalm, the words are spoken by way of apostrophe to the Son; and they are recited by the apostle as spoken of him; that is, so spoken to him as to continue a description of him and his state or kingdom.

Ο θρόνος σου ὁ Θεός εις τον αιώνα του αιώνος, Psal. xlv. 7. is the place

כסאך אלהים עולם ועד .from wlience the words are taken

The LXX. render these words as the apostle. Aquila, goves του Θεέ εις αιώνα και ετι : Θεέ, for ὁ Θεός. Thy throne O God for ever and yet. Symmachus,govos ou OEDs, diwvios xai sti, Thy throne O God is everlasting and yet; and that because it is not said Ohh, but hy, absolutely, os, ☺, as in the translation of Aquila.

NDO is a kingly throne; nor is it ever used in Scripture for , a common seat. Metonymically it is used for power and government, and that frequently. The LXX. almost constantly render it by θρονος, and θρονος is ελευθεριος καθέδρα συν ὑποποδία, Athena, lib. 5. A free open seat with a footstool.' And such a throne is here properly assigned unto the Lord Christ, mention of his footstool being immediately subjoined. So God says of himself, "Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool;" as the heathen termed heaven, Aos gover, the throne of God.

Thy throne, O God, hy, In seculum et usque; in sempiternum et perpetuo; in seculum seculorum. The duration denoted by the conjunction of both these words, is mostly an absolute perpetuity, and a certain uninterrupted continuance, where the subject spoken of admits a limitation. Many of the Greek interpreters render 7 by T, attending to the sound rather than

the use and signification of the word; so is yet in our language. This we express by for ever and ever.

Ράβδος ευθύτητος ή ράβδος βασιλείας σου; the variation of ἡ ῥάβδος in the first place before mentioned, takes off from the elegance of the expression, and darkens the sense; for the article prefixed to the last jados declares that to be the subject of the proposition.

שבט מישר שבט מלכותך,,The words of the Psalmist are

Shebet is Virga and Sceptrum, and in this place it is rendered by Aquila, go, a rod, a staff, a sceptre; always a sceptre when referred to rule, as in this place it is called, the sceptre of the kingdom.'

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A sceptre, w, from w, rectus fuit, to be right, straight; upright principally in a moral sense: surros, of uprightness. Euburns is properly such a rectitude as we call straight, opposed to crooked; and metaphorically only is it used for moral uprightness, that is, equity and righteousness. Syr. NU'WÐ NUJÚ. Boderianus, Sceptrum erectum, a sceptre lifted up, or held upright.' The Paris edition, Sceptrum protensum, a sceptre stretched out; and the stretching out of the sceptre was a sign and token of mercy, Esth. v. 2. Tremellius, Virga recta, which answers mischor in both its acceptations. Erpenius to the same purpose, Sceptrum rectum, a right sceptre.'

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Thou hast loved righteousness and hated, avopiar, adiniar, iniquity, unrighteousness, wickedness; die THTO, 1-by, propterea, propter quod, quare, ideo, idcirco; wherefore, for which cause. Some copies of the LXX. and Aquila, read in T&T, so that die To seems to have been taken into the LXX. from this rendering of the words by the apostle.

Έχρισε σε ὁ Θεός ὁ Θεός σε έλαιον αγαλλιάσεως, ή στην απου www jaw, God, thy God, hath anointed thee. The words in Greek and Hebrew are those from whence the names of Christ and Messiah are taken, which are of the same import and signification, the anointed One. And the same is expressed by the Targumist. Aquila has λı.

Hath anointed thee, ελαιον αγαλλιασεως, the instrument in doing of the thing intended, expressed by the accusative case; whereof there are other instances in that language. Of old the LXX. read you, with the oil of delight, or ornaελαίω αγλαισμό, ment;' so that exαior ayaλximos came also into the Greek verthan the sion from this place of the apostle, and is more proper old reading, the oil of rejoicing, joy or gladness."

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Пaga TYS METOXYS σov, na, before, or above those that partake with thee: thy fellows, or companions. So Symmachus, Tous

Μπαίρους σου.

τους

VER. 8, 9.-But unto the Son, he saith, Thy throne, O God, is for ever, the sceptre of thy kingdom is a sceptre of righteousness. Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity, wherefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.

This testimony is produced by the apostle in answer to that foregoing concerning angels. Those words, saith he, were spoken by the Holy Ghost of the angels, wherein their office and employment under the providence of God is described. These are spoken by the same Spirit of the Son, or spoken to him; denoting his existence before the prophecies themselves.

There is little or no difficulty to prove that this testimony belongs properly to him, to whom it is applied by the apostle. The ancient Jews granted it, and the present doctors cannot

וזה המזמור נאמר על דוד,leny it. One of them says indeed

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mwan by w, This Psalm is spoken of David or the Messiah.' These are the words, and this is the opinion of Aben Ezra, who accordingly endeavours to give a double sense of the chief passages in this Psalm; one as applied unto David, another as applied unto the Messiah, which he inclines to. Jarchi turns it into an allegory, without any tolerable sense throughout his discourse. But though it might respect them both, yet there is no pretence to make David the subject of it; the title and whole contexture of it excluding such an application.

The Targum applies the Psalm wholly to the Messiah, which is somewhat a better evidence of the conception of the ancient Jews, than the private opinion of any later writer can give us. And the title of the Psalm in that paraphrase, would make it a prophecy given out in the days of Moses, for the use of the Sanhedrim; which manifests of what account it was of old in their creed concerning the Messiah.

Some Christian interpreters have so far assented unto the latter rabbins, as to grant that Solomon was primarily intended in this Psalm as a type of Christ; and that the whole was an Epithalamium, or marriage song, composed upon his nuptials with the daughter of Pharaoh. But there want not important reasons against this opinion. For,

1. It is not probable that the Holy Ghost should so celebrate that marriage, which, as it was antecedently forbidden by God, so consequently it was never blessed by him, she being among the number of those strange women which turned his heart from God, and was cursed with barrenness. And it deserves to be noticed, that the first foreign breach that came upon his fa mily, and upon all his magnificence, was also from Egypt, where his transgression began.

2. There is scarce any thing in the Psalm that can with pro

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