drawing nigh unto God, or unto a state of reconciliation, peace and communion with him. And we may observe,

Obs. X. Out of Christ, or without him, all mankind are at an inconceivable distance from God.-And a distance it is of the worst kind; even that which is an effect of mutual enmity. The cause of it was on our part voluntary, and the effect of it, the height of misery. And however any may flatter and deceive themselves, it is the present condition of all who have not an interest in Christ by faith. They are far off from God, as he is the fountain of all goodness and blessedness; "inhabiting," as the prophet speaks, "the parched places of the wilderness, and shall not see when good cometh," Jer. xvii. 6. far from the dews and showers of grace or mercy, far from divine love and favour; cast out of the bounds of them, as Adam out of paradise, without any hope or power in themselves to return. The flaming sword of the law, turns every way to keep them from the tree of life. Yet are they not so far from God, but they are under his wrath and curse, and whatever of misery is contained in them. Let them fly whither they please, wish for mountains and rocks to fall on them, as they will do hereafter; hide themselves in the darkness and shades of their own ignorance, like Adam among the trees of the garden, or immerge themselves in the pleasures of sin for a season; all is one, the wrath of God abideth on them. And they are far from God in their own minds also; being alienated from him, enemies against him, and in all things made up with Satan, the head of the apostasy. Thus is it, and inconceivably worse, with all that embrace not this better hope to bring them nigh unto God.

Obs. XI. It is an effect of infinite condescension and grace, that God would appoint a way of recovery for those who had wilfully cast themselves into this woful distance from him. Why should God look after such fugitives any more? He had no need of us or our services in our best condition, much less, in that useless depraved state whereinto we had brought ourselves. And although we had transgressed the rule of our moral dependance on him, in the way of obedience, and thereby done what we could to stain and eclipse his glory; yet he knew how to repair it to advantage, by reducing us under the order of punishment. By our sins we ourselves come short of the glory of God, but he could lose none by us, whilst it was absolutely secured by the penalty annexed to the law. When upon the entrance of sin, he came and found Adam in the bushes, wherein he thought foolishly to hide himself, who could expect (Adam did not) but that his only design was to apprehend the poor rebellious fugitive, and give him up to condign punishment? But quite otherwise, above all thoughts that could ever have entered into the hearts of angels or men; after he had declared the nature of the apostasy, and his own indignation against it,

he proposeth and promiseth a way of deliverance and recovery. This is that which the Scripture so magnifies under the names of grace and love of God, which are beyond expression or conception, John iii. 16. And it hath also that lustre frequently put upon it, that he dealt not so with the angels that sinned; which manifests in what condition he might have left us also, and how infinitely free and sovereign that grace was, from whence it was otherwise. Thence it was that he had a desire again unto the works of his hands, to bring poor mankind near unto him. And whereas he might have recalled us unto himself, yet so as to leave some marks of his displeasure upon us, to keep us at a greater distance from him, than that we stood at before; as David brought back his wicked Absalom to Jerusalem, but would not suffer him to come into his presence; he chose to act like himself, in infinite wisdom and grace, to bring us yet nearer to him, than ever we could have approached by the law of our creation. And as the foundation, means and pledge hereof, he contrived and brought forth that most glorious and unparalleled effect of divine wisdom, in taking our nature unto that inconceivable nearness unto himself, in the union of it unto the person of his Son. For as all things in this bringing of us nigh to God who were afar off, are expressive effects of wisdom and grace; so that of taking our nature into union with himself, is glorious unto astonishment. And as we are thereby made inconceivably more nigh to God in our nature, than we were upon our first creation, or than angels shall ever be; so by virtue thereof, are we in our persons, brought in many things much nearer to God, than ever we could have been brought by the law of creation. "O Lord our God, how excellent is thy name in all the earth! who hast set thy glory above the heavens," Psal. viii. I. It is in the admiration of this unspeakable grace, that the psalmist is so ravished in the contemplation of God, as hath been declared in our exposition on the second chapter of this epistle.

Obs. XII. All our approximation unto God in any kind, all our approaches unto him in holy worship, are by him alone, who was the blessed hope of the saints under the Old Testament, and is the life of them under the New.-These things must be afterwards spoken unto.

VER. 20-22.—THE apostle had warned the Hebrews before, that he had many things to say, and those not easy to be understood, concerning Melchisedec. And herein he intended not only those things which he expresseth directly, concerning that person and his office, but the things themselves signified thereby in the person and office of Christ. And therefore he omits nothing which may from thence be any way represented. So from that one testimony of the psalmist, he makes sundry inferences unto his purpose. As,

1. That the Lord Christ was to be a Priest, which included in it the cessation of the Levitical priesthood, seeing he was of the tribe of Judah, and not of the tribe of Levi.

2. That he was to be another priest, that is, a priest of another order, namely, that of Melchisedee. And this he variously demonstrates, to prove his pre-eminence above the Aaronical priesthood: as also thereon, that upon his introduction, that order was utterly to cease and be disannulled.

3. He observes from the same testimony unto the same purpose, that he was to be a priest for ever, so as that there should never more, upon his death or otherwise, be any need of another priest, nor any possibility of the return of the former priesthood into the church.

4. Neither yet doth he rest here, but observes moreover, the manner how God, in the testimony insisted on, declared his purpose of making the Lord Christ a Priest, which was constitutive of his office; and that was by his oath. And thence takes occasion to manifest how far his priesthood is exalted above that under the law. This is that which now lies before us in these verses. And we have in these things an instance given, of what unsearchable stores of wisdom and truth, are laid up in every parcel of the word of God, if we have a spiritual light in their investigation. VER. 20-22.—Και καθ' όσον ου χωρίς ορκωμοσίας" (οι μεν γαρ, χω βις ορκωμοσίας είσιν ἱερεις γεγονοτες· ὁ δὲ μετα ὁρκωμοσίας, δια του λέγοντος προς αυτον ώμοσε Κύριος, και ου μεταμεληθησεται Συ ἱερους εἰς του αιώνα κατά την ταξιν Μελχισεδικ) κατα τοσουτον κρείττονος διαθήκης γεγονεν εγγυος Ιησους.

The words of the 20th verse being elliptical, the sense of them is variously supplied. Most translators carry on the sense unto that which is the midst of the 21st in our translation, "Others were made priests without an oath." The Syriac refers

-and con - ושרדה לן במומתא ; the worls unto them foregoing

6

firmed it (that is the better hope) with an oath.' And Beza, etiam quatenus non sine jurejando superintroducta est, in as much as (that hope) is not brought in without an oath;' and another, since; et eò potior illa spes, quatenùs non absque jurejurando su perintroducta est, Schmid. But this limits the comparison unto this verse, which the apostle really finisheth, ver. 22. Vul. Lat. et quantum est non sine jurejurando, which the Rhemists render and in as much as it is not without an oath.' Ours supply, he was made a priest ;' in as much as not without an oath, he was made a priest: no doubt according to the mind of the apostle. For he hath a prospect in these words, unto what ensues, where he expressly applies this oath unto the priesthood of Christ, and the consummation thereof.

Kai xað' igor, etiam quatenus; et quatenus, and in as much,'

Kat' is omitted by the Syriac; Vul. in quantum est,' in as much;' hereunto answereth, xata toσytov, ver. 22. eatenus.

'Ogxaμoria is the same with gxes, jusjurandum, an oath.' But it is here principally applied unto those oaths whereby con ventions, compacts or covenants were confirmed. Hence gxporia were the sacrifices that were offered in the confirmation of sworn covenants. It is three times used here by our apostle on this occasion, ver. 20, 21. 28. and no where else in the New Tes

tament.

Oi mer jag, Vul. alii quidem, which the Rhemists mend by rendering it, and the other;' Beza, nam illi quidem; and so the Syriac, 1, and they;' ours, for those priests,' rather, 'and truly those priests,' though us yag, have only the force of a causal conjunction.

Er yeyeveris; Syr. 1, were,' but the manner of their being made priests, is intended; and so the words are to be expressed fully; facti sunt, were made.'

AN TOU REYOUTOS Wgos autov; the Syriac adds, 77 72, by the hand of David.' It is not the giving of the oath, but the recording of it in the psalm, that he intendeth.

Ov μeræμsandnosra, non pœnitebit, Syr. 7 h, and • will not lie;' will not repent or change his mind.

KATA TOCOUTO; Vul. in tantum, to answer,' in quantum, before; tantò, eatenùs; tanto, by so much;' Syr. man, hoc toto, by all this;' and so proceeds: this covenant was more excellent, wherein Jesus was made the surety.'

Of the signification of the word tyvos, I shall speak afterwards. VER. 20-22.-And in as much as not without an oath.

For

they truly were made without an oath ; but this with an oath, by him that said unto him, The Lord sware, and will not repent, thou art a priest for ever, after the order of Melchisedec. By so much was Jesus made surety of a better covenant.

The same argument is pursued as in the foregoing verses, only with a new medium, and that such as leads on towards the conclusion of the whole disputation. The introduction of a new priesthood, the cessation or abolition of the old, with the advantage of the church thereby, because of its dignity, pre-eminence and stability, above that which was to give place unto it, are the things which the apostle is in the proof and confirmation of.

There are three things in these three verses.

1. A proposition of a new medium for the confirmation of the principal argument before insisted on, ver. 20.

2. An illustration and proof of what is asserted in that proposition, ver. 21.

3. An inference from its being so established and proved, ver. 22. In the proposition three things may be considered.

1. The connexion of it unto the preceding discourse, by the conjunction xα.

2. The modification of the proposition in the manner of its introduction, xt' ivor, quanto, quatenus, in quantum, 'in as much.' 3. The proposition itself expressed negatively; xas, not without,' &c.

The note of connexion xa, may respect ver. 17.; where the same testimony now insisted upon, is introduced, and so may intimate a farther pursuit of the same argument. If so, the other two verses, 18, 19. are inserted as a parenthesis, comprising an inference of what the apostle had before proved, with the reasons of it. For whereas before, he had only made use of the words of the Father unto Christ, " thou art a priest for ever," and thereon shewed what would thence follow; he now proceeds to declare the manner how those words were spoken, namely, with an oath. Or it may respect the words immediately foregoing, namely, the bringing in of a better hope; for it was brought in by an oath and this sense is followed by most translators, who supply the defect in these words, by the repetition of a better hope. But although neither of those suppositions concerning the connexion of the words, doth prejudice the sense or design of them, yet, as we have observed before, xa, for,' oftentimes is as much as moreover,' as it is rendered, etiam, by Beza; and then it denotes not an immediate connexion with, or dependance on what went before in particular, but only an advancing in the same general argument. And so it is here a note of introduce tion, of a new special consideration for the confirmation of the same design. Thence our translators supply the words, not with any thing that went before, but with what follows after, which the apostle designed now in particular to speak unto, he was made a priest.'

The modification of the proposition is in those words, natt ien, eatenus quantum, in quantum, inasmuch,' so much.' Hereunto answers xαтα TOG&Tov, ver. 22. in tantum : quanto, tanto. The excellency of the covenant whereof Christ was made Mediator above the old covenant, had proportion with the pre-eminence of his priesthood above that of Aaron, in that he was made a priest. by an oath, but they were not so. And we may observe in general, that,

Obs. I. The faith, comfort, honour, and safety of the church, depends much on every particular remark that God hath put. upon any of the offices of Christ, or whatever belongs thereto. We have lived to see men endeavouring their utmost to render Christ himself, and all his offices, of as little use in religion, as they can possibly admit, and yet retain the name of Christians. And it is to be feared, that he is as little valued by some in their practice, as he is by others in their notions. This is not the way of the Scripture. Therein every concernment of him and his offices is particularly insisted on; and the apostle in this chapter VOL. V.

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