granted and for a ground that Christ is the supreme God because all this testimony out of that Psalm is manifâ—stly spoken of the suprem God but that Christ should be that God is not intimated by any word in all that Psalm And therefore if the Author had taken this for graunted that Christ is the supreme God certainly the Author had discoursed very impertinently and ambiguously to furnish himselfe with such store of arguments and so many Testimonies of Scriptures and those much more obscure then the point to be proved thereby to evince that Christ was better then the angels the Creatour better then the creature This had been to bring proofs no way necessary for a point no way doubtfull seeing all might have been dispatched in one word We must therefore further observe that this Testimony out of Psalme 102. containes three clauses The first concerning the Creation of the world 2. Concerning the destruction of the world 3. Concerning the Duration of God for these three things are the subjects of three verities contained in that Testimonie and all three are spoken supremely and primarily of God the Father But the first can no way be referred to Christ because as is before noted it could not make for the Authors purpose The last referres both to God and Christ for the Duration of Christ is perpetuall and everlasting yet this clause makes nothing for the Authors purpose to prove Christ better then the Angels because for Duration the angels are equall to him seeing they also are immortall and incorruptible perpetuall and everlasting The second clause referres to God supremely and primarily and to Christ subordinately or secondarily for God by Christ will destroy the world God hath given to Christ a transcendent power to destroy and abolish heaven and earth And this makes fully to the Authors purpose and proves Christ clerely better then the angels who have not this power granted to them Now to the words of this Testimony in particular Thou Lord in the beginning God when first he began the world even in the first beginning of â—is visible workes Hast laid the foundation of the earth He alludes to buildings which are raised upon a foundation for the earth is as it were the foundation and ground-work of the world And hee mentions the earth in the first place because in the raising of all buildings men begin from the foundation Now the earth is termed the foundation because it seemes immoveable and fixed as all foundations ought to be And the heavens are the works of thine hands The heavens are all those vast bodies which doe circumvest the earth and one another And they are called heavens plurally because they are built and raised to the height of three regions or stories each above the other The first and lowest heaven is vulgarly called the aire wherein flie the fowles of heaven and therein are the supernall waters that are said to be above in the heavens as clouds raine haile and snow The second or middle heaven is vulgarly called the firmament wherein are all the fires that give light and heat to all the world as the Sunne Moone and Starres The third and highest heaven is called by St. Paul Paradise wherein God and Christ and the angels doe manifest themselves All these are the workes of Gods word and were wrought at his command For God said Let them be and they were so Gen. 1.6 God commanded and they were created Psal 148.5 Yet the Psalmist terms them the works of Gods hands alluding to the speech of the vulgar whose hands and not their words are the instruments of their works which therefore are called the works of their hands Hitherto of the first clause of this Testimony concerning the Creation of the world referred to God onely who only was the Author of it 11. They shall perish Now followes the second Clause of this Testimony concerning the destruction of the world referred to God supremely and primarily but to Christ subordinately and secondarily because the power to destroy the world is given to Christ and therefore principally serves to the Authors purpose to prove him better then the angels They shall perish The heavens and the earth shall perish or be utterly destroyed and abolished as this Author phraseth it afterward in this Epistle chap. 12.27 they shall be removed as things that are concussible and corruptible And as St. Peter saith more expresly 2. Epistle 3.10 The heavens shall passe away with a great noise and the elements shall melt with fervent heat the earth also shall be burnt up Now things that passe away and are no where must needs have no being and a thing burnt up must needs perish Here we have a clear testimony that this present world shall be destroyed and abolished For if as some have imagined it shall only be endued with perfecter qualities and be changed into a better state so to remaine under that state how is it said to perish Certainly things changed into a better state to be permanent under that state cannot be said to perish Shall the Saints be said to perish when they are changed from mortall and corruptible creatures to become immortall and incorruptible and be made partakers of a nature and state far more pure and perfect then they had before certainly no. Or if the world shall have a perpetuall permansion or abiding for ever how is it opposed to Gods and Christs permansion or abiding for ever which is the scope of this reasoning as appeares in the words immediatly following But thou remainest and thy yeers shall not fail And they shall wax old as doth a garment The heavens are compared to a garment because as hath been said before they doe circumvest envelop and enwrap the whole earth round about as a garment envolves the body and therefore the attribute of a garment which is to veterate and wax old is by a Metaphor fitly applyed to the heavens Not that the heavens doe insensibly wax old and wear out with length of time as garments usually doe but because at last they shall wholly be abolished therefore they are said to wax old as a garment because a garment waxen old and worn out is at last wholly abolished and cast away For veteration or waxing old is a motion or passage toward destruction and abolition Seeing that which decayeth and waxeth old drawes neere to vanishing away as this Author expresseth it afterward in this Epistle cap. 8. v. 13. But how shall the heavens wax old if they shall be renewed into a better state Is a garment said then to wax old when it is new drest by making it somwhat better and neater 12 And as a vesture shalt thou fold them up When a garment is waxen so old that we have no minde to weare it any longer then wee usually fold it up and lay it aside for properly a garment is a loose vest which we use to weare outwardly over the rest of our clothing and therefore
thereupon naturally of her owne accord inclines to the removing and abolishing of it as are all things artificiall that are made by art from which the Author seems here to draw a tacit resemblance So the form and beauty of this whole world was by the power of God induced into that Chaos which is described by Moses in the beginning of Genesis seeing therefore that heaven and earth were made by inducing a forraine forme into a grosse matter that was before rude void and darke beside and above her naturall capacity therefore their forme shall bee shaken off and removed and consequently they shall bee abolished That those things which cannot be shaken may remaine That things immutable only may remaine alone by themselves Now they are not onely things immutable which cannot be shaken but also mutable which shall be shaken But after that all things mutable which are to be shaken shall be shaken and removed then shall remaine onely things immutable which are not to be shaken nor shall be shaken By these words is noted of things mutable not the proper end for which they had being but the event or end of their being whereby their being shall cease And the Author added this to shew that when heaven and earth shall be removed or abolished yet there shall be remaining a most ample and spacious mansion for the righteous as S. Peter also testifieth and calleth it a new heaven and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousnesse 2 Pet. 3.13 But by these words the Author makes way to a new argument whereby he excites and exhorts the Hebrewes to faith and constancy in the Christian Religion by subjoyning 28. Wherefore we receiving a kingdome which cannot be moved or shaken The kingdome here is both the place it selfe and also the blessed state or happinesse of them that inhabit it And this kingdome cannot be moved or shaken not in respect of Gods power for God who is Almighty hath might and power sufficient to move and shake even that new heaven and new earth as Peter calls it but because God hath no will ever to shake yea it is his will it should never be shaken and because of it owne nature it is no way propense or inclinable to be shaken but is finally immutable and what is so of that it may well be said that it cannot be shaken in which sence the Angels are immortall and so shall wee be one day We receiving i. accepting and embracing it with our soule and bearing a firme faith to the promises of it which are contained in the Christian Religion and so apprehending it as it were with our hand upon Gods offer of it unto us Let us have grace Have is here put for retaine or hold unlesse by grace here some man would understand a thankfull minde which sence notwithstanding doth not so well fit the place especially seeing in the holy Scriptures to have grace doth not signifie to have a thankfull minde but rather to give thanks See 1 Tim. 1.12 and 2 Tim. 1.3 which sence doth not so well agree with the words following Whereby wee may serve God Grace Grace therefore in this place as also elsewhere doth rather signifie either the doctrine of Christ full of Gods grace as when John saith that grace came by Iesus Christ John 1.17 where he opposeth grace to the Law and S. Peter writes that he testifies that this is the true grace of God wherein ye stand 1 Pet. 5.12 where he meanes that the doctrine which they had received touching the grace of God was true Or it signifies the favour of God whereto God admitted us under the new Covenant promising us eternall life and his heavenly kingdome which divine favour is termed by Paul the grace of God that bringeth salvation to all men T it 2.11 which in the following Chapter ver 4. he calls the kindenesse and love of God So that to have grace is to retaine the doctrine of the Gospel which containes the grace and favour of God toward us Whereby wee may serve God acceptably That is according to his prescript if by grace we understand the doctrine of Christ or by his instinct if wee will have it signifie the favour of God May serve In the Originall it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may worship which word sometime in holy Scripture is taken largely and generally for all that honour which by holy offices we performe publiquely unto God whether by way of worship with holy reverences or by way of service with prayers praises or thanksgivings and such like yea sometime this word is further amplified and extended to all works of piety because under the new Covenant all pious works are accounted spirituall sacrifices But how the word worship is sometime taken more strictly and so opposed to service and what are the differences betweene them two we have formerly explicated chap. 9. ver 1. and see chap. 9.14 Acceptably Our worship and service of God and our workes of piety must not be done loosely after any manner but in such a manner onely as is acceptable and pleasing to God because all service must be pleasing to the person to whom it is done for otherwise it is disservice Therefore our worship and service of God must not now be legall by carnall sacrifices which while the Law was of force were not very pleasing unto him as hath beene shewed but spirituall and evangelicall by holy reverences prayers praises and thanksgivings neither must it be perfunctory lame or may med but entire serious and ardent With reverence and godly feare He shews the manner and way how to make our worship and service acceptable and pleasing unto God namely if we worship and serve him with modesty and reverence In the Greeke it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which properly signifie with modesty and reverence Modesty or bashfulnesse is an affection whereby we feare to displease a man and thereby to diminish his good esteeme of us and it extends it selfe to the least circumstances that seeme to containe any appearance of indecency even to those things which deserve neither punishment nor blame For modesty requires us to avoid all indecencies or if they cannot be avoyded but either are or have beene done to cover them that they may not appeare to others least thereby wee lessen our esteeme with them to whom they appeare But be case modesty though it be a very tender affection yet for the most part doth not incite and move us so vehemently therefore to modesty the Author adjoynes reverence which is a more potent affection for reverence is an intense or graduated feare when feare is in some degree augmented beyond his ordinary state as Charity is an intense love more then ordinary And this reverence doth properly respect a person that is superiour unto us and either hath power to benefit us or at least a right to punish us For feare as it respects a person is properly that affection whereby we beware of
God This reason St. Paul gives applying to the Resurrection of Christ the words of the Psalme Thou art my son this day have I begotten thee Act. 13.33 Whom he hath appointed heire God hath appointed Christ to inherit the sovereigne dominion and Kingdome of God first by granting him a right or title to it and afterward by giving him the reall possession of it Yet he possesseth it not successively after his father as the manner is among men but accessorily and joyntly together with his father Of all things His universall heire he alludes to an only son who is the sole heire of all his fathers estate For Christ is the unigenit or only son of God not that God hath not other sons but that he hath none such as he Seeing then God is the universall proprietary and Lord of all things therefore Christ being his only son and heire becomes universall Lord also of all things over all Angells and men whether alive or dead By whom also he made the world God by the mediation or meane of Christ did reforme and restore mankinde who is the chiefest part of the world by giving him a new state and condition by a new Covenant For the Hebrews who have no or few compound verbs say a thing is made when in regard of some qualities it is altered or renewed or made otherwise then it was before by assuming a new forme or fashion for a better condition So we are said to be created in Christ to good workes and we are called a new creature not in regard of any new creation or new nature but because of new relations unto God or new qualities in our selves 3. Who being the brightnesse of his glory Christ was the lustre raye or beam of Gods Majesty For seeing God is invisible and cannot be seen of men by reason of his immense and infinite light therefore God sent forth Christ as a raye or beam of his light that in Christ men might have a kinde of sight of Gods Majesty And the expresse image of his person These words doe but interpret the former Adam and in him every man made is made in the image of God to resemble God in some of Gods attributes but Christ is the character or image of Gods person for God did as it were imprint his person upon Christ that Christ might be his substitute upon earth to personate represent and resemble the person of God to be in wisdome as God by publishing the mysteries and secrets of God and by knowing the thoughts of men to be in holinesse as God without all staine of sin to be in power as God having dominion over all creatures over windes seas and devills For such divine wisdome holinesse and power are brightnesses images or markes of Gods Supremacie or Soveraigne Majestie Vpholding all things by the word of his power Christ carried all things by his powerfull Command for according to the Hebrew sence Word is put for Command as Psal 33.7 and Psal 143.15 And the Word of his power is an Hebraisme also for his powerfull word q. d. Christ did personate God not onely for the acts of his power but also for the manner of his acts because he wrought all his miracles by his sole Word or Command For at his Word or Command the windes ceased the sea calmed diseases were healed the divels were ejected and the dead raised And to this the Centurion applied his faith when he said Lord Speak the word only and my servant shall be healed Mat. 8.8 When he had by himself purged our sinnes Christ offered up himself in his own person and did not as the Leviticall Priest who used to offer sacrifices that were not himself but Christ was both the Priest who offered and the sacrifice which was offered And by this oblation of himselfe he expiated or purged away our sinnes by removing our guiltines and the punishment due to our sins Christ was a sacrifice to expiate our sinnes and the slaughter of this sacrifice was made on earth upon the crosse but the offering of this sacrifice was then performed when he entred into heaven and made his Appearance in the presence of God as the Leviticall Priest after the sacrifice was slain entered into the Sanctuary to offer the blood of it And this Oblation of Christ had then onely an efficacy or power to expiate our sins but the effect of it followes not upon us till we on our part performe our office by beleeving in Christ and obeying him Sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high The Leviticall high Priest when he went into the Oracle where God was said to dwell and sit betweene the Cherubins did not sit downe with God betweene the Cherubins but stood as a minister or waiter with great reverence of the Divine Majestie offering and sprinkling that blood wherewith he entered But Christ ascending on high and entering into heaven did not stand before the Throne of God as a minister or supplicant but sat downe at the right hand of Gods Majestie Yet he sat not by way of an Assistant unto God as Nobles and Councellers doe to earthly Princes but by way of Cor-regnant to reigne with him having absolute power over the people or Church of God and for the Churches sake over all other things For according to Saint Paul 1. Cor. 15.25 To sit at the right hand of God is to reigne and governe as God And Christ doth now reigne and governe absolutely and arbitrarily in all things not defined by Gods law but where Gods law orders things there he governs accordingly 4. Being made so much better then the Angels The Apostle formerly having tacitely preferred Christ before all the Prophets and before the high Priests proceeds now to compare and preferre Christ before the Angels to wit which must be marked from the time of his session at Gods right hand corregnant with him Whereupon he layes down this position or doctrine That Christ sitting at Gods right hand reigning with him in absolute power is become more excellent then the Angels This doctrine he presently proves by severall arguments following As he hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name then they This is the first argument whereby he proves his former doctrine because Christ hath obtained a more excellent name then the Angels By name here we are not to understand that dominion or dignity of Christ whereby he reignes with his Father in absolute power for this were to argue tautologously seeing he mentioned that before But by name he meanes the Appellation or title given to Christ noting his state and condition For from Appellations and titles especially given by God we may easily gather the dignitie and excellency of any person And this excellent name Christ hath obtained by Inheritance Which shewes that he had it not by nature nor from eternitie but in time by grace from the favour of God 5. For unto which of the Angels said he at any time
thou art my son He confirms his former reason by a testimony from Scripture Psal 2.7 Why Christ hath a more excellent Name then Angels Because God gave Christ the Name or title of Sonne which is a title of honour above that of Angels whose name or title signifies them to be the Messengers or Legats of God The Angels in generall are some time in Scripture called the Sons of God as Iob 1.6 But God on his part never calls them so in generall much lesse doth he single out any one peculiar Angel apart from the rest to entitle him by the name or Son But God entitles Christ by that Name Thou art my Sonne thou and no other person properly For the Pronoune thou is here put exclusively to sequester all other persons beside from the participation of that name as a proper and personall title Indeed as the Angels in generall so all Christians are in common called the Sonnes of God but Christ onely is so called peculiarly personally and singularly This day have I begotten thee He confirms why Christ is singularly entituled and named the Sonne of God because God after a singular manner hath begotten him i. Raised him from the dead for in Davids Psalmes from whence this testimonie is taken extream dangers resemble death and made him most resemblant and like to God himselfe by giving him Immortality and universall Royalty to bee King over his people For this generating or begetting of Christ hath respect to his Resurrection and Ascension for so Saint Paul expresly refers it Acts 13.33 Not that Christ was not begotten or not called the Sonne of God before his Resurrection but because by his Resurrection he was most assimilated and made semblant unto God by being made an immortall and universall King whereby he had the highest degree under God therefore God is said to have then begotten him and then to call him his Sonne For God is called God by reason of his supream power and dominion whereof they also are called Gods and the sons of God that have power and dominion and the greater their power is or the nearer it resembles Gods power so much the rather and more neerly are they his sonnes And he is most of all his Sonne whose power and dominion is made either the same with Gods or equall to it Christ was the Sonne of God before his Resurrection for during his prophetick function he was a great Potentate and wrought powerfull miracles but after his Resurrection upon his Regall office he became most neerly and highly the Sonne of God because then God made him an immortall and universall Potentate for then all Power was given him in heaven and earth Mat. 28.18 This day It is an Hebraisme frequently added to speeches wherein some remarkable matter is either done or given or promised or commanded as in this place to the end that day might be kept in memory or as it were remaine for a day of Commemoration that the action of that day might be kept in perpetual remembrance See Gen. 4.14 Jer. 1.10 and many places in Deuteronomie And againe I will be to him a Father and he shall be to me a Sonne Hee confirmes that Christ is the Son of God from another testimony of Scripture 2. Sam. 7.14 which was literally spoken of by Solomon as the former testimony of David but both mystically of Christ Intimating the deare love and affection of God toward him whereupon it must needs follow that Christ must be exalted to a most excellent state and condition above all other persons And as these words were spoken of Solomon futurely before hee was borne and indeed the Sonne of God so also of Christ 6. And again when he bringeth in Another testimonie of Scripture to prove Christ better then the Angels because all the Angels are commanded to worship him which must needs follow upon the state and condition of his filiation For all servants must worship or reverence their masters sonne and heire especially then when his father had made over his inheritance or estate unto him This testimonie is taken out of 97. Psalme whereof the inscription in the Septuagint is A Psalme of David when the land was restored unto him namely when his kingdome was restored after his expulsion from it by Absolon but mystically meant of Christ And therefore againe may well be referred to his bringing in For after Christ was expelled the world by his death and buriall God brought him into the world againe by his Resurrection in raising him from the grave The first begotten Christ is the first begotten Sonne of God because God begot him before all his other sonnes who are called the brethren of Christ for God first begot Christ in that manner wherein God is said to beget sons for those he begets whom he assimilates and makes like unto himselfe and so Christ was the first that was assimilated or made like unto God in holinesse in such holinesse as he requires in the new Covenant Secondly Christ is the first begotten of God by his Resurrection because by the power of God hee was raised and brought in againe from death to an immortall life for which cause hee is called the first begotten from the dead and the first fruits of them that slept 1. Cor. 15.20 Lastly he is the first begotten in all things whatsoever whereby the faithfull of Christ become the sons of God for Christ hath preceded them all that as St. Paul speakes he in alâ— things might have the preeminence Col. 1.18 Into the world First to be upon the earth a while after his Resurrection from the grave but chiefly when he brought him into heaven which is the superiour and future world and seated him at his right hand for then Christ became the Lord and head over men and angels and till then the angels worshipped him not For in this sence the Apostle here takes the world as himselfe shewes in the next cap. ver 5. where he saith thaâ— the world to come is the world whereof he spake And let all the angels of God worship him The words are Imperative laying a Command upon all the angels of God none excepted to worship Christ and therefore it followes that Christ is made much better then the angels In the Hebrew of the Psalme it is Worship him all ye Gods where the word Gods is opposed to Idols which were the Heathen Gods whose woâ—shippers are there commanded to be ashamed and againe to those Idols Christ is opposed who not onely is not an Idol but so true a God that all other Gods who are not idols must worship him But because by Gods there we can understand none but the Angels therefore the Septuagint translâ—tes it the Angels of God whom this divine Author followes Worship him Vse divine reverence before him and unto him by standing up bowing downe and falling downe before him in â—he very same manner that is done or due to God himself Because Christ sustaines the
hurt the bodies of men but their soules also so likewise wee beleeve it the office of the angels to protect not the bodies onely of the Saints but their soules also Satan hath power to inject evill thoughts into the mindes of men and to incite them to divers sinnes whom therefore the Scripture makes the Author and Parent of all sinne who workes effectually in the children of disobedience whom shee calls the Prince and god of this world who put it into the heart of Judas to betray Christ and into the heart of Ananias to lie unto the holy Ghost Now if Satan can doe this why cannot good angels inject good thoughts and by divers objects draw the minde to that which is acceptable unto God And when an angel is sent to deliver a man from danger he commonly delivers him no otherwise then by casting into his thoughts some advice or counsell whereby he may decline the danger or by putting some thought upon his adversary whereby to divert him from his entended enterprise Neither are wee to understand that the angels are sent forth only and soly for this end to minister to the Saints but that is the principall and chiefe end for many times the emissions redound to the benefit and profit of others both persons and kingdomes but especially concerning the affaires of the Church whereof Christ is Lord and Protector The Contents of this first Chapter 1. Doctrine Christ is greater then any of the Prophets Reason 1. Because God hath spoken by Christ in these last dayes verse 2. 2. Because Christ is appointed heire of all things eod 3. Because by him God made the new world eod 2. Doctrine Christ is greater then any of the high Priests verse 3. Reason 1. Because Christ is the brightnes of Gods glory and the expresse image of his person eod 2. Because Christ hath expiated our sinnes by himselfe even by his owne blood eod 3. Because Christ is now set downe at the right hand of Gods Majesty on high eod 3. Doctrine Christ is much greater then the Angels verse 4. Reason 1. Because Christ hath a greater name then they for he is called and is the true Son of God verse 4. 5. 2. Because the Angels are his subjects and servants for they must worship him and minister unto him verse 6. 7. 3. Because Christ hath a kingdome of righteousnes with a Throne and Scepter of righteousnes verse 8. 9. 4. Because Christ hath power finally to destroy and abolish this visible world and at the last day shall actually destroy it verse 11. 12. 5. Because Christ sitteth on Gods right hand on the Throne of God whereas the Angels minister and wait verse 13. 14. CHAPTER II. 1. THerefore Because wee have formerly proved that Christ is far more excellent then the Angels We ought to give the more earnest heed greater attention diligence and care To the things which we have heard to the doctrines precepts and promises of the Gospel the Author whereof who first published it upon earth was a person far more excellent then the Angels who published the Law upon Mount Sinai as the Author subjoynes it afterward at the third verse Least at any time we should let them slip He here expresseth the scope and end of their earnest attention and heed not to decline or revolt from the Gospel of Christ and he alludes to a leaking vessell that lets the liquor run out Now then we let the Gospel slip and run from us when either we forget it or give no further credit to it or neglect the precepts of it to conforme our lives to the holy rules therein delivered For when the Gospel hath not the force upon our soules to make us obedient to the rules of it then it may be said to leake or slip away from us 2. For if the word spoken by Angels He begins to bring a reason why we should take earnest heed that the Gospel slip not from us by an argument à mineri for if God punished the transgression of the Law which was lesse much more them of the Gospel which is greater The Law was the word or speech of God for God spake it to the people partly by himselfe and partly by Moses see Exod. 20.1 and in the same Chapter ver 22. Yet God spake not the Law either to Moses or the people immediately by himselfe but by the mediation and meanes of Angels who published and proclaimed it upon Mount Sinai see for confirmation hereof Acts 7.53 and Gal. 3.19 The Law therefore being published but by Angels is farre inferiour to the Gospel which was published by Christ a person greater then the Angels Hence we may collect two verities 1. That God truly and properly did not descend downe upon Mount Sinai and there publish the Law but an Angel susteining the Name and person of God published it in the Name of God For if God himselfe besides the Angels and accompanied with them had descended from heaven into the Mount to publish the Law then not onely the Authors argument had beene void but also the contrary must needs be concluded That the Law in this respect was more excellent then the Gospel because God himselfe who exalted Christ and made him head over the Angels came from heaven to earth and did publish the Law but the Gospel was published but by him who was exalted by God from earth to heaven 2. The second verity is That the Lord who published the Law upon the Mount was not the Sonne of God in the person of his deity For if the Law were given by the Son of God how can this Author affirme it was delivered by Angels and in that respect make it inferiour to the Gospel Or how is it at all inferiour to the Gospel in respect of the publishing if both it and the Gospel were published by one and the same person Was stedfast The Law was ratified and established made stedfast and firme when it was strengthened with power and force for obedience and supported with judgements and punishments against the transgressors of it For when a Law is but a bare precept and hath no penalty annexed to it then it is infirme and weake but when it is fortified with penalties then it is made stedfast and becomes a sanction for thereupon men dare not so easily violate and breake it And every transgression and disobedience The Law was made stedfast for this end that it might be fortified and supported against every transgression and disobedience whereby men would presume to breake it A transgression is a sin against an expresse and knowne Law for every transgression is a sin but every sin is not a transgression yet every sin may become a transgression namely if it be forbidden by an expresse and knowne Law Otherwise where there is no Law to be transgressed there can be no transgression A disobedience is a transgression done with malice and contumacy for as a transgression is one kinde of sin so
or posterity of Abraham whether they be carnall by birth onely or spirituall by faith onely or both by birth and faith And he rather said the seed of Abraham in two respects 1. Because we often reade in Scripture that Christ is promised to no other men properly but to the posterity of Abraham or at least to his seed chiefly and in the first place 2. Because this word would be most pleasing to the Hebrews to whom he writes who were themselves the seed or posterity of Abraham But by this ambiguous appellation which might signifie the seed of Abraham whether carnall or spirituall he so ingratiates the Hebrews that withall he might tacitely invite them to continue Christians because Christians onely of what Nation soever they be are the spirituall seed of Abraham Gal. 3.29 For Christ was destinate to take hold of to help succour and save onely that spirituall seed as being their onely mercifull and faithfull high Priest And by the words here we must understand rather the spirituall seed of Abraham then the carnall but they that are his seed both wayes both carnally and spiritually as these Hebrewes were may challenge Christ in a manner by a double right to be their ayder and helper The summe of all is As in the former clause of this verse the Author proved the negative That Christ was not made an Angel because he was not to take hold of them to help and succour them So in this clause he proves the affirmative why he was made lower then the Angels why he tooke part of flesh and bloud Because by his death he was to take hold of the seed of Abraham to help and succour the faithfull in delivering them from the feare and bondage of death So the words shew not what Christ was by his birth but what he did by his death Hence now it plainly appeares how incongruously these words are wrested to Christs taking on him humane nature For this sence is contrary to the context and altogether crosse to right reasoning for by it the same truth is made a reason whereby to conclude it selfe At the fourteenth verse before this is laid downe for a truth That Christ tooke part of our flesh and bloud i. he did partake of humane nature of which truth how can a reason be given by this that hee tooke on him our humane nature seeing these two truths are identicall though not in words yet altogether in sence But if we understand these words of helping and succouring the faithfull then there runs a veine of evident reasoning Christ was made lower then the Angels and tooke part of flesh and bloud to what end that he might suffer death Why so To destroy the Devils power of death Why that Because he was to deliver men from the feare and bondage of death Why did he that Because he was to take hold of men to helpe and succour them who are the seed of Abraham 17. Wherefore in all things Hitherto he hath shewed that Christ must be a mortall man to suffer death now from the last cause of his helping or succouring men he teacheth that he must not onely be mortall but subject to divers afflictions and not onely subject but actually to suffer them and that not some few but even all wherewith the rest of the faithfull are afflicted It behooved him to be made like unto his brethren How and why the faithfull are the brethren of Christ hath before beene shewed and proved Yet in this place againe the word brethren carries a powerfull force of reasoning It behooveth a brother to helpe and succour his brother and Christ therefore takes hold of the faithfull to help and succour them because they are his brethren especially the seed of Abraham who are his brethren both by God and man And it behooveth also a brother to be like a brother and the more alike they are the more lovely they are to all and the more loving one to another And therefore it behooved Christ to be made like unto his brethren not onely in some one thing as in their nature to be made a little lower then the Angels as his brethren were or to take part of flesh and bloud as they did but also to be like them in all things even in their whole condition to be subject to afflictions and temptations as they are and actually to suffer all sorts of them as they doe yet he was not like them in sin for that is excepted Heb. 4.15 and a universall saying must alwayes abate when a particular exception is expresly made against it That he might be a mercifull and faithfull high Priest Christ must be made like unto his brethren in nature that he might be their high Priest for the Priest and the people must be of one Nation he that sanctifieth and they that are sanctified must be all of one and he was made like them in condition for suffering afflictions and therefore he must bee unto them a mercifull and faithfull high Priest 1. He must be mercifull to be touched with a sence of his brethrens miseries and sorrowes and to thinke them so his owne or so neere him that he may be moved readily to succour or help them as himselfe For mercy is a sorrow for anothers misery moving us to succour him 2. He must be faithfull to administer and performe all things with all care and diligence in their behalfe that concernes their sanctifying or succouring to expiate their sins and help them from misery And this faithfulnesse takes some roote and growth from mercifulnesse for mercy doth beget and nourish faithfulnesse Now that Christ might be truly mercifull and faithfull to his brethren in all things therefore he must bee made like them in all things even in all their afflictions and sorrowes In things pertaining to God The office of the high Priest in generall was this to administer in things pertaining to God as to offer gifts and sacrifices for sin as the Author explicates it afterward chap. 5.1 And it was peculiar and proper to the high Priest to expiate or make atonement for the sins of the whole people together and not of single persons by themselves for that was common to other Priests This popular Expiation was performed by Christ our high Priest when after the shedding of his bloud on earth he entred into heaven as into the Sanctuary or holiest of all there to appeare in the presence of God to make Intercession for us that is that resting in heaven with God he might administer and performe all things that concernes our deliverance from the punishments of our sins To make reconciliation for the sins of the people The end of the office of the high Priest was to make reconciliation for the sins of the people i. To propitiate or expiate their sinnes The word in the originall signifies to cover hence the cover of the Arke was called the propitiatory because it covered the Tables of the Law that lay in
marrow In this sence is signified that this sword doth not onely cut the outward parts that lye open to the eye but also the inward parts that are hidden from it i. The force of Gods decree and sentence reacheth not onely to those crimes which are notorious and publique as the decrees and Judgements of Magistrates do who therefore have the power of the sword and therewith do execution upon malefactors but his decree also takes vengeence on those sins which are most secret and hidden bordering as it were upon the confines of the soule and spirit and lye closed up as it were betweene the joynts or within the marrow then which places nothing can be devised more secret Now the soule is the inferiour faculty in us containing the affections or passions as lust and wrath respecting onely those things which please and content the body Hence they which follow this faculty and suffer themselves to be governed by it are called in Scripture animall men But the spirit is the superiour faculty which discerns between things lawfull and unlawfull drawing us to things lawfull and honest and driving us from the contrary whereby we understand know God and his will and our finall happinesse Although the spirit may also be taken for that part of us which doth first vivifie the body and remaines after death And the soule may be taken for life it selfe or for that faculty which flowes from the spirit over the whole body And is a discerner of the thoughts and intentions of the heart This hee addeth that what hee said concerning the word of God might bee further pressed and the better understood God doth both take knowledge of the thoughts and intents of mens hearts and also decrees them to be punished if they deserve it This hee therefore saith lest any man should thinke that he may lye hid from Gods decree and escape the force and sharpnesse of his sentence if he only nourish his unbelief in his heart and reserve it in his secret thoughts So that no thought of ours though never so secret no wavering in our faith can be concealed from God 13. Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight Now he speaks that more generally whereof before he spake but in particular God doth not only discerne and know the thoughts of our hearts but there is nothing at all in the world that can escape the sight of his eye for by creatures he understands all things in generall But all things are naked and opened unto the eyes He illustrates what he said before by the contrary to it There is nothing so covered or hidden but the sight of his eyes can discover it And eyes are attributed to him because he clearly seeth all things be they never so remote and so leaveth nothing unpunished Opened 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This word is diversly expounded some thus the whole face from head to shoulders is discovered and exposed to the eyes of all Others thus The skinne is drawne over the shoulders from head to taile Others the creature is flayed and hanged up by the heeles having the belly and bowells opened to the chine of the backe that all lyes open both without and within But all these come to one sense namely that there is nothing so covered and hidden which lyes not open to Gods word or decree for the sight of his eyes doth not only fall upon the outward covering of things but pierceth inwardly all over their substance Of him with whom we have to do In the originall of that whereof we speake i. of that word whereof we speake Hereby he shewes that he understands not any word of God in generall but some certaine word namely that quicke and powerfull word whereof we have hitherto spoken and which is to be understood in all this matter of piercing dividing and discovering 14. Seeing then that we have a great high Priest This is the second part of this Chapter wherein he returnes to treat of the dignity of Christs Priesthood from whence he had digressed to fall upon the exhortation hitherto explicated Now therefore hee resumes his former argument and from thence drawes another admonition for constancie in the Christian Religion The Priestly office of Christ that here we may speake of it a little more fully consisteth in this That Christ expiateth all our sinnes before God and administreth all matters concerning Religion as the chiefe President over holy things Therefore we say Christ hath expiated all our sinnes because it was the office of the high Priest to expiate the sinnes not of one single person only but of the whole people But for the manner how Christ expiates our sinnes there is a great difference betweene him and the legall high Priest so that in this respect Christ is like God yea in a manner supplyes the part of God and not of the Priest For Christ remaining in heaven doth so expiate our sinnes that by power granted him hee removes all punishment from us and abolishes all things that may involve us in any punishment Whence it appeares that Priestly office differs not really from his regall office but rationally only For Christ doth not now really execute any thing about God or performe any condition upon the deed whereof there followes by the decree of God a purgation of our sinnes as anciently the legall Priest was wont to doe For he entered into the tabernacle of God with bloud and there appearing before God did sprinkle the bloud after a forme prescribed him and offered it unto God which being done there followed the expiation of sinne upon it For although Christ shed his bloud upon earth and by afflictions prepared himselfe for the execution of his office to the end that by a sense of our infirmities hee might bee the more readily affected toward us all which conditions were pre-required of God and were first to be performed by Christ yet being now in heaven and fullier administring his Priestly office in procuring the expiation of our sinnes he really performes no further conditions For in that after his bloudshed upon the crosse he entred into the heavenly tabernacle and by this means offered himselfe to God this was not any true condition upon which God decreed the remission of our sinnes seeing that entrance and oblation of himselfe was a great benefit of God bestowed upon him but it was only a meanes whereby Christ obtained supreme power both in heaven and earth from whence followed the expiation of our sinnes and which being granted unto Christ God did openly testifie that he would not punish any of their sinnes who did belong to Christ This indeed is true that this entrance of Christ into heaven and his appearance before God have a resemblance or likenesse with the entrance of the legall Priest into the Sanctuary and his appearance before God as God anciently required it Which resemblance or liknesse is the cause why Christ is compared with the legall Priest
then offer for this end that he might be saved from death which as wee have cleared from the words of the Authour was indeed the end of his offering Besides being in heaven he offered himselfe immaculate and therefore had no need to offer for himselfe there Wherefore Christ offered one way for himselfe and another way for us for for himselfe hee offered prayers on earth for us he offered himselfe in heaven for himselfe when yet he was mortall or in the dayes of his flesh for us when he was made an immortall and eternall Spirit And was heard The effect and issue of these prayers offered was this that he was delivered and saved not from death for hee suffered it and dyed but out of death from whence he was raised For whom God heareth praying in that manner him he delivers and frees though not from his misery before he suffer it yet out of it after hee hath suffered So speakes David as a type of Christ Psal 22.21 Thou hast heard mee from the hornes of the Vnicornes i. as learned men have noted thou hast heard to save me from extreame dangers So that the word heard is taken here Metonymically to include the effect of his hearing hee was heard and saved In that he feared Hee was saved from or out of the thing hee feared namely out of death The originall is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which some take for a passionate feare the object whereof here in Christ was death and so by a Metonymie feare is here put for death the act for the object or thing to be feared For of all terrours death is most terrible and fearfull and this feare was the cause of his prayers and supplications at least of the cryes and teares wherewith they were offered And then this example of Christ may teach us partly with what fervency of soule we must implore the help of God in the times of our distresses partly what things especially we must pray for partly wherein that opportune help chiefly consists whereof the Author spake in the end of the former chapter namely in this that Christ saveth us out of death into eternall life Others take 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for a reverentiall or religious feare for this sence is set in the margent of our last translation that he was heard for his pietie And then the object of his pietie reverence or fear was God to whom he prayed And so this feare of God was the proper motive to this offering of Christ and to all the circumstances of his offering His offering it selfe proceeded from his pietie or feare of God for every offering is an act of pietie His prayers and supplications proceeded from it for prayer also is an act of pietie his cryes and teares proceeded from it for they also are concurrents of pietie and fervent devotion His exaudition in being heard of God proceeded from it for Gods hearing of our prayers is the fruit of our pietie and devotion seeing God heareth not impious and sinfull persons but such as are pious to reverence and worship him and doe his will those hee heareth John 9.31 The prayers of Christ were supplications i. as before is noted petitions exhibited upon the knees with great worship and reverence given to God His prayers in the garden were such supplications performed with great worship and reverence bowing toward God for first hee fell upon his knees and afterward hee went more humbly and fell upon his face And his prayers on the crosse were supplications also as the Author termeth them and therefore performed with reverent bowing also such as was possible for Christ to use in that case being stretched and nailed upon the crosse where because he could not bow his knees therefore as the Sacred story relates it hee bowed his head when hee cryed and commended his spirit unto God Which bowing of his head was not a simple act of a dying man as some Interpreters slightly passe it over but an act of worship and reverence of a pious man that was making his offering unto God by prayers and supplications adding cryes and teares and all religious meanes for exaudition that God might heare him Wherefore it carries a very congruous sence to say that Christ was heard for his pietie i. for the feare and reverence he used toward God in his prayers and supplications for fear is the inward motion of the soule from which the outward worship and reverend bowings of the body do proceed And these outward reverences of bowing the head bowing the body and bowing the knees are acts of worship unto God which have beene used by Gods people in all ages of the world For bowing the head See Gen. 24.26.48 and Exod. 4.31 and Exod. 12.27 and Exod. 34.8 and 1. Chro. 29.20 and 2. Chro. 20.18 and 2. Chro. 29.30 and Nehem. 8.6 Hence it appeares also from this example of Christ that our prayers and supplications unto God should proceed from inward piety and fear of God and should be offered unto him with outward worship and reverence accompanyed with cryes and teares in times of extreme distresses if we mean to have exaudition that God should graciously heare us 8. Who though he were a son Christ by the evils which he suffered became such a one as to have compassion on those who labour to obey God through difficulties and sufferings Hee learned obedience He learned what it is to obey God what a difficult and harsh duty it is how bitter and unpleasing to flesh and blood For in this place hee takes obedience for that part of obedience which is seene in difficult and hard cases such as are these to be afflicted and suffer death for the justice and truth of God Yet I conceive the word obedience is here to be understood more literally and derivatively from audience for a giving of audience Christ who upon his prayers and supplications made to God with cryes and teares to save him from death had audience of God and was heard therein did therby learne to give audience and hearing to his people when in their distresses they offer up prayers and supplications with cryes and teares to him thereby to have compassion on them and deliver them from their distresses For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is here fitly renderd obedience doth carry an elegant symploce of sence both of audience to heare another what he would have done and of obedience to doe the thing which he hath heard And that very act of compassion in Christ in hearing the distressed though it be his audience to them yet it is his obedience to God who ordained a high Priest for that function By the things that hee suffered In the originall it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of or from the things that he suffered so it is rendred Mat. 24.32 Learne a parable of the figtree Christ by or from his owne evills and sufferings learned what bitternesse and trouble there lyes in suffering persecutions for righteousnesse
that have once beene Christians and have ceased to be so Vnto repentance So as they performe the acts of repentance by changing their minde into a better frame and by condemning their former resolution to resume that Religion again which once they have wickedly rejected and then to compose their life according to the rules of it Seeing they crucifie to themselves the Sonne of God afresh In these words hee shewes the matter wherein this falling away consists or rather the foul wickednesse cleaving to it and therefore what good cause there is why God wil not have such persons renewed to repentance To crucifie the Son of God is a damnable wickednesse how much more is it so to crucifie him afresh after he is now become glorious immortall and Lord of all things To themselves They doe not crucifie him afresh really and properly for that cannot be but to themselves In respect of themselves they doe it for their falling away from the Christian Religion is all one as if they crucified Christ for by their falling away they judge and condemne him againe to have been a seducer a teacher of false doctrines and so to have been deservedly crucified And put him to an open shame They cast a publike ignominy and reproach upon him as is done to those who undergo a publike and infamous punishment This very wickednesse the Author expresseth in other words signifying the same thing chap. 10.29 where he saith They tread under foot the Sonne and account the bloud of the Covenant an unholy thing 7. For the earth He illustrates and withall confirmes his former assertion by an argument partly of similitude and partly of contrariety For while he shews what is done to good men that are fruitfull of good workes he shews withall what befalls men forgetfull of Gods benefits conferred upon them and ungratefull to him This simily hee proposeth in a concise and contracted forme of speech confounding and mingling the members of it as is frequently done both in Sacred and prophane Writers For hereupon he seems to say of the earth that because it is fruitfull therefore it receives blessing from God which cannot be said properly but only by way of compatison For God doth not blesse the earth with fruits as a reward of her fruitfulnesse for the blessing of God upon the earth is the inriching her with fruits as appears by the words of Isaac to Jacob Gen. 27.27 See the smell of my sonne is as the smell of a field which the Lord hath blessed But because a fruitfull soile is tilled the more diligently hence it is that it more plentifully abounds in fruits And as we have noted the Author spake in this manner because in the reddition this simily it is properly true For when a man becomes like a fruitfull soile and abounds in the fruits of good workes then he receives ablessing from God in reward of his godlinesse Which drinketh in the raine that often commeth upon it The raine that often moisteneth the earth is like the gifts of God showred downe upon men whereof he treated ver 4.5 which are therefore fitly resembled to the raine often falling on the earth because they are manifold and plenteous sufficient to moisten the soul of man and make it spiritually fertill to produce divers fruits of good workes The raine may also resemble the frequent and daily preaching of Gods word which when it is preached is like a showre streaming downe from heaven to water and fructifie the soule of man But the former resemblance is more full and more fit to the point And bringeth forth hearbs meet for them for whom it is dressed The various fruits of vertue and workes acceptable to God done according to his Laws doe resemble those hearbs which the earth brings forth meet for them that dresse it or rather meet for them at whose charge and for whose sake it is dressed namely for the Lord of the soile to whom the fruits and revenues of it doe belong and accrue who in the reddition of the simily is God Hence the Apostle saith We are Gods labourers ye are Gods tillage yee are Gods building 1 Cor. 3.9 Is dressed The earth besides the falling of raine upon it must have a diligent tilling or dressing For the raine alone is not sufficient to make the earth fruitfull in hearbs meet for the Owner of it unlesse it be also dressed by plowing or digging weeding and dunging Hence the vine-dresser pleaded for the barren fig-tree Lord let it alone this yeere also till I shall dig about it and dung it Luke 13.8 So also God doth not onely water our soules with his gifts as with frequent and seasonable showres but also affords us a diligent and various dressing by the labour of his Ministers to instruct exhort reprove and comfort us Receaveth blessing from God Why the Authour speakes thus of the earth and what that blessing is in reference to the earth we have shewed already in the enterance of this verse But in reference to men fruitfull in good workes this blessing of God signifies both a multiplying of his spirituall gifts in this life for to him that hath shall bee given saith Christ and every branch that beareth fruit God prunes it that it may bring forth more fruit John 15.2 and also chiefly the gift of eternall happinesse in the life to come For then God blesseth a man when he makes things to goe well with him but better things can never go with us then when he makes us eternally blessed and happy 8 But that which beareth thornes and briars That earth which is watered with frequent rain and diligently dressed doth not withstanding beare thornes and briars Whence it appeares that here the Author hath reference to men who have received the knowledge of divine truth as the assertion it selfe requires for proofe whereof he alledgeth these words and to such men who for no small time have been endowed with divers gifts and diligently dressed of God These thornes and briars are all sorts of evill workes which have no use but for evil for hence the Apostle calls them unfruitfull workes Ephes 5.11 Among which Apostasie or defection from Christ leads the first ranke And from this simily it is manifest that the judgement or punishment which expects apostates doth also wait for them who have affinity with apostates whom we mentioned before who after knowledge of the truth and after so many gifts and benefits bestowed by God upon them are yet indulgent to their sinnes and without all endeavour of a better life conformable to Gods lawes Is rejected In the originall is reprobated For no man is willing to labour in vain and to weary himselfe with fruitlesse workes When a piece of land hath been dressed and dunged with all labour and care and yet in stead of fruits bringeth forth nothing but thorns and briars and other weeds that yeeld no profit to the husbandman the manner is for men to meddle no more with
name signified so as it also signified King of righteousnesse But if this had beene onely an appellation of him the Author would not have said king of Salem but Melechsalem as he said not King of Sedec but Melchisedec For who in relating of a mans name will deliver it partly in a strange language and partly in the proper language Wherefore when Melchisedec is in Scripture called king of Salem it is apparent that the name of King doth note his royall office and dignity and Salem notes the place wherein he did reigne And many beeleeve that this City Salem was the same with Jerusalem which at the first was called onely Salem and afterward by the adjection of the word Jeru Jerusalem as a man would say the sight of peace Priest of the most high God For so the Scripture calls him Gen. 14.18 And though the word Cohen signifie also a Prince as the Sons of David are said to have beene Cohenim 2 Sam. 8.18 which our Translation there renders chiefe rulers yet being attributed to Melchisedec it notes him a Priest 1. Because of that addition here made of the most high God for this addition takes away all ambiguity of the word and declares him to be a Priest of God and not a Prince of God 2. Because this is brought as a reason why he blessed Abraham in an especiall manner as shall be shewed afterward 3. Because Abraham payed him tithes which were usually paid to Priests Whence it appeares that the same word Cohen which is given to Christ as he is compared with Melchisedec Psal 110.4 doth not simply signifie a Prince onely as the Jews contend but properly a Priest For it is manifest that those words of the Psalme have respect to the place in Genesis where Melchisedec is called Cohen And it is no strange thing that anciently Melchisedec was both a King and a Priest for anciently Kings were wont to performe Sacred rites which custome grew from hence that in every family the principall person or ruler of it did officate in holy functions Whence it came to passe that they who afterward became Princes or Rulers of a whole Citie became also the publike Priests of that Citie and executed the sacred Ceremonies for the safety of the people For it made most for the honour of God that the most honourable person should minister unto him Who met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the Kings The Author mentions not this meeting as if in that there were any Mysterie but because he would shew how Melchisedec blessed Abraham and reciprocally how Abraham gave tithes to Melchisedec In which two points as he shews afterward the chiefe dignitie of Melchisedec appeared And hee mentions this meeting onely to designe the occasion the time and circumstances of the action whereof the History is particularly related Gen. 14. And blessed him Him i. Abraham for so saith the Scripture He blessed him and said Blessed be Abraham of the most high God possessour of heaven and earth Gen. 14.19 that is Let the most high God blesse Abraham and heap his gifts upon him in great abundance And lest any man should think that this was but an ordinary blessing such as commonly is among friends when they mutually pray and wish all happinesse one to another therefore he prefixed these words before it that Melchisedec was a Priest of the most high God thereby to make us know that this was a singular blessing as proceeding from a person that was a peculiar Minister of God Whence it appears that when Melchisedec is said to be a Priest of the most high God thereby is not shewed the reason why he brought forth bread and wine as they would have it who say that Melchisedec offered bread and wine to God and was therefore called a Priest but in those words is shewed the reason why he blessed Abraham and why as it presently follows Abraham gave him tithes But the error of these men who thereby would strengthen their owne opinions may manifestly be convinced from hence that the Author who most diligently prosecutes the likenesse betweene the Priesthood of Melchisedec and Christ makes not any the least mention of offering bread and wine wherein notwithstanding they thinke the greatest likenesse betweene Christ and Melchisedec doth consist and certainly must consist if both offered bread and wine Either therefore the Author omitted that which was the maine point in so accurate a comparison of Christ with Melchisedec or else that Melchisedec or Christ or both of them offered bread and wine to God is but those mens dream Melchisedec brought forth bread and wine that hee might refresh Abraham and his company that were weary after their victory and journey but hee offered none to God for this is refuted by the very word of bringing forth which is never used of offerings and besides the place and time when this is said to have been done refutes it also For wee use not to meet men upon the way there to celebrate divine services or performe holy Ceremonies Also Christ is never read to have offered bread and wine to God but onely to have instituted a holy Ceremonie wherein bread is broken and eaten and wine is drunke out of a cup yet not to perform any offering but to celebrate the memory of Christ whose body was broken for us and his blood shed for us As for the expiatory offering of Christ for our sinnes that was not performed on earth but in heaven Hebrewes 8.4 Neither doth it consist in offering of bread and wine but in Christs offering of himselfe as this Authour testifies in sundry places neither was it to bee iterated often but once onely to bee performed as the Authour clearely delivers it afterwards in this Chapter verse 27. and Chap. 10 14. For that single oblation perfects all the Saints 2. To whom also Abraham gave a tenth part of all The fifth particular that the Author observes in Melchisedec was that Abraham gave him the tenth part as is related in his history whence a little after the Author collects how far Melchisedec exceeded the Leviticall Priests The gift that Abraham gave him was a part of the spoiles for so it is expressed at the 4. v. following and the portion hee gave was a tenth part of them and there were none of the spoils excepted and reserved for he gave him a tenth part of all By these words hee partly explicates some things related in Scripture of Melchisedec and partly observes other things whereby to make it appeare how great a person Melchisedec was and how properly he was a type of Christ First being by interpretation king of righteousnesse First he ponders the name of Melchisedec and teacheth that there was an omen in his name For the Hebrew name Melchisedec being interpreted or translated into another language doth signifie a king of righteousnesso There are some who tell us that this name signifies my righteous king but it is very usuall with the
perpetuall residence there in procuring our salvation and the expiation of our sinnes is said to make intercession for us But as hee hath all power given him by his Father as he himselfe saves us and expiates our sinnes as he bestowes all happinesse upon us so he cannot be said to make intercession for us although these actions differ rationally rather then really seeing in them hee conveyes that to us which hee receives of his Father for us and therefore cannot properly be said to intercede or sue for that which hee hath full power to give of himselfe for God hath freely given him that full power 26. For such an high Priest became us Hee brings a reason why Christ was made a Priest to live for ever to make intercession for us because such a Priest did become us or was convenient for us Whence it appears that the following attributes given unto Christ do not notifie the innocent life of Christ which was indeed spotlesse and blamelesse but his happy and blessed state whereby it comes to passe that he ever lives and ever hath a care of us For although those attributes are most true of Christ if wee understand them of his life and innocencie yet being so understood in this place they make nothing to the present purpose of the Authour Who is holy In respect of his immortall nature which doth make him a Saint by sanctifying and hallowing him Harmelesse Not actively to do no harme but passively to have no harme by freeing him from all evill and miserie Vndefiled His state is purely happy and blessed not stained or blotted with any adversity or evil Seperate from sinners both in place and condition not conversing any more with them as once he did upon earth And made higher then the heavens He is now exalted above the two lower regions of heaven and seated in the highest region at the right hand of God All these are said of Christ in some manner by way of resemblance to the legall Priest Although in these againe there be a great disparity betweene Christ and him as we shall shew presently Yet if we respect the dignity of Priesthood the legall Priest was a venerable and holy person hee was harmelesse and inviolable and as his providence and care could lead him he was undefiled and hee was separate from sinners not conversing with them but residing in the Sanctuary which resembled heaven But all these could not be perfect in the legall Priest by reason of his infirmities or if they had been most perfect yet they had been but a shadow of those most divine qualities which were shewed before in Christ Now that such a Priest became us the thing it self declares for unlesse he were such a one hee could not be perpetually vigilant intent over our salvation to save all that should come to God by him For the contraries to these qualities would either trouble the functions of his office or wholly hinder them for even the legall Priest if at any time he were defiled might not performe the holy services to offer for others or sacrifice for their sin till first he had made some entrance in sacrificing for his owne 27. Who needed not daily as those high Priests to offer up sacrifice first for his owne sinnes and then for the peoples He shews another difference between Christ and the legall Priests depending on the former diffrences and consequent from them For the legall Priests must offer sacrifices yearly first for their owne sinnes and then for the peoples but Christ did this only once Daily i. upon the determine and set day for the yearly sacrifice which was the day of expiation For that the Author means that yearly sacrifice it appears from his saying that those Priests must offer first for their owne sinnes and then for the peoples But we read not that either hee did or was to doe this at any other time then at that yearly sacrifice of expiation For at other times he must either offer for himselfe alone if he stood guilty of some sin or if he were partaker of sinne with the people he must expiate it with one only sacrifice for himselfe and them together and not sacrifice first for himselfe and after for them See afterward chap. 10. v. 11. where daily is likewise taken for the appointed and set day For this hee did once He speaks of Christ our Priest What did Christ once certainly nothing else but what the old high Priest did yearly upon the set day But it is manifest from the former passages and from the context of the reasons that he speaks not here principally of the offering for the peoples sinnes on that day but especially for the offering for the sinnes of the Priest himselfe Sinnes are properly transgressions of Gods Lawes which seeing they had no place in Christ for hee knew no sinne therefore there must needs be an impropriety in the word sinnes here for by them must be meant the infirmities and sufferings of Christ whereof we spake before chap. 5.2,3 For we have already seen that the contraries to these infirmities and sufferings were in the next verse before described by the names of holinesse and harmlessenesse for these two verses do mutually illustrate each other When he offered up himselfe He shewes when Christ offered for himself namely prayers and supplications as we heard before chap. 5.7 And then he offered for himselfe when he offered himselfe for God when hee prepared himselfe for the offering of himselfe i. when he was slaine as a sacrifice For the offering of Christ in this place must be so farre extended as to comprise his death as a necessary antecedent or a kind of beginning and entrance to it Therefore Christ because hee now lives happy and blessed for ever and nothing can interrupt or hinder his happinesse therefore I say he is now secure of himselfe and need no more offer for himselfe but is only carefull for us and our salvation Yet because the time was once when he was forced to offer for him selfe therefore being well acquainted with sufferings he will so much the more readily succour the distressed But seeing this verse depends upon the former and is inferred from thence it appears therefore that the former verse speaks not of the manners of Christ our Priest but of his blessed state and condition For Christ needs not therefore not offer any more for himselfe because he was holy and harmlesse in respect of his manners and actions here upon earth seeing he was alwaies so but because by his Resurrection to Immortality he was freed from all harmes and evills for ever As therefore the sinnes of our Priest signified his sufferings and paines so the contraries to these his holinesse and harmlessenesse in the former verse declare him exempt and free from all such evills 28. For the Law made men high Priests which have infirmity Hee addes the cause of this difference between Christ and the legal Priests
the right hand of the throne of Majesty and that in heaven The throne of the Majesty is the Majesticke and stately Throne whereon he sits who is King of Kings and Lord of Lords who only is Almighty who only hath immortality and dwells in a light unapproachable 2. A minister of the Sanctuary and of the true Tabernacle The Epethite or Attribute true must be added both to Sanctuary and Tabernacle that Christ is a Minister of the true Sanctuary and of the true Tabernacle which is Gods heavenly habitation This is called the true Sanctuary and Tabernacle not in reference to false and fained Sanctuaries but in respect of umbratilous and terrene Sanctuaries which did but represent and signifie the true perfect solid and heavenly Sanctuary wherein God himselfe doth really and truely dwell and whereto the name of the true and right Sanctuary doth perfectly agree Of this true and heavenly Sanctuary Christ is the Minister as anciently the legall high Priest was the minster of the terrene Sanctuary For these words serve somewhat to declare the residence of Christ at the right hand of Gods throne Now to bee a Minister of the Sanctuary is nothing else but to Minister unto God in the Sanctuary to officiate and be busied about the Sanctuary to procure and order the things that pertaine to the worship of God in the Sanctuary And Christ recideing in heaven doth Minister there by executing Gods decrees by ordering heavenly things and whatsoever pertaines to Gods heavenly worship and service prescribed and commanded in the new Covenant The word Leiturgist or Minister doth not always signifie a simple officer waiter or hand-servant but many times such a one who with speciall authority and power doth execute some charge as the legall high Priests in the Tabernacle had the chief authority and presidency over all things pertaining to divine worship Which the Lord pitched and not man Either these words containe the cause why that heavenly Sanctuarie is called the true Tabernacle because it was erected not of man as that was under the Law but God himselfe who is our Soveraigne Lord. For that Sanctuary must needs bee the true and right one which the hand of man did not frame for God but which God raised for himself by his owne hand Or else these words are added to amplifie and illustrate the point to make it the more evidently appeare how much this heavenly Sanctuary differs from the earthly and exceeds it So also Paul to the earthen and fraile tabernacle of our mortall body opposeth that heavenly building of our glorious body made of God and not by the hand of men Ye have the same opposition afterward in this Author between the earthly Sanctuary and the heavenly chap. 9. verse 11.24 in like manner betweene cities made by the hand of men and that heavenly city prepared for the godly whose Architect and Builder is God himselfe Chapter 11.10 3. For every high Priests is ordained to offer gifts and sacrifices He proves that Christ our high Priest is a Minister of the Sanctuary because he is ordained to offer gifts and sacrifices for this function is naturall to the office of a Priest and he that offers gifts and sacrifices must needs be the Minister of a Sanctuary Wherefore it is of necessitie this man have somwhat also to offer The sence of these words is not so to be taken as to leave a scruple in us as if Christ had only somwhat that he might offer and yet wee might doubt whether hee would offer or must offer or doth indeed offer but that according to the nature of his office hee doth actually offer For in this sence wee often say I have somthing to give or to say unto you i. I will or must give or say somthing unto you From these words of the Author it is most manifest that Christ doth now offer in heaven for as the Author will shew afterward he offers himselfe to God For hee proves as we have said that Christ doth minister in the heavenly Sanctuary as appeares by the precedent and subsequent passages And this hee proves from hence because every Priest and therefore Christ is ordained to offer gifts and sacrifices and therefore if he will performe his office hee must indeed offer which if hee doe then it followes that hee is a minister of the Sanctuary 4. For if be were on earth hee should not be a Priest Here hee confirmes the other part of the second verse that Christ is a Minister not of the umbratilous and terrene Sanctuary but of the true and heavenly because if he were on earth he should not be a Priest at all Hence it appears that Christ is a Minister of the heavenly Sanctuary and doth offer unto God there Whence it necessarily follows that Christ while he was upon earth did not finish his perfect expiatory offering whereof the Author treats in this Epistle For could hee performe and finish it being out of his proper Sanctuary which is heaven Seeing that there are Priests that offer gifts according to the Law Hee gives here a reason why Christ should not be a Priest if he ministed on earth because there are already other Priests ordained of God to Minister on earth and to offer gifts of whose number Christ is none nor can be as was shewed in the former Chapter These terrene Priests are said to offer according to the Law because the Law hath granted them only this right and priviledge that no other person beside themselves without breach of the Law should usurpe the office of offering upon earth or ministring in the earthly Sanctuary 5. Who serve unto the example and shadow of heavenly things In these words either the Author gives a reason why Christ if hee were on earth could not be a Priest namely because those Priests who offer here on earth serve but for a shadow of heavenly things but Christ our high Priest must not serve for such a shadow Or els he illustrates from the contrary that Christ is a Minister of the true Tabernacle but the legall Priests did only serve as paternes and shadows of the heavenly Sanctuary By heavenly things he means the Sanctuary and holy functions wherein Christ doth minister in heaven As Moses was admonished of God when he was about to make the Tabernacle For see saith he that thou make all things according to the paterne shewed to thee in the mount He proves from a testimony of Scripture that the ancient legall high Priests served but as a paterne and shadow of the true and heavenly Sanctuary And he cites the words wherein Moses is commanded to make that ancient Tabernacle and all things pertaining to it according to the model or paterne shewed him in the Mount Exod. 25.40 Therefore the Tabernacle shewed him in the Mount was the type or modell and the Tabernacle made by Moses was but a sample or copy of that model Now that modell shewed by God in the Mount
they differ in beauty and glory as in the Courts of great Kings wee may distinguish the place where the Kings throne or chaire of State is seated by the foot-pace Canopy and furniture of it from the rest of the roome though it be not severed by any partition In the old Tabernacle the inmost and most holy place was at first continuous with the rest of the Tabernacle and not severed but by availe for without some such crosse materiall the one could not be severed from the other But in heaven the difference of brightnesse and glory serves for a vaile Christ therefore being to enter into the inmost and most holy place of heaven to sit at the right hand of Gods throne must needs passe through the large and common mansion of heaven as the Legall high Priest entered the second Tabernacle by passing through the first There are three things that seeme to favour this opinion 1. Because the Author did mention and describe a double Tabernacle before therefore the resemblance of the comparison doth require that to a double Tabernacle on earth there should be answerable a double place in heaven one a holy place and the other the most holy 2. Because these words doe indeed seeme to depend upon the verbe entered in the next verse as appeares by the particle neither at the beginning of that verse for that particle doth use to couple those things that are contained under one verbe which is here the verbe entered 3. Because the high Majesty of the Deity seemes to require that in his heavenly Mansion which no question is most ample and spacious there should be some most holy place sparkling and glittering with the brightnesse of unapproachable light where the most high God and supreme Lord of all things hath his throne and residence answerable to the most holy place in the Tabernacle wherein the throne of God was said to be seated This first Tabernacle of heaven through which Christ passed is said to be greater and more perfect i. then the terrene Tabernacle under the Law and it is greater and perfecter not only in quantity but in dignity Not made with hands that is to say not of this building Hee would give one instance at the least to declare the dignity of Christs Tabernacle to bee greater and more perfect then the legall because it is not made with hands or by art of man as the legall was Yet because the Author would shew that by these words hee comprehends something more then appeares at the first sight therefore he declares what he meanes thereby namely that Christs Tabernacle is not of this building It is not only not made by the hand or art of man but also it is not of the number of visible creatures which though they be not made by the hand and industry of men yet they are like to handy workes because they are visible and corruptible as handy-works are In which sense the Apostle opposing the house of our glorious body to this of our corruptible and fraile body saith of it that it is no handy-worke made with hands 2 Cor. 5.1 Or rather the Tabernacle of Christ is said not to be of this building or creating because it is not framed of visible materials or any other stuffe subject to the eye whereof all handy-works wrought by mans art are made Therefore these words not of the building must be extended more largely then the other not made with hands doe properly signifie For it doth not presently follow that if it be not made with hands therefore it is not of this building unlesse as we have said wee take a handy-worke made by hand to signifie metaphorically that also which is like to a handy-worke made by hand as are all things of this building or creating which have been made from the beginning of the world or else so which comes all to one as to comprehend all things which in respect of their matter are of the same kinde with handy-workes as are all things made of God from the beginning of the world for of these are all handy-workes framed Hence it appeares that there is another building or creature of God far more excellent then the building or frame of this world whose forme and matter is of another kinde far more faire pure sublime and stable then this which we see And to this building pertaines that heavenly Tabernacle of Christ our high Priest which is the Temple and residence of the most high God 12. Neither by the bloud of goats and calves Here he opposeth the sacrifice of Christ to the sacrifice of the old legall Priest The old high Priest entered the most holy place by the blood of goats and calves But Christ entered not by such base bloud but by most pretious bloud which could be no other besides his owne for as his person was most pretious so must needs his bloud be The bloud of man is more pretious then the bloud of a beast but the bloud of Christ is far more pretious then the bloud of all men besides Seeing Christ himself is far more excellent then all other men yea then all other ereatures for he is more deare and neare unto God then all as being his unigenit and only begotten Sonne But by his owne bloud Wee are to note that the Author to sute the elegancie of his comparison did in the first member of it use the particle by although the legall high Priest entered the holy place not only by the bloud of goats and calves i. having first shed the bloud of those beasts or after the shedding of their bloud but also with their bloud which he carryed into the holy place with him and offered it by sprinkling it upon and before the Mercy-seat But in the sacrifice of Christ the resemblance could not be extended so far seeing Christ shed not the bloud of an other creature but his owne bloud neither in his heavenly Tabernacle did he offer his bloud after his death but himselfe when hee was become immortall and had cast off the rags of flesh and bloud because they cannot possesse the Kingdome of God And therefore he entred the holy place of heaven not with his bloud but only after hee had shed his bloud Now because Christ entred thus therefore the Author said lesse of the legall high Priest then indeed the thing it selfe was and used the particle by to fit the comparison For in the sacrifice of Christ the matter was in part somewhat otherwise then in the old expiatory sacrifice In that old sacrifice as also in other sin-offerings the beast it selfe that was slaine was not offered unto God nor burnt as a sweet savour unto him as the Scripture termes it but the kidneyes and the fat of it only neither was the carkasse brought into the holy place but the bloud of it only But in the sacrifice of Christ not his bloud which he shed when he was slaine but he himselfe must be offered and hee must
substance He expresseth the cause why they tooke the spoiling of their goods joyfully namely because they had learned from the Religion of Christ and thereby knew for certaine that a farre better estate and more lasting possessions yea everlasting were reserved for them in heaven for which these earthly and transitory goods are very gainefully exchanged especially when they are made away for Christs sake And the place where this excellent and everlasting estate is reserved is in Heaven which doth further argue the excellency and eternity of it for though Christians are sometimes spoiled of their goods which they have upon earth yet of those they have in heaven they neither shall nor can ever be spoiled For that in heaven can be no spoile neither by moth rust nor thiefe Christ teacheth us Mat. 6.20 Lay up for your selves treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt and where theeves doe not breake through nor steale And this everlasting estate though it be in heaven yet the faithfull even while they are upon earth have it already though not for the possession of it for flesh and bloud cannot possesse it but for the expectation of it by faith and hope as sonnes and heires unto it for now they have the same right that the heire under age hath to his inheritance whereby they know beleeve and hope with full assurance that they shall possesse it 35. Cast not away therefore your confidence From the words precedent he inferres an exhortation that seeing they have gotten such a good report for their courage and constancy therefore they should not now be overcome with miseries and distresses and so turne from the right course of godlinesse whereinto they were now entered By confidence here he meanes either an undaunted courage of constancy of minde in professing the Christian Religion or else a full trust in God whereby we so rely upon him and are so certaine of our heavenly inheritance that we refuse the suffering of no evill Which hath great recompence of reward He brings a motive whereby to perswade his former exhortation that they should not castaway their confidence namely because their confidence should have a great recompence of reward and therefore it must not be idle and vaine least it should lose the reward for to idlenesse and vanity no reward can in equity be due but their confidence must be effectuall and painefull in the exercises of holinesse and good works that thereby they hold and keepe their title to the reward For though faith and not good workes do create as the title whereby wee have the reward yet good workes doe preserve or maintaine that title which was created by faith and by good works we hold our right to the reward and without them wee shall certainly lose the reward And besides these words have reference to the former verse wherein he shewed what this recompence of reward is namely an excellent and enduring substance in heaven 36. For ye have need of patience Here is another motive to perswade the former exhortation why they should not cast away their confidence but be patient under reproaches and afflictions even to the spoyling of their goods namely because they have need of patience Which may be taken in a double sence either with a check as if they wanted patience or without a check for to have need of a thing doth sometime imply a simple necessity of that thing whereby to attaine somewhat whether we have that thing or have it not sometime it implies a necessity joyned with the want of that thing That after ye have done the will of God ye might receiue the promise Hee expresseth the use and end of patience that he might shew to what purpose they have need of it And the use of patience is two fold the one more neere the other more remote which in respect of us is the last The neerer or former use of our patience is To do the will of God seeing patience it selfe is not the least part of Gods will and without it the other parts of godlinesse and consequently the rest of Gods will cannot throughly be performed The other use and last end of patience which followes from the former and without which this cannot subsist is to receive the promise or rather the matter promised which is the inheritance of the ever-enduring substance For they onely do at last receive the promise of God who first performe the will of God Wherefore without patience and constancy in suffering evils it is impossible as to performe the will of God so to receive the ever-enduring substance which is the promise of God 37. For yet a little while Another motive to stirre them up to patience in suffering urged by way of preventing an objection Some man might say It is an hard case for a man to lye under afflictions so long a time and to expect the promise whereof you speake after many ages To this the Author answers that the time allotted for our patience is not long but short for after a little while we shall receive the recompence or reward of our patience promised unto us and seeing this promise though it be delayed yet the delay is but for a little while therefore the delay of it should discourage no man or dishearten him under afflictions And he that shall come will come and will not tarry The time remaining for the comming of Christ is but a little while but very certaine for very certaine it is because he shall and will come and but a little while because he will not tarry The reward promised cannot be farre off and therefore wee must not be wearied with the expectation and stay of it for there is but a little while yet remaining for the comming of Christ and at his comming is the comming of the promised reward for he will bring the reward with him and they shall receive it who have done the will of God That the time to the comming of Christ is but a little while is gathered from hence because that the time of each mans life is but a little while at the end of each mans life is the comming of Christ to him as we have shewed before verse 25. Hence Paul saith That the burden of our afflictions is but light and the time but for a moment compared with the eternitie of that glory which shall follow upon it 2. Cor. 4.17 And Peter to abate the force of our temptations and afflictions saith That wee are now for a season in heavines through manifold temptations 1. Pet. 1.6 And hee saith againe That after wee have suffered a while the God of all grace will exalt us by Christ into his eternall glory 1. Pet. 5.10 Yet when the Author saith yet a little while he tacitely grants that there shall be some space of time intervening as appeareth by the words of the Prophet to whom herein hee hath reference For the Prophet saith If it tarry wait for it
seeke it with all their soules The particle but now is commonly adversative onely and all one with but as we have formerly noted but here in this place it carryeth also with it a sence and force conclusive as if he had said Seeing therefore they seeke and desire a countrey yet neither seeke nor desire the former whence Abraham departed it must needs therefore now follow that they seeke and desire a better countrey then that For if it were not better but onely as good or worse there could be no reason why they should desert the former and with so great labour and care seeke another Yet the Author used in this place the adversative particle but by reason of the opposition betweene these and the former words They desire the tense present for the preter tense they did desire as is commonly use in argumentations and many times in narrations especially when the history regards not the point of time but keepes close to the matter and that she may the better represent things to our view speakes of them rather as present then past That is an heavenly Here the Author expresseth in his owne judgement as well knowing the purpose of God in that point what better countrey it was which they desired For it is not necessary we should thinke that those Patriarchs did expect this heavenly countrey by intent and purpose of minde as hath beene already declared before ver 10. but it sufficeth that this should be the event of their expectation and desire from the Decree of God who in a mysterious and concealed way had promised them this heavenly countrey and that it should not thus farre come to passe without their desire in as much as they desired a better countrey then that which they had relinquished For a better countrey then this heavenly which by Gods appointment was reserved for them and should in time accrue unto them there could bee none Whence also if a thing befall a man sutable to his desires though it be or prove much better then hee hoped or imagined yet wee usually say hee sought and desired it especially if the course of his life and endeavours bee so composed that the issue and event might well be such which certainely was performed by those Patriarchs For their very pilgrimage upon earth this very thing that they had no proper and setled abode of their owne upon earth though they were most deare to God the supreme Lord of all things how fitly doth it suit with this issue and event that being pilgrims and strangers upon earth they should at last by Gods goodnesse be setled in heaven as in their countrey For why else did not God give them a setled countrey and a certaine abode upon earth Therefore even those words wherby they confessed themselves pilgrims and strangers upon earth were not uttered but by the Spirit of God because by them was signified that they were not citizens of earth but of heaven which was their countrey Because therefore this heavenly countrey was in the purpose of God to be better then that countrey which the Patriarchs desired therefore with good reason are they said to desire this heavenly countrey But if we looke into their intent and purpose the countrey which they desired was the possession of the land of Canaan ordained for their posteritie Of so great advantage it was to leave their petty dwellings in their owne countrey that they might settle their posteritie in possession of a whole kingdom and place them in the eternall and peculiar favour of God Wherefore God is not ashamed to bee called their God God therefore was not ashamed of them because after they were dead God both calls himselfe their God and suffers others to call him so yea hee would be called so Certainely it is a great matter that the most high God who is the maker of heaven and earth would be called the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob and would not bee ashamed of that title For what is Abraham Isaac and Jacob men dead and rotten long since who while they lived were exiles fom their countrey and vagrants upon earth having no certaine abode all their whole life From these mens names the onely Lord and ruler of all things disdained not to take his sirname But to be the God of some person especially when God utters it himself of himself signifies that he is the chiefe Patron and Protectour of that person who will defend his client and worshipper from all evill and benefit him with his best blessings but when man utters it of God it often signifies that God is his supreme Lord whom he worships and obeyes in all his commands with all his soule And this inference of the Author from his former passages is an argument that he spake of the event of the desire and vote of those Patriarchs and not of any intent and purpose in their mind to seek and expect that heavenly countrey For it appeares not from Scripture that God was therefore not ashamed of them because they had an intent and purpose of minde to seeke and desire that heavenly countrey but because God had decreed to restore them to life and to put them in possession of that countrey as the Authour willing to explicate himselfe and to shew more clearly the consequence of what he inferres doth therefore subjoyne For hee hath prepared for them a Citie For he brings not here a new reason why God was not ashamed to be and be called the God of those Patriarchs but hee onely proposeth his former reason more openly and clearly For we use not when wee have concluded a truth and inferred it as firme and certaine from former principles to confirme it abruptly with an argument and reason as if it were not yet proved so as to leave no marke that we bring a new reason different from the former because then God had ordained that heavenly countrey and kingdom for Abraham Isaac and Jacob therefore with good right and reason doth hee call himselfe their Lord and Patron This the Author without doubt had learned from those words of Christ whereby he proves the Resurrection of the dead from hence because God calls himselfe the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob who then were long dead For hence Christ doth gather that seeing God cannot be the God of the dead namely if they never be restored to life for how can God benefit the dead unlesse he first raise them therefore it must needs follow that if he call himselfe the God of some dead as he did of those dead Patriarchs then some of the dead must at length be recalled to life that God may be their God in very deed by accumulating and furnishing them with his benefits and blessings But as in the same place Christ saith a little before They which shall be accounted worthy to obtaine that world and the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage neither can they die
more bitter then the paine of it and therefore the Author addes Despising the shame It was a great shame and disgrace to the Sonne of God who well knew the high dignity of his person after he had delivered so many gracious doctrines and wrought so many admirable miracles after so great hope and expectation raised of him to be seized upon by hangmen dragged to execution nailed to a crosse lifted up on high to endure the faces and eyes of all men upon him and be set as a marke for the spears and darts of bitter tongues Yet Christ despised all this despite all this shame and this disgrace that for a momentany shame be might attaine everlasting glory and for a temporall paine on earth eternall joy in heaven And is set downe at the right hand of the throne of God This is added to shew that Christ was not frustrated of his hope but that hee received a large reward of his faith and patience To teach us that if we also follow him in this race we shall have the like issue of our faith and patience But the great dignity and glory to Christ that is signified by his sitting at the right hand of Gods throne is before explicated Chap. 1. ver 3. From this place and the other Chap. 8.1 it appears that when Christ is said to sit at the right hand of God by Gods right hand is not understood his power and strength as elsewhere it is but in this phrase by a simily drawne from men is signified that the place at Gods right hand is more honourable then that at his left For otherwise it were not rightly said the right hand of the throne of God because a throne hath no hand nor is supposed to have any but only a right side of it And many times in the same sense Christ is said to sit in the plurall number at the right hands of God or his power For when the power of God is understood or a right hand is attributed unto him by way of analogie it is not called the right hands of God in the plurall number but his right hand in the singular But when the right or left place is signified it is commonly expressed plurally by right or left hands though it be uttered in respect of one person only See Mat. 20.21 and Mat. 25.33,34 41. 3. For consider him that endured such contradictions of sinners against himselfe lest ye be wearied and faint in your mindes Hee expresseth the end and use of the example of Christ why wee should diligently consider it because we are to make this use of it that our mindes may not bee tired with adversities and afflictions and so wee become wearied and faint in the course of our faith and patience which here by profession of Christ we have begun to runne 4. For ye have not resisted unto blood striving against sinne He exhorts them with a new argument to an invincible courage in bearing the afflictions which they suffered For it seemes he would make them somwhat ashamed that seeing the miseries wherewith they were pressed were not so grievous as that hitherto they had drawne bloud from them yet they begun to fail in courage and strength contrary to Gods expresse monition Here also he alludes to strifes yet such as were by fencing or fighting and not by running For sinne would beat us from our constancy of faith and pietie toward God but among the afflictions which come to be suffered of us for the love of Christ is the abnegation or deniall of sinne against which we must fight In this fight therefore while the combat is but upon our goods our credit and reputation the matter is not yet come to bloud but when cruelty torture and death chargeth upon our bodies then the businesse is in good earnest and the fight is in the heat These Hebrewes as it seems were not yet in danger of their lives for Christ but their sufferings were only mockings reproaches and spoiling of their goods as appeareth chap. 10. ver 33.34 The Authour therefore shewes what a shamefull thing it is to turne the backe and flie at the first skirmish as it were and entrance of the fight But when he brings in sinne for their enemy with whom they are to deale he doth therein by a most effectuall argument encourage them to an holy valour lest they should fail in their combat with an enemy so base and dangerous 5. And ye have forgotten the exhortation And for and yet by way of a particle adversative As if he had said Though ye have not yet spent your life and bloud for the love of Christ yet the divine admonition or exhortation is slipt out of your minde wherein yee are commanded to receive the chastning of the Lord with a ready minde and to beare it patiently And consequently yee have forgotten your dutie contained in that exhortation For the Authour doth not reprehend them meerly for their memory that they had forgotten the words of that exhortation but for their negligence in not performing the duty therein commanded We have said elswhere that hee is said to remember a person or a matter who hath a care of it and therefore hee that hath not such care though otherwise hee remember him in mind doth forget him This hath place chiefly in commands councells and exhortations which are not given therefore only to remaine in our memories but they must so remain in our memories as that they be put in execution and actually performed And when the authoritie of the commander or admonisher is so great that it is not likely but that hee who doth but onely remember the command or monition would obey it with great reason they may be said to forget it who though they retaine it in a lively memory yet obey it not Which speaketh unto you as unto children The Author commends this exhortation from the qualitie of it that it is very gentle and fatherly in regard it termes them children to whom it is directed For who but a froward and obstinate person would not give way to such an exhortation The exhortation is said to speak by way of Metonymie because he that exhorteth speaketh by it or rather because it is the very speech of him that exhorteth Now the person who exhorteth is openly Solomon but secretly God by whose instinct Solomon uttered this Pro. 3.11 Therefore in this exhortation God himselfe calleth us his children from whence it follows that we should receive it readily and observe it diligently My sonne despise not thou the chastning of the Lord. When we make God himselfe to speak and not Solomon then the name or Nowne of the Lord must bee supposed to be put for the Pronowne my after the Hebrew phrase To despise or as it is in the Hebrew to reject the chastning of the Lord is nothing else but an unwillingnesse to bear it patiently but to kick against it as against a prick By the chastning of the
spectacle or sight that appeared was so terrible and horrible that not onely the promiscuous multitude stroke with extreame terrour entreated they might not be constrained to stand and hear any more but even Moses also who was the Mediator and Messenger betweene God and the people said I exceedingly fear and quake That ever Moses said this wee no where read in the sacred History but without doubt the Author affirmed it as knowne to him by some other meanes See chap. 9.19 22. But yee are come Here follows the other part of the comparison which the Author had framed wherein hee shewes how far the things whereof we are made partakers by meanes of the Gospel exceed those which of old befell the Israelites at the promulgation of the Law This accesse or comming must be understood of a spirituall accesse or approach as unto things and persons spirituall for it is opposed to that carnall accesse or comming of the Israelites to the earthly Mount Yet this accesse must further be understood diversly according to divers things and persons which are here mentioned In generall it consisteth in a kinde of conjunction which wee have with those things and persons as in some measure thence forward pertaining to us although also this conjunction be divers according to the diversitie of those things and persons Vnto Mount Sion Hee opposeth Mount Sion unto Mount Sinai whereto the Israelites came when the Law was published But Mount Sion even taken properly was farre more beautifull and comely then Mount Sinai neither was it seated in the wildernes but in the land of Promise And there can be no doubt but by Mount Sion in this place that must be understood whereto the Mount was but a figure and a shadow For as the thing figured is sometime used for the figure as was shewed a little before so much more often is the figure taken for the thing figured And although sometime by Sion and the holy Mount the Church it self be shadowed yet because Jerusalem the Citie of the living God which the Author mentions in the second place may more fitly be referred to signifie the Church therefore by Mount Sion wee may better understand heaven it selfe or some spirituall Mount whose top is heaven the dwelling of everlasting blessednesse For we read more frequently that heaven is signified by mount Sion then the Church For as in one head of mount Sion which was called Morea the temple of God was built wherein God was said to dwell there was also in another head of it the palace of David who was a type or shadow of Christ the king of Gods people so in heaven truely is the temple of the most high God and there is also the palace of Christ our heavenly king Therefore we say that in this place may be signified some spirituall mount whose top is heaven because by the heavenly Jerusalem as wee shall shew afterward the Church may seeme to be understood as it is now existent upon earth But the allegory will be more full if by Mount Sion wee understand not onely heaven it selfe but conceive in our minde some spirituall mount whose top is in heaven and his foot reacheth unto earth that as of old Jerusalem was seated at the foot and forward upon the side of Mount Sion so also the Church as it is now on earth may be said to be built and so forward on the side of a Mount which hath his top in Heaven that is hath a great vicinity and contiguity with Heaven and is already in some degree raised up into Heaven as they who dwell at the foot and side of some Mountaine are nearest neighbours and borderers to that Mountaine and have not only liberty to ascend it but in regard they already possesse the sides of it are in some degree promoted toward the top We therefore are come to heaven it selfe or to that spirituall mount or state whose top is heave as we are made neighbours unto heaven and have a right and liberty to ascend it yea in some sense we may well be said inhabitants of it for from the Church there is a neare and open passage even to the top of heaven Hence it appears that not only this Mount whereto we Christians are come by the preaching of the Gospel and by our faith given unto it is by infinite degrees and without all comparison far surpassing Mount Sinai but that our accesse also or comming to it doth farre surpasse the accesse or comming of the Israelites who stood near that Mount but had no right to ascend it nor liberty to touch it unlesse they would presently be overwhelmed with stones or struck through with darts And unto the city of the living God What City this is he presently declares by saying the heavenly Ierusalem The attribute heavenly doth manifestly shew that here he treats of that Jerusalem whereof that earthly City the head of the Kingdome of Israel was but a type and a shadow Hence also it appears that this City whereof the Author treats is by far greater reason called both the City of God and Jerusalem that is the sight of peace by which word the Hebrewes use to understand happinesse But this heavenly Jerusalem may bee understood to be the City of the living God in a double sense First so as it signifies some stately place destined for the dwelling of the godly and so wholly different from the Church that is the City having foundations whose builder is God and which God hath prepared for Abraham Isaac and Jacob and for their spirituall posterity whereof we spake in the former Chapter And these buildings and palaces ordained for the habitation of the godly are situated as I may say in Heaven as the City Jerusalem possessed the spaces of Mount Sion This City he understands in the Chapter following ver 14. when he saith Here we have no continuing City but we seek one to come And this sense seems most proper to this place But secondly this City of the heavenly Jerusalem may be taken for the structure of the Church it selfe which consiseth not of any houses but of single persons joynted and composed one with another in a peculiar order and frame And that is in a manner twofold For one structure of the Church is upon earth though that Church be heavenly also the other shall be hereafter in heaven both of these are understood by the heavenly Jerusalem in the Revelation of St. John chap. 21.2 c. and ver 9.10 For that the Church or her structure is there meant it appeares by this in that she is called the Bride of the Lambe and the twelve foundations of her wall are said to be signed with the names of the twelve Apostles of the Lambe and many things there read of her declare that she is there considered both as she is for the present on earth and as she shall be for the time to come in heaven For the present in that she is said
which could not be made up only of the Apostles and Prophets of the New Testament Wherefore this generall assembly must be further extended which if it be then nothing is more probable but that by first-borne is understood in this place as we have said the first-fruits of the faithfull in every place For they were worthily of greatest esteem among the Christians they had the double portions as it were of the Holy Ghost or to speake in the words of the Apostle they had the first fruits of the Spirit and were endued with divine gifts above other men But some may demand whether the Author alludes in the word first-borne if he allude at all which if he doe it seems it is either unto the first-borne under the Law into whose place the Levites were chosen to minister in the Sanctuary or to the universall assembly of the Israelites when they stood at the foote of Mount Sinai to heare the Law For the former opinion it makes first from the word first-borne for first-borne are most fitly opposed to the first-borne Secondly in that these Hebrews to whom the Author writes being seasoned by the Apostles with the doctrine of Christ seeme answerable to that first assembly of the Israelites at Mount Sinai to heare the Law Which if it be so then the first borne can scarce signifie the universall multitude of the first Christians or the first common Church seeing there must be some who had accesse and other some to whom the accesse was had unlesse we say that these Hebrewes are considered as some part of the primitive assembly of Christians answering to that part of the Israelites assembly which first received the Law delivered from God himselfe For if by the heavenly Jerusalem the Church be signified these Hebrewes can be said to come unto it no otherwise then as the part to the whole Thirdly because by these first-borne some excellent and eminent men in the Church seeme to be understood as put in a meane betweene God and Angels for these very fitly answer the first-borne and to the Levites and Priests chosen into their roome as are the Apostles Prophets Evangelists and other excellent and eminent men who went before all that followed them not onely in time but in gifts And it is probable that the Author would make particular mention of them and then they were not expressed in other words then these The other opinion is favoured by the word generall assembly which signifies an universall meeting and likewise the word Church For that generall assembly of the Israelites who met at Mount Sinai to heare the Law was called the Church Acts 7.38 Hence it appeares of what great dignity they are who have received the Religion of Christ because they are incorporated as it were into one body and into one Church with that Church of the first-borne and who as S. Peter saith have obtained like precious faith with them 2 Pet. 1.1 and enjoy the same right with them of happinesse and salvation He calls them the generall assembly and Church of the first-borne because though all these first borne did never yet assemble in any one place upon earth for this shall be done hereafter onely in heaven yet because of the spirituall conjunction and likenesse of dignity and condition that is betweene them they are considered as one assembly and in a manner as one company Which are written in heaven He seemes to allude to the number-rolle or list of the names of the first-borne or of all the Israelites for God commanded Moses to taken the number of both these but both these were written on earth but the lift of Christians is written in heaven and written by God So that by these words their dignity and happinesse is notified But the Greek word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies not simply written but recorded for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies a list upon record for their names use to be lifted upon record who are the citizens or members of a common-wealth By these words therefore is signified that Christians are citizens of heaven and have the right of a heavenly common-wealth that their God is alwayes mindfull of them seeing he keeps their names as it were written in a booke and therefore it cannot be but in due time he will put them in possession of his heavenly kingdome Whence also they that come unto them or are aggregated to their number are reckoned with them for citizens of heaven and members of that heavenly common-wealth And to God the judge of all But some may here say that the Israelites came long since unto God and therefore here is nothing said that concernes Christians in particular I answer 1. That they when they came to Mount Sinai did not really and truly come to God himself but onely to an angel who sustained the person and Name of God 2. That they came not in that manner that Christians doe unto God who as S. John saith come into a communion and fellowship with God 1 John 1.3 and into such a communion that they are reckoned the sons of God and in time to come shall be his heires in witnesse whereof they have received the earnest of his holy Spirit Ephes 1.14 3. The Israelites came not unto God as unto him whom they knew to be the Judge of all or rather who then caried himselfe as the universall Judge of all men of all countries and nations both quick and dead Now the name of Judge may be here taken either largely for any Lord and governour or strictly for him who according to mens merits decrees and payes rewards and punishments Anciently God tooke the peculiar charge and governement over the people of Israel onely but now he hath a fatherly care equally over all men of what Nation soever so they be Christians yea he provides that they become Christians Also he ordaines rewards and punishments for all men not onely in this life but also after it which to those first Israelites was not knowne especially in regard of those transcendent rewards to be collated after this life upon the godly without any difference of Nation And to the spirits of just men made perfect He seemes now to mention these that he tacitly may shew what a great happinesse it is to come to the Judge of all men both the living and the dead By the Iust he understands those men deceased notable for their righteousnesse whereof he reckoned up no small number in the former Chapter treating of faith in God And he saith that Christians are come to the spirits of the just because there is now nothing left of them but their spirits which God hath received into his faith and custody as the Judge of all And the just or righteous deceased are said to be made perfect not that they now enjoy finall happinesse and really possesse the finall promise of God for otherwise Christians had not come to their spirits onely but rather to them
themselves in the former chapter he denied that they had already received the promise of God and were made perfect but that their state and condition is such that perfection and eternall happinesse is now remaining to them in a way immutable so that the certainty of attaining it is such as if they did already really enjoy it In this very sense Saint Paul useth the same word of himselfe when hee saith Not as though I had already attained either were already perfect Phil. 3.12 that is not that I am now in that state as if I could no way faile of that blessed resurrection for of this it was that he spake in the former verse for otherwise that he had not yet really attained eternall life no man could be ignorant and it were a fond thing to affirme it The Author therefore shews that those just ones though they had not attained eternall salvation in perfection in regard now nothing of them was extant but their spirits yet without all doubt should certainely enjoy it by the immutable decree of God Hence it appeares what it is for God to be Judge of all and what happinesse is therein contained if a man come both to the Judge and to the spirits of the just and be admitted into their society For thereby he is certain though his life here-faile him yet he shall not faile of the reward of eternall life 24. And to Iesus the Mediatour of the new Testament The Israelites heretofore came to Moses the Mediatour of the old Testament but Christians come to Jesus the Mediatour of the New But how much Jesus is better then Moses and the new Covenant better then the old we have shewed before chap. 3.8 and chap. 8.6 The word Mediatour is in a manner proper to the holy Scripture and peradventure no where used among profane Authors as others have noted Yet it is found out of the Sciptures in Philo who being a Jew used a forme of language that had some affinity with the sacred writers And what this word signifies being used of Christ we are easily taught by the example of Moses to whom that name was first attributed For although of it owne nature it may signifie any one who intervenes as a meane betweene two parties yet the example of Moses and the name of Covenant added that thereby is signified no other but an herald or hee who intervenes as a mean between God and men to make a Covenant for the joyning of them in a mutuall and firme peace and friendship For the effecting whereof it is not forthwith necessary to appease and mitigate the minde either of one or both parties when it may be either both parties as it was in the making of the old Covenant or one of them as it was under the new namely God doth freely incline to peace and friendship yea doth alone seeke offer and procure it And to the blood of sprinkling An Hebraisme for the blood which is sprinkled or wherewith aspersion is made Hee alludes to that blood of the old Covenant wherewith Moses after hee had rehearsed all the precepts of the Law sprinkled both the booke of the Law and the whole people whereof he said This is the bloud of the Testament which God hath enjoyned unto you as we had it before chap. 9. vers 19 20. We Christians are in like manner sprinkled with bloud and that with the most precious blood of Christ himselfe And wee are sprinkled with the bloud of Christ when in our hearts wee conceave and embrace the force of that bloudy death which he suffered to confirme the new Covenant in such manner that thereby wee have an infallible assurance made us of the promises comprehended in the Covenant whence it comes to passe that wee are made parties to the Covenant and obtaine a right of attaining to all the blessings promised therein That speaketh better things then that of Abel He commends this bloud wherewith Christians are sprinkled by mentioning the force and effect of it that they may joy the more for their aspersion with it and may moreover more carefully endeavour that they wash not the droppes of that bloud from their soules that is that they never fall away from the new Covenant nor cease to feel the force of the bloud of Christ and so deprive themselves of that great blessing which they gained by the shedding of it namely a right to eternall happinesse To the blood of Christ hee ascribes speech in a figurative sense as likewise to the bloud of Abel Both their blouds speake or as the Scripture saith of the bloud of Abel both cry unto God but Abels bloud cryes for vengeance upon his fratricide but Christs bloud cryes for remission and pardon even upon paricides for they may justly be called paricides who murdered Christ And unto these no lesse then unto all other sinners the bloud of Christ begs pardon from God of all their sinnes if they will repent and be converted from them And he begs it as hee engageth God to grant forgivenesse of sinnes to all penitent persons whatsoever their sinnes have been And he engageth God as hee was employed of God to confirme and establish the new Covenant which is so remarkable for that promise 25. See that yee refuse not him that speaketh To his former passages hee now subjoynes an Exhortation and fortifies it with new reasons And herein he seemes to allude to that fact of the Israelites whereof we spake before when they were stricken with such terrour of Gods Majesty that they entreated that God would speak no more unto them which fact of theirs was a kinde of presage or token that afterward they would not carry an ear and mind obedient to the voice of God He therefore admonisheth Christians that now after they have given their ear and mind to the voyce of God in the Gospel they would not againe turne their ear and mind from it which is done both by Apostacy and by disobedience See i. take diligent heed for they who take diligent heed cast about their eyes every way that they may escape the danger imminent For if they escaped not By an argument of comparison hee shewes that if they doe otherwise they shall not escape a grievous punishment for they the Israelites escaped not namely the punishment and avenging hand of God whereof wee treated chapters the 3. and 4. where wee saw that the Israelites for their unbeliefe and disobedience were debarred from entrance into that land of Promise wherein they should have rested after their grievous servitude in Egypt and perished in the wildernesse by divers destructions Who refused him that spake on earth much more shall not we escape if we turne away from him that speaketh from heaven He opposeth him who spake on earth to him who spake from heaven Now there can be no doubt but by him who spake from heaven hee understands God himselfe for presently after he addes verse 26. Whose voice then shooke the
earth but now hee hath promised saying yet once more I shake not the earth onely but also heaven For here it is manifest that the whole verse is meant of God But who shall wee say is understood by him who spake on earth By him may be understood both God himselfe and that single Angel who bare the name and person of God in Mount Sinai If by him wee understand God himselfe then here will be no opposition betweene divers persons but onely betweene divers places from whence God delivered the Law and from whence the Gospel Namely that the Law was published on earth from Mount Sinai but the Gospel was published by God from heaven You will say that God then no lesse published the Law from heaven then afterward he did the Gospell seeing God himselfe descends not from heaven but as he sent Christ from heaven to preach the Gospel so he sent an Angell from heaven in his name to deliver the Law To this I answer There is a great difference between the mission or sending of Christ from God and of that Angel For Christ being sent from God carried himselfe alwayes as a person diverse from God which the thing it selfe declares for he was the sonne of man and called himself Gods messenger sent from God did manifestly professe and testifie that his doctrine was not his owne but his who sent him that he spake nothing of himselfe but what he had received and heard from the Father But that Angell so descended from heaven that hee bare the person and name of God and therefore he alwayes speaks as if he had been God himselfe And this was the cause why Christ had not such Majesty and visible glory about him as had that Angel For Christ had but that Majesty and glory which became Gods legate or messenger and he a man and a mortall man But that Angell had that Majesty and glory which was sutable to God himselfe if God himselfe had descended from Heaven It may therefore be well said that God himselfe descended in that Angell and must be considered as if he himselfe had spoken upon earth Contrarily because God sent Christ to preach the Gospell as his Apostle or messenger and sent him from heaven as a person distinct from him not as of old he sent Moses from the earth that is but from Mount Sinai therefore now with good reason he is said to deliver his oracles and to publish his pleasure to us from heaven But it is a far greater matter to deliver oracles from heaven it selfe then from earth or from some earthly mountaine seeing heaven is far higher and worthier then any mountaine Therefore although the manner which God used in publishing and revealing his Gospel was not if we respect the outward shew and splendour of it so illustrious as that wherewith he published the Law yet indeed it was far more divine and perfect and in all respects most beseeming the perfect discipline of Evangelicall truth For what else did it signifie that God descended on earth to publish the Law but that the precepts of the Law were earthly and not heavenly For they that speake from a low place seem to speake but low matter and they earthly that speake from the earth as we read in the Gospell of John chap. 3.31 But contrarily that God remaining in heaven and not descending himselfe on earth either in his own person or in the person of another hath spoken to us by Christ sent from heaven as his Interpreter and messenger what else can this signifie but that he hath spoken heavenly things and that Christ is far greater then Moses For as it is written in the fore-cited place of John He that commeth from above is above all and he that commeth from heaven is above all In this sense therefore that Angell representing God must stand for God and Christ must not be compared with that Angell who represented the person and name of God but with Moses and the difference between Christ and Moses must stand in this that God spake to Moses on earth but to Christ in heaven and that God sent Moses from the mount to the Israelites but Christ from heaven to Christians If this be displeasing to any man which yet we beleeve to be most agreeable both to the truth and to the Scripture and to the Text we may say which is our other answer to the question proposed and another sense of the words that by him who spake on earth must be understood that Angell who in Gods name published the Law on Mount Sinai and by him who spake from Heaven must be understood the most high God himselfe For he that by himselfe delivers Laws on earth doth thereby shew that he is not the most high God For the Majesty of the most high God permits not that the King of Kings and Lord of Lords should depart from his inaccessible light and from his heavenly throne to descend downe upon earth But hee that offers himselfe as God to be heard from heaven he by far greater reason must be reckoned for God himselfe But you will say when did God himselfe publish the Gospell from heaven I answer This was done then when by his voice uttered from heaven he testified that Christ was his beloved Sonne and therefore his Ambassadour and withall commanded us to heare him For shall not God himselfe be thought to speak to us from heaven when we heare that doctrine which God himselfe authorised by his voice uttered from heaven For although by the wise determination of God the promiscuous multitude heard not this voice with their ears yet it was heard and published by them whose testimony is irrefragable But in the publishing of the Law was no such thing Whence it is manifest that even in this sense the Authors argument wants no force For it is a greater crime to turne away from God who spake from heaven then from an Angell who spake on earth though he sustained the name of God Hee turnes away from God and as it were turnes his backe upon him who refuseth either to beleeve or obey the voice of God 26. Whose voice then shooke the earth From these words it seems to be gathered that the Author by him who spake on earth understands God himselfe For here he mainifestly attributeth to God himself the shaking of the earth i. of Mount Sinai which happened at the publishing of the Law from thence But nothing hinders why this action may not be ascribed both to God and to the Angell who in publishing the Law sustained the person of God as likewise that speaking or uttering the oracles a little before mentioned For the Angell properly and immediatly did both shake the earth or mountaine and also spake and God did it mediatly by that very Angell But in these words there is a tacit answer to an objection and withall a strong reason why Christians must obey the voice of God published by Christ For some man
might say that the Law was published with great terrour insomuch that the earth was shaken with the voice of God whence we may easily gather what a fearfull punishment remaines to the forsakers of the Law To this terrour of the Law he Author opposeth a far greater terror and shews that under the Gospell matters will be far more terrible for not only the earth but heaven it selfe shall be shaken From whence any man may easily perceive that there shall be no place of escape from Gods punishments for them who have been disobedient against the voice of the Gospell For whither shall they flye if the heavens themselves which doe encompasse the earth round about shall be shaken yea shall fall and perish as we are taught in the following verse Whose voice The thunder called the voice of God By the voice of God wee may understand those thunders by whose cracks the Mount quaked and trembled for in severall places of Scripture the thunder is called the voice of God See Job 37.4,5 and Psal 18.13 and Psal 29. per tot Shooke the earth Some part of the earth as Mount Sinai and the plaine adjoyning Whence it appears that under the times of the Gospel there will be another manner of earthquake when not only some one mountaine or some small territory but the whole universall earth shall be shaken and broken to the lowest foundations of it But now he hath promised saying The word now doth not expresse the time of the promise but the time of performance of the thing promised namely the time wherein God will shake both heaven and earth So that now must be referred to the times of the Gospell as the shaking of Mount Sinai was to the times of the Law Therefore the minde of the Author is to say Now under the times of the Gospel God will shake not only the earth but the heaven also as he promised by the Prophet saying Yet once more I shake not the earth only but also heaven This Prophesie is extant Hag. 2.6 But the Author would speake briefly and speedily expresse the thing in the words of God himselfe as in many passages St. Paul also doth In the Hebrew it is yet once it is a little while i. there yet remaines but a very small time for the fulfilling of that which God there promiseth for the moving of heaven and earth But in the Greek translation of the Septuagint whom hitherto our Author hath followed in the testimonies he hath cited out of Scripture we read it yet once It may be the Septuagint did not read the Hebrew word mead a little while but only achath once But we need not marvell why here the Author would rather follow the Greek translation seeing it suiteth better with the mysticall sense of the Prophets words For in the literall sense these words containe a Prophesie that it should come to passe that God would move heaven and earth by raising up divers countries and nations who should come to the Temple at Jerusalem and bring with them the desire of all Nations that is that which is desireable and precious among all Nations namely silver and gold to adorne the Temple of God as it is explicated in the words following But because these words of moving heaven and earth are more magnificent then only to contain so narrow a sense therefore we must needs conceive that they carry some other more proper sense namely that God shall really shake heaven and earth to which sense the Greeke translation as we said better agrees For it cannot be but in a qualified manner that the time should be called a little while which is extended from this Prophesie to the end of the world If any demand how it can be said that God will yet once more shake heaven and earth seeing hee never shooke heaven before Wee answer It is said because the earth is there mentioned which God did shake before namely at the publishing of the Law Not the earth only but also heaven The Hebrew text hath it simply the heaven and the earth but the Author would rather speake thus that he might more fitly and evidently oppose that shaking which shall come to passe in the times of the Gospel to that shaking which fell out at the publishing of the Law that now under the Gospell not the earth only as then it was but also the heaven it selfe shall be shaken 27. And this word yet once more signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken From the words yet once more the Author gathers what manner of shaking shall come upon heaven and earth and saith that those words doe signifie or declare the removing of the things that are shaken By removing is signified the abolition or destruction of heaven and earth for those things that are wholly abolished and destroyed are extremely removed not only from their former place but from all place See chap. 7. ver 12. That are shaken is put for that shall be shaken the present tense for the future a forme of speech usuall among the Hebrews especially the Prophets But how doe the words yet once more signifie that heaven and earth shall bee so shaken that by their shaking they shall be removed or abolished They signifie it by this reason that if heaven and earth should remaine after this shaking it scarce seems possible but that they must be once shaken againe yea it must necessarily be so if as it appears from other words of the Prophets heaven and earth must one day be abolished for then at the least when they are abolished they must be shaken and so they shall be shaken not yet once more but twice It is therefore manifest that these words yet once more do signifie such a shaking of heaven and earth as shall be accompanied with their removing or abolishing And hence also it is plaine that this Epistle was written in Greek seeing this collection of the Author is grounded only upon the Greek translation for in the Hebrew text it cannot take place unlesse as we said the word Mead a little while be expunged which at this day is read in all copies and seems necessary to the literall sense As of things that are made He inserts the cause which argues and shews the removing or abolishing of heaven and earth that in due time it shall certainly come to passe namely because they are things made But the words things made in this place must needs bee taken somewhat strictly For even that heaven which shall not be shaken was made and our future glorious and heavenly bodies shall be made Therefore things made do in this place signifie those things that were made of some grosse and corporeall matter as are all things of this creation as the Author speaks before chap. 9.11 or else which were made of such matter which receives a forraine forme besides and beyond her naturall inclination for matter receiving such a forme suffers a kinde of violence and
punishment and other evils eminent and Reverence is this fear redoubled or graduated as wee have said The manner therefore how to make our worship and service of God acceptable and pleasing unto him is by seasoning our souls with these two affections of Modesty and Reverence which are the true and firme foundations whereupon are framed those holy gestures of standing up bowing downe and kneeling downe to him which are the proper acts whereof Gods outward worship doth consist as we have formerly specified For if the use of reverend gestures be decent and due to any person upon earth much more is the use of them decent and due to the most high God of heaven Seeing of all other persons in the world we should most fear to displease God by any appearance of indecency in the least circumstance and seeing God above all others hath all power to benefit us and all right to punish us In which consideration the Author immediatly subjoynes 29. For our God is a consuming fire Here he adjoyns the reason why we must worship and serve God in this acceptable manner with modesty and reverence namely because God is a consuming fire God is a fire of anger So God is called by reason of his anger and wrath wherewith he is so provoked by finne that hee growes hot and burnes against it and as often as hee burnes with wrath he consumes and destroyes ungodly men as suddenly and as fiercely as doth a most vehement fire And it seems that Moses from whom the Authour tooke these words tooke occasion to call God by this name Deut. 4.24 because that God descended downe upon Mount Sinai in a great flame of fire the smoke whereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace Exod. 19.18 and because God spake out of the middest of the fire that they who heard his voyce saw no other similitude of him Deut. 4.11 and because a fire proceeding from God burnt up some who in his worship and service carried not themselves toward him with that modesty and reverence that was acceptable unto him So he burnt up the two Priests the sons of Aaron who durst burne incense unto him with strange fire that was not sacred and fallen from heaven Levit. 10.2 So hee burnt up those two hundred and fifty men who being not Priests durst approach to offer and burne incense unto him Numb 16.35,39 Hence also it is that God appeared unto Moses in a flame of fire out of the middest of a bush Exod. 3.2 And in the Psalmes of David God is sometime introduced with a fire going before him and burning up his enemies round about Psal 97.3 And in that vision of Daniel the Ancient of dayes did sit whose throne was like the fiery flame and his wheels like burning fire and a fiery stream issued and came forth from before him Dan. 7.9,10 Yet we must not think that God doth burne with perpetuall flames of anger For God is rather charity as Saint John doth testifie And of love Therefore God is alwayes a fire of love and charity towards men especially Christians unlesse it be when mens sinnes doe quench this fire of love and charity in him and kindle that other fire of anger and wrath Seeing then our God is a fire to consume those who dare presume to worship or serve him immodestly or irreverently or in any manner not acceptable unto him it therefore concernes us to bee carefull that in all our approaches to his worship or service we carry our selves with all modesty and reverence lest our God bee also unto us as a consuming fire The Contents of this 12. Chapter are 1. Duty We must be constant in professing the faith and patient in bearing the the crosses of it ver 1. Motive 1. Because wee have a cloud of witnesses who eye us in our course of faith and piety ver 1. 2. Because we have Christ for an example and paterne who did endure the crosse and the contradiction of sinners and despised the shame of it for the glory set before him v. 2. 3. 3. Because the crosse is but Gods chastisement upon us which argues his fatherly love to us as his children ver 5 6 7. for chastisement is universall whereof all are partakers except bastards ver 8. Wee take it patiently from our carnall fathers v. 9. Jt lasteth but a few dayes ver 10. and it smarts but only for the present v. 11. 2. Duty We must follow peace and holinesse v. 14. Motive Because without them no man shall see the Lord ibid. 3. Duty We must be diligent to keep one another from falling away Motive Because Apostacy is a bitter root that will both trouble and defile many v. 15. 4. Duty We must take heed of profanesse v. 16. Motive 1. Because Esau who first despised his birth-right afterward lost his blessing finally and could not recover it though hee sought it with teares v. 16 17. 2. Because the Church whereto we come is not an earthly mount where a God on earth speakes all in terrour as it was with the Israelites v. 18 19 20 21. But an heavenly mount whereof the assembly is God in heaven and Christ the Mediator thousands of Angels the first-borne of the Church and the spirits of the Righteous v. 22 23 24. 3. Because the Doctrine we are to hear was not spoken on earth as was the law but from heaven v. 25. 4. Because the time shall once come under the Gospel wherein God shall bee more terrible then ever he was at Mount Sinai for hee shall shake both heaven and earth to pieces even to abolsh them v. 26.27 5. Because we receive from God an infinite benefit even a Kingdome that is immutable and inconcussible v. 28. 6. Because God is a fire to consume the profane v. ult CHAPTER XIII 1. LEt brotherly love continue In the former Chapter hee exhorted them to severall duties concerning God as to constancy in the Faith and patience under the Crosse and to Holinesse and also disswading from the maine contrary vices of Apostacy and profanenes Now in this Chapter hee proceeds to humane duties in certaine mutuall good offices of men one toward another beginning with brotherly love which is our first and chiefest degree of Charitie towards men particularly such men as are our brethren They are eminently called our brethren who have one common spirituall father with us and are begotten into Christ from our heavenly Father by that incorruptible seed which is the word of the Gospel For if the faithfull who are sanctified are all brethren unto Christ who doth sanctifie them as was shewed before chap. 2.11 with much more reason are they brethren one to another because their mutuall resemblances between themselves are much more manifold And this brotherly love consisteth in the inward affect of it and in divers outward effects of doing good for faith and love also are both dead if they be ineffectuall This love must continue and remaine